New Media Curation:
a novel methodology with preliminary criteria for exhibiting new media and interactive art
Deborah Jane Turnbull Tillman
A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
School of Art, Design & Media
Faculty of Art & Design
5 September 2018
PLEASE TYPE THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
Thesis/Dissertation Sheet Surname or Family name: Tillman
First name: Deborah Other name/s: Jane Turnbull
Abbreviation for degree as given in the University calendar: PhD
School: Art, Design and Media Faculty: Art and Design
Title: New Media Curation: a novel methodology with preliminary criteria for exhibiting new media and interactive art
Abstract 350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE) This PhD thesis responds to a call from curators to modify the way responsive art is designed, exhibited and experienced, in order to learn from and be transformed by this process of change. How we are transformed, and how we describe that transformation through discursive language becomes apparent, particularly regarding the variables of disruption and authenticity as introduced into new exhibitions for analysis. I have worked in practice-based research roles, producing and exhibiting interactive art for the last 10 years as Director of the research initiative New Media Curation (NMC) and for 2 years as Assistant Curator in Design and Technology at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. Stuck in a cycle of producing and exhibiting, the opportunity to reflect on and reframe my practice arose in listening and responding to various calls for reform to practice from my contemporaries.
This study tracks emerging and established artists’ processes from studio to exhibition. I will reflect on their place in my curatorial process under the NMC banner to establish an arena of practice-based research in experimental public spaces using an NMC Methodology. This methodology is then tested and reworked in a bricolage approach through three curated interventions over the course of the PhD. The first, Denoéument, was part of VIVID 2015’s Musify+Gamify (highlighting the process of emergent practitioners, students at UNSW Art & Design). The Methodology is then reflected on and the processes modified in a case study for Curator-as-Producer role for ISEA2015: disruption. The final case study allows for any changes in audience experience to emerge and be recorded in the voices of fellow curators who experienced the exhibition and are already contributing to the discussion on curating interactive art. This exhibition is titled Re/Pair and took place as a closing event for The Big Anxiety Festival at UNSW Art & Design in November 2017.
The outcomes consist of a new model featuring criteria for curating interactive art in public spaces (festivals) with a focus on disruptive practices and authentic audience experience. These criteria emerge from the data collected and reflected on in the case studies from all key participants in the making and experiencing of Interactive Art, namely artists, curators and audiences. This lends to and changes the traditional curatorial task of establishing criteria and authenticity from provenance to reflecting on what criteria emerge from authentic experience design. The result of this reworking of NMC’s practice-based research methodologies is to provide preliminary criteria and a novel approach for curating new media art.
Declaration relating to disposition of project thesis/dissertation
I hereby grant to the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all property rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation.
I also authorise University Microfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my thesis in Dissertation Abstracts International (this is applicable to doctoral theses only).
………… ………… …… …………… 5 Sept 2018 Signature Witness Signature Date
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2 ORIGINALITY STATEMENT
‘I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project's design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.’
Signed
Date ……18 September 2018………………………………………......
3 Acknowledgements
As shown within these pages, no creative work is accomplished on one’s own. I owe many people a debt of gratitude for their contributions to my doctoral research, but also to those who helped me grow New Media Curation by supporting me as a curator, and NMC as both a small business and a research platform.
For the latter, the two people who initially encouraged me the most in the New Media Curation endeavour were Ian Gwilt and Aram Dulyan, thank you for pushing me so hard to get started, gentlemen. To those that encouraged me with projects, publications, conversations, and inspiration, a huge thank you to Ernest Edmonds, Linda Candy, Lizzie Muller, Matthew Connell, Norie Neumark & Maria Miranda, Martin Tomisch, Hank Haeusler, Lian Loke, Ollie Bown, Rob Saunders and Andy Dong. You helped me grow as a curator through your continued support of New Media Curation, and for this I am very appreciative.
For the former, to the people who helped me shape my formal research during this degree, I am forever grateful to Petra Gemeinboeck, Mari Velonaki and Alex Davies. You have supported me in my exploration from five ideas down to one; thank you for your patience, your honesty, your resources, your thesis edits, and even your names alongside mine in publications. Such generosity and investment of time in a PhD candidate is envied by many of my contemporaries. Likewise, to my colleagues at the Creative Robotics Lab, David Rye, David Silvera-Tawil, Scott Brown, Belinda Dunstan, Mike Gratton, Tim Wiley and Jorge Forseck; thank you for working with me for the last few and rather intense years, whether it be feedback on APRs, interviews or edits to papers, ideation, collation and analysis of data, testing our ideas through teaching or helping out my students; what a team. I have felt very lucky to be able to contribute to and benefit from this lab environment over the course of my PhD.
To those that participated in supporting my Case Studies, I am very grateful for your experimental spirit. For Denouément, a huge thank you to Ollie Bown and Lian Loke who curated Musify+Gamify and let me intervene into and disrupt their audiences’ experience in the name of research. A big thank you as well to Timothy Jones, Artistic Director and General Manager at the Seymour Theatre, for supporting my ethics application and letting us run a little bit amok. Thank you as well to UNSW Art & Design tutor Tom Ellard and his students Lauren Wenham and Seunghyun Kim for participating in the Case Study, with your works and your enthusiasm.
For ISEA2015: disruption, a big thank you to the Artistic Directors Kate Armstrong and Malcolm Levy for first hiring me and then letting me perform a reflective practice case study on all of our work. I am also very grateful to Symposium Directors, Philippe Pasquier and Thecla Schiphorst for allowing me to sit in on Organisation Committee meetings, and being friendly and approachable regarding production or publication matters on this Case Study. The exhibition could not have happened without the production team Kate and Malcolm assembled, so a massive thank you to Aiden Ferris, Kristina Fiedrich, Elisha Burrows, Matt Smith and Steven Tong. I sincerely hope we get to work together again.
4 And finally, for Re/Pair, a really big thank you to Jill Bennett and Rachael Kiang for allowing me to disrupt the schedule at a later date then was ideal, and for bringing us under the umbrella of the Big Anxiety Festival. Thank you to the artists Mari Velonaki, Petra Gemeinboeck & Rob Saunders, Wade Marynowsky, Patricia Flanagan, and Rochelle Hayley. Your time and patience through artist interviews and workshops to final exhibition was unflagging and I appreciate you lending your experience and ideas to my final study. Thank you as well, to Vanessa Bartlett, whose edits to the press release were invaluable in gaining access to an already very full festival platform.
