Up, Up, and Away
RES magazine was founded in 1997, soon after the first RESFEST, at a time when there was widespread enthusiasm not only for new technologies’ moneymaking potential, but also for their possible artistic applications. The surge of interest in all things digital engendered by the dot-com boom had already prompted the birth of several other publications—Wired to report on the broad culture of technology, Fast Company to cover its impact on business—but RES was the first to take as its focus the effect of the ones and zeros on art, specifically the digital filmmaking revolution that had begun altering our relationship to the moving image as rapidly as the Web was changing the ways we communicate and gather information.
As with any successful revolution, this one has become widely assimilated into mainstream culture, and its fruits can be seen everywhere from viral videos on the Web to expensive Hollywood undertakings. But the ethos of do-it-yourself innovation that spawned the movement in the first place remains as relevant as ever, and the unceasing stream of new creativity tools continues to help bold emerging talents deliver stories and images we’ve never encountered before. RES and RESFEST remain as steadfastly committed as ever to this kind of progressive culture, and so, after a decade of existence, we pause for a brief, nostalgic look back to consider all the breathtaking visual experiments that have graced the screens of darkened theaters around the globe. But we won’t linger long, because the next generation of creators is waiting to take us up, up, and away, to places we haven’t dreamed of yet.
RES Vol. 9, No. 5
“Up, Up, and Away”
Fall 2006
