Dear List,
This month's theme will focus on curatorial practices online, with
specific reference to discussing the structural and socio-economic
conditions inherent in adopting ready-made web-based platforms such as
YouTube, versus custom-built ones. This theme is hosted by Marialaura
Ghidini, Doctoral researcher with CRUMB. To give some background to
this discussion, let's start from some notes on curatorial practice
recently re-read.
In her introduction to the book Curating with Light Luggage (2005),
curator Maria Lind writes 'the amnesia surrounding curatorial practice
is astounding, as if the spatial and time-related contextualisation of
an artwork in exhibitions and their formats where not relevant.' Most
of Lind's curatorial practice centres around institutional spaces and
the possibility to break with classic forms of display within their
structural and organisational framework (the museum solo or group
exhibition as conceived in the 19th century) in favour of a mode of
'communicating art' through working towards creating a 'museum that
would function simultaneously as a production site, a distribution
channel and as a venue for conversations' (Learning from Art and
Artists, 2001). The reason I am quoting Maria Lind as a starting point
for this discussion is that she touches upon some curatorial questions
and concerns which I find helpful to ground a discussion about
curating online in the broader context of curatorial practice. Lind
talks about "creating contexts in relation to and in combination with
other existing contexts" - chiming with the curator as editor, filter-
feeder, etc. – simultaneous site of production and distribution - see
the web-based platform as both a medium of production and distribution
- and she discusses her curatorial practice in relation to site-
specificity, in her words 'context-sensitivity' - for which curatorial
work affect and is affected by the site in which it takes place seen
as both a physical space and intellectual landscape – in our case the
web-based platform or the online context.
How does curating online differ from organising gallery exhibitions?
What are current examples of the tensions or complementarity existing
between the online (web display and publishing, radio, streaming) and
offline (physical exhibition, paper publishing, event) dimensions when
curating on and through web-based platforms? Also, is there a
difference, for instance, between web as exhibition and web as
broadcast and/or publishing?
How does adopting web-based platforms have an impact on the
contextualisation of a work, the creation of a curatorial narrative,
and communication with an audience?
In what ways does this change the artist-curator relationship and the
processes of curatorial production?
I am interested in discussing the above (broad) questions in relation
to the concept of curatorial strategy, such as the form and format of
presentation, structural organisation and arrangement of artistic
material and production/distribution processes.
//
Invited Respondents are:
- Mark Amerika is a renowned "remix artist" and Professor of Art and
Art History at the University of Colorado at Boulder (US). Recent
projects include the artwork Museum of Glitch Aesthetics presented at
Abandon Normal Devices 2012 in Liverpool (UK) and the publication
remixthebook (2011), a print book and a website functioning as an
online hub for the digital remixes of many of the theories generated
in the print book. http://markamerika.com/
- bubblebyte.org is an online gallery showcasing artists that engage
in a creative way with the digital space and stress the multiple
possibilities of the media. bubblebyte.org is in itself container and
content, artist and gallery. Founded in January 201 as a collaboration
between artist Rhys Coren and curator Attilia Fattori Franchini. http://bubblebyte.org
- Susan Collins works across public, gallery and online spaces
employing transmission, networking and time as primary materials. Key
works include In conversation, Transporting Skies, Tate in Space,
Fenlandia and Seascape. She is currently Director of the Slade School
of Fine Art, UCL where she founded the Slade Centre for Electronic
Media in 1995. http://www.susan-collins.net
- Field Broadcast is an online art platform examining the simultaneous
experience of remoteness and proximity through live broadcasting.
Field Broadcast has developed through the practice of, and is run by,
artists Rebecca Birch and Rob Smith. http://www.fieldbroadcast.org/
- Lindsay Howard is the Curatorial Director of 319 Scholes. Her work
uses experimental curatorial models to reflect what she sees as an
essential shift in contemporary culture, specifically a growing
interest in collaborative creativity, open source philosophy, and
unlimited access to information. She is the 2012-2013 Curatorial
Fellow at Eyebeam in New York. http://319scholes.org/
- Candice Jacobs is an artist and curator. Recent projects include:
SLEEPING UPRIGHT an online project designed to interrupt and punctuate
the somewhat personal space between you and your computer and
ACCIDENTALLY ON PURPOSE a gallery exhibition that was accompanied by
the online project ACCIDENTAL PURPOSE, a website, an audio project and
a closing symposium organised with artist Fay Nicolson. http://www.meaningfulmeaninglessness.info/
- Jacob Lillemose (b. 1974) is a freelance curator and writer based in
Copenhagen and Berlin. He holds a PhD on software art from the
University of Copenhagen and is currently curating the transmediale
exhibition.
- Fay Nicolson is an artist who also writes and curates. Recent
curatorial projects include ACCIDENTALLY ON PURPOSE, a gallery
exhibition, audio project and closing symposium, accompanied by the
online project ACCIDENTAL PURPOSE organised with artist/curator
Candice Jacobs. Other projects include RE-RUN, an on-line exhibition
of digital video works curated with Majed Aslam and a collaborative
practice with Oliver Smith @ www.expansioncollapse.com. http://www.faynicolson.com/
- Anna Ramos is programme manager of Ràdio Web MACBA. Since 2006 Ràdio
Web MACBA has been operating as a platform, initially to showcase the
exhibitions and activities of the Museum of Contemporary Art of
Barcelona and then as a content-generator for specific projects. With
over 250 podcasts and 150 texts and essays available online, the
platform focuses on contemporary thinking, the exploration of sound
art, radiophonic art and experimental music. http://rwm.macba.cat/
- Zoe Salditch is program director for Rhizome. As Program Director
she oversees Rhizome's programs and events including The Download, a
digital art collecting program she conceived and initiated in 2011. http://rhizome.org/the-download/
- Reinhard Storz is editor of www.xcult.org - Net Forum for Art.
Teaches Art History at the Academy of Art and Design Basel. Active in
media publishing, focussing on New Media. Works since 1995 as a
curator of netbased art projects. http://www.xcult.org/curated
- Juliette Xiaoying Yuan is an independent curator and researcher
living and working in Beijing. Past projects include Roy Ascott's La
Plissure du Texte within 2012 Shanghai Biennial and the workshop
IMMERSION: Art | Technology Workshops for the Biennial's educational
programme. She is currently pursuing her PhD at the Planetary
Collegium (University of Plymouth, UK), with the focus on the online
curatorial theory and practice between China and overseas.
///
Marialaura Ghidini
PhD Researcher at CRUMB
University of Sunderland
m. +44 (0)7816 483221
skype: mlghidini
http://www.crumbweb.org/
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