Hi all,Its great to read these reflections. For me Electrosmog was always going to be about the disconnections and disjunctions, as much as it was about connectivity. In Dunedin we had a 'concrete' presence for the Festival with the arrival of the Teletrust dataveil (after some really convoluted customs wrangling that I won't go into... but that epitomized a number of things about art, access, assumptions, centers and peripheries). The link up with Mart in Amsterdam to organize the technical test of the veil was a fabulous hour or two of proper networked distributed festival experience. Despite this, it was hard to describe the veil and the festival to the Dunedin audiences without being met with "is that part of the fringe festival?" A festival with a centre which is off site (but not necessarily off- centered) was always going to be a hard sell.
I too feel that the four works we 'seeded' with ADA support were some of the most interesting examples of distributed/ remote/ sustainable arts practice in the festival. The reason why is because to me they are all about presence as a methodology for connectivity... not simply being distributed for distribution's sake.
Perhaps the truth is that a festival needs a centre, no matter how distributed. And I think it is not necessary to be too critical of De Balie. I did here that they felt disappointed about the size of their 'audience' (those who were present). Reading the skype pages that made up the technical back-chat allowed a bit of an insight into where the festival was really happening. Electrosmog was always going to be a test of technical methodologies as much as it was about engaging with different content, from different locations. I gave a presentation on day one as part of the opening of the festival, and in that emphasised that the New Zealand perspective on Electrosmog was always going to be about understanding the local. This was a tactical move on our part, and meant that we did have a successful distributed festival within New Zealand.
A few other thoughts for the difficult basket: There was a serious gender imbalance in the sessions I saw.Misunderstandings are part of the territory. And we must remember that perhaps we too commit unknown and unknowing faux-pas daily. (Although asking someone to repeat a karakia has got to be a first! ouch.) There was a definite sense that everything was feeding in and out of Amsterdam, not only because of de balie being the organisers, but I think because their architecture demanded it. A lot of really good conversations seemed to be happening around their cosy tables... the screens were onlookers, wallflowers at the party... The time frame issues were seriously unresolved and unthought. This meant that we did not perform the teletrust veil 'live' but did an out- of-time real-time (for us) performance. And that many of us were presenting 'to' amsterdam from private nighttime spaces.
The next step is to think about what remains after a festival such as this one. And this is where I think our participation in Electrosmog has been an important catalyst. Zita and I will work on documentation of the access grid session. The session itself focused on getting academic researchers together with artists, a lot of interesting ideas about operating within networked research environments were mooted. (I have made some rather biased notes on my blog: http://suballard.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/access-grids-networks-and-diaspora/) Crucial for me was learning form Lloyd the Otago Technician that access grid is based on a notion of equality. The universities pay for it, but many of the technicians and operators who look after it want to see it open and used ... I see this as a step one into some really interesting possibilities for our potential use of 'large format' teleconferencing....
Also the korawiki is only just in its infancy now. This is potentially an important tool for the telling of our own histories as they relate to remote/ distributed/ networked art. I really want to develop this database. But, how... and in what way... will only come out of the material as it arrives, as it becomes documented by us as a community. This is perhaps a different kind of immobility, as we trace back through histories of practice that often fall off the radar (the old centre periphery thing again.)
. su On 22/03/2010, at 4:11 PM, Zita Joyce wrote:
Thanks for those reflections Suzon!+ for the links - I believe that the dance piece was supposed to be silent (Becca?), though I didn't realise that beforehand to make it clear on the guff about it...For Julian waka, (thank you Julian) I was quite chocked that people in Amsterdam asked to repeat it and also cut short the effort of Trudy to show photos for her presentation. (unconsistancy with Amsterdam encouragements toshow another setup than the white walls during the presentation of DistanceLab!)That's a great point - they spent a lot of time wanting to marvel over the MIT funded facilities at Distancelab while being really unable to cope with the glitches and 'imperfections' that come with genuinely experimenting with network possibilities and location over a great distance and time difference!And Trudy had put a lot of effort into preparing her presentation and photos, and she and I worked out that it was really easy to share them via the chat window in ichat - but because they didn't contact us to test everything in advance they were unprepared for it.Apart from the culural misunderstanding, (which is important to consider, organisers' check list while preparing the event should have a point about their protocol(s) and if there are any specific one(s) for participants),That's another really great point. The protocols should be clarified in advance. But that should also be covered by basic respect for the contributors! A lot could have been smoother if we had been able to actually plan it in advance, but I think the details of a lot of sessions got lost in the overall planning.the link with amsterdam people made me think about "how people perceive and understand remotness and the scale of remotness". It seems to me that there is a very personal experiential element according where you are from, where you have been physically. E.g.: countryside does not mean the same in Europeand NZ!Yes!And also