Digital Engagement in a Contemporary Art Gallery: Transforming Audiences

This paper examines a curatorial approach to digital art that acknowledges the symbiotic relationship between the digital and other more traditional art practices. It considers some of the issues that arise when digital content is delivered within a public gallery and how specialist knowledge, audience expectations and funding impact on current practices. From the perspective of the Digital Curator at MOSTYN, a contemporary gallery and visual arts centre in Llandudno, North Wales, it outlines the practical challenges and approaches taken to define what audiences want from a public art gallery. Human-centred design processes and activity systems analysis were adopted by MOSTYN with a community of practice—the gallery visitors—to explore the challenges of integrating digital technologies effectively within their curatorial programme and keep up with the pace of change needed today. MOSTYN’s aim is to consider digital holistically within their exhibition programme and within the cannon of 21st century contemporary art practice. Digital curation is at the heart of their model of engagement that offers new and existing audience insights into the significance of digital art within contemporary art practice

For Everyone\u27s Eyes Only: Digital Art as Public Art (Agency, Accessibility, and Aura)

Should digital art qualify as public art? This thesis aims to explore the significance of this question in a contemporary context by cross-examining the two genres in terms of creative agency, accessibility, and aura. Through various interviews and case studies with global artists, I examine similarities and differences in materiality and engagement in public and digital art and the implications of my findings under broader, theoretical frameworks. I further seek to understand how the relationship between technology, art, and society has shifted over time. Ultimately, I argue that the fluidity of digital art allows to exist in public and private forms; in other words, the status of digital art is flexible and can undergo cycles of reconceptualization based on its presentation and purpose

Using Material Culture Lessons to Cultivate Artistic Behaviors and Enrich Students\u27 Conceptual Understanding in an Urban Middle School Classroom

Within art education there is a contradiction between learning opportunities currently provided within the middle school art classroom, specifically in relation to media, and authentic contemporary artistic behavior and practice. Art educators focus instruction on traditional forms of media (i.e. drawing & painting) while evading contemporary art and artists. Much of what contemporary art is today is represented through everyday objects/materials and educators must provide students with an opportunity to experience both inquiry and contemporary art-making through media outside of the canon. Our personal identity, culture, and reality are composed of material forms, which often go unnoticed due to the proliferation of virtual imagery and digital information. Although the integration of emerging technology within visual art pedagogy has obvious benefits to student success in a contemporary society, acknowledgment and appreciation of material culture, the tangible world around us, warrants attention. Art education has many aims, which include both exposure to contemporary art and a heightened sensitivity to the physical world in which we live.;The implementation of a collaborative material culture art project provided opportunities for middle school students to engage meaningfully in relevant cultural inquiry, as well as contemporary art making processes. Through material culture, middle school students were exposed to contemporary art, which extended beyond canonical representation reflecting the authenticity of everyday life. This study revealed how the integration of material culture into a middle school art education curricula can benefit students\u27 understanding of contemporary art and engagement with artistic behavior.;Using case study methodology, this research investigated the effect one specific material culture art lesson had on a single class of middle school students in an urban setting in West Virginia. The purpose of this study was to examine the potential of common materials towards cultivating artistic behaviors and enriching middle-level students\u27 perceptive and conceptual understanding in a contemporary educational context. The research questions, which framed the study included 1) How do material culture lessons promote student understanding of contemporary art in a middle school art class? 2) How do material culture lessons support artistic behavior among middle school students? 3) How do material culture lessons foster appreciation for everyday objects/materials among middle school students? The findings, resulting from the case study, appear to suggest improvements in students\u27 understanding of contemporary art and appreciation for everyday materials/objects, as well as a comprehensive engagement with artistic behaviors

Beizam Triple Hammerhead Shark: Animatronic technology and cross-cultural collaboration in the Torres Strait