To those that assisted me in editing the draft manuscript, a huge thank you to Grace Pilar Mitchell and Jeong Greaves. Your feedback and championing of ideas, automation of references and correct tense have made a huge difference to the readability, I am very grateful to not be the only person not to have read this multiple times.
Last, but certainly not least, thank you to my family. First to Arron, Miriam and Tiger Tillman, thank you for your endless support and presence for whatever the task that was in front of me, be it an exhibition, a publication, or time and space to study, you are all so supportive. Second to my sisters and girlfriends who have kept a close eye on me with daily texts, places to stay for multiple conferences, and submission countdowns and encouragement, a very big thank you to Joanne, Susan, Judi, Karen and Pili; you are marvellously supportive women. Finally, a huge thank you to my parents, George and Barbara Turnbull, who not only taught me how to think, reflect and be discerning in the first place, but also taught me to take risks and follow my heart.
5 Table of Contents
Thesis/Dissertation Sheet ...... 2
ORIGINALITY STATEMENT ...... 3
Acknolwedgements………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………4
Table of Contents...... 6
Glossary ...... 9
Section I: MINING ...... 13
Chapter 1. The Introduction ...... 14 1.1 - An Introduction ...... 15 1.2 – Setting up the PhD Study ...... 15 1.3 - The [Curatorial] Research ...... 16 1.4 – The Research Question & Significant Contribution[s] ...... 18 i - The Problem with Traditional [Vs] Experience Curating ...... 19 Traditional Curatorial Practice ...... 19 Extending Independent Curating ...... 20 ii - The Contexts for Experiential Learning ...... 22 iii - The Method[s] for establishing a Practice-based and Practice-Led Research Curatorial Platform ...... 24 iv - The Outcomes ...... 29 1.5 – The Post-Script: a segue to the larger text ...... 29
Chapter 2. State of the Art Review...... 31 2.1 An Introduction ...... 32 2.2. Practice-based and Practice-led Research: foundational frameworks ...... 32 2.3 Creative Collaboration: a shift to independent curation ...... 39 2.4 Authentic Audience Experience: Passive & Active Engagement ...... 45 2.5 Disruption: Theory & Design Method for the Creation of New Experience ...... 47 Memory Flows, Centre for Media Arts Innovation, UTS ...... 50 The Design Lab, Sydney, University of Sydney ...... 51 Urban Realities & Augmented Play (prototype for working with Dr. Martin Tomitsch and Dr. Rob Saunders) ...... 51 ATTRACT::RELATE::SUSTAIN (second collaboration with Dr. Martin Tomitsch) ...... 52 Ghost[s] and the[ir] Machine[s] (collaboration with Dr. Lian Loke) ...... 54 Organised Cacophony (first collaboration with Dr. Ollie Bown) ...... 55 2.6 The Gaps in Knowledge ...... 57 Grid Gallery (2010) ...... 57 The Silverwater Learning Centre Commission (2011) ...... 59 Urban Art Projects and the City North Public Sculpture Commission (2012) ...... 61
6 The Curatorial Rationale ...... 62 2.7 Conclusions and Segue ...... 63
Section II: LANDSCAPING ...... 64
Chapter 3. Methodolog[ies] ...... 65 3.1 Setting up a PhD Study: designing a study through observation, planning, testing and reflecting – Bricolage Research ...... 66 3.2 Living Laboratories: Experimenting with disruption and authenticity in Denouément ...... 69 3.3 Auto-Ethnography and Reflective Practice - ISEA2015: disruption ...... 70 3.4 Trial and Error: The Media Architecture Biennale 2016 ...... 74 3.5 Discourse Analysis: The Big Anxiety Festival and Re/Pair ...... 76 i - Setbacks: Surfacing the Conflicts and Complexities ...... 80 1] Curatorial ...... 80 2] Artistic ...... 81 3.6 Conclusions and Segue ...... 85
Section III: BUILDING ...... 87
Chapter 4. New Works ...... 88 4.1 Introduction: Testing Methodologies within the Creative Robotics Lab ...... 89 4.2 Case Study #1 – Denouement (Design Lab, Grid Gallery and The Rocks Pop Up) ...... 90 4.3 Case Study #2 - ISEA2015: disruption (ISEA 2013: resistance is futile) ...... 92 4.4 Case Study #3 – Re/Pair (Media Architecture Biennale 2016) ...... 93 4.5 Conclusion and Segue ...... 102
Chapter 5. Results ...... 103 5.1 An Introduction ...... 104 5.2 Curatorial Criteria ...... 105 5.3. Denouément - Living Laboratories and experimenting with authenticity and disruption ...... 108 Key terminology for a micro-case study: ...... 113 5.4. ISEA2015: disruption – Auto-ethnography and reflective practice...... 114 Key terminology for a macro-study...... 115 5.5. Re/Pair – the end result of Trial and Error evaluated in terms of Discourse Analysis ...... 116 Key terminology for final case study ...... 118 5.6. Conclusions and Segue to Discussion ...... 119
Chapter 6: Discussion and Conclusion ...... 121 6.1 Introduction ...... 122 6.2 Chapters 1-3: MINING & LANDSCAPING FOUNDATIONS ...... 122 6.3 Chapters 4 & 5: BUILDING NEW PROCESSES & THEIR APPLICATION ...... 125
7 6.4 Broader Contexts of the [curatorial] research ...... 128 6.5 Future Work and Outstanding Questions ...... 130 6.6 Conclusions ...... 131
Figures ...... 132
Tables ...... 134
Appendices……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 131
1. Denouément label in Musify+Gamify for VIVID2015...... 131
2. ISEA2015: disruption website delineating my position and situating me amongst the theorists - and a Thank You note from Kate Armstrong, one of the Artistic Directors………………………………………………………………132
3. Re/Pair as advertised on the Big Anxiety Festival Website and UNSW Art & Design Newsletter……………136
4. Call for Participation in Case Study 3…………………………………………………………………………………………………….141
5. Interview with ARS Electronica Curators Lubi Thomas and Kristefan Minski………………………………………….142
6. Interview with Curator Amanda McDonald-Crowley………………………………………………………………………………155
References………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..166
8 Glossary
Action – In terms of the pragmatic conversation analysis of audience evaluation in a “conversation- in-interaction” approach, Action is the first Major Dimension around the organisation of actions as distinct from outside of a conversation. This could include openings and closings of conversations (or propositions, engagements), storytelling, and complaints (Peräkylä, 2007).
