[-empyre-] Furtherfield: people and communities

Tue Jul 20 10:51:19 EST 2010

Hi Simon,

>>"We are the medium - the context - the source of networked
creativity"...questions of agency...
“...how Furtherfield considers individual and collective activities as
the medium for networked creativity?”<<

A while back we created a map that attempted to illustrate the
relationship between different activities, ideas and people in our
shared neighbourhood. The map has two states: 1) flat map-
http://tinyurl.com/349eook 2) dynamic and relational map
http://tinyurl.com/32js5mj

The medium is the people, the environment, the complex networks that we
all engage and the interfaces that mediate our interactions. Imaginative
and critical approaches informed by a grass roots perspective are
neither technologically determined nor do they serve institutional,
theoretical and art historical values (although these things play an
important part). Instead, people (artists) challenge, hack and reimagine
or reshape given interfaces to create our own imaginative contexts on
our own terms. We claim the medium, we are the medium.

I would like to point to two more images (choosing 2 from so many isn't
easy) that still inform our work with networks.

Firstly, http://tinyurl.com/32ooymm the graphic invitation to join in
with the first DIWO (Do It With Others) E-Mail Art exhibition. It
represents a category-jumping network of actors: groups, a philosopher,
an emoticon, a couple, devices, connecting materials, visual analogies
(the tuft of grass- for grassroots) the speaking dildo (to acknowledge
the material effect of sexuality on the life of the Internet) etc etc.

Secondly, this familiar image http://tinyurl.com/39lndq3 by Paul Baran
illustrating three different communication network topologies from “On
Distributed Communications: 1. Introduction to Distributed
Communications Network" 

The centralised network represents the broadcast model in which an
authorised source provides information (in broadcast models the
information goes one way from the centre to the surrounding nodes).
Internet and www topology can be understood as combining the
decentralised and distributed networks in which all nodes have the
potential to both transmit and receive. All nodes are accessible by all
nodes and new nodes (people, machines, programmes, content) can always
be added. This is an open, scale-free network which maintains
connectivity regardless of the number of nodes added. 

We all know now that the high levels of connectivity promoted by
networked thinking and action have the potential to be exceedingly
generative; releasing energy and ideas by allowing us to connect across
distances and differences. Obviously these networked environments have
appeared to offer boundless possibilities, freedoms and new orders of
productivity. This is what lies behind the reification of digital
creativity by politicians and economists. Ironically many arts
organisations survive on the surplus dreams of this promise of a new
route to unlimited economic growth. However we all sense the risk that
all of this generative, networked creativity might so excite and
overwhelm people that they forget to exercise their ethical muscles and
explore their agency as individuals and societies within the networks. I
was recently at an excellent symposium set up by Access Space in
collaboration with Sheffield Hallam University to interrogate some of
the assumptions behind the current Digital Inclusion agendas, at which
one of the delegates declared productivity as the new enemy of society.
I think she has a point. 

We are not interested productivity for productivity's sake. More the
kind of work and processes that pay attention to the social contexts in
which they operate and create the potential for conscious micro or macro
social change. 

best things
Ruth

-----Original Message-----
From: Simon Biggs <s.biggs at eca.ac.uk>
To: ruth.catlow at furtherfield.org, soft_skinned_space
<empyre at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Furtherfield: people and communities
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:43:57 +0100

Hi Ruth

Thanks for such a detailed and succinct outline of Furtherfield's range of
inspiring activities.

I came across the following quote on the Furtherfield website:

"We are the medium - the context - the source of networked creativity"

I find this a fascinating statement, especially if we conflate Sean's
comment of last week on mediation and some of the discussion on agency.

Would you care to comment on how Furtherfield considers individual and
collective activities as the medium for networked creativity? This seems an
important concept that could shift the ontological debate...

