Background:

The Association Artech-International has its roots on the Artech (Art and Technology Industries in the frontier Region Minho–Galicia) Initiative. This Initiative has been established in 2002 concentrating local activities around the topic digital art in order to promote a community of digital artists in the border region of Minho-Galiza while establishing an experimental common creative design space for artists. While the creative design space has been constructed initially based on Initiative partners, namely, the University of Minho, the Computer Graphics Center, the Foundation of International Art Biennale of Cerveira and the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Vigo, Galicia, it embraced in the further years the School of Arts of the Portuguese Catholic University, at Oporto and several oversees institutions located in all the world such are, the University of Technology Sidney, Australia, University of Arts Camberwell, United Kingdom, University of Arts Linz, Austria, University McGill, Canada, Pontíficia Universidade Católica, São Paulo, Brasil, University of Algarve, Universidade Aberta, among others.
Since the beginning of its operations the Artech Initiative has hosted hundreds of digital art installations ranging from pure infotainment applications to more formal artworks exploring different interactive and media technologies such are: computer vision, virtual reality, digital sound and music, among others. These installations have been presented at the art fairs and conferences as also applied art seminars all over the last 10 years.

The creation of the association:

The formal establishment of the Association occurred on 30th, January of 2013, after a unanimous decision of the founding members gathered together in a general assembly during the conference Artech 2012, 28th November 2012, Faro, Portugal.
The Association Artech-International aims at embracing the growing activities and initiatives happening around the Artech Community distributed all over the world and promoting the development of the novel art & science & technology field Digital and Computer Arts.

“You Move You Interact”, João Martinho Moura, 2007. Presented at Artech 2008. (Courtesy of the author)

“For the Bees: Night 2005”, James Faure-Walker, 2008. Presented at Artech 2006. (Courtesy of the artist)