The RENCONTRES INTERNATIONALES ART CINEMA / VIDEO / ORDINATEUR is a major international event focusing on the moving image as visual art. Since 1990, it has been breaking new ground by bringing together all forms of screen based art, such as film, video and computer art, and by viewing contemporary art forms through an historical perspective. On the dawn of the third millennium, the RENCONTRES INTERNATIONALES ART CINEMA / VIDEO / ORDINATEUR seeks to cultivate an awareness of 20th century technological media, and to propose critical and comparative approaches to contemporary aesthetic phenomena.
Following the success of the two first events at the Vidéothèque de Paris in 1990 and 1994, the third RENCONTRES INTERNATIONALES ART CINEMA / VIDEO / ORDINATEUR, organized once again by A.S.T.A.R.T.I. for Audiovisual Art, was held from April 22nd to 28th at the Cinéma des Cinéastes in Paris, and involved more than a hundred artists and scholars from twenty two countries.

Curated by artists Maria Klonaris and Katerina Thomadaki, this year’s event raised the issue of MEDIA ECOLOGY, proposing an "ecological" equilibrium between mechanical, optical, electronic and digital media. Some forty programs (screenings, panels, and one person presentations) thus wove links between linear and interactive artworks, all the while aknowledging earlier artistic traditions of synæsthesia and projection devices.

Solo programs were devoted to avant-garde pioneers in film, video and interactive media, notably Pat O' Neill, Steina Vasulka, Jeffrey Shaw, and Studio Azzurro.

A focus on light based art forms included an homage to Loïe Fuller, light machines and light shows presented by film historian William Moritz, synæsthetic light/music experiments in the former Soviet Union presented by physicist Bulat Galeyev, diverse light-musical inventions (Wladimir Baranoff-Rossiné’s optophonic piano, lannis Xenakis’ laser musical compositions, Waltraut Cooper’s light musical instruments), and projection works (Roswitha Baumeister, Jennifer Steinkamp, Loophole Cinema, Jorge Orta, Luke Jerram).

Thematic programs crossed experimental film classics (Maya Deren, Jonas Mekas, Kenneth Anger, Andy Warhol, Jack Smith, Stan Vanderbeek) with contemporary creations in film, video, computer animation and CD-Rom by artists such as Sandra Lahire, Lis Rhodes, Irit Batsry, Robert Cahen, Michael Mazière, Tanya Syed, Milla Moilanen, Robert Darroll, Vladimir Kobrin, Marina Grzinic-Aina Smid, Perry Hoberman and Zoe Beloff. Also scheduled were rare feature films by Derek Jarman, Pat O’Neill, Birgit Hein, John Maybury, Ermeline Le Mezo and Francisco Ruiz de lnfante, plus a tribute to Jean Genet.

Panel discussions and projections addressed questions related to nature, gender and technology : 
- Destroying or reconceiving nature through technology (Françoise d'Eaubonne, Cordelia Swann, Char Davies, Louis Bec, Merel Mirage), 
- Bodies and machines (Nancy Paterson, Norman White, Edmond Couchot, Maurice Benayoun), 
- Gender collapse in the "post-biological" era (Allucquére Rosanne Stone, Alain Burosse, Clio Barnard).

Body politics were underscored through works on AIDS (Matthias Müller, Mike Hoolboom), erotica (Vicky Funari, Chu Shea Chang, Leone Knight), black identity (Keith Piper) and the self-depiction of women (Valie Export, Jayne Parker, Ariane Thézé, Mara Mattuschka, Claudia Hart, Sarah Pucill, Esther T., Pipilotti Rist, Barbara Konopka).

A book/catalogue accompanied the event, including texts by art historians, philosophers and media theorists (Roy Ascott, Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Dominique Chateau, Edmond Couchot, Gladys Fabre, Marina Grzinic, Sigrid Schade): Pour une écologie des media, Klonaris/Thomadaki eds, Paris, A.S.T.A.R.T.I., 1998.

The third RENCONTRES INTERNATIONALES ART CINEMA / VIDEO / ORDINATEUR was supported by the French Ministry of Culture and by the European Kaleidoscope Programme. It was assisted by the Cinéma des Cinéastes. Sponsors included the British Council, the Goethe Institute, the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Commerce, the Cultural Services of the Canadian Embassy, the Austrian Cultural Institute,  the ltalian Cultural Institute, the French Embassy in Moscow, the French Consulat in Toronto, the Finish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Embassy of Iceland in Paris. With the participation of the Centre de Recherche en Arts Plastiques (CERAP), Université Paris 1, Sorbonne.