Research into Beizam Triple Hammerhead Shark: Animatronic technology and cross-cultural collaboration in the Torres Strait, was to further establish and test institutional recognition of cross-collaborative inspired Indigenous/non-Indigenous art within the emergence of a multimillion-dollar Torres Strait Islander arts industry. The success of mainland Aboriginal artists paved the way for Torres Strait Islanders to develop their own contemporary art movement, largely responsible for the cultural revival in which Indigenous communities now participate. Amid this revival, there is limited information on non-Indigenous involvement among these artists and works. The research presented in this thesis expands this area of knowledge. The main premise of my argument questions institutional and Indigenous arts industry downplaying of cross-cultural collaborative engagement among the Torres Strait Islander contemporary art movement. This is supported by demonstrating a history of cross-cultural engagement within the constructs of contemporary art making and cultural practice predating Western influence. I demonstrate how my work with Dr Ken Thaiday Snr (Thaiday) serves to promote cross-cultural engagement and in line with Sasha Grishin’s article on the Defying Empire: 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial[1], poses questions to curatorial and art market agendas that segregate Indigenous art from the broader context of contemporary Australian non-Indigenous art. One of the arguments I have had with the two earlier shows and continue to have with the present one is with the concept of race-based segregation as the underlying basis for an art exhibition. Is indigenous art in Australia still in need of affirmative action and a sheltered environment for it to grow and survive?[2] The thesis questions curatorial and art market agendas that have misinterpreted our cross-cultural collaborations, segregating them from the broader context of contemporary Australian art through the dismissal of my involvement in the works. An investigation of technology inspired artistic collaborations between Thaiday and myself over the research period of five years is used as a platform to raise questions on the peripheral complications of my non-Indigenous participation in the co-creation of works connected to Torres Strait Islander culture. Our artistic collaborations merge animatronic technologies and automated production systems that integrate with Thaiday’s material culture. Thaiday and I have developed an artistic engagement combining our art practices to produce hybrid, performative works of contemporary art. The aesthetic is a combination of both our styles of work. Thaiday provides the historical context, uniquely styled cultural content and the framework for the collaborative concept to build from based on his past dance machines and centuries of material culture. I provide a connection to a digital realm, introducing technology and the format of a new contemporary aesthetic borne from automated processes and references to my art practice. The newly formed work is digitised bringing the collaborations to life, the works are jointly enhanced by our shared knowledge of the marine environment. The research and collaborative works draw from long-lasting traditions, of collaborative engagement with outsiders including and incorporating new ideas and technologies into the fabric of their own traditional practice and cultural development. A brief historical account of this contemporary art movement and key artists creates the context for three major works undertaken by Thaiday and myself that were shown in prominent exhibitions locally and internationally. The final collaborative work, Beizam Triple Hammerhead Shark 2016 produced for the 20th Biennale of Sydney, forms the major work for the research. This research documents and discusses, the production and reaction, to publically displayed co-created works between Thaiday and me, focusing on perception and understanding of our Indigenous/non-Indigenous artistic collaborative engagement. The thesis advocates a platform that allows our collaborative works to continue contributing towards the promotion of Indigenous cultures, Australian contemporary arts and sharing of cultural ideas and knowledge between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. [1] Grishin, Sasha. (June 7, 2017). Defying Empire: 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/defying-empire-3rd-national-Indigenous-art-triennial-20170606-gwlkgb.html [2] Grishin, Sasha. (June 7, 2017). Defying Empire: 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/defying-empire-3rd-national-Indigenous-art-triennial-20170606-gwlkgb.htm

What Do Audiences Want from a Public Art Gallery in the Digital Age?

This paper outlines the human-centred design approach taken to create a new analytical framework to understand audiences and establish themes, patterns and behaviours at MOSTYN, a public contemporary art gallery in Llandudno, North Wales. Wrexham Glyndwr University PhD student Clare Harding collaborated with Dr Adrian Gradinar, and Dr Mark Lochrie from Media Innovation Studio, University of Central Lancashire, to test the conceptual framework with the EDGE (Experiential Display to Generate Engagement) research project that secured Innovate UK and the Arts Council of Wales funding. EDGE applied a Human Centred Design process to MOSTYN, Wales’ foremost contemporary Art Gallery MOSTYN to investigate audience expectations of a public art gallery in the digital age. EDGE was designed to help MOSTYN define their purpose as a public art gallery in the face of rapidly developing, culturally competing technologies. Phase one of the project used design thinking and iterative processes to explore new and authentic ways in which MOSTYN can co-design their visitor experience with audiences. Phase two, from April 2019, will use findings to build a digital interface within the gallery to create an interactive exhibition of digital art. This will be accompanied by a six-month engagement programme to build links with new audiences and up-skill both the general public and regional artists. The scope and limitation of the research as identified so far are discussed with a focus on how human-centred design approaches were used to create a new analytical framework. The testing of lo-fi prototypes will be discussed within the gallery setting and the insights uncovered by deployment of the framework, tools and MOSTYN’s engagement programme with a critical review of the methodological approach used and findings to date