Best

Simon

Simon Biggs
s.biggs at eca.ac.uk  simon at littlepig.org.uk
Skype: simonbiggsuk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk/

Research Professor  edinburgh college of art
http://www.eca.ac.uk/
Creative Interdisciplinary Research into CoLlaborative Environments
http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice
http://www.elmcip.net/
Centre for Film, Performance and Media Arts
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/film-performance-media-arts

> From: Ruth Catlow <ruth.catlow at furtherfield.org>
> Reply-To: <ruth.catlow at furtherfield.org>, soft_skinned_space
> <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 11:22:53 +0100
> To: <empyre at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Subject: [-empyre-] Furtherfield: people and communities
> 
> Hi Folks,
> 
> Thanks Simon for the introduction and the invitation to talk about
> Furtherfield. 
> 
> So here goes, casting my raft onto the white-water rapids of last week's
> discussion; )
> 
> We have been asked to discuss how creativity can enable people and
> communities through the examples of our own practices and activities. I
> am  really chuffed to be invited to talk about Furtherfield and will
> start with a disclaimer. Furtherfield is made up of many different
> people and voices so I should make it clear that I am speaking from my
> own perspective. Others have different experiences.
> 
> In our work with Furtherfield we believe that people are inspired and
> enabled to become active co-creators of their cultures and societies
> through creative and critical engagement with practices in art and
> technology. This connects very strongly to the ideas of agency that were
> under discussion last week.
> 
> Marc Garrett and myself started Furtherfield 1996-7 and since then we
> have been working  with a community of artists, programmers, writers,
> curators and hackers (mixing up experts and beginners) from around the
> world. Together with this community we have developed a neighbourhood of
> platforms (online and offline) for creating, viewing, discussing and
> learning about practices at the intersections of art, technology and
> social change. Our approach has always reflected the DIY
> ethos that came from Marc's earlier work, social hacking with pirate
> radio, bulletin boards (BBS) and both of our work using the streets as a
> site for artistic intervention.
> 
> I would like to start by pointing to a number of artistic projects.
> First with a couple of online platforms and then in a couple of days I
> will highlight a number of gallery, publishing and community-based
> projects.
>         
> In addition to www.furtherfield.org which features reviews, artists'
> projects, interviews and articles, we run the Netbehaviour email list
> www.netbehaviour.org for sharing and actively evolving critical
> approaches, methods and ideas around contemporary networked media arts
> practice. Although our list is much less structured and more informal
> than Empyre it does generate rigorous debate; people post the things
> that inform their thinking and artmaking, they exchange and comment on
> their work and it is often used as a platform for collaborative work.
> 
> Most notably the list has hosted two iterations of DIWO (Do It With
> Others) E- Mail art projects which combine email exchanges (and
> therefore highspeed collaboration-with people and machines) with the
> traditional snailmail correspondence of Mail Art projects
> http://www.tinyurl.com/34so3kg ; the Ada Lovelace Day which gathered
> together a list of inspiring women working with art and technology
> http://www.furtherfield.org/ada_lovelace.php and catching my attention
> at the moment is Karen Blissett, a long running contributor who has just
> gone multiple by sharing her email password with people she trusts
> inviting them to speak and act as her http://tinyurl.com/395fyna . The
> people who contribute to this list are really fascinated by critical art
> that is enabled and inspired by digital networks.
> 
> Secondly I'd like to point you towards VisitorsStudio,
> http://www.visitorsstudio.org/x.html a platform for browser-based
> realtime collaborative audiovisual remix. Neil Jenkins (another core
> member of the team) created it with us in 2003 as a place where people
> could get their hands dirty and learn how to mix and remix media in a
> social space. It uses perl and server sockets to create the realtime
> interaction with a flash interface (we are working towards a FOSS
> alternative).
> Rather than trying to describe it I recommend that people who are
> interested log in and play.
> 
> This platform is used both playfully and purposefully. The Furthernoise
> crew http://furthernoise.org ran a whole series of internet radio
> programmes called 'Radio You Can Watch' that featured noise explorations
> accompanied by live mixes in VisitorsStudio with invited artists. It has
> also been used to develop collaborative art-polemic in performance
> marathons like DissensionConvention. Live mix performances can
> accommodate online heckling and be screened in public spaces to provoke
> discussion and general rowdiness.
> http://www.furtherfield.org/dissensionconvention/
> 
> A bit later in the week I would like to talk about how we have worked to
> engage different audiences at HTTP Gallery http://http.uk.net.
> 
> I will also introduce an ongoing project, that addresses art, technology
> and the environment, Zero Dollar Laptop that we are developing in
> partnership with Access Space as part of our Media Art Ecologies
> programme. http://www.furtherfield.org/zerodollarlaptop/
> 
> Look forward to making connections with conversations that have gone
> before. Also to reading about the work that Magnus is involved in.
> 
> cheers
> Ruth
> 
> 
> 
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