Abstract (Long paper)
Keywords: Community development, community of practice, art and technology, new media art, focus group, interdisciplinary collaboration
The Pacific Northwest is a top region for innovators at the intersection of art and technology. This density of technology creatives – artists, programmers, technologists, designers, entrepreneurs – combined with the Pacific Northwest’s uniquely community-oriented zeitgeist has had a meaningful impact on the local arts community, creating fertile ground for genres of interdisciplinary, technology-mediated art. In order to help foster this growing community of artists/technologists in pushing the bounds of what is possible in their work, we organized a workshop bringing together key stakeholders in the region. The workshop was structured as a focus group including a brief questionnaire to generate feedback for how to best support this community. The unique concerns and collective agenda of this interdisciplinary group are discussed as they would apply to broader contexts.
- Shelly D. Farnham, Ph.D. is the founder and Executive Director of Third Place Technologies, Seattle, Washington, USA. She is a leading expert in community technology R&D, with over fifteen years of experience as a research scientist in world class industry research organizations including Microsoft Research and Yahoo!, and five years experience as a founder and consultant for innovative socio-technical startups. She founded Third Place Technologies to apply her recent line of work in community technologies to the non-profit sector. Learn more from her biographical statement and CV. Shelly is also an artist whose installations incorporate interactive technology, see shellydianefarnham.com for her arts portfolio.
- Jeff Brice, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, Washington, US
- Genevieve Tremblay, Cultural Entrepreneurs, Bellevue, Washington, US
- Ana Pinto da Silva, Microsoft Research, Seattle, Washington, US
Full Text (PDF) p. 64-71