All venues are busy communities with large daily crowds, which reinforce the organizers' aim to attract more general public.

Each venue includes a variety of programs including exhibitions, concerts, performances, outdoor interactive installations, forums, animation shows and public experimental projects.

The opening project of the festival - "Streaming Objects" new media art river event - will take place in Pudong at the riverside plaza.

Breaking the boundaries between visual installations, audio art and electro music, the project features 17 pieces by artists from China, Britain, Germany, France, Japan and the United States, among others.

Famous Japanese digital artist Akamatsu Masayuki has designed a 30-minute piece for the "Breath'' project called "Snowflakes." The performance invites trendy iPhone owners to participate in the performance with their iPhones. As part of the show, these iPhones will all glitter and make sounds through GPS and wireless technologies on cellphone.

German artist Ulf Langheinrich will bring the work "Drift," which aims to combine and transform abstract sound and light.

In his work, sound is not supplementary to images as in films or videos.

Instead, they are interrelated, interactive and transformable.

Shanghai eArts Festival

Date: October 18-22

For more information, check www.shearts.org.

"Streaming Objects''

New media art - opening performance

Date: October 18-20

Venue: Zhangjiabang River (opposite Shanghai Science and Technology Museum), Pudong

"eLandscapes''

New media art exhibition

Date: October 18-November 10

Venue: Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Bldg 28, 199 Fangdian Rd, Pudong

"Nature of Cities''

Next generation exhibition

Date: October 18-November 15

Venue: KIC Plaza, 270 Songhu Rd,

Yangpu District

(Shanghai Daily October 13, 2008)