Remote Encounters: a report about networking practitioners

A short article titled Remote Encounters: a report about networking practitioners on the Remote Encounters conference and Liminalities journal special issue published on Digicult.it. The report specifically addresses my own objectives as both organiser of the conference and journal issue and artist/researcher

Performance systems: making vs. exploiting

On the second and final day of the conference Remote Encounters: Connecting Bodies, Collapsing Spaces and Temporal Ubiquity in Networked Performance proceedings closed with a roundtable discussion entitled Performance Systems: Making vs. Exploiting. The purpose of the roundtable was to explore performance systems used by artists and to compare/contrast strategies of making custom technologies vs. exploiting or hacking pre-existing technologies. The roundtable members were largely gathered from the second half of the conference which placed a thematic emphasis on systems in networked performance art. Members consisted of three speakers; Marc Garrett (MG), Erik Geelhoed (EG) and Ian Biscoe (IB), and two performers; Prof. Dr. Stahl Stenslie (SS) and Paula Crutchlow (PC) who each researched or worked with a number of diverse systems, techniques, media and approaches. The roundtable was chaired by Garrett Lynch (GL). Additional contributions were made by conference speakers or performers in attendance and members of the public. These included; Annie Abrahams (AA), Elena Perez (EP), Elif Ayitar (EA), Kate Genevieve (KG) and Matthew Jarvis (MJ)

Auction action – commission an artwork

Auction action – commission an artwork, listed on eBay as ART, LIMITED EDITION, PRINT | Auction action – commission an artwork #exstrange, were transformative actions that occurred within the context of the networked performance Transformations: Actions to Matter / Matter to Actions. Transformative actions within Transformations attempt to source items for free online and then sell them online. Actions that are performed online are considered to occur within a 'virtual' or digital context. Items that are acquired as a result of actions are physically manifested in 'real' contexts. A transformation therefore occurs from 'virtual' to 'real' and then back to 'virtual' again. The internet is both a staging ground for initiating transformation as well as the final destination for the items acquired and the documentation produced

Google and Art: A commercial / cultural new media art economy?

Why is it important to know about the developments of Google and its influences on society? What bearing has this on new media art? To date new media art has been an information based art form, but not necessarily an informed one. Information has been used in various ways, background noise, continuously flowing content, as a trigger to indicate a change from one state to another yet rarely has the information been used successfully as simply the information it is due to the complexity of presentation within the tools that access it and the difficulty to separate content from presentation other than how intended. Google and Art: A commercial / cultural new media art economy? is a short article for Isea’s regular newsletter which discusses the influence Google has had on culture and how this has manifested itself in new media art, particularly net.art, in what have commonly become known as mashups. Use of content providers such as Google in this way contribute to a long running trend in contemporary art which questions the role of the artist and their relation to their audience

Net.art: beyond the browser to a world of things

In under a decade and a half, net.art has developed from an obscure to a hyped form, gaining acceptance in the institution and being absorbed into popular culture. Why net.art has become associated with the web and not networks in general is evident within the form itself. The advantages the web embodies as an arena to conceive, create and present art means the web is for artists all at once their message, medium and [web]site. This paper will identify and trace the pre-web origins of net.art to evaluate what contribution they can make to net.art’s future development beyond the browser. Within this context, Web 2.0 and more particularly the Internet of Things will be discussed as a means to enable this. Examples of progressive net.art practice will illustrate the evolution of net.art into a networked art. Previously published in French as Net Art : au-delà du navigateur… un monde d’objets in an issue of the academic journal Terminal, Technologie de L’information, culture & société (Terminal, Information Technology, Culture & Society) titled Net Art, Technologie ou Création? (Net Art, Technology or Creation) and available through Editions L’Harmattan

Remote Encounters: Connecting bodies, collapsing spaces and temporal ubiquity in networked performance

Remote Encounters: Connecting bodies, collapsing spaces and temporal ubiquity in networked performance was a two-day international conference with performance evening organised and chaired by myself at the University of South Wales on the 11th and 12th of April 2013. Its purpose was to explore the use of networks as a means to enhance or create a wide variety of performance arts. How do networks as a site for performance provide opportunities for us as artists and performers? In particular how can we remotely collaborate, merge geographically separate places and times, reconfigure the space of performance and the relationship between artist and audience? The conference was initiated as part of my research and practice on networked art and with a view to revealing performative aspects within that practice. A mixture of delegates with differing research, practice, means and economic situations, attended representing a wide variety of performance arts. Artists performing at the conference in Wales performed with others (artists and audience) in England, France, Belgium, Italy, Singapore and the United States confirming that visual forms enabled a multitude of possibilities for artists to see, synchronise, collaborate and create at distance. Papers discussed issues concerning remoteness, artist’s performance methods and technological techniques were explored in depth and the network was considered in a number of ways as an enabling or limiting technology. The journal of performance studies, Liminalities issue 10.1, is a special issue guest edited by Garrett Lynch (University of South Wales) and Rea Dennis (Deakin University). The contributions to this issue have been compiled from the preceedings of the conference Remote Encounters: Connecting Bodies, Collapsing Spaces and Temporal Ubiquity in Networked Performance

Body, Space and Time in Networked Performance

This special issue of Liminalities has been compiled from the outcomes of the conference Remote Encounters: Connecting bodies, collapsing spaces and temporal ubiquity in networked performance held at the University of South Wales on the 11th and 12th of April 2013. By providing an overview of contributions to the issue this editorial aims to both introduce networked performance to a new readership and for those already practicing in the field assemble and present the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary practice that can be considered as networked performance. Contributor's research themes, practice issues and their creative solutions are identified revealing common threads of enquiry running throughout the issue. In addition notable papers and performances from the conference that have not been included in this issue are discussed briefly

Trav—erse

The software used in the performance (RE:corder) allows the performer to explore, select and use radio frequencies creating a live composition made from noise, sounds, words, voices and far away songs, corroded by distortion. The trip across the space of frequencies becomes a voyage in physical and geographical spaces in search of those people, cultures and instruments; reusing them, creating those sounds and voices that we feel so distant, eaten by the lengths traversed by signals and by the disturbances between us and their places of origin

Exploring the networked image in ‘post’ art practices

This paper for the Journal of Media Practice / MeCCSA Practice Network Symposium titled Post-Screen Cultures/Practices on the 10/06/2016, presented four networked art practice works undertaken since 2014. The works included: - This is Real Virtuality (2014), a networked photographic and text-based performance in weblog form consisting of a first person narrative that recounts the experiences of an unnamed individual noticing colliding virtu/re-alities, that is the merging of ‘virtual’ and ‘real’ spaces, in their daily life. - We Entomb Memoir (2015), a series of process-based actions performed online with appropriated image macro generators. - Transformations: Actions to Matter / Matter to Actions (2015 – ongoing), a series of performative actions employing what is colloquial termed as the ‘free stuff’ online community. Actions are documented through screenshots and digital photographs. - Tran$actions (2015 – ongoing), a series of performative actions which employ the introductory or bonus offers provided by gambling websites as a means to create networked performance documented as screencasts. While different in subject matter, the works form a series that engages with the networked image. They can be understood as post-photographic practice and touch on post-digital and post-internet art practices. The presentation discussed strategies employed in the works that relate to image production including, reframing photography within networked contexts and image creation, manipulation and appropriation within networks. In addition the presentation explored how an image forms a key component of each work including contributing to a narrative, being the artefact produced, documenting the work in progress and/or being the only trace of the work on completion. Slides are available below or on Google Docs