Adjunct Curating – an independent or freelance curator working in league with specific institutions. They usually focus on contemporary issues; are engaged for their expertise on a specific topic; and, as a result of not working for the institution itself, are typically granted more freedom to experiment and take risks.
Audience Evaluation – In this context of HCI research, the most common methodology employed ispolling the audience through online or paper survey, interview or video-cued recall about their experience. The data collated and analysed then informs an iterative design/making cycle of which the audience is an integral material.
Authentication – Authentication is the process of recognising a user’s identity within a specific system. In a technological or human-computer interaction system, the key mechanism involves associating an incoming request with a set of identifying credentials. This is to establish that someone is who they say they, are or that they know what they say they know. This can be extended to physical objects, for example to determine a real and genuine provenance.
Authenticity – The humanities definition of a real and pleasurable experience; one that is identifiable or recognisable as that which it intends to be, one that the audience enjoys, and one that they would be willing to return to and engage with again (Greer, 2013b, Turkle, 2007).
Bricolage Research – a critical, multi-perspectival, multi-theoretical and multi-methodological approach to inquiry. When utilised in the domain of qualitative research it denotes methodological practices based on notions of eclecticism, emergent design, flexibility and plurality (Rogers, 2012).
Communication Event – in the instance of Case Study #3, Re/Pair, the situation or platform around which I could gather analysis on the language people were using to describe their experience of the interactive art being made by artists affiliated with the Creative Robotics Lab, UNSW (Foucault, 2002).
Criterion/a – “a distinguishing mark; a standard or rule for judgement or decision. The debates among the ancients (especially the Stoics and the sceptics) about ‘the criterion’ concerned the criterion by which we would be able to distinguish true opinions from false ones”(Mautner, 2000). In common language, criteria are a “best practice” approach to a specialist task.
Discourse Analysis – a term to describe the studies surrounding the analysis of written, vocal, or sign language use, or any significant semiotic event. I will particularly look at this in terms the exhibition as a communication event, the audience and artworks as engaging in propositions, and the conversation-in-interaction approach to observing and then interviewing participants on these engagements (Peräkylä, 2007).
Discursive Language – Discursive language is used to describe methodologies or experiences in relation to a step by step inquiry of a specific field (or group of fields).
9 Disruption – In this thesis, disruption has a dual definition. New Media Curation (NMC) has long operated as an independent research platform outside traditional avenues of art, design and technology and as a small business disruptive to the dominant government, academic and commercial funding models. Disruptive business theory as coined by Clayton Christenson, dissected by Oliver Gassman and critically analysed by Jill Lepore, has proved useful in thinking of the stages of growth NMC has moved through (Bower and Christensen, 1995, Gassmann, 2006). Recently, a more useful analysis for the methodologies employed during this doctoral thesis includes the literal sense of interrupting an ordered process (like an iterative cycle, or ordered exhibition or festival schedule), particularly the pioneering manoeuvres employed in the Disruptive Design Method coined by Leyla Arcaroglu. In her methodology there are three stages: MINING, LANDSCAPING and BUILDING, wherein practitioners apply principles of disruption to their design-led processes of making, thereby instigating social change. (Acaroglu, 2017a).
Embedded Curating – These curators are usually working within a museum, lab or gallery and take on the roles of collection experts and narrators (in context with society and the objects themselves) as well as exhibition planners. They usually remain embedded in institutions due to controlled environments in which to analyse a particular artwork or social movement, though they also have “access to stable resources, the chance to work within a team, and a regular exhibition schedule” in a field they are interested or expert in (Graham and Cook, 2010).
Experience Curating – a curatorial practice that primarily involves designing and producing cultural engagements with the artwork and audience as dual factors for realising the works. It is particularly relevant in media and interactive arts exhibitions, and utilising immaterial elements such as sound, light and music.
Experiential Learning – Learning through doing or experiencing the thing you are trying to learn. Linked to Shὅn’s reflection-in-action (Lachapelle, 1997). In my own model, I refer to this as the Production phase of my cycle.
Festival[s] – Each of the Case Studies presented in this thesis as New Works were exhibited in festival settings. In this study, I am taking the Ars Electronica approach to utilising “the Festival as a proving ground”—a place for experimental practice to unfold, be examined, and move forward with the potential to iterate. The three festivals I experiment within are VIVID Music 2015, ISEA2015: disruption, and the Big Anxiety Festival (2017).
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) – The point at which a human and computer engage, and the resulting study of the data collected, analysis performed and rhetoric compiled around that point. In this context, HCI is the point at which an audience member engages with an interactive artwork through the input mechanism. It also refers to the computer science and engineering approach to designing, making, testing, evaluating and iterating and idea until it operates optimally.
Independent Curating – an industry term for cultural producers who can be contracted for short term projects like festivals or exhibitions/events within science and technology museums; as university lecturers or project managers; or, as with NMC, as specialist authorities for corporate entities like Ausgrid, or media art specialists for government funding bodies. They are described by Graham and Cook as “voracious” and “wide-ranging in their interests”; by Barnaby Drabble as more egotistical then embedded or institutional curators; and by Paul O’Neill as necessarily self-reflexive. Independent curators can act more quickly; are less constrained by institutional architecture, collections, and boards; and build their reputations more quickly. There is, however, a lot of unpredictability in terms of resources—including wage (Graham and Cook, 2010).
10 Interactive Art – is art that directly responds to audience engagement in a noticeable way, sometimes including it insofar as to complete the work. This is usually achievable because the mechanics of the work are driven by computational systems and sensors that analyse elements of the space the artwork occupies. (Muller et al., 2006, Soler-Adillon, 2015).
