..on Sat, Oct 03, 2009 at 08:59:37AM +1300, Douglas Bagnall wrote: > Damian wrote: > > > but, based on what i've seen in my travels, some of the most interesting > > creative stuff seems to be happening in and around /hack/lab spaces: the > > kind of spaces which put together, in one place, open-source enthusiasts > > who want to spread the word, and artists who are interested in working > > with new technology and want access to equipment, workshop space, or > > just a social space to hang out with other likeminded people. > > > The reason for this, Damian, is that you are a media-lab/hack-space > tourist. You find interesting stuff there because that is where you go, > so you go there again and again. You are like an appreciator of > pelicans who goes from zoo to zoo and says "all the most interesting > pelicans I see are in zoos". The argument is convenient and circular. > > In actual fact, digital artists might not be "like-minded people". They > might not be lacking in social spaces, or "equipment", or any of that, > and they might not live anywhere near the centre of a main centre. And > those who do fit this kind of collaborative tech-head profile are > already doing it. Which is good (although, as far as I can see the only > difference between one of these hackery spaces and other people's > studios and practice rooms is the presence of a website and a written > set of rules).
I don't think Damian is suggesting a hacklab as a sparkling, bustling new center for tech art practice in New Zealand, rather a positive contribution to those that /might/ find use for one. From what I've seen in Europe and elsewhere hacklabs can be depressed, selfish places or productive, generous and social places. > > so, in my mind, the best, cheapest single thing they could do is > > part-fund the formation of a hack-space or several hack-spaces, > > strategically located in major cities. in Wellington, a small space > > (Happy-sized) somewhere in the not-yet-gentrified bits around upper cuba > > or tory st, or in newtown. > > > This sounds dreadful. It also sounds like Toi Pōneke. > > The thing is Damian, this isn't a new idea. It comes round and round, > and every so often someone acts on it. A coordinator is appointed and > they immediately buy three top end Macs with just the right software for > something, and they hire a space and there's a kitchen and foosball and > a locked room for the cool macs which can be hired out for really cheap > even though nobody knows what to do with them and the kitchen becomes > grimy and somebody loses something (maybe stolen, maybe not) and nobody > comes in any more and it seems like a terrible waste until a group start > to use it for lan parties and they have fun for the final 6 months of > the lease. Or perhaps more money is pumped in and the mistake of the > old Macs is corrected by buying the latest model. Or perhaps it morphs > into an incubator, or an internet cafe, or a therapeutic workshop, or a > key sector institution that it would be somehow embarrassing to stop > funding. What you describe is a room with three unnecessarily expensive computers to rent. I don't know what to call that.. A failed business? > Perhaps the key difference between here and Madrid and Vienna is not > that we are few and poor, but that our country is just not an attractive > hub for centripetally motivated people. What, like Croatia (mi2.hr), Peru (escuelab.org), India (sarai.net floss residencies), Estonia (moks.ee) among many others? Aren't these countries "just not an attractive hub"? I meet heaps of people in my travels that tell me they'd love to go to New Zealand, that ask about medialabs or residencies there. What's unnattractive about NZ for most artists/makers is the airfare and the lobotomising travel time. Anyway, hacklabs aren't primarily for extranjeros, foreigners. They're also shared working spaces for locals to collaborate with, and distribute knowledge to, locals. Secondly Hacklab's don't have to survive forever - it's not a make-or-break thing. Better to see public money in NZ go into a project of this kind than some Shockwave Flash art on a DVD or some artist's for-sale, month-long solo-show somewhere in Ponsonby.. > Those cities draw moths like > yourself, whereas our artistic immigrants are like slaters or > cockroaches scuttering to the dampest hidden places. Without the churn > of visitors, your super-hack-space will be left with the same old people > that somebody went to school with, seeming like just another badly > implemented badly fitting cultural import. It would be better for CNZ > to let us self organise, *then* give us the money. This all sounds to me like the kind of post-colonial islander vanity that defaults to all-excusing apathy; of New Zealand being a land of geographically cursed, hard-up battlers gripped with cultural isolationism. Then you go to Peru, Brasil, Croatia or Morocco and see people making it work with far less and far more to complain about.. I don't know Douglas, I see your point but I worry that being so damning of the suggestion out-of-the-box just isn't productive. You're obviously a lot more in touch with the tech arts 'scene' (or lack thereof) there in NZ than most of us. Do you really think there just aren't enough people working within the same area, with enough personal momentum, to sustain something like a 'hacklab'? If so, why does New Zealand seemingly have less activity in this respect than countries with comparably sized yet poorer populations (Estonia or Uruguay)? Cheers, -- Julian Oliver home: New Zealand based: Berlin, Germany currently: Berlin, Germany about: http://julianoliver.com _______________________________________________ Ada_list mailing list [email protected] http://aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz/