Experiences of Travel and Northern Rural Landscapes in Contemporary Art

This practice based study investigates engagement with interconnecting themes of travel and rural landscape in contemporary art practice. It argues that cross-disciplinary reading and interaction between a grouping of select art practice and history of art scholarship and a grouping of select cultural geography, tourism, sociology and social anthropology scholarship, generates a richer understanding and communication of these themes in contemporary art. A review of existing scholarship reveals that there are a number of existing contemporary works of art which demonstrate engagement with interconnecting themes of travel and / or northern rural landscape. Despite this, they are yet to be presented as an identifiable, coherent, body of work of significance to the research community. Existing art historical interpretation and analysis of this work additionally fails to reference recent, relevant discourses of embodied experiences of travel and landscape which characterise much of the associated scholarship in cultural geography, tourism, sociology, and social anthropology. A combination of history of art and art practice methodology is utilised in this study to address this gap in scholarship. In the thesis, I identify and set out relevant existing scholarship in the disciplines of art practice and history of art, and those of cultural geography, tourism, sociology and social anthropology. Select examples of contemporary art are analysed and evaluated in relation to ‘wayfaring’, a theory sequentially formulated by social anthropologist Tim Ingold. Two key concepts articulated by Ingold, those of 'linear journeying' and ‘within-ness’, form the conceptual framework for this exercise. Drawing on the findings of this engagement with works by other artists, I propose an original method of ‘bridging’ as a hybrid art practice / history of art strategy for further addressing the gap in scholarship and delivering a further original contribution to knowledge. The artists’ book is identified as an effective, appropriate contemporary art medium for undertaking this bridging. I review examples of contemporary artists' book practice and explore this medium’s potential for communicating embodied experiences of linear journeying and within-ness in the context of a travel and rural landscape subject. I produced an original artists' book, 'Travelling the Line'. This work details my experiences as a hiker and artist of travelling to two particular northern rural landscapes for this study, the Scottish Highlands and Finnish Lapland. Part travel guide, part art object, 'Travelling the Line' takes the form of a hardback print book and a stand-alone, online digital platform, the latter of which includes additional video and sound content. It successfully communicates my own personal, linear, embodied act of travelling; and demonstrates the value of bringing together two bodies of scholarship, Ingold's theories and contemporary art practice. Included with this thesis is a print version of 'Travelling the Line' and an online version, accessible at https:// travellingtheline.wordpress.com

Re-appropriating Chinese Art in the Context of Digital Media: From the Chinese Past into a Mediated ‘Presence’ through Creative Practice

