Reframing Innovation: Art, the Maker Movement and Critique

This paper outlines five presentations delivered by invited panelists during Reframing Innovation: Art, the Maker Movement and Critique, our New Media Caucus affiliated panel at the CAA Conference, February 2019, New York City. The panel developed fromourco-edited volume, Art Hack Practice(forthcoming, Routledge) which investigates global art hacking practices employed by individuals and groups who are working within, around or against the phenomenon known as ‘maker culture’ as artists, designers, curators and historians. Each presentation offers a distinct account of contemporary art practices that reveal the many manifestations, characteristics and dialogs around current art hacking practices. By publishing these talks here, we aim to provide readers with new insights into projects that challenge perceived distinctions between sites of artistic and economic production by brokering new, direct ways of working between them, thereby challenging traditional understandings of the role and place of the art in societ

One Cell At A Time, public engagement project for Human Cell Atlas, led by Wellcome Sanger Institute. Funded by Wellcome Trust

One Cell At A Time, funded by Wellcome Trust, with the Human Cell Atlas (HCA) initiative, a pioneering, multidisciplinary global research project involving over 2,200 researchers from 80+ countries. HCA aims to map the function of every cell type in the human body, paving the way for new understanding and treatment of disease. The ambitious two-year programme of cross-sector public engagement activities aimed to improve the value and trust people place in scientific research, with a consequent impact on public willingness to donate tissue for research and share their data for research. Project managed four teams (Cambridge, London, Oxford and Newcastle) to deliver 13 x art-science participatory artworks, creative learning projects and an international online discussions series entitled ArtSci Salons, culminating in an online exhibition featuring interactive and time-based, interactive media, including augmented reality (AR), film, screendance, poetry, sound art, visualised databases, text and animation, Situated at the nexus of art and science, One Cell At A Time proved to be a powerful opportunity to catalyse new thinking, knowledge and ways of working between artists, scientists and diverse communities located across four areas of England: Newcastle, London, Cambridge and Oxford

To Fit the New Art: 7 years of the Curating Art After New Media Curators’ Updating Course

This publication is the celebration of a work-in-progress: the professional updating short course for international curators, Curating Art After New Media. As the course has been based on the generosity of many curators sharing their knowledge, the intent of this publication is to further share emerging new media art practices, and to discuss how curators can best fit their practices, so that audiences can engage with this exciting art. The one-week annual course ran in London 2014-20, and for obvious reasons, 2021 took the form of an online reprise. The course was instigated by Sarah Cook and Beryl Graham of CRUMB at the University of Sunderland, and was originally an off-campus section of the MA Curating course, also available to international curators. PhD students from the University also co-programmed the course each year. Course attendees have included curators and researchers from Hong Kong, Bahrain, India, the USA, Canada, Austria, the Netherlands, Greece, Ireland, France, and the UK, and have directly fed into impressive subsequent curatorial practice and projects. The organisations that we visited in London targeted a broad range of scales (Tate, Furtherfield), disciplines (Wellcome Collection, Iniva), and sectors (MachinesRoom, The Open Data Institute (ODI)). This strategy aimed to reflect the tendency of new media to cross many boundaries, where curators must also follow. This ongoing process is reflected in the nature of the document, i.e. this is more of a collection of notes and reflections on a currently developing field than an academic closed position. By making the publication available as a free PDF, we hope to continue to get feedback and comments, which will build upon this knowledge

CRUMB doctoral research: reflections on creating and exhibiting digital art.

Based on doctoral research undertaken at CRUMB, the online resource for curators of media arts, this paper gathers together knowledge from different experiences of producing and presenting digital arts, from the perspectives of both curators/producers and artists. Suzy O’Hara reflects on art, technology, and the commercial digital sector, Marialaura Ghidini discusses hybrid models of offline and online curating, Dominic Smith writes about models of open source production compared to participative systems in new media art, Victoria Bradbury investigates the performativity of code, and Roddy Hunter identifies curatorial models of practice that articulate the principles of The Eternal Network

CRUMB doctoral research: reflections on creating and exhibiting digital art.

Based on doctoral research undertaken at CRUMB, the online resource for curators of media arts, this paper gathers together knowledge from different experiences of producing and presenting digital arts, from the perspectives of both curators/producers and artists. Suzy O’Hara reflects on art, technology, and the commercial digital sector, Marialaura Ghidini discusses hybrid models of offline and online curating, Dominic Smith writes about models of open source production compared to participative systems in new media art, Victoria Bradbury investigates the performativity of code, and Roddy Hunter identifies curatorial models of practice that articulate the principles of The Eternal Network

To Fit the New Art: 7 years of the Curating Art After New Media Curators’ Updating Course

This publication is the celebration of a work-in-progress: the professional updating short course for international curators, Curating Art After New Media. As the course has been based on the generosity of many curators sharing their knowledge, the intent of this publication is to further share emerging new media art practices, and to discuss how curators can best fit their practices, so that audiences can engage with this exciting art. The one-week annual course ran in London 2014-20, and for obvious reasons, 2021 took the form of an online reprise. The course was instigated by Sarah Cook and Beryl Graham of CRUMB at the University of Sunderland, and was originally an off-campus section of the MA Curating course, also available to international curators. PhD students from the University also co-programmed the course each year. Course attendees have included curators and researchers from Hong Kong, Bahrain, India, the USA, Canada, Austria, the Netherlands, Greece, Ireland, France, and the UK, and have directly fed into impressive subsequent curatorial practice and projects. The organisations that we visited in London targeted a broad range of scales (Tate, Furtherfield), disciplines (Wellcome Collection, Iniva), and sectors (MachinesRoom, The Open Data Institute (ODI)). This strategy aimed to reflect the tendency of new media to cross many boundaries, where curators must also follow. This ongoing process is reflected in the nature of the document, i.e. this is more of a collection of notes and reflections on a currently developing field than an academic closed position. By making the publication available as a free PDF, we hope to continue to get feedback and comments, which will build upon this knowledge

