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Media Generation: What Works to What's Next National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture biennial conference Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania October 22-25, 1998

From October 22-25, 1998, the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC) held its biennial conference at the William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh, PA. Appropriately entitled "Media Generation: What Works to What's Next," this gathering of more than 250 media arts center directors, museum curators, community activists, scholars and artists discussed the state of the field of media arts with a renewed sense of purpose and an eye focused on the future. After the last two NAMAC conferences, the energy and optimism at this meeting were a welcome relief. The fear and confusion created by funding cuts in the '90s have faded as NAMAC's member organizations settle into a funding world where them are no free tickets and the entrepreneurial for-profit world sometimes provides more successful models.

Hosted by Pittsburgh Filmmakers under the direction of Executive Director Charlie Humphrey, "Media Generation" offered three workshop tracks - Non-Profit Management, Artists/Producers and Community Partnerships - which spanned the range of interests among NAMAC's often disparate constituencies. Many of the topics and presenters were reminiscent of …