Full version unavailable due to 3rd party copyright restrictions.In this thesis, I argue that traditional Chinese thinking and its manner of approaching art can be successfully expanded onto a different platform: digital media art. My research (both in theory and practice) shows how this transformation expands the notions of time and space and forges new interdisciplinary correlations by addressing traditional Chinese culture in four different but interrelated manifestations: the philosophy of Dao, calligraphy, painting and sculpture. As a result, I claim that digital media can shift the notions of time and space from traditional Chinese thinking into contemporary digital art. Conversely, the digital concept of time and space can be interpreted by an analysis of (i) the traditional Chinese philosophy of Dao, so as to understand how ancient Chinese perceived the universe of time and space; (ii) four areas of Chinese art addressed in my theoretical and practical research (as elaborated in subsequent chapters). For example, a new understanding of ‘scroll format’, ‘play-appreciation’ and Chinese digital art has been introduced through my own practice. In fact, this direction has not been sufficiently dealt with in the past, and deserves more attention in the future. The thesis demonstrates how my practical research was heavily influenced and contextualized by my theoretical research, while the result of my practical artwork applies, expands and transforms that theory. This thesis aims, both theoretically and practically, at providing the reader with a new experience – the perception of the notions of time and space inherent in traditional Chinese thinking – by combining these concepts with digital technology.  Many different methods used in traditional Chinese scroll painting and calligraphy have in their day investigated and developed new ideas of time and space – e.g. multiple perspectives, binary visual modes, visible and invisible spaces, reversed images and inverted vision. All of these concepts could be further extended through digital moving images and interactive art in order to provide the audience with a new spatiotemporal dimension as an enhancement of visual experience and knowledge. Through my experimental practice (i.e. interactive art, moving images, workshop and exhibitions), I have illustrated how digital art and digital technology can build on the notions of guan (觀; ‘to observe’), and you (遊; [1] ‘to tour’, ‘to travel’; or [2] ‘to roam’, ‘to saunter’). Furthermore, digital art can help viewers use the notions of play and appreciation – wan shang (玩賞, ‘play-appreciation’) – in Chinese context exhibition spaces. By exploiting this new dimension of experience, contemporary Chinese artists will, it is hoped, be able to introduce the spirit of traditional Chinese thinking to digital platforms, creating a guide that not only broadens the notions of time and space for digital media artists and audiences, but also forges new correlations between the various disciplines of philosophy and media art. This thesis, therefore, rests on three investigative pillars: (1) contextual analysis through the history of Chinese art and – to a lesser extent – Western art; (2) the possibilities of modern digital media art; (3) analysis and application of the Chinese philosophical tradition (art theory and the notion of time and space) to elucidate and develop the interface between traditional Chinese and modern digital art. The result of my research has shown that what emerges from – and also motivates – the investigation is an understanding that digital art (moving images and interactive art) is an appropriate and effective medium for the communication and deepening of Chinese cultural awareness. My research structure and development is divided into six steps as follows: Firstly, in developing this thesis, I posit that the ideas of time and space [Chinese terms and terminologies: shi jian (時間,‘time’), kong jian (空間, ‘space’), and yu zhou (宇宙, ‘the universe’)] have been handled in traditional Chinese scroll painting and calligraphy through the application of multiple perspectives, binary visual modes, visible and invisible space, the passing of time, and non-linear narratives. When these potentials are reproduced by media artists, novel insights, experiences and knowledge about time and space are re-interpreted for their audiences, while the history of time and space tends to collapse. Secondly, I examine the idea of the ‘Yellow Box’, whose original aim was to suggest a novel approach to the understanding of the relation between contemporary Chinese artworks and museum-based exhibition space. I argue, however, that such a direction does not consider the potential of digital media art, and my practical projects demonstrate that the ‘Yellow Box’ idea still has room for further development in its application to digital art history. Moreover, the analysis of time and space offered here in the context of my own media-art production process (custom software and hardware) can benefit other researchers and artists. The attempt to illustrate Chinese art theories and to document and reflect upon different ways of perceiving the position and role of the audience can provide a unique and fruitful insight into the incorporation of Chinese thinking and manners into media art practice. Thirdly, I analyse the correlation between traditional art and contemporary digital media art in relation to time. I first illustrate how multiple spatiotemporal experiences merge into one pictorial space in terms of non-linear narrative in some significant traditional Chinese art pieces, and then argue that digital art can actually help to re-interpret the traditional Chinese notion of time in a modern dimension. The results of my study reflect how the notions of (1) cycle, (2) non-linear narrative, and (3) ‘play-appreciation’ in ancient Chinese art correlate to the elements of ‘looping’ and ‘layering of content’ in digital art, which allow viewers to have real-time experience of ‘time passing and transitioning’. My analysis, however, also indicates that some contemporary Asian digital artworks (all relating to time transition) have not yet considered the viewer’s spatiotemporal experience in relation to such idea as ‘play-appreciation’ through viewers’ bodily engagement. Fourthly, I examine the spatial correlations between Chinese and media art, and argue that there are many correlations between the past and contemporary Chinese art in the ways in which viewers’ virtual and physical experiences have been applied. I analyse how the idea of ‘two different positions of the viewer’, through painting, reliefs and gunpowder in China, correlates with digital media art today. Such correlation allows the artist to play with the idea of ‘multiple identities’ through digital media (e.g. dual and multiple screens). The results of the analysis reveal a strong correlation between traditional art forms and modern digital media art that permits the artist and the viewer to manipulate the idea of ‘multiple identities’ through dual and multiple screens in both real and virtual spaces. Reflecting this, my practical project demonstrates how pictorial and virtual space function as part of one’s cultural identities through viewers’ bodily engagement. For example, in line with my experience of multiple-identities in relation to my own Indonesian-Chinese background on the one hand, and the ‘upstairs culture’ of Hong Kong on the other, I combined a series of fragmentary stills and moving images in the ‘Upstairs / Downstairs’ project (2004-2012) to demonstrate how digital technology can help visualize the notions of multiple viewpoints through multiple screens. From there I went on to ask whether my Asian cultural background could help transform traditional visual experiences onto a digital platform by integrating a sense of ambiguity and multiple identities. As neither the direction of such a topic nor the technical approach had been embarked upon before, I created the interactive installation Bloated City & Skinny Languages (BCSL) (2006-08) in order to invite viewers to experience multiple identities through dual screen visual representations and corresponding bodily engagement. Fifthly, I integrate temporal and spatial aspects by examining and questioning the possibility and limitations of combining the ideas of shu (calligraphy) and hua (painting) in 2D and 4D practices today in China and Hong Kong. I first take the idea of ‘landscape-characters’ suggested by Hong Kong artist Kan Tai Keung (1942- ) as a case study, to exemplify a significantly new approach to combining the relation between shu, hua and long scroll format through ink painting, and I then compare this with other scroll format orientated works such as Beijing Olympics opening; Cursive II; The Broken Window and The Science of Aliens. The comparison leads into an examination of how the idea of long scroll format can be transformed into a contemporary mode by means of digital technology, which in turn demonstrates the impact of scroll format on spatiotemporal experience via digital technology in terms of viewer role shifting. Finally, the argument of the thesis is summarized and rounded off in a further practical research project, the series Dao Gives Birth to One (exhibition and workshop). This provides a sense of illusory spatial and temporal experience, and suggests how a sense of ‘cycle’ could alter our conception of time and space. By including the holistic or cyclical nature (infinite space and endless time) of the philosophy of Dao, my creative practices and workshops demonstrate that digital technologies show potential in enhancing viewers’ physical engagement with and in their experience. The results of the present research contribute new knowledge while making a number of suggestions and recommendations for artists and curators in, for example, translating the traditional Chinese idea of ‘play-appreciation’ from visual (2D) to virtual (4D) experience. This research and the practical art projects associated with it will, therefore, effectively contribute to the making of a new digital art history.Hong Kong Polytechnic Universit

