Theme of the month February 08
Writing about the ephemeral / the 'live' / the broadcast

Beyond issues of physical preservation, the written record, document or
press review is particularly important for ephemeral, live or broadcast
works. But how does one write about/criticise something that's never
the same twice?

What are the modes curators use for the documentation of new media art?
Re-imagination; information; writing that in one way or the other
transmits the various experiences of the work? Can it be argued that
the life of a work consists precisely in the ways it departs from its
initial point/source or concept? And if it does so how do the different
afterlives, critiques and vocabularies associated with media contribute
to or resist the work?

What framing systems emerge with forms of writing other than the
traditional single-authored critical text (e.g. dialogue based,
blogging, hypertext)? What framing systems are becoming more peripheral
(e.g. traditional art criticism)? Does a particular work/practice need
a particular mode of text to be understood or re-enacted? Can a live
work be re-imagined by certain modes of preserving it? Does the archive
the re-broadcast or the re-enactment then become more important than
the work?

This Feb theme leads up to the exhibition Broadcast Yourself,
co-curated by Sarah Cook and Kathy Rae Huffman, which includes several
works that document artist-led live broadcast events. (such as: Van
Gogh TV; Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, Hole in Space, 1980;
Karen Guthrie and Nina Pope's co-curated project TV Swansong, 2002;
Alistair Gentry's Nowhere Planes, 2004). The exhibition opens at the
Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, on February 28 as part of the AV festival
(www.avfest.co.uk).

This spring CRUMB also welcomes New York based new media art curator,
archivist and writer, Caitlin Jones for research and an event as part
of The Inspiring Internationalists
programme(http://inspiringinternationalists.wordpress.com/). Caitlin's
focus will be on issues of documentation in relation to electronic and
ephemeral artworks. At her workshop in Newcastle on March 5, she will
discuss practicalities, tools and policies that emerge with the fast
increasing number of 'storage systems'.



Invited respondents include:

Elena Cologni is Research Fellow at York Saint John University (UK). 
She works in mediatised performances, mainly manipulating video to 
enhance the awareness of the unstable nature of perception and 
memorisation of reality through time (www.elenacologni.com)

Maeve Connolly is a writer on art and film and a Lecturer at Dun 
Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dublin. For
publications see http://www.maeveconnolly.net/

Jorn Ebner is an artist (http://www.jornebner.info) and a writer (UK 
correspondent for “Springerin”; regular contributor to “Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung” and “Untitled”).

Charlotte Frost is an art historian/critic. She is currently writing 
her PhD thesis, entitled ‘The Art of Context’, which analyses the 
evolving tools and techniques (catalysed by Net art production) for 
developing new approaches art contextualisation. 
http://www.charlottefrost.info

Kristoffer Gansing is co-curator of The Art of the Overhead festival 
(http://www.overheads.org). He's also working with the tv-tv channel
(http://www.tv-tv.dk) in Copenhagen as a case-study for his PhD at the 
K3 – School of Art & Media, Malmö University.

Jean Gagnon is Director of Programs at The Daniel Langlois Foundation 
http://www.fondation-langlois.org/

Marc Garrett, Ruth Catlow are from Furtherfield, which has recently 
solicited reviews of new media art in order to develop critical debate. 
http://www.furtherfield.org

Adrian George is Curator of Collections Projects, Government Art 
Collection, www.gac.culture.gov.uk.

Michael Gibbs is an artist and critic who has written regularly about 
new media for Art Monthly (UK). Personal URL: www.xs4all.nl/~nondes

Matthew Hearn is presently engaged in a collaborative PhD concerning 
archives, with University of Sunderland and Locus+.

Kerstin Mey heads up the research area Art and its Location in 
Interface: Centre for Research in Art, Technologies and Design,
University of Ulster, and has a particular interest in the relationship 
between art and its documentation.

Marcia Tanner is an independent curator in the San Francisco Bay Area 
who focuses on artists working with experimental media and science. Her 
current exhibition,"We Interrupt Your Program," runs through March 16 
at the Mills College Art Museum in Oakland, CA: 
http://www.mills.edu/campus_life/art_museum/current.php

Maria X [aka Chatzichristodoulou]: researcher and curator, currently 
completing a PhD on 'cybertheaters' (Goldsmiths). She lectures 
(Goldsmiths& Birkbeck) and organises the Thursday Club (Goldsmiths). 
She co-directed Intimacy: Across Visceral & Digital Performance 
(London, December 2007)

Patricia Zimmermann is Professor at the Dept of Cinema and Photography, 
Ithaca College, New York; and Codirector of the Fingers Lakes 
Environmental Film Festival. She is currently writing about 
live/digita/archive remix issues for her forthcoming book.


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Beryl Graham, Professor of New Media Art
School of Arts, Design, Media and Culture, University of Sunderland
Ashburne House,
Ryhope Road
Sunderland
SR2 7EE
Tel: +44 191 515 2896    [log in to unmask]

CRUMB web resource for new media art curators
http://www.crumbweb.org