[ISEA2011] Panel: Char­lotte Frost (moderator) – Share Workers: The Techniques and Meanings of Sustainable Digital Networking (Open Discussion)

Panel Statement

Chair Per­son: Char­lotte Frost
Pre­sen­ters: Brid­get McKen­zie, Jack Hutchin­son, Dougald Hine, Mar­cus Romer & Ruth Cat­low

The in­for­ma­tion shar­ing abil­i­ties of the in­ter­net has vastly ex­tended a pre-ex­ist­ing ca­pac­ity among artists to com­mu­ni­cate with each other about their work and lifestyles. With the ar­rival of so­cial media and the wave of in­ter­net use known as Web 2.0, the abil­ity to share has grown ex­po­nen­tially, be­com­ing a sub­ject in and of it­self, and gen­er­at­ing ex­perts in the tech­niques and mean­ings of shar­ing. And now, eco­nomic down-turn and dras­tic cuts to fund­ing, these free net­works have be­come in­valu­able for help­ing peo­ple sus­tain their prac­tice. This panel brings to­gether a set of ex­perts in the prac­ti­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal use of dig­i­tal net­works and in­fra­struc­tures for shar­ing. Work­ing across a range of areas from vi­sual art to music, per­for­mance and be­yond, they are united by their use of col­lab­o­ra­tive dig­i­tal tools and dri­ven by their propen­sity for pos­i­tive so­cial change. From con­sol­i­dat­ing con­nec­tions be­tween artists and arts pol­icy-mak­ers to rewiring our ed­u­ca­tional and eco­nomic cir­cuitry, this panel has col­lec­tively de­vel­oped a wealth of skills for reach­ing out to oth­ers through tech­nol­ogy. After an in­tro­duc­tion from the panel chair, par­tic­i­pants will each be given ten min­utes to de­scribe the pro­jects and prac­tices that com­prise their ‘share work’. Fol­low­ing this, the chair will ques­tion them on the in­tri­ca­cies of what they do as well as its im­pact on the wider art world – a field not nor­mally known for its in­clu­sive­ness. As a group they will un­pack suc­cess­ful mod­els (along­side some of the in­evitable ob­sta­cles) to ‘share work­ing’, ad­dress­ing both the very prac­ti­cal – as well as some of the philo­soph­i­cal – im­pli­ca­tions of open­ness in an ad­vanced in­for­ma­tion age.

