Traditionally, academic conferences are structured according to very formalistic protocols that constrain access, dialogue, and participation. They tend to be hierarchically organized around speeches, papers, and other one-way modes of delivery and reception. At the same time, they are often exclusive affairs, constraining access to those privileged academics with the time and resources to travel across the world. And like traditional theater, conferences are typically situated in proscenium-style seating, in which a speaker addresses a facing audience in the one-to-many transmission of information. Even the temporal arrangement of the conference demands that the majority of time be allocated to the one-way broadcast, with scant time available for many-to-many, peer-to-peer forms of dialogue and interaction (except perhaps for the coffee breaks and meals) that empower and engage the attendee.
Reminder: Art of the Networked Practice Online Symposium
I would like to personally welcome you to the Art of the Networked Practice Online Symposium. The event begins this Thursday March 29th, with a keynote by Maria Chatzichristodoulou discussing “LIVE ART AND TELEMATICS: THE PROMISE OF INTERNATIONALISM,” followed by the debut of a new Internet performance work “ONLINE-ENSEMBLE – ENTANGLEMENT TRAINING,” directed by Annie Abrahams in collaboration with Antye Greie, Helen Varley Jamieson, Soyung Lee, Hương Ngô, Daniel Pinheiro, and Igor Stromajer. On Friday March 30th, Matt Adams will deliver his keynote “THE HERE, THE NOW, THE AUDIENCE AND THE SPECTATOR” discussing participatory media performance created by his collective Blast Theory. And on Saturday March 31st the Symposium moves to Chicago, the birthplace of dirty new media, for the debut of IGAIES (INTIMATE GLITCHES ACROSS INTERNET ERRORS), organized by Jon Cates in collaboration with Roberto Sifuentes, Arcángel Constantini, Shawné Michaelain Holloway, 愛真 Janet Lin, Paula Pinho Martins Nacif and Anam Han Sifuentes. All events are free, online and global. See the Symposium program for detailed times and information, and Preparation for the Third Space Online Symposium for how to setup and login to Adobe Connect Webconferencing to attend and participate. We hope to see you there! Randall Packer, Symposium Chair
Preparation for the Third Space Online Symposium
Next week’s Art of the Networked Practice Online Symposium (March 29-31) is an international gathering presenting emerging research, artistic work, and technological innovation in the networked arts. Intended as a global and inclusive gathering, with no registration fees, the symposium unites local and remote speakers and audiences in the third space – from all corners of the world via Webconferencing – bridging Singapore with an active international new media arts community that transcends geographic and cultural distances. The Symposium is intended to demonstrate how networked space can be used to activate live performance and online artistic work, stimulate creative dialogue, and encourage open sharing of knowledge through an online global exchange. Please continue reading for detailed instructions for setting up Adobe Connect Webconferencing as well as preparing for your participation in a socially networked third space dialogue at the Art of the Networked Practice Online Symposium.
Live Art and Telematics: The Promise of Internationalism
I invited Maria Chatzichristodoulou (AKA Maria X) to be our opening keynote speaker for the Art of the Networked Practice Online Symposium because as a performance scholar she is uniquely committed to chronicling, critiquing and contextualizing live Internet art. Her work falls well outside the radar of most critics. Chatzichristodoulou has not only written extensively about experimental performance, but she is deeply committed to engaging personally and professionally with those who are working at the bleeding edge: including Annie Abrahams and Matt Adams (co-founder of Blast Theory), both of whom we are fortunate to have as featured artists in the Symposium. For her keynote, Chatzichristodoulou will discuss the histories and current practices of the telecollaborative arts, how artists have “set out to challenge the boundaries between bodies and countries imposed by borderlands.” She will also address the difficult and thorny questions, asking: “to what extent have those practices fulfilled their aspirations to connect artists and audiences across geographical boundaries?”
igaies – intimate glitches across internet errors
We are very fortunate to present as part of the Art of the Networked Practice Online Symposium, a new Internet performance work, igaies, by internationally renowned Chicago glitch artist Jon Cates (US) and collaborators: Roberto Sifuentes (US), Arcángel Constantini (MX), Shawné Michaelain Holloway (US), 愛真 Janet Lin (US) & Paula Pinho Martins Nacif (UK) (XXXtraPrincess), and Aram Han Sifuentes (US).
On Saturday, March 31st, Day 3 of the Symposium, the event will be staged as an installation-performance at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (see Program for full details). The artists will be channeling a discourse and exposition on glitch that embraces collaboration, performance, ritual, and social media. For the online Symposium audience, their glitched aberrations and performative actions will be broadcast direct from the installation in Chicago across multiple streams and social media channels to invite a socially-participatory experience that unites local and remote viewers in the third space.
Jon Cates and collaborators are currently developing a series of multifarious and differentiated performance works that coalesce into what Cates refers to as igaies (intimate glitches across internet errors) – small miraculous mistakes, moments of beautiful brokenness – all fused together as a single improvisatory, real-time sensory overload of noise, blood, hashtags, fetishism, sexuality, memes, and #cutestuff.
Disentangling the Entanglements
Annie Abrahams has embraced the Internet as a medium for live performance for two reasons. The first, as she describes, is to “study human behaviour without interfering in it.” Annie is interested in looking at how people engage over networks, how they negotiate online social interactions, and how they might enter into creative play at a distance. The second reason seems to stem from her scientific background, stating matter of factly that “it is there and we have to understand what it is.” Annie Abrahams is one of the featured artists on the upcoming Art of the Networked Practice Online Symposium (March 29-31), where she will unveil a new performance work, “Online En-semble – Entanglement Training,” currently in preparation with her collaborators Antye Greie, Helen Varley Jamieson, Soyung Lee, Hương Ngô, Daniel Pinheiro, and Igor Stromajer.
The Participatory Act of Giving up Control
For the upcoming Art of the Networked Practice Online Symposium (March 29-31), we are presenting Matt Adams in a keynote speech entitled: The Here, the Now, the Audience and the Spectator. Co-founder of the UK artist collective Blast Theory, Matt Adams is a pioneer in pushing performance art and interactive media to the outer edge of theater experimentation and beyond. Here we take a look at one of Blast Theory’s most controversial works from the late 1990s, Kidnap, in which spectators paid £10 to enter a lottery in the hope of being kidnapped: a classic exposé on the participatory act of giving up control.
Social Broadcasting: An Unfinished Communications Revolution
Media historian and activist Gene Youngblood signaled the need for “a communications revolution… an alternative social world” that decentralizes the experience of the broadcast through the creative work of collaborative communities. This is the historical context behind this year’s Art of the Networked Practice Online Symposium, with its theme, Social Broadcasting: an Unfinished Communications Revolution.
Announcing ::: Art of the Networked Practice Online Symposium 2018
Greetings and welcome to the first in a series of dispatches from the Third Space Network for our upcoming Art of the Networked Practice Online Symposium: March 29-31, 2018. We are excited to announce the next iteration of our unique, fully online Symposium: a three-day international gathering with keynotes, new creations of Internet performance works, and global roundtable discussions all accessible and participatory via the Internet from around the world.