Dear CRUMB List

it's very exciting that this month has kicked off such a great  
discussion (Thank you Charlie). My next post is a re-cap for those  
trying to catch up with the issues raised so far.

I would just like to interject here some of the other topics we hope  
to cover at the conference on September 24 in Liverpool, as we focus  
on curatorial practice and the differences in producing and  
presenting time-based art forms. We invite you to take up any of  
these topics also!
(http://andfestival.org.uk/siteNorm/programme/selectedEvent.php? 
qsSelectedEventId=28)

1) Life Cycles of Art
How does the speed of an art work’s life-cycle affect artists,  
exhibitions and curators? Hans Ulrich Obrist, for example, has  
lamented the lack of research time for curators, and has worked on  
exhibitions such as “Cities on the Move” which evolve over time and  
space. He has also cited architect Cedric Price whose view was that  
buildings, including art buildings, outlive their usefulness with  
time and should be replaced. What happens when art is deemed no  
longer ‘cutting edge’? Is it integrated into the body of contemporary  
art? Does it become post-media, post-feminist, or post-colonial, and  
what does that mean for the understanding of the art? What does time  
mean for the life cycles of curating, and of exhibitions?

2) Video Time and Real Time
In 2001, The Tate Seminar “Moving Image As Art: Time-based Media in  
the Art Gallery,” revealed a fine understanding of the differences in  
space and time between film and video, but less general understanding  
of the intricacies and histories of new media, including computer  
'real time'. Eight years later, have the different time signatures of  
video and new media been critically identified by curators?

3) Curating Time-based practices
	a) Showing Video
New media present exciting new opportunities for fast distribution,  
narrow-banding audiences, self-distribution, and critical mass  
ticketing, but the duration and quality can be very different in  
different kinds of new media. How much do we know about how artists  
and audiences use these media?
	b) Showing Live Art
As with any artwork that might be time-based rather than a static  
object, live art challenges the traditional ways of showing and  
distributing art, and has used the 'live', real-time and connective  
characteristics of new media in imaginative ways.
	c) Showing Interaction and Participation
The current interest in participative work across the arts has  
underlined the challenging nature of gaining meaningful  
participation, and the time-investment that it takes for all  
participants. How much do arts workers know about social and  
political participation?
	d) Showing Process Rather than Product
Art galleries have sometimes been described as 'laboratories', but  
the challenges of showing experimental, process-based or immaterial  
work such as software, is often unfamiliar to curators. What are the  
time issues of labs, and of showing process-based work?

The full conference line-up is now online, but I wanted to highlight  
those guests and speakers who will be there and who we're delighted  
to have responding to the discussion here. They include:

* Barbara London, Associate Curator, Department of Media and  
Performance Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York
* Gavin Wade, Director of Eastside Projects in Birmingham
* Franz Thalmair, co-founder of CONT3XT collaborative curatorial  
group in Vienna with Michael Kargl (aka Carlos katastrofsky) and  
Sabine Hochrieser
* Kelli Dipple, Curator, Intermedia, at Tate Modern in London
* Mike Stubbs, Director of FACT
* Charlie Gere, CRUMB Research partner, Reader in New Media Research  
and Head of the Department of Media, Film and Cultural Studies,  
University of Lancaster
* Guthrie Lonegan and Oliver Laric, artists
* Michael Connor, New York based writer and curator
* Helen Sloan, Director of SCAN, curator
* Axel Lapp, CRUMB senior researcher, curator
* Kathryn Lambert, Creative director, folly

cheers
Sarah