Little Inventors: From Artistic Method to Global Brand

Little Inventors inspires and encourages children to build creative confidence and develop a lifelong passion for creativity, problem-solving and imaginative play through invention. We fuse the limitless imagination of children with professional ‘“making’’ practices drawn from the arts, industry and the DIY Maker Movement, showcasing children’s ideas in physical and online exhibitions globally. In this chapter, I will analyse the context, drivers and trajectory of two distinct Little Inventors projects, INVENTORS! and Little Miss Inventor Challenge, via the lens of the inventions that have been imagined by our little inventors and turned into real objects by our Magnificent Makers. In so doing, I hope to offer some insights into how and why we do what we do and what we have learnt so far

Art Hack Practice: Critical Intersections of Art, Innovation and the Maker Movement Vorspiel 2020

Panel Description Art Hack Practice: Critical Intersections of Art, Innovation and the Maker Movement Art hacking is a term that seeks to describe how pervasive technologies continue to disrupt traditional and hierarchical boundaries between the arts, innovation and society. As hacking, DIY and making culture continues to shape both cultural and corporate agendas, and policy, artists and curators working within these contexts are developing new working practices, and value systems that respond to the modalities of interdisciplinary creative practice. In their new book “Art Hack Practice: Critical Intersections of Art, Innovation and the Maker Movement” Bradbury and O’ Hara have brought together twenty-six international authors who situate artists working within maker culture at the front and centre, rather than existing on the fringe of serious art, design and innovation practices. This panel will explore the ways in which artists and curators are exploring the tensions between territories, disciplines and sectors by brokering new ways of working between them. The panel will be facilitated by Dr. Suzy O’ Hara co-editor of Art Hack Practice: Critical Intersections of Art, Innovation and the Maker Movement. Participants: Nora O’Murchu (IE), Jasmin Grimm (DE), Yidi Tsao (DE/HK) Facilitator: Dr Suzy O’Hara (IE/UK) Panelists Jasmin Grimm is a curator, lecturer and creative producer for international cultural projects. With a background in ‘Communication in Social and Economic contexts’ (M.A., University of the Arts Berlin) she develops programmes such as workshops, conferences and exhibitions at the intersection of art, society and technology. She recently co-founded Rosy DX - a studio for digital transformation. Amongst others she has been curating programmes for NRW Forum, Retune Festival, die digitale, TINCON and is re:publica programme advisors Arts & Culture since 2017. www.jasmingrimm.com TSAO Yidi is transdisciplinary artist, curator and writer who lives and works in Berlin. Her artistic and curatorial practice focuses on dissecting contemporary human mind and existence, exploring the boundary between fiction and reality, while contributing to the future of storytelling with art, emerging technologies and speculative narratives for community building and social innovation, working with a diverse range of media through texts, codes, photography, video, installation, performance and happening, etc. Yidi is an advocate of free-culture movement and is involved in the hacker/maker scene for its technology-based innovation in a spirit of playfulness and exploration. At the moment, she is working on creating immersive environments that can be staged outside established art institutions to diversity and democratise participation in art. Yidi received her BA in English Language and Literature with a minor in Visual Arts from Hong Kong Baptist University and MA in Creative Media with Distinction from School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. www.tsaoyidi.com Nora O Murchú is a curator & researcher, whose multidisciplinary practice embraces narratives, and fictions and results in objects, exhibitions, and interventions. She has curated exhibitions and events for institutions including Akademie Schloss Solitude, LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, The Science Gallery, and ZKM Karlsruhe. Notable exhibitions included Coded After Lovelace at Whitebox Gallery in New York and Land/Sea/Signal at Rua Red in Dublin. She has held positions as a research associate for the Interaction Design Centre at the University of Limerick, the Interaction Research Studio at Goldsmiths, and CRUMB at the University of Sunderland. Her research on the impact of technology on curating has been published at Goldsmiths Press, Taylor & Francis and Springer. She currently serves as a lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems at the University of Limerick in Ireland. www.noraomurchu.co

Apr Kelas Seni Rupa - Curating Art After New Media Professional Short Course. Jakarta, Indonesia

ARCOLABS and Komunitas Salihara delivered XPLORE: New Media Art Incubation workshop program in April 2021 to a cohort of 12 new media art curators. This program is a response to increasing interest and demand for new media art exhibitions, but it is often not matched by opportunities for curators. to study and discuss new media art literacy. The program will also discuss possible forms of exhibition that have changed drastically due to the pandemic and will require a new curatorial approach. As the first curatorial workshop for new media arts in Indonesia, this program is taught by one of the leading academics and curator of new media arts, Beryl Graham (UK), as the main lecturer, supported by international (Suzy O'Hara) and Indonesian curators

Little Inventors - Thinking Like a Child - Professional Development Workshop

Creativity has been identified as one of most important characteristic/qualities needed within our burgeoning Creative Economy. It is now generally accepted that the ability to think and act in creative ways is a key driver for innovation, the catalyst for competitive advantage, and the golden fleece for a thriving workforce. Little Inventor’s Thinking Like a Child workshop will explore a range of “invention thinking” methods and resources for problem/challenge identification and imaginative solution finding techniques, providing a novel viewpoints and processes for enhancing professional creativity. Participants will be provided with an opportunity to consider how creative ideation and inventive thinking can catalyse professionals innate sense of human creativity and explore the powerful impact that imaginative, inventive play can have on their current roles