The MediaArtLab Centre for Art and Culture was founded in 1995 as part of the Centre for Contemporary Art at the Soros Foundation. After the Soros’s project has been discontinued, MediaArtLab was registered as an independent organization in 2000. It was founded with the intention to build a bridge between activities in the fields of culture and new information and communication technologies. The t
ime of its foundation as an independent organization coincided with the crisis of the institutional structure of contemporary art in the post-soviet period, a structure that was based primarily on the investments of Western foundations. By the time this crisis spread, the MediaArtLab group had already acquired substantial experience in organizing and conducting Russian and international events in the field of media culture. These events and activities provoked interest among artists and the artistic community in the field of new media technologies, especially in the internet. At the present date MediaArtLab is one of the leading organizations in Russia in the field of media art. MediaArtLab presents experimental, innovative, independent non-profit audio and video production. It is a network community of alternative documentary film directors, artists and video actionists who define the concept of media culture. In the era of new mass media technologies it is the avant-garde of contemporary culture’s actual forms, providing a set of instruments for fast response that enables the mass media, the artists to spread information, make contacts and create images.