  • Dr. Char­lotte Frost is a writer and aca­d­e­mic fo­cus­ing on art’s re­la­tion­ship with tech­nol­ogy. Pro­duc­ing re­views and dis­cus­sion on Dig­i­tal/New Media art for more than ten years, she has worked on­line and off with a va­ri­ety of key or­gan­i­sa­tions in­clud­ing Fur­ther­field, Rhi­zome and a-n, where she writes a reg­u­lar col­umn. She is founder and ed­i­tor of the re­search pro­ject and aca­d­e­mic book se­ries, Arts Fu­ture Book, which looks at how dig­i­tal cre­ativ­ity chal­lenges the form and con­tent of the art his­tory/crit­i­cism/the­ory book. She is writ­ing her first book, Art His­tory On­line: Mail­ing Lists, Dig­i­tal Fo­rums and the Fu­ture of Crit­i­cism, which comes out in 2012. A mem­ber of the CAA Com­mit­tee on In­tel­lec­tual Prop­erty she is also the founder of PhD2Pub­lished, a web re­source of­fer­ing aca­d­e­mic book pub­lish­ing ad­vice to early-ca­reer aca­d­e­mics. She will be the 2011-2012 In­ter­na­tional Post-Doc­toral Fel­low at the Cen­ter for 21st Cen­tury Stud­ies at the Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin-Mil­wau­kee.
  • Brid­get McKen­zie has 20 years ex­pe­ri­ence in de­liv­er­ing in­no­v­a­tive ed­u­ca­tion in mu­se­ums, gal­leries and li­braries. Her cur­rent po­si­tion is found­ing di­rec­tor of Flow As­so­ci­ates, a cul­tural con­sul­tancy based in Lon­don and Delhi. Be­fore es­tab­lish­ing Flow in 2006, Brid­get held the post of Head of Learn­ing at the British Li­brary where she im­ple­mented a new learn­ing strat­egy based on cre­ative en­quiry. Pre­vi­ous roles in­clude Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer for Tate (1993–1998), lead con­sul­tant for the Clore Duffield Art­works na­tional art ed­u­ca­tion awards and first co-or­di­na­tor of widen­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion for the Uni­ver­sity of the Arts Lon­don. Brid­get is re­garded as a lead­ing thinker on the links be­tween learn­ing, cul­ture, ecol­ogy and tech­nol­ogy. She writes and speaks on how cul­tural or­gan­i­sa­tions can tackle the eco­log­i­cal cri­sis and is co-au­thor of The Happy Mu­seum, a new pro­ject on well­be­ing and mu­se­ums in the con­text of re­source scarcity.  about.me/BridgetMcKenzie  flowassociates.com  ecoch.wordpress.com bridgetmckenzie.wordpress.com  flickr.com/photos/bridgetmckenz  happymuseumproject.org/museums-for-the-future-toolkit
  • Jack Hutchin­son is an artist, writer and ed­u­ca­tor. A spe­cial­ist on the role of dig­i­tal tech­nol­ogy within the vi­sual arts, he is Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Co­or­di­na­tor for AIR: Artists In­ter­ac­tion and Rep­re­sen­ta­tion through a-n The Artists In­for­ma­tion Com­pany. His writ­ing has fea­tured in a di­verse range of pub­li­ca­tions, in­clud­ing Dazed and Con­fused, Garage­land, An­Other Man, Twin Mag­a­zine, a-n Mag­a­zine and Schweizer Kunst. He is an ac­tive cam­paigner for artis­tic, leg­isla­tive and eco­nomic mea­sures that en­hance artists’ work­ing lives and pro­fes­sional sta­tus. Hutchin­son is also fa­cil­i­ta­tor of the AIR Ac­tivists net­work – ac­tive mem­bers of AIR re­cruited to proac­tively con­tribute to rais­ing the pro­file and widen­ing recog­ni­tion of artists. He has ex­hib­ited across the UK and is also a vis­it­ing lec­turer at a range of HE in­sti­tu­tions in Eng­land.
  • Dougald Hine is a writer and so­cial ac­ti­va­tor, the founder of Space Mak­ers Agency and co-founder of School of Every­thing, the Dark Moun­tain Pro­ject and the In­sti­tute for Col­lap­so­nom­ics. He is cur­rently work­ing on a pro­ject to cre­ate a new kind of uni­ver­sity, based in cen­tral Lon­don. He is also work­ing on a book about “First Life” and “the age of net­worked dis­rup­tion”.
  • Mar­cus Romer is the Artis­tic Di­rec­tor of Pilot The­atre, based at York The­atre Royal. He adapted and di­rected Look­ing for JJ, by Anne Cas­sidy, which won the TMA award for best pro­duc­tion in 2008. His pro­duc­tion of Lord of the Flies for Pilot The­atre has had five na­tional UK tours and re­ceived a TMA award nom­i­na­tion and won a Man­ches­ter Evening News award. His pro­duc­tion of  Beau­ti­ful Thing won two Man­ches­ter Evening News Awards in 2005. He is also a pub­lished play­wright and he adapted and di­rected the world pre­miere of cult clas­sic Rum­ble Fish. He adapted Blood­tide by Melvin Burgess, Look­ing for JJ by Anne Cas­sidy, and Fun­gus the Bo­gey­man, by Ray­mond Briggs. He is cur­rently work­ing on the screen­play for ‘The Knife That Killed Me’ . This will be a new fea­ture film for Uni­ver­sal Pic­tures. He cre­ated the open­ing event at the 2007 IIFA Bol­ly­wood Os­cars at Sheffield Arena, for a live TV au­di­ence of 500 mil­lion. He has at­tended TED twice and set up and led the Shift Hap­pens Con­fer­ences.
  • Ruth Cat­low is an artist and cu­ra­tor work­ing at the in­ter­sec­tion of art, tech­nol­ogy and so­cial change. As co-founder, with Marc Gar­rett, of Fur­ther­field a grass roots media arts or­gan­i­sa­tion, on­line com­mu­nity and gallery (for­merly HTTP Gallery) in North Lon­don, she works with in­ter­na­tional artists, hack­ers, cu­ra­tors, mu­si­cians, pro­gram­mers, writ­ers, ac­tivists and thinkers. Her cur­rent focus is on prac­tices that en­gage an eco­log­i­cal ap­proach with an in­ter­est in the in­ter­re­la­tion of tech­no­log­i­cal and nat­ural processes.  Ruth has been in­volved with de­vel­op­ing net­worked par­tic­i­pa­tory arts in­fra­struc­tures such as Vis­i­torsStu­dio and NODE.?London. She is cur­rently de­vel­op­ing a new part­ner­ship ini­tia­tive with Fur­ther­field and Drake Music draw­ing on ex­ist­ing knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence and emerg­ing mod­els of peer to peer or­gan­i­sa­tion and pro­duc­tion. Ruth has worked in Higher Ed­u­ca­tion for over 15 years and is cur­rently run­ning de­grees in Dig­i­tal Art and De­sign Prac­tice and de­vel­op­ing a new MA in Fine Art and En­vi­ron­ment at Writ­tle School of De­sign. furtherfield.org