there are quite a lot of sites out there that act as digital hubs for nz artists, from the big idea to pages of links such as zeroland or the @url arts links pages which have been around for more than 10 years now; & there are a whole lot of other discipline specific sites as well, such as our own ADA site, non-digital arts sites like playmarket & danz that link to artists' sites, online visual art galleries like TART, specific project sites such as SCANZ, etc. most of these sites are pretty findable. sure, search enginge optimisation can be improved - but so can the skills of those doing the searching ; )
& there's always been (some) help for artists to get online; back in 1994 i organised a workshop in wellington for artists to learn how to make their own web site (with tutors including richard naylor, david merrit & raewyn whyte) & more recently a couple of years ago i gave an e-marketing workshop at a weekend long artists' retreat organised by nelson arts marketing. i had about 40 artists there - mainly visual artists - some of whom had quite sophisticated web sites already with e-commerce & everything, but also many who had nothing yet. but they were all really hungry to find out. these are just 2 examples, there must be other opportunities like this - or take a nightclass, if you don't have a friend/family member who can help. hosting is the least of the cost these days, & as others have said, a web presence isn't the sole key to getting known internationally. there are plenty of nz artists - digital & not - with established careers internationally (many of the present company included). there's no formula to follow, it's a combination of ideas, talent, getting out there & a bit of luck as well. at the end of the day it's about making really good work. h : ) Luke Munn wrote: > While I won't debate the other points I do agree with Damian regarding > the visibility issue of NZ artists, net artists, creatives, whatever > label you'd like. As a former Online curator searching for new content > to show, finding local content was extremely difficult. Searching > Google with terms was daunting - TradeMe results, PDFs, and > governmental notes would come up before anything of relevance. I > learned to find artist sites instead by obscure links from other > artist pages. > > Hence the reasoning for a digital arts hub site (window.org.nz), which > was successful in gaining visitors internationally, but less so in > gathering together local shows, work, and artists into a community (or > at least community noticeboard area, to use a less emotive term). So I > still think a digital hub in some form would be a very useful idea. > > >From my perspective, it's less about having a website (free hosting > and content management via Blogger or Google Pages gets you a site in > literally 5 minutes), and more about allowing it to be found. Perhaps > a crash course in 'optimising your site for Google' would turn the > search engine into a hub instead of a more traditional Yahoo portal > type approach. > > I also believe it creates something of a Catch 22 situation, where > this visibility issue creates a lower profile for the digital space in > general, which in term keeps the amount of work lower and frustrates > artists experimenting with the medium for the first time. > > Cheers, > Luke Munn > http://www.werkhaus.co.nz/ > http://www.myspace.com/theribbonmusic > > > -- ____________________________________________________________ helen varley jamieson: creative catalyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.creative-catalyst.com http://www.avatarbodycollision.org http://www.upstage.org.nz http://www.writerfind.com/hjamieson.htm ____________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Ada_list mailing list [email protected] http://aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz/
