DigitalCritic

Ah, I am back in England (and already eating less to talk at Rewire, the Fourth International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology. My first encounter with this conference was back in its Refresh! incarnation when it was held at the Banff New Media Institute. This time it hits lovely Liverpool, hosted by FACT and the Art and Design Academy at Liverpool John Moores University. It has an amazing line up – honestly I’m barely over the brain-food that was ISEA2011, I really don’t have room to cram more thought-stuffs in!

Anyway, I should say that I’m talking on Thursday 29^th in an afternoon session on media labs. Here’s my paper abstract:

Furtherfield, Seeing and Doing

This paper will look at how the socially transformative artworks of New Media arts community and platform, Furtherfield, can be understood and historicised using Gregory Sholette’s concept of art world ‘dark matter’. It will illustrate, through three of their projects (DIWO, Zero Dollar Laptop, Visitor’s Studio), how Furtherfield’s work can be described as ‘dark matter’ in that it is both embedded in established art world traditions and yet somehow generally invisible when viewed from traditional art historical vantage points. However, the discussion will be nuanced towards emphasising this type of work’s unseeableness, which occurs as by-product of its performative elements. It will be argued, therefore, that this artistic practice not only moves away from the production of objects or visuals – focusing instead on technologies, networks and social engagement – but, via an enacted element, towards other sense-making systems. It will find that despite being a useful way of shedding light on work generally over-shadowed by more traditional practice, Sholette’s focus on art as either seen or not conforms precisely the type of art historical discourse that fails to fully confront work characterised instead by being somehow done or not done.

Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about my long-time muse, Furtherfield!

I’ll also be representing Arts Future Book, so if you have an idea for a book you’d like to publish with us, do seek me out and ply me with tea, I’ll be all ears!

I’m hosting a fab panel at ISEA2011 in just over a week’s time. It’s called ‘Share Workers: The Techniques and Meanings of Sustainable Digital Networks’. The panel itself is a research project by a-n, the Artists Information Company. Here’s how we’re describing it:

The information sharing abilities of the internet have vastly extended a pre-existing capacity among artists to communicate with each other about their work and lifestyles. With the arrival of social media and the wave of internet use known as Web 2.0, the ability to share has grown exponentially, becoming a subject in and of itself, and generating experts in the techniques and meanings of sharing. And now, with economic down-turn and drastic cuts to funding, these free networks have become invaluable for helping people sustain their practice.

This Twitter-interactive panel at ISEA2011 brings together a set of experts (Ruth Catlow: Furtherfield; Dougald Hine: The University Project; Jack Hutchinson: AIR; Bridget McKenzie: Flow Associates; Marcus Romer: Pilot Theatre) in the practical and theoretical use of digital networks and infrastructures for sharing. Working across a range of areas from visual art to music, performance and beyond, they are united by their use of collaborative digital tools and driven by their propensity for positive social change. From consolidating connections between artists and arts policy-makers to rewiring our educational and economic circuitry, this panel has collectively developed a wealth of skills for reaching out to others through technology.

We will be using a hashtag: #shareISEA on Twitter to drum up questions and discussion before and during the panel, which takes place at 9.00am-10.30am in Istanbul (that’s 7.00am-9.30am in the UK) on Monday 19^th September. So please come (physically or virtually) and share your ideas and experiences and contribute to new working models for the arts…

Oh, and following the panel discussion at ISEA2011, a-n’s website will feature further commentary about this attempt to widely exchange ideas on sharing in the arts. Quite frankly it’s just a total share-fest!

I got to take a wonderfully reminiscent tour of Leeds and Sheffield last week as I was a speaker at the annual ARLIS conference. I did my undergraduate degree at the University of Leeds and always get a bit over-excited about opportunities to go back there. This was no exception and I had a bit of a moment wandering through the Victoria Quarter and realising this was the first time I’d visited Leeds as a Dr! Don’t tell anyone because it’s way lame, but I did well up just a little bit. I found Leeds uni and my time there so incredibly inspiring. It’s fair to say that from the minute Griselda Pollock entered the lecture theatre that first day, I knew I felt at home. Of course I had no idea then that my dedication would prove so unwavering and for just a second the last fifteen years collapsed on themselves and I saw just how all of this started.

But enough of the nostalgia. This trip was also special because I’d been asked some months back by ARLIS members to come and speak about all things digital at a conference themed: Weaving New Futures: Collaboration and Reinvention in the Digital Age. And as testament to their digital savvy, there was already a Twitter hashtag (ARLIS2011) and a blog being populated with lots of content. The abstract for my paper, which was part of a session on ‘New Technologies’ was as follows:

Arts Future Books

This paper asks after the ways in which digital technology might impact both the form but also the content of the art history/criticism/theory book. Using the combined archival theories of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Friedrich A. Kittler, the paper establishes links between the meaning held in bodies of art historical information and the prevailing modes in which said information can be stored and transferred. In this sense, it asserts that the discipline of art history has been formed very much in dialogue with the archival technologies of photography and printed text. What it will ask therefore is what new archival technologies mean to the discipline and whether the art history book itself is an essential battle-ground for the future of art knowledge. The paper will look at a number of online art discussion platforms and the way in which they engage their audience. It will then encounter a range of innovative approaches to academic publishing – including the Arts Future Book project and series. Drawing these areas of experimentation together, the paper will close by asking after the types of art knowledge new publishing technologies might produce and how this might reshape the discipline.

Unfortunately for me I followed Catherine Greene, Senior Associate at the Helen Hamlyn Centre, Royal College of Art, who spoke on ‘The Living Library’. Clearly this was total thought-porn for a room of librarians so she kind of stole the show! I shouldn’t complain really though, I was introduced as a ‘glamour puss’!

Along with a really interesting group of people, I will be blogging from the 99^th Annual Conference of the CAA on the CAA conference website. We will all be updating you on the sessions we’re in, who we’ve met, exhibitions and receptions we’ve attended and I’m afraid it’s possible I’ll mention clothes and jewellery somewhere in there – not least because I’m hoping to run into Christine L. Sundt, of Visual Resources, who I met at CHArt last year and her conference wear will definitely be worth a post! And of course I’ll be tweeting my fingers off too! If things go quiet around here, you know where I am..