New approaches to Art and visual culture
CHArt Nineteenth Annual Conference
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CONVERGENT PRACTICES New approaches to Art and visual culture |
Helen Sloan, Southern Collaborative Arts Network, UK
Paul Smith, boredomresearch, UK
From Work to Text: The Dissemination and Distribution of Hybrid and Process-Based Practice
This paper will focus on the most appropriate ways to distribute, exhibit and disseminate experimental and hybrid work in the current cultural climate. Taking the Hello World: People vs. Programming forum organised by boredomresearch with SCAN and ArtSway as a case study with other examples, the question of how to represent and exhibit process-based experimental work will be raised. The Hello World forum focused on an old but still highly relevant debate around how much art engaging with computer programmes is held within the code itself and how this in turn relates to an audience. Its distinguishing feature as a conference was that it was largely artist-led and was presented as an exhibition of an artist's research and work in preference to an exhibition. It also had the advantage of representing work spanning three generations of programming and art at a time when the cultural role of new technologies has changed radically. It provided an ideal opportunity to examine the changing face of exhibitions from Cybernetic Serendipity to Resonance FM and newer initiatives.
As the festival and symposium format for the presentation of experimental work begins to look more and more moribund, this paper asks questions concerning the best platforms for the dissemination of hybrid work; and whether it is important to demonstrate process. It will look at new methods of dissemination such as Wi-Fi, community radio and the web and its audiences as well as the more traditional forms of exhibition of this work using Hello World as a focus.