Postinternet Art of the Moving Image and the Disjunctures of the Global and the Local: Kim Hee-cheon and Other Young East Asian Artists

Jihoon Kim discusses in his Postinternet Art of the Moving Image and the Disjunctures of the Global and the Local: Kim Hee-cheon and Other Young East Asian Artists” ways in which moving image works by East Asian artists Chen Chen-yu, Lu Yang, and Kim Hee-cheon engage the postinternet condition, a situation in which the internet and digital technologies are no longer perceived as new but as fundamentally restructuring our subjectivity and world. By opening a platform for intersecting the postinternet condition with a discourse on globalization, which has yet to be fully discussed in the existing Western-centric discourses on postinternet art, a key specificity of the postinternet art of the moving image by contemporary East Asian artists lies in its attempts to create spreadable images of multiple political, aesthetic, and cultural layers. The artists’ rigorous aesthetic juxtapositions of virtual and physical spaces should be seen not simply as indicating the artists’ cosmopolitan postinternet sensibilities but also as expressing their engagement with the contradictory and unstable disjunctures of the global and local in contemporary East Asia

The digital figural : the problems and potentials of the digital moving image in contemporary art of the 21st century

This thesis frames my ongoing artistic explorations into the potentials of digital moving image in the context of Contemporary Art. It outlines a critical appraisal of the last 20 years of artists’ digital moving image practices, proposing that seemingly divergent trends – the ‘cinematic’ use of DSLR cameras and the ‘post-internet’ turn towards using 3D computer generated imagery (CGI) – have actually been united in their focus on criticality, abdication of formal innovation and avoidance of deeper engagement with technical questions related to their medium. I set this account of recent practice against a longer history of artists’ moving image, tracing the shift from Modernist strategies, dominated by formal experimentation and medium reflexivity, towards the conceptual and ‘political’ frame of Contemporary Art. I argue that the supersession of Modernist formalism has in fact precipitated a crisis in Contemporary Art, evidenced in recent discussions in the field. I trace an alternative framework using the notion of the figural, as proposed by Jean-François Lyotard, Rosalind Krauss and David Rodowick. These thinkers refuse the ‘conceptualism’ at the core of Contemporary Art and instead highlight an approach to art focused on visuality and the unconscious rather than textuality and criticality. To conclude, I demonstrate how the contextual problems and potentials raised in the thesis are addressed through my artistic experimentation into digital and volumetric video and 3D tools. Focusing on questions of form, engagement with the medium and the semiosis of the digital image, I attempt to highlight potential new pathways out of the current impasse

A Study on Tactile Spatial Perception of Modern Ceramic Art Creation under Digital Technology

According to art historian Alois Riegl, “The tactile sense forms the foundational underpinning of the perceptual process, providing essential support to the sense of vision.” This sensory modality represents the most “primordial” means through which individuals engage with and comprehend the world. In the contemporary digital age, modern ceramists have embarked on an exploration of an extended spectrum of tactile sensations within the realm of ceramic art, thus entering into uncharted realms of creative expression. This exploration has transitioned from an exclusive focus on physical tactile sensations to the incorporation of diverse virtual tactile experiences. The fundamental objective of this study is to probe into the influence of digital technology on the perceptual dimensions of tactile engagement within the domain of pottery creation. This investigation centers on a comprehensive analysis of the utilization of digital technology tools and their impact on the creative encounters of pottery artists who harness these technologies in their craft