Thank Beryl for the kickstart,
I am rather new to the list and am excited for the opportunity to
contribute to the topic.
The Low Lives festival is a format produced by Jorge Rojas, now in its
fourth year – as a participant, little berlin in Philadelphia is just one
of many co-presenting partners all over the world that are networked
together for the two-day festival. This is my first year of involvement as
an organizer of a co-presenting space, but I understand that the festival
does touch on many of the questions you pose in the introduction to this
topic.
The most pertinent is the question of "What happens to ideas of the 'live',
over time?" (as you note below). One of the key components of the festival
is the sense of connection the networked spaces have – and thus the
attendees in those spaces also have – specifically as the festival moves
inbetween performances.
The sense of 'live' performance is most present when someone has taken the
distributed stage for their piece, but as the festival is made up of a
series of very short performances that experience soon transforms into a
real-time 'intermission' as the collective stage shifts to a new location,
artists and presenters at that space inevitably fuss with technical setup,
and the 'live' event's progression of time somewhat collapses – there is an
opening up of a common 'space' that stretches across the globe. I
understand the most intimate moments of the festival happen in those moves
in-between performances, as attendees adjust to the fact of connection
throughout the two-day festival and begin to inhabit the shared space, that
technology becomes transparent.
This important aspect of the festival strikes me as very similar to the
work which was mentioned by Helen Jamieson in the same thread, that of Annie
Abrahams <http://vimeo.com/annieabrahams>. Specifically, Abrahams presents
a series of videos in which performers are digitally 'waiting' before their
networked performance called "Angry Women" – this collective waiting
(though alone in one's own physical space) embedded within a technology has
the effect of creating a hyper-viewership that is at intimately tied to the
technology which is host to the experience.
I believe there is something important about the 'newness' of
streaming/technology in both of these examples that makes this work
extremely effective at this point in time, but also feel certain this will
continue to evolve as incorporation of this collapsing of space and time
becomes more ubiquitous in the context of fine art.
I would like to close these remarks with two examples of streaming
technology (USTREAM) being used in the same context, though with an
entirely different intention.
The first is a gallery talk <http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/18455011> at 319
Scholes <http://319scholes.org/> in Brooklyn I had the pleasure to attend
online, although I was in the middle of my workday in Philadelphia. The
gallery talk was a rather standard format, led by the curator of the show.
However, the flawless execution in use of the technology and the stellar
job the director of the gallery (Lindsay Howard) did in garnering social
participation – including that of many of the artists in the show – created
perhaps a more intimate and meaningful 'tour' than even the live experience
could have produced.
The second is a series of 'artist
talks<http://www.ustream.tv/channel/art-micro-patronage-artist-talks>'
recently commissioned by the Art Micro Patronage
<http://artmicropatronage.org/exhibition>(host to digital exhibitions) in
which the artists were asked to sit down in front of the computer for a
talk with the Internet – no moderator was available, the artist is simply
tasked with reading the social stream of questions that are coming to them
through the USTREAM social panel. This creates some delightfully awkward
results (as in the example of the talk with artist Tom
Moody<http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/19724842>who all but terminates
the discussion halfway through the session, then is
suddenly engaged back into action as new questions come from the ether)
which reveal in real-time how audience, reach and conversation around
artistic practice is completely changing.
Looking forward to reading more thoughts from the list.
Bests,
Kelani
On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 6:28 AM, Beryl Graham <[log in to unmask]
> wrote:
> Dear List,
>
> Perhaps I can help kick off this month's Theme by referring back to some
> of the things which were said in response to Sarah's query about
> "Broadcast" on the list last month ...
>
> To start with perhaps the most obvious 'exciting possibility' of new media
> distribution, Kelani Nichole posted that the Philadelphia Low Lives
> Festival is a networked performance festival that "celebrates the
> transmission of ideas beyond geographical, cultural and political borders".
>
> This seems to address all three of our questions, and in particular issues
> of "the live". Perhaps Kelani and others could offer some practical
> experiences as to what this means for audiences in particular - what kinds
> of geographical, cultural and political borders can these audiences work
> across exactly, what works, and what doesn't?
>
> Yours,
>
> Beryl
>
>
>
> On 20 Feb 2012, at 12:29, Marialaura Ghidini wrote:
>
> > This month's theme on the list is Distribution and Dissemination after
> New Media and is hosted by Marialaura Ghidini and Beryl Graham
> >
> > The connected new media of streaming, web broadcasting and
> narrowcasting, smartphone apps and augmented reality offer intriguing
> opportunities for art and culture. At a time when the Arts Council and
> NESTA are considering funding structures for new media as a means of
> distribution (
> http://www.nesta.org.uk/areas_of_work/creative_economy/digital_rnd), this
> a key issue for curators, artists, educators and others interested in how
> media might meet their audiences, and how new media might be distributive
> art in itself, as well as a means to an end.
