LA Freewaves is a Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 based nonprofit organization that advocates for and exhibits uncensored independent new media from around the world. Media art works include experimental video and film (narrative, documentary, art, animation, etc.), DVDs, websites, installations, and video billboards. LA Freewaves supports multicultural spaces by providing Los Angeles venues and the Freewaves website for international and local artists. The group sees itself as a media arts magnet and is currently building one of the largest online archives of streaming new media art

New media art

New media art is a genre that encompasses artworks created with new media technologies, including digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual art, Internet art, interactive art, computer robotics, and art as biotechnology...

 works. Freewaves also provides information on new media

New media

New media is a broad term in media studies that emerged in the latter part of the 20th century. For example, new media holds out a possibility of on-demand access to content any time, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community...

 resources on its website.

As festivals go, it tends to exhibit works that are generally not taken in by Hollywood, big business, networks or cable television. Works in the festival are frequently eccentric and unconventional, favoring content and concepts over aesthetic gimmicks, representing voices not normally heard from in more mainstream festivals. Both well known (Bill Viola

Bill Viola

Bill Viola is a contemporary video artist. He is considered a leading figure in the generation of artists whose artistic expression depends upon electronic, sound, and image technology in New Media...

, William Basinski

William Basinski

William Basinski is a United States avant-garde composer of ambient music via tape music and process music. Basinski is also a clarinetist, saxophonist, sound artist, and video artist...

, Yes Men, Brad Neely

Brad Neely

Brad Neely is a American comic book artist and television writer/producer known for his work on books such as Wizard People, Dear Reader, I Am Baby Cakes, The Professor Brothers, and China, Illinois, and TV series such as South Park and China, IL.-Personal life:Brad Neely is originally from Fort...

, CrimethInc.

CrimethInc.

CrimethInc., also known as CWC , is a decentralized anarchist collective of autonomous cells. CrimethInc. emerged in the mid-1990s, initially as the hardcore zine Inside Front, and began operating as a collective in 1996...

, Jennifer Steinkamp) and emerging media artists have shown works in Freewaves programs.

LA Freewaves was founded in 1989 by Anne Bray. Bray serves as Executive Director and Secretary and has been working in the field of media arts since the mid '70s as an administrator, artist and art teacher. With representatives of other communities, she founded LA Freewaves and has administered the program since it was launched at the American Film Institute

American Film Institute

The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...

's National Video Festival in 1989.

HollyWould (2008)

LA Freewaves 11th Celebration of Experimental Media Arts
“HollyWould,” the theme for this year’s festival, is a playful and evocative turn on Hollywood, both as an international symbol of the American entertainment industry and as a Los Angeles neighborhood very much in flux.

The 2008 festival will fuse media arts and Hollywood Boulevard Oct. 9-13, 2008. The festival will transform the iconic boulevard into a massive, multi-faceted screening room for experimental videos, films and media art from every continent. Selected works will be projected onto buildings,
displayed on LCD screens inside stores and installed in storefront windows.

Too Much Freedom? (2006)

LA Freewaves 10th Celebration of Experimental Media Arts

The festival poses the question of freedom and attempts to answer that question by showcasing work that examines freedom and its conundra, unpacking assumptions about artistic invention, political intelligence, ethical dilemmas and personal desires.

The festival will present experimental media art from around the world at venues in Los Angeles in November 2006 and through the Freewaves web site. Works from the festival will also appear on public television, video billboards and be video-streamed on the Internet.

How Can You Resist? (2004)

LA Freewaves 9th Celebration of Experimental Media Arts

More than 150 works of video, film and digital media were chosen addressing the question "How Can You Resist?." Programs in the 2004 festival traversed sexuality, economics, politics, consumerism and media.

TV or NOT TV? (2002)

LA Freewaves 8th Celebration of Experimental Media Arts

The 2002 festival presented over 300 works in panel discussions, performance events, exhibitions, outdoor community screenings and television broadcasts that dealt with the line between daily life and televised reality. Again, the goal was to present alternative views to what many of the participating artists see as corporate-filtered entertainment and monopolized news reporting.

Air Raids (2000)

LA Freewaves 7th Celebration of Experimental Media Arts

Air Raids was a citywide festival of experimental, documentary and new media works by artists, activists and media makers. In 2000, this festival featured an opening at MOCA, thematic video bus tours, "TV or Not TV" a 10-year LA media arts retrospective that aired on KCET

KCET

KCET, channel 28, is an independent, non-commercial public television station licensed to Los Angeles, California, USA. KCET's studio is located on West Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, and its transmitter is atop Mount Wilson. Al Jerome is the current CEO and President, serving since 1996.KCET was...

, online exhibitions, as well as 50 additional screenings and installations at over 30 Southern California venues.

First Celebration of Independent Video (1989)

Launched at the American Film Institute

American Film Institute

The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...

's National Video Festival, this festival marked the birth of LA Freewaves. In cooperation with 35 Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

media and arts organizations, various artistic events were presented at 30 sites while 4 "Road Shows" traveled throughout Los Angeles.