Inter-subjectivity – in terms of the pragmatic conversation analysis of audience evaluation in a “conversation-in-interaction” approach, inter-subjectivity is the third Major Dimension, and the site at which the language and interaction of subjects is examined with respect to their intentions; state of knowledge; and relation and stance towards the object they are talking about is created, maintained and negotiated. In terms of this study, I will speak to this process in terms of audience evaluation (examination of language and interaction of the subjects and how it’s managed) of the artworks (what the subjects are speaking about) in an interactive art exhibition (the site)(Peräkylä, 2007).
Practice-Based Research – “an original investigation in order to gain new knowledge, partly by means of practice and the outcomes of that practice. In doctoral thesis, claims of originality and contribution to knowledge may be demonstrated through creative outcomes in the form of designs, music, digital media, performances and exhibition. Whilst the significance and context of these claims are described in words, a full understanding can only be obtained with direct reference to the outcomes” (Candy, 2006).
Practice-Led Research – a variation of the above definition, with the qualification that the research involved in gaining new knowledge leads primarily to new understandings about the relevant practice. Rather than the artefact being the basis of the contribution, the research and methods are what lead to new understandings about what the practitioner is creatively engaged in (Candy and Edmonds, 2018).
Reflective Practice – Taken from Donald Schὅn’s Reflective Practitioner, a cycle of educational or creative practice that includes space to stop and think about what you have done before continuing (Schön, 1983).
Reflective Curatorial Practice - A curatorial practice based on Donald Schὅn’s Reflective Practice Cycle, where a space for reflection is built into your practice-based research model. In an iterative cycle (as with interdisciplinary work involving HCI influence in terms of prototyping and audience feedback), it happens after a full methodological cycle—i.e., design, make, test, evaluate, reflect; re- design, re-make, re-test, re-evaluate, reflect; and so on (Muller, 2011, Schön, 1983)
Reflection-in-Action – the knowledge you glean as you are doing research towards a specific goal. This is University of Newcastle’s librarian Narelle Hampe’ s appropriation of Donald Schὅn’s 1983 idea. She cites a cyclical model of Forethought, Self-Reflection and Performance that coincides with Schὅn’s Reflection-for-Action, Reflection-on-Action and Reflection in Action. She describes these thusly: Forethought (Reflection-for-Action): Knowledge for planning actions Self-Reflection (Reflection-on-Action): Knowledge of self, derived from doing Performance (Reflection-in-Action): Knowledge for doing (Schön, 1983, Hampe, 2013)
I then add an additional layer with terminology for the Curator-As-Producer role I performed for ISEA2015:disruption: Pre-Production [Forethought(Reflection-for-Action)]: Knowledge for planning actions
11 Production [Self-Reflection (Reflection-on-Action)]: Knowledge of self, derived from doing Post-Production [Performance (Reflection-in-Action)]: Knowledge for doing (Turnbull Tillman and Velonaki, 2016)
Research Frameworks – The theoretical framework is the structure that can hold or support a theory of a research study.
Structure – in terms of the pragmatic conversation analysis of audience evaluation in a talking-in- interaction approach, Structure is the second Major Dimension and refers to the rules and structure which all humans participate actively in. In terms of this thesis study, I will treat Structure as the way that audiences behave when being evaluated. Mainly this refers to how they engage, in what manner, and how the data is then captured, thereby allowing rigor in collection, collation and analysis.
Traditional Curating – a materials-based curatorial practice centred on the activities of collecting, conserving, registering and writing about culturally significant objects for historical purposes (Russell and Winkworth, 2009).
Trial and Error – favoured by Thomas Edison, Trial and Error (TaE) is a fundamental method of problem solving characterised by repeated, varied attempts which are continued until success is achieved, or until the active agent stops trying (2017).
12
Section I: MINING
This section is all about “Problem Loving.” [Here we] div[e] deep into the problem arena, develop research approaches, explore the elements within and develop insights” (Acaroglu, 2017a) p. iii).
13
Chapter 1. The Introduction
As well as introducing the premise of the thesis, this section will detail the way the case studies are structured and thought through in four key elements: i. The Problem, ii. The Context, iii. The Method, and iv. The Outcomes. Here I address the key research question, identify gaps in the knowledge, and outline my contribution to the field and its significance—to be expanded on in “Chapter 2: The State of the Art Review”.
14 1.1 - An Introduction
[Use of] the word integration [to designate this new knowledge] means precisely that this new knowledge can only take form by integrating itself to the very structure of personality and, thereby, modifying it. . . . The learner, who has thus acquired a new vision of his world, who has attained a more profound understanding of the phenomena that, before, were hidden from him or her, can no longer remain as before: his or her attitude has changed. There is every reason to believe that he or she will not be able to behave in the usual way. The goals of learning have been reached: by its interaction with scientific knowledge, experiential knowledge has not only broadened and consolidated itself, it has been transformed into a whole new way of being[.]
———Gérard Artauld (1989)
This PhD thesis aims to contribute to a call from artists, curators, designers and social scientists to not only modify the way responsive art is designed, curated and exhibited, but to also learn from and be transformed by this process of change. How we are transformed, and how we describe that transformation through discursive language are woven into this study, particularly with regards to the variables of disruption and authenticity as they are introduced into exhibitions for analysis. This language is distilled into preliminary criteria for curating interactive art. As is common in the production and display of interactive media, these are contested and always under construction as they evolve through the same iterative processes by which they were created. Driven by an interest in how technology augments traditional art practice, I have worked in experimental practice-based curatorial research regarding the production and exhibition of interactive art for the last 10 years as Director of the research initiative New Media Curation (NMC) and as a traditional curator in Design & Technology at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. Stuck in a cycle of producing and exhibiting, opportunities to reflect on and reframe my practice arose through listening and responding to various calls for reform from my contemporaries. It is my key aim to further contribute to the field by positing criteria as a result of the testing, analysis and re-framing of the NMC Methodology for curating interactive art, offering my curatorial practice as a platform for review, reflection and revision.
