MICHAEL CENTURY is a Professor in the Arts Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which he joined in August, 2002. Long associated with The Banff Centre for the Arts, Century founded the Centre's Media Arts Division in 1988. In this position, he was the instigator of the Art and Virtual Environments project (1991-1994). From 1993-1996, Century was a program manager at the Canadian Centre for Information Technology Innovation (CITI), a federal research laboratory located in Montreal, with responsibility for new media arts funding. From 1996-98, he served as policy advisor to the federal department of Canadian Heritage. Since September 1997, he has been the principal of Next Century Consultants, focusing on new media and cultural policy for various public and university sector clients. For the Rockefeller Foundation, he researched and wrote a report in 1999 entitled Pathways to Innovation in Digital Culture. He was educated in humanities, piano performance, and musicology at the University of Toronto (B.A.) and the University of California, Berkeley (M.A.) and the University of Iowa (M.A). He has recently completed a historical study of the transition from analogue to digital techniques in animation as a doctoral dissertation in science and technology policy studies at the University of Sussex. He has recently served as panelist for the National Research Council (report Beyond Productivity: Information Technology, Innovation, and Creative Practices and the Social Sciences Research Council.
Century founded the Centre's Media Arts Division in 1988. This pioneering program was one of the first to focus on the artistic potential of interactive computer technologies, and served as a model for related projects around the world. Notable projects produced under Century's direction include The Glenn Gould Hypermedia Profile (1989); the Artist's Television Workshop; and The Art and Virtual Environments project (1991-94). This project was the first large-scale and sustained investigation of virtual reality technologies as a new medium for artists; the completed installations have been been displayed in exhibitions and festivals worldwide, and the entire project documented in a book-length collection Immersed in Technology: Art and Virtual Environments (MIT Press, 1996). Century was responsible for designing, staffing and operating new studios for sound, video and interactive media at the Banff Centre's complex for electronic media,the Jeanne and Peter Lougheed Building, and for developing funding and research relationships with corporate, academic and government agency partners. Between 1991-93 he also was the Centre's Director of Program Development, responsible for program review and planning for Media, Visual, Literary, Theatre and Music.
Century taught cultural studies at Trent University, and Canadian Studies at the University of Baroda, India. In 1997 he became a Research Fellow at the McGill University Centre for Research on Canadian Cultural Industries and Institutions, and began teaching graduate seminars in music and communications at the same university.
From 1993-96 Century worked for the Canadian Centre for Information Technology Innovation (CITI), a federal research laboratory located in MontrÈal. He initiated a new research group focused on content design for hypermedia networks, and assembled an interdisciplinary team of researchers and programmers which developed the Merz Project, a prototype system for knowledge visualization and personal information management on the internet. Also at CITI, Century managed the Pan-Canadian network of research centres, a national multimedia consortium. Century served as Senior Policy Advisor on New Technologies in the Department of Canadian Heritage (the federal department responsible for cultural affairs) in 1996-97. In this role he worked as an expert advising the federal Information Highway Advisory Council, the Federal Task Force on Digitization, and has represented Canada at international congresses and specialized working groups on these topics. Since September, 1997, he has been the principal of Next Century Consultants, focussing on new media and cultural policy for various public and university sector clients. For the Rockefeller Foundation in 1999, he researched and wrote a report entitled Pathways to Innovation in Digital Culture
Century has lectured and consulted extensively on topics related to art and new media technologies at conferences and symposia in North America, Europe, Japan, Korea and India. As invited keynote speaker, Century has addressed international congresses including Digital World (Los Angeles), International MÈcanat Congress (Tokyo), Image and Sound Festival (The Hague), Computer Art Festival in Seoul, the European network for research on Intelligent Information Interfaces, and numerous national conferences and festivals in Canada. One of the instigators of the 1995 International Symposium on Electronic Art, held in Montreal, he was responsible for the selection of and production of Special Projects including the Tunnel under the Atlantic, a world-premiËre virtual reality exhibition linking the MontrÈal Museum for contemporary art and the Pompidou Centre in Paris. As well Century has served as a Canada Council juror and advisor, and on the selection panel of the Strategic Research grant program of the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council. He is currently conducting a book-length case study of the Canadian computer animation scene, to be presented as a doctoral dissertation at Sussex University (U.K.) in Science and Technology Policy Studies.
At the Banff Centre for the Arts, Century headed the Inter-Arts program which produced the acclaimed 1985 Festival production of R. Murray Schafer's Princess of the Stars, an opera performed at dawn on a wilderness lake. He organized workshops in jazz, music improvisation, dance for television, acoustic ecology, electro-acoustic music, harmonic singing, multimedia theatre, and African music. As coordinator of the Banff Jazz Workshop, Century collaborated with David Holland throughout the 1980s in building the reputation of this program as the leading creative jazz summer program. In his duties as program planner, Century helped launch new successful training programs including the Banff Publishing Workshop, the Arts Journalism Program, and the Leighton Artist Colony. As manager of the Artist Colony, Century established exchanges with similar artist-residency programs around the world. He researched and wrote the Banff Centre's 1982 Task Force on Communications Technology, which laid out the blueprint for subsequent program design.
Century has composed a series of works for piano and computer-processed voice which have been performed at music festivals in Canada and broadcast nationally on the CBC. As pianist he has performed contemporary solo and mixed ensemble works by Berio, Feldman, Lutaslawsky, Crumb, Schoenberg, Takemitsu, Stravinsky. Musical direction credits include R. Murray Schafer's Princess of the Stars, and John Cage's Songbooks, both in collaboration with the composer. In addition to performing as a pianist and conductor, he has composed for voice, chamber music combinations, and jazz and rock groups.
Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Century is dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada. He earned an Honours B.A. degree from the University of Toronto, and an M.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, both in music history and theory. At Berkeley he also studied and performed Javanese gamelan and West African drumming. He earned his licentiate (A.R.C.T.) in Piano Performance from the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto, in 1975. As well, he studied privately with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, French language and literature at the Sorbonne, electronic music, sound engineering and orchestral conducting at the University of Iowa, and computer music at the Eastman School of Music.