it occurred to me afterwards that the other projects in that session - Distancelab in Scotland and the Arctic project were about people going to other people's spaces, which felt like a really different kind of 'local' than what we were talking about. I'm sure they are great projects but they felt imposed upon their 'local', no matter how invested the communities with which they worked really are. I'm sure I'm being unfair about them - I was tired and quite confused by then! That was another kind of disconnect for me though - there was little scope to address the things that were actually important to us.Please let us know where the documentation about the Access Grid mini-symposium will be accessible. Thanks again.yes. it might take us a short while to get that together though. best zitaCheers Suzon Australia Council for the Arts Fellow http://suzonfuks.net http://www.igneous.org.au mob:+61-404 292 119 – Tel:+61-7-3255 8355 3/27 Waverley St - Annerley QLD 4103 - Australia skype: suzonfuks On 22/03/10 10:39 AM, "Zita Joyce" <[email protected]> wrote:Dear ADASo the Electrosmog festival is over.... I'm really happy with all ofthe projects and events we organised here, and then I havereservations about the broader festival, and especially our interfacewith it. I should probably work through those more coherently before trying to say them out loud in public, but these are my initial thoughts anyway... I think we did great projects, but in the future it would be moreproductive for us to do things like this (networked festivally things)on our own terms, with more ownership of the discussion, themes, structure, aesthetic and timezones(!).This didn't end up being quite the distributed global festival I first thought, and there was an uncomfortable centre-periphery relationshipinherent in the whole thing. Mostly this is because it was initiated and coordinated by Eric Kluitenberg at De Balie in Amsterdam, and he has a lot of experience at organising big ambitious festivals. I was on the production / editorial email list, but few people on therereally contributed to the overall discussion + planning, and my focus was on trying to work out the timezone issues. It seemed like everyonewas really doing their own things, and it managed to be both toocentralised to take ownership of, and too distributed to really have acoherent focus.There were a few particularly tricky problems, mostly technical issues (ie their stream dropping out after the first day so we couldn't even watch it except in occasional bursts of quicktime), and the fact thatthe organisers in Amsterdam were juggling a huge number of contributors across different platforms and only just keeping on topof it (a pretty amazing feat it must be said). Most problematic for me were the cultural differences that became apparent - especially in the way Julian's contribution from the waka was handled in the Deep Localsession, when Eric and Gerbrand got flustered and talked over the Karakia to try to get them to stop and start it again (and then theycouldn't manage to show Trudy's photos and then I was so grumpy aboutall that I lost track of my notes and didn't say any of the things I meant to say). Culturally too perhaps, the themes themselves were hard to get a handle on from here, and most simply didn't feel relevant, to me at least... Still, some great things happened here, and we now need to make sure we have documentation of it all on the ADA website, especially: - Becca Woods' Backyard Dances (There is a recording of the video stream here: http://suzonfuks.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/backyard-public_stream.mov)- Sean Kerr's M4RI Ping Pong Pop, with Clinton Watkins, Adam Willettsand Nathan Thompson (this is a still of the visual output, but I should be able to get more documentation from De Balie - http://www.seankerr.auckland.ac.nz/PINGPONGPOP/) - The Teletrust performances coordinated by Su in Dunedin (which should be documented here - http://teletrustlab.net/)- The Access Grid mini-symposium 'What is the Perfect Network' (whichSu and I will compile documentation of this week if possible)- Julian's Waka.Wireless (http://greenbench.org/project/waka-wireless )- Trudy's great presentation to the Deep Local session Some of the projects we launched are ongoing / permanent: - The Korawiki: http://korawiki.aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz/wiki/doku.php/kora:home - Luke Munn and Sam Hamilton's lovely (with a really cool interface) Klanggang / Soundwalk: http://www.lukemunn.com/2010/02/klanggang-soundwalk.html - Helen Varley Jamieson and Vicki Smith's 'X Marks the Spot', which will develop between now and their 10/10/10 festival: http://upstage.org.nz/blog This was a huge project, and took a lot of planning and figuring outover a really long period (it's over a year now since I first met withEric in Amsterdam about it). It was a network effort, coordinated by the ADA trust electrosmog 'subcommittee' (myself, Su Ballard, and Julian Priest) with James Charlton, and a lot of input from a lot of other people.Thanks, then, to everyone who spoke, performed, organised, negotiated, commented, and generally made things happen technically, socially, andcreatively: Su Ballard Julian Priest James Charlton The Waka.Wireless crew: Mike Poa, Jonah Marinovich, Don Hunter, Te Wainuiarua Poa, Sue James The Dunedin TeleTrust team Trudy Lane Becca Wood + the Backyard Dancers (who I'm afraid I don't know the names of) Sean Kerr+ the M4RI Ping Pong Pop performers: Sean Kerr, Adam Willetts, NathanThompson, Clinton Watkins) Helen Varley Jamieson Vicki Smith Luke Munn Sam Hamilton The participants in the Access Grid 'What is the Perfect Network' session James' students who made projects responding to the themes of Electrosmog Everyone who has contributed to the Korawiki so far Everyone who listened / watched / wrote comments + responses to the list and in whatever channels were available over the weekend Stella Brennan Douglas Bagnall Honor Harger (I'm sure I'm forgetting people! my apologies if so...) best, Zita -----------------------------------------------This email may be confidential and subject to legal privilege, it maynot reflect the views of the University of Canterbury, and it is not guaranteed to be virus free. 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