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. ------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------- 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