SANTA FE - These days, you can find nearly everything you need on the Internet. You can order airplane tickets, mix your own music, watch movies, find a date, or go to school. A computer and modem can enrich your life, and this spring, College of Santa Fe students are exploring how the Internet can enrich the arts. In a multidisciplinary course titled "Installation, Performance, Interactivity" (I.P.I.), students in moving image arts, theatre, music, creative writing and visual arts are working together to create a multimedia festival that explores the intersection of creativity and the digital age.

Located in The College of Santa Fe Garson Communications Center, Studio 1, I.P.I. 2001 is a five-channel, five-screen web/video installation in which a series of live multi-screen video works and intermedia performance events will be presented on three consecutive weekends in April. The presentations will feature an array of cross-disciplinary compositions from College of Santa Fe students as well as guest artists and web collaborators.

The creation of the I.P.I. exhibit and festival is a continuous learning process. The interdisciplinary nature of the course allows students to learn skills from each other, and apply what they've learned in their major departments to the creation of the installation.

"The students were provided with an electronic platform on which to create their projects, the content of which is entirely student-directed. The students decide how the platform will be used, using the semester to explore the creative potential of an immersive wired space."

I.P.I. 2001 opens Saturday, April 7 with a $10 benefit performance featuring world renowned media artist Steina Vasulka; poet Dana Levin; digital artist Susanna Carlisle; digital media artist, composer and I.P. I. artistic director David Stout; electro-acoustic musician Steven Miller; animator Mariannah; CSF alumnus Jared Ashburn; I.P.I. student Nathan Kite; and the I.P.I. Web Ensemble. The benefit begins at 8 p.m., and proceeds benefit future interactivity projects.

I.P.I. 2001 continues on Friday and Saturday, April 13 and 14, and Friday and Saturday, April 20 and 21. These weekends are free of charge and feature student installation and performance works from the I.P.I. class, including The Parable of the Prodigal Daughter by Chelsea Snider, and Toward Withinby Sarah Vasilas.

Vasilas's piece is an underwater dance shot on digital video at Santa Fe's Genoeva Chavez Center pool, and Snider's piece is an experimental narrative in which the artist explores the psychological experience of searching, but ultimately never finding any external knowledge.

"I chose The Parable of the Prodigal Daughter because it is the story of returning to truth after losing everything you once thought was important," says Snider.

I.P.I. 2001 was created and directed by associate professor of moving image arts David Stout. A digital media artist and composer, Stout has produced two other I.P.I. projects at The College of Santa Fe: Surrender Your Gender in 1996, and Beyond Utopia/Dystopia in 1998. These collaborative projects have mined difficult contemporary issues while challenging and entertaining a diverse community audience. I.P.I. 2001 is Stout's tenth inter-departmental production, which is a continuation of the Inter-Arts Workshop he founded at The California Institute of the Arts.

The technologically intensive project is produced by The College of Santa Fe Moving Image Arts Department with significant support from corporate sponsors Apple and Epson, with additional support from Art & Science Laboratory, a Santa Fe non-profit arts and science think-tank.

For more information or to contact I.P.I. 2001 artists, call Jennifer Levin at (505) 473-6502.