Toronto Star: “Diamond, 51, came to OCAD after 10 years at the Banff Centre in Alberta, where she was director of research and artistic director of the Banff New Media Institute. The New York-born, Vancouver-educated artist arrived in Toronto with a growing reputation as a video-maker…. She was a well-connected intellectual with a particular interest in new media. ‘Visionary’ is the way OCAD board chairman Colin Graham described her.”
Category Archives: New Media
Sara Diamond, visionary leader in new media art practice, becomes the 18th President of OCAD
Canada NewsWire Group — March 1, 2005. The Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD), is pleased to announce that Sara Diamond is the incoming president of Canada’s largest university of art and design. Following OCAD’s recent, unprecedented physical transformation, Diamond will now lead the university through a programmatic transformation to become a world leader in graduate research and advanced education in art and design. Diamond, who will join OCAD on July 1, 2005, leaves her position at The Banff Centre, Alberta, where she is director of research and artistic director of the Banff New Media Institute. Diamond has a diverse practice. She is internationally respected as an artistic director, educator, researcher, critic, video artist, television and new media producer/director, and curator.
This news also appeared in the
Toronto Star.
Sara Diamond: Fresh from Banff, with mountains of ideas
Globe and Mail — March 5, 2005 Sara Diamond, the artist and educator, and soon-to-be president of the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, has her own website: www.codezebra.net. This should come as no surprise. Technology, after all, is her thing. She’s coming to OCAD from the Banff Centre, where she ran the division of media and visual arts from 1994 to 2003. She also founded the New Media Institute there in 1996, an international think-tank on technology and art. And she’s an artist with a penchant for developing technologies, from her earliest days in the 1980s (working with the first colour 3/4-inch videotape) to her current interest in Java-based software and biometric sensor technologies. When it comes to the digital world, there’s not much that gets by her.
Banff New Media Institute included in federally-sponsored wireless network
Canadian Heritage — September 9, 2004. The Mobile Digital Commons Network project will receive financial support from the New Media Research Networks Fund, which is part of the Department of Canadian Heritage’s Canadian Culture Online Strategy. The fund supports the development of an environment that is conducive to Canada becoming a world leader in digital cultural content creation and production. The network will form links among leading Canadian institutions including Hexagram, The University of Quebec at Montreal, McGill University, Concordia University, and the Banff New Media Institute, as well as centres such as Society for Arts and Technology (SAT) and InterAccess.
Banff Centre initiative boosts New Media
Business Edge — April 15, 2004.
“Like the mythical Sirens whose song lured sailors to their doom, multimedia and New Media technologies seem to have a hypnotic effect on some otherwise sane business people and serious scientists. New Media is Sexy. It’s Fun. It’s The Next Big Thing. But it can also chew up almost unlimited amounts of money.… Ah, but hope springs eternal in the New Media breast! The recent announcement of the Banff Centre’s New Media Accelerator means that this Elvis has indeed, not left the building, and might still sing.”
At Banff, you might be chowing down next to a cellist, composer or captain of industry. A laissez-faire attitude is ingrained in the culture of the place. Unless you show up buck naked for lunch, or smoke pot in the hot tub while little kids are around, you can let the creative juices really flow at the Banff Centre.
Sara Diamond, the Banff Centre’s director of research, is a high-voltage Tesla coil with the energy, contacts and savvy to make something like this actually work.
Pancho Villa co-production receives lukewarm review from Variety
Variety via Yahoo – January 4, 2004. The Lost Reels of Pancho Villa: A Gregorio Rocha/Archivia production in association with Universidad de Guadalajara, UPA and the Banff Center. Produced by Rocha. Executive producers, Sara Diamond, Hector Mendoza.
In 1914, Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa was signed to N.Y.-based Mutual Film Co., agreeing to play himself in a quasi-factual feature, The Life of Pancho Villa, long since lost. It’s the fate of the original film itself that obsesses Gregorio Rocha as he chases its elusive trail around the globe….. But pic is compromised by Rocha’s overbearing insistence on placing himself center-stage as a soul-searching sleuth. Some of this content fascinates — but helmer’s endless voiceover natterings and constant on-camera presence strike a very indulgent note. Tech aspects are OK.