1.2 – Setting up the PhD Study
This PhD study is about curating interactive art in new ways by examining the tension between my creative and professional practice as recorded and analysed in the research platform New Media Curation.1 I will cite several frameworks to support analysis of the practical and theoretical aspects of my curatorial methods—namely practice-based and practice-led research utilising public in-situ Living Laboratories, disruptive design, and collaborative partnerships. As the study progressed, I
1 See www.newmediacuration.com.
15 came to utilise festivals as the main public space and took up a Bricolage Research approach as Case Study projects morphed from one to the other. The action research involved takes the interdisciplinary design of interactive art systems out of labs and studios and into public spaces in the form of prototype exhibitions with emerging, mid-career and established practitioners in three Case Studies: 1] Denouément; 2] ISEA2015: disruption; and 3] Re/Pair. The artworks and exhibitions in which they sit become part of a designed set of methodologies offered for evaluation through the medium of audience engagement.
1.3 - The [Curatorial] Research
This research is artist-led and responds to a call for change in current curatorial processes involving new media and interactive art (Graham and Cook, 2010). The application of design thinking methodologies, such as prototyping, iterative making and audience evaluation, shares much with HCI methodologies (Hutchinson et al., 2003). In creating interventions disruptive to ordered processes, these approaches first focus on gauging the audience’s ability to identify and enjoy interactive art (an humanities definition of authenticity)(Dutton, 2003, Greer, 2013a, Turkle, 2007) before extending past a surface engagement to better understand how one might then describe those experiences in discursive language resulting in criteria gleaned through experiential learning (Edmonds, 2010, Lachapelle, 1997). As such, the study focuses on disrupting the usual flow of exhibition experience for an audience, and then explores a humanities definition of authenticity. In terms of stepping through the process, I will first define parameters for authenticity within fine arts and responsive systems before examining—through the application of evaluative frameworks to iterative exhibition processes—how one might capture and utilise criteria for curating interactive art as informed by artists, creative practitioners and, finally, curators.
From 2004 to 2008, Dr. Lizzie Muller researched integrating “the exhibition” into the design/making aspect of the artists by developing Beta_space, a public lab for prototyping interactive artworks in league with the Creativity and Cognition Studios and the Powerhouse Museum. This research culminated in her 2008 PhD thesis, The Experience of Interactive Art: a curatorial study. I inherited Beta_space from Muller, and from her learned to integrate the audience and their experience and engagement with the work as materials for consideration in art making and exhibiting. Muller has continued to engage the audience as a kind of design material for her interactive exhibitions, her teaching, her research and her publications. She has an iterative and collaborative approach to exhibition design that starts with the artists, involves an experiential
16 workshop, an exhibition, and an audience evaluation.2 In the conclusion of her doctoral thesis, she cites the public realm as an ideal testing space for Living Laboratories evaluating the process of curating interactive art (Muller, 2008). It is this idea that I respond to in bringing the Living Laboratories ethos outside gallery spaces and into festivals, to test whether or not the audiences have authentic experiences the scenarios presented featuring prototype artworks.
Figure 1. Beta_space in the Cyberworlds Exhibition, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, 2007. Image courtesy of Julien Phalip.
I also became interested in the way that experiential learning can factor into transformative behaviours. In 2010, Drs. Sarah Cook and Beryl Graham published the book Rethinking Curating: Art after New Media. They speak to a terminology of behaviours when discussing new media art, in regard to the artwork and the people that engage it. They are interested in “the processes and methods of curating . . . that might be useful to other curators” . Collaboration and sharing knowledge then become modalities of curating. Interestingly, they introduce the way they speak about new media art as one of “common-language terminologies” as a way of “avoiding a static model” for curating . They also review different “types” of curators and models for curating, namely Embedded, Adjuct and Independent curators and Iterative, Modular and Distributed exhibitions . These approaches will be considered in the collation of data and analysis of discursive language when formulating my own criteria.
2 www.lizziemuller.com - accessed throughout research, as early as July 2014 through to March 2018.
17 Figure 2. Sarah Cook speaking about Distributed Art with an image of Beryl Graham (2010) at the first Theory Talk at The Temporary Stedelijk in Amsterdam in 2013. Graham is engaging with artist TaeYoon Choi’s robotic duck, Camerautomata Charlie. Projected image courtesy of Sarah Cook; image courtesy of Ernst van Deursen.
Beryl Graham is also the founder of CRUMB (the Curatorial Resource for Upstart Media Bliss) which is an online repository for new media curating tools, videos, links, interviews and avenues for exploration that fall outside the normative linear curatorial task.3 Here I answer the call to be an “upstart” and experiment with new ways to exhibit new media art.
1.4 – The Research Question & Significant Contribution[s]
Through an examination of design thinking and HCI methods as applied to interactive art making, artists, curators and audience members will be led through critical and creative spaces by speculative design, engagement and evaluation, and analysis of data collected. These spaces become public Living Laboratories existing outside the traditional walls of galleries or museums and become in-situ studies of art/science behaviour on the part of audiences, creative practitioners and curators.
The main research question is:
How can contemporary curators apply design thinking techniques to exhibitions comprised of digital interactive art at various stages of art practice to reveal new criteria for curating digital interactive art?
The statement of contribution and significance is:
3 http://www.crumbweb.org/ - accessed throughout research, as early as July 2014 through to March 2018.
18 This thesis demonstrates how, via Disruptive Design Methods and the provision of authentic experiences for audiences through the Living Laboratories model, a space is created for curators to work reflectively with creative practitioners and audiences to collaborate on public prototype exhibitions. From the dialogue around these creative collaborations, critical language in the form of criteria have emerged and been recorded, along with a new model of curating. Combined, the two contributions provide the next generation of new media curators with a novel approach to experiment with.
In working through a reflection-in-action practice-based research methodology, this study will reflect on the way my appreciative system has developed over a 10-year period of curating both under the NMC banner (as an independent curator) and at the Powerhouse Museum (as both an embedded and adjunct curator). The methodologies for presentation are well suited to the research Environment of the Creative Robotics Lab at UNSW Art & Design (Velonaki, 2011), where my studies are based on responsive systems and human interaction rather than traditional engineering or robotics.
i - The Problem with Traditional [Vs] Experience Curating
Central to this enquiry are the problems associated with digital interactive art, including its immateriality and repositioning of time and space, which thus make the act of evaluating one’s interaction with it problematic. As discussed in Graham and Cook (2010), these problems place a particular responsibility on the curator to revise traditional practice.