> >
> > This theme therefore deals with issues of:
> >
> > What happens to ideas of the 'live', over time?
> >
> > What kinds of audiences?
> >
> > How are artists using distributive media?
> >
> > This theme is related to the upcoming CRUMB Professional Development
> Workshop on the subject taking place on the 5th March in Newcastle, as part
> of the AV Festival (http://www.crumbweb.org/getSeminarDetail.php?id=17)
> > The workshop will see three invited speakers presenting their curatorial
> practice and projects in response to the above subject:
> > - Ajay RS Hothi; Manager and Curator at tank.tv
> > - Roger McKinley; Research and Innovation Manager at FACT, Liverpool,
> who has led on the development of Artplayer.tv
> > - Robert Sakrowski, art historian, artist and curator based in Berlin
> and initiator of the project curatingYouTube.net
> > The workshop leader will also join the discussion of the theme on the
> list, presenting issues that will raise from the March event in Newcastle.
> >
> > The invited guest respondents to discuss the theme are:
> >
> > Tatiana Bazzichelli
> > Tatiana Bazzichelli is a researcher, networker and curator based in
> Berlin, working in the field of hacktivism and net culture. She is part of
> the transmediale festival team in Berlin (reSource for transmedial culture)
> and PhD in Information and Media Studies (Aarhus University);
> http://networkingart.eu/
> >
> > Simon Biggs
> > Simon Biggs works creatively across media systems, with a focus on
> interactivity, digital poetics and interdisciplinary methods. He is
> Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts at the University of Edinburgh;
> http://www.littlepig.org.uk/
> >
> > Johannes Birringer
> > Johannes Birringer is a choreographer & artistic director of AlienNation
> Co (www.aliennationcompany.com). He also founded the Interaktionslabor (
> http://interaktionslabor.de) & co-directs the DAP-Lab, Brunel University
> http://www.brunel.ac.uk/dap, where he is Professor of Performance
> Technologies. Among his recent recent books is “Performance, Technology and
> Science” (2009)
> >
> > Martin John Callanan
> > Martin John Callanan is an artist researching an individual's place
> within systems; http://greyisgood.eu
> >
> > Helen Varley Jamieson
> > Helen Varley Jamieson is a writer, theatre-maker and cyberformance
> artist whose work explores the internet as a site for live participatory
> performance; http://www.creative-catalyst.com
> >
> > Caroline Langill
> > Caroline Langill is an Associate Dean of the Faculty of Art at OCAD
> University where she teaches courses in curatorial practice and new media
> art history
> >
> > Kelani Nichole
> > Kelani Nichole is a Freelance Digital Strategist and Independent Curator
> working at the intersection of ART + TECHNOLOGY, based in Philadelphia &
> Brooklyn; http://kelaninichole.com
> >
> > Laura Sillars
> > Laura Sillars is Artistic Director of Site Gallery (Sheffield),
> http://www.sitegallery.org/
> >
> > Gary Thomas
> > Gary Thomas is Director of Animate Projects, curating and producing
> experimental animation projects for online and live spaces,
> http://www.animateprojects.org
> >
> > Pauline van Mourik Broekman
> > Pauline van Mourik Broekman is the founding co-editor of Mute, for which
> she continues to work as contributing editor and publisher,
> http://www.metamute.org/
> >
> > We hope that few other people involved in the development of projects
> awarded the The Digital Research & Development Fund for Arts and Culture
> will be able to join in and discuss their projects, such as the digital
> portal for dialogue and exchange of New Art Exchange in collaboration with
> ArtFinder and the Social Interpretation project of the Imperial War Museum
> (London).
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Beryl Graham, Professor of New Media Art
> Research Student Manager, Art and Design
> MA Curating Course Leader
>
> Faculty of Arts, Design, and Media, University of Sunderland
> Ashburne House, Ryhope Road
> Sunderland
> SR2 7EE
> Tel: +44 191 515 2896 Fax: +44 191 515 2132
> Email: [log in to unmask]
>
> CRUMB web resource for new media art curators
> http://www.crumbweb.org
>
> CRUMB's new books:
> Rethinking Curating: Art After New Media from MIT Press
> http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=12071
> A Brief History of Curating New Media Art, and A Brief History of Working
> with New Media Art from The Green Box
> http://www.thegreenbox.net
>
>
>
>
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