Traditional Curatorial Practice
Traditional curatorial practice usually involves the care of a collection of objects, the cultural significance of which has been determined by a museum expert or fine arts connoisseur. I performed the role of Assistant Curator in Design & Technology embedded within the Powerhouse Museum (PHM) between 2012 and 2014. Here, I assisted in collecting and caring for objects, which were then closely monitored with a concern for preservation, conservation, and the registration of their movements—practices aimed at keeping their significance relevant in historical and social contexts (Russell and Winkworth, 2009). Technology has played a role in making these tasks easier, from heaters to air conditioners and dehumidifiers to the maintenance of complex databases to monitor exhibition cycles and movement of objects.
19 Figure 3. Deborah Turnbull Tillman, Assistant Curator Design & Technology, 2013. Image courtesy of the Powerhouse Museum.
While working here, I noticed how the traditional approach to caring for static physical objects has proven difficult for new media artworks. The life cycles are different, existing more so in the elegant code shown through projectors or on huge data screens, or in the specifically timed animation of engineering or robotics. In fact, I wasn’t permitted to collect digital art or design objects when on staff simply because we couldn’t permanently care for digital artefacts due to the obsolescence of technology and the aim of the museum to collect objects forever. Matthew Connell (a mentor and then my direct supervisor at the PHM) comments that “the stuff of computers programs, data, [and] operating systems . . . are perhaps only really meaningful when being used by a person” (Turnbull and Connell, 2011). As such, the code and software—realised as images, sound, or vibrations—that drives interactive artwork only comes to life when the audience engages with them. As stated above, the works themselves move; they are not static, and as such are constantly changing. New media curators then necessarily concern themselves with how the work is experienced in the moment, the same way a traditional curator might worry about the paint fading on a Ming vase if it’s on exhibition too long, or about someone bumping it and damaging it; there are slightly different concerns for each medium. The discursive language in experiencing a curated engagement with an interactive artwork would then also be different, as would the language used when organising or structuring that engagement and the ensuing actions one might take.
Extending Independent Curating
In 2014, I concluded my role as a traditional curator within an institution and became interested in how I might extend NMC as a research platform. How could I take what I had learned in curating objects and experience and use this to contribute to and grow the field of curating new media and interactive art? The ability to do this formally was made available to me through the Creative
20 Robotics Lab and UNSW’s Art & Design Campus. Initially led by artists Mari Velonaki and Petra Gemeinboeck, this is a lab that investigates the effects of computational systems—namely cultural robotics and engineering—on humans through an artistic context, so that aesthetics and artistic concerns lead the inquiry. This interdisciplinary approach appealed to me, as did the potential to identify an NMC Methodology through reflecting on past case studies. As such, a mixed practice- based and practice-led research approach to curating emerged, as did the opportunity to test it in an experimental arts environment.
Figure 4. The studio space at the Creative Robotics Lab, UNSW Art & Design. The image features Director Mari Velonaki (right) speaking about her kinetic sculpture Diamandini (2011- 13) and Fish_Bird (2004) to lab visitors.
These research questions were first addressed by the staging of Denouément, an in situ intervention into a larger exhibition called Musify+Gamify (Bown, 2015) for VIVID Music Festival in June 2015. In utilising prototype works of emerging practitioners, I created a temporary exhibition for audiences to experience before entering the formal exhibition space. This disruption created the opportunity for them to pause and reflect on the works at hand, then express feedback on their experience via on-the-spot surveys. This quantitative data was collected and collated to determine whether they could recognise the experience as interactive and if they enjoyed it enough to participate again (Turnbull Tillman et al., 2017). This qualitative data was then utilised to design a more focused approach: the resulting research questions have been tested in the exhibition Re/Pair, which sets up a similar scenario as an intervention into The Big Anxiety Festival, this time with more
21 established artists in a more finished space with more sophisticated prototypes.4 This opportunity provides audiences with more time to think through their experiences via semi-structured interviews in a festival which examines mental health, namely anxiety due to existing social phenomena being addressed in the arts. In between the two case studies, I performed a reflective practice Case Study as exhibition production manager for ISEA2015: disruption (see Turnbull Tillman and Velonaki, 2016). In this role, I was also able to utilise the knowledge from Denouément to execute a larger scale exhibition of in situ prototype works for another major festival, this time the International Symposium of Electronic Art (ISEA). This process honed my appreciative system, again preparing me for Re/Pair. The iterative nature of this experiential curatorial learning yields criterion for curating this new medium, one filled with discursive language and working methodologies that are flexible and adaptable for audiences, creative practitioners and curators.
ii - The Contexts for Experiential Learning
Experiential Learning is a key consideration for the methodologies being tested. Richard Lachapelle’s work on experiential learning and Discipline-based Art Education articulates the importance of marrying the experience of art making with the theory of how it is made. The two characteristics of experiential learning are: “(1) the emphasis that is placed on a direct contact between learner and the subject of the study and (2) the learner’s involvement in actively investigating that subject”(Lachapelle, 1997). In relation to Lizzie Muller’s work on exhibiting using interaction design considerations, setting experiential goals with the artists interested in exhibiting was the first step to her iterative process. As a practice-based researcher, the curator becomes the learner in Lachapelle’s scenario, with the artists and their making activities the subject of the study. The application of the learner (the curator) then actively investigating that subject (the artists and their making) requires direct contact.
Along with the Creative Robotics Lab, relevant foundational work in this field includes that of Ernest Edmonds and Linda Candy’s research group, the Creativity and Cognition Studios (CCS).5 Prior to starting NMC and working in traditional curating at the Powerhouse Museum, I was a research assistant to Edmonds, and central to my own research is the initial work done in Beta_space—a publicly housed laboratory at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. Here CCS set up an infrastructure and a methodology for measuring experience and emotion in digital interactive art between 2006 and 2013. Their influence and the writings about this work form an important basis for the PhD research. Reports on the curatorial practice of Lizzie Muller, Matthew Connell and myself all detail
4 https://www.thebiganxiety.org/events/repair/ 5 www.creativityandcognition.com
22 the making and evaluating of interactive art at various iterative phases in a public laboratory. Lizzie Muller’s PhD and related writings report the core research that forms the background to this study (2008). The significance of the Creativity and Cognition Studios’ work was innovation in:
1] bringing the work out of a university lab and into a public institution before it was finished (Edmonds, 2006b);
2] establishing a set of criteria for measuring audience experience (Bilda et al., 2007, Costello, 2007);
3] offering this process to the public as an exhibition on display for public consumption (Turnbull and Connell, 2011);
4] taking these processes out of the realm of culture and into the community as creative practice for corporations and institutions as well as artists and curators (Edmonds et al., 2009, Turnbull and Connell, 2014);
5] producing three models for curating digital interactive art, two of which hold preliminary criteria for exhibiting digital and interactive art that artists and creative practitioners needed to meet in order to be considered for commission (Turnbull 2014).
These are different then the criteria I have established in this PhD study for audiences, creative practitioners and curators to better execute exhibitions.
These activities were first captured en masse in Candy and Edmonds’ book Interacting: art, research and the creative practitioner (2011) and later in Candy and Ferguson’s book Interactive Experience in the Digital Age (2014). The former publication reviews the methodologies followed during the seven years Beta_space was actively programmed in the Powerhouse Museum, but provides a history of digital interactive art in which Candy and Edmonds outline the current categories, aesthetics, influences, paradigms, creative spaces, and cultural shifts in relation to the artist and audience—the producers and consumers of art. The latter looks at the effects of technology based interactive art has on the audience, changing them from a viewer or attendee to a participant and thereby changing the nature of creative engagement from passive to active. The key component across ever-expanding platforms for public arts engagement is the feedback from audience evaluation (Candy and Ferguson, 2014). This is a key contributor to my PhD research in that, through utilising a Living Labs model in the public sphere, I was able to begin to design a test for my working methodology with a mediating factor of foundational knowledge.
In the midst of changing jobs from a museum professional to an academic, and in starting to reflect on NMC more closely, I noticed a tension in my practice. It is worth mentioning at this stage that there is a clear distinction between professional and creative work for most practice-based researchers. It seems so especially for curators, who are often administrators as well as specialists,
23 authors, editors, archival resources and event planners. In situating myself within Donald Schӧn’s reflection-in-action method as a function of practice-based research after Schὅn and Muller (Muller, 2011), I was actively engaged in a tension between creating and producing, where one practice starts, and the other intervenes, or even encroaches to create disharmony. Similar to the metaphor of technology as a living organism as posited by Oliver Gassman (2006), John Dewey tracks the experience of the “live creature” as follows:
Life overcomes and transforms factors of opposition to achieve higher significance. Harmony and equilibrium are the results not of mechanical processes but of rhythmic resolution of tension. The rhythmic alternation within the live creature between disunity and unity becomes conscious in humans. Emotion signifies breaks in experience which are then resolved through reflective action. Objects become interesting as conditions for realising harmony. Thought is then incorporated into them as their meaning. (Leddy, 2013)
Where the tension and resolution of creation vs/ production could likely be articulated by any contemporary curator, in the NMC Case Studies for analysis I am examining exhibitions that I both conceived and supported others in realising. As a curator, representing institutions and funding bodies whilst also working quite closely with artists and technologists, disruptions come in different forms associated with observing, recording and analysing the intentions, actions, and reactions of artists, technologists and audience members. This part of the study proposes to reflect on a series of NMC exhibitions, treating them as curatorial prototypes for analysis in order to form the foundation of a larger iterative cycle involving practice-based research and curatorship. This cycle will be analysed by way of audience evaluation with consideration to disruptive design methods and authentic experiences within public Living Labs. The methodology then explores the research question: once intentionally distracted from their intended visitation by a situated activity, will the audience member take time to reflect on the prototype work(s), recognise them as art, and then enjoy them enough to return to them repeatedly? How can we encourage this through best practice models or standards? In pondering a solution to what context might be ideal for pursuing this line of enquiry, I began thinking about the festival in general as a place for experimental practice.
iii - The Method[s] for establishing a Practice-based and Practice-Led Research Curatorial Platform
Where I have always considered myself a practice-based researcher within the field of interactive art, Candy and Edmonds (2018) recently published on the differences between practice-based and practice-led research and how misunderstandings are diminishing the quality of PhD research. Their article has made me re-think my approaches and outcomes and I now find my research approach to be practice-based, with the outcomes being practice-led. As such I identify somewhere in between the two definitions.
24 In taking an approach to curating experiences rather than objects, there are a few historical examples of the development processes that support and analyse audience engagement through experiential or in-situ learning. Stringer’s approach of LOOK THINK ACT is based in social reform and draws on Lewin’s “spiral of steps” that attempt to depict “comparative research on the conditions and effects of various forms of social action, and research leading to social action” (Smith, 2007). Johnson, a social scientist from the 1970s, has revised Lewin’s spiral utilizing words such as UNFREEZING CHANGING REFREEZING. A more contemporary, and specifically curatorial, take on these approaches is outlined in Lizzie Muller’s close reading and application of Donald Schὅn’s reflection-in-action. Muller (2008) quotes Schὅn’s endorsement of “on the spot experiments” as a way of framing the lived experience of interactivity. In learning to curate under Muller at the Beta_space public laboratory, I am a product of her own experiential approach to curating interactive art via her documented process of experimenting prototyping reflecting iterating publishing. This cycle results in three layers of accountability on the curator, that of “the real situation in which [she] conducts [her] experiments, . . . [her] own underlying appreciative system, . . . and the actual experience of the audience” . These are the approaches I aim to harness, expand on, and then extend past the gallery and into public spaces.
Overall, I appropriate a Bricolage Research approach to the methodologies I select based on the project itself. Each Case Study stands on its own, testing the NMC Methodology with a framework supporting the data collection and analysis. Bricolage is an artistic term that denotes making use of leftover materials to create new and unexpected artwork. Bricoleurs use only the tools and materials available or on-hand to them. Bricolage Research exists as a metaphor “within the domain of qualitative research” with its methodologies based on “eclecticism, emergent design, flexibility, and plurality”. It can apply to examining competing (or supporting) ‘phenomena’ or ‘sites,’ theories and even methodological perspectives (Rogers, 2012). This approach is extremely useful to the nature of both my independent practice, the distributed and unique festival sites where I perform my Case Studies, and the way in which data is collected and analysed for the PhD study.
For Denouément, I took a quantitative approach to data collection and analysis, presenting and publishing the results at a Human-Computer Interaction conference (see Figure 5). This data specifically gauged the audience’s experience of the prototype interactive artworks by emerging practitioners in a disruptive setting, querying whether they had an authentic experience or not. This suited the exploratory and experimental nature of a preliminary case study, the resulting data of which formed the criteria for audiences engaging authentically with interactive art.
25 For ISEA2015: disruption, I took an auto-ethnographical and reflective approach to data collection and analysis, publishing in a Springer book series on cultural computing. This data revealed reflective practice models for moving through the production phases of a festival over distributed sites. The criteria that emerge advises creative practitioners, both artists and technologists, on what they potentially need to provide for their collaborators—who are namely clients and audiences.
Figure 5. A presentation slide depicting images of Denouément, Musify+Gamify, VIVIDMusic, 2015. Individual images courtesy of Lucy Tillman.
Figure 6. A presentation slide for ISEA2015: disruption showing the Curator-as- Producer activities I analysed for the Reflective Practice Case Study.
26 In the final Case Study, Re/Pair, I initiated an artist-led workshop on experiential learning in order to establish relevant content for analysis. Based on the results, I then designed a survey and semi-structured interview for data collection. I interviewed 11 curators as part of the Re/Pair exhibition and 3 international curators to enrich and add to the exhibition data, giving the work both a practice-based and -led angle. The data from this Case Study was analysed pragmatically through a talking-in-interaction conversational analysis covering Action, Structure and Inter-Subjectivity. The criteria that emerged from this Case Study informs the preliminary best-practice standards for curating new media and interactive art from curators, for curators.
Figure 7. Machine Movement Lab 1: Becoming Body by Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, Re/Pair, 2017. Image courtesy of Petra Gemeinboeck.
Much of the early work of New Media Curation was moving past the work performed at Beta_space and making new and novel work in exciting ways. This was mostly done by invitation from fellow researchers who required someone outside the university, corporate or museum spaces with a different locus of control. In looking to forge collaborations outside the university, corporate or museum/gallery space, these researchers provided me the opportunity to extend my practice, change the parameters of who my audience might be, and thereby generate curatorial work in new ways. The interdisciplinary nature of this work is articulated in Ben Shneiderman’s The New ABCs of Research: Achieving Breakthrough Collaborations (2016). This text is a collection of traditionally
27 disparate practitioners (designers) and academics (scientists, engineers) working together to produce meaningful results from carefully designed experiments more quickly and with more impactful results than if they pursued the topic only within their specialised disciplines.
There are “five research life cycle strategies” Shneiderman (2016) believes necessary to this process across “combining both applied and basic research” (The ABC Principle) and “blending methods of science, engineering and design” (The SED Principle) to produce “higher-impact results” on all disciplines involved. The five strategies cover addressing problems with meaningful and contemporary solutions; utilising observation, interventions and controlled experiments no matter the discipline; creating diverse research teams with equally diverse skillsets to tackle all aspects of a complex problem in a meaningful way; testing ideas and prototypes, both experimentally and in controlled environments while combining both qualitative and quantitative data to do so; and promoting adoption through refined strategies that assess impact. In his Introduction to this book, Shneiderman calls on diverse groups of “highly motivated” research teams to “embrace . . . and deftly apply” the ABC and SED principles “to deal with the challenges of our time while inspiring their colleagues and future researchers” . Upon reflection on this call, I realised that I have spent my career working across art, design, science and engineering and that in submitting a practice-based research PhD, I am combining applied and basic research.
From 2009 to now, Australian activist, designer, environmentalist and “provocateur” Dr. Leyla Acaroglu has created exhibitions, handbooks, educational devices and toolkits around the Disruptive Design Method—an approach that rings true with the way I operated New Media Curation. While she runs the UnSchool in New York City where she teaches and publishes on her methodology, it is in her TEDTalk titled Paper beats plastic? How to rethink environmental folklore (2013) that distributed her intuitive framework, her focus on experiential knowledge or gut feeling, and her acceptance of oral histories that draws the attention of experimental practitioners. The amalgamation of these ideas leads to Life Cycle Thinking (planning) and Assessment (scientific testing and analysis) and the behaviour changing systems that develop because of her Disruptive Design Methodology. Here she calls for pioneers in the cause of design-led systems change for sustainable practice (Acaroglu, 2017b). Acaroglu later honed this process into reflective 3- dimensional cycles involving Mining, Landscaping and Building research in closed and iterative cycles rather than in a linear fashion (Acaroglu, 2017a). These cycles frame this doctoral thesis, as she too looks to intervene in known processes to make change. The exhibitions I submit as part of this doctoral thesis were interventions and reflections on larger festival scenarios. In this way, I have
28 fashioned the experiments to test my methodologies in a disruptive way. From my practice-led research, I contribute a model and preliminary criteria for curating interactive art.
iv - The Outcomes
The outcomes of this study are a posited set of criteria and novel model for curating digital interactive artworks that better evoke an authentic experience in the audience. The main aim is to understand the benefits/drawbacks of the disruptions of iterating, evaluating and modifying within a practice-based research framework whilst reflecting and refining my own curatorial dichotomy (professional practice creative practice) through my appreciative system.
This will benefit the interdisciplinary communities represented by interdisciplinary researchers at labs like the Creative Robotics Lab—namely artists, curators and technologists—but would also be of interest globally to museum specialists, social scientists, interaction designers, and the audiences of interactive art.
1.5 – The Post-Script: a segue to the larger text
In an attempt to provide a map to this thesis, I would like to provide a review of what is covered in each chapter below.
Chapter 1 has introduced my response to the call from interdisciplinary colleagues to reform practice. It describes the institutional structures of learning and research environments like the Creativity and Cognition Studios; the Powerhouse Museum; The Design Lab, Sydney; and the Creative Robotics Lab in which I established and have grown the curatorial research initiative New Media Curation. It speaks to a platform that existed to support artists in all stages of making and exhibiting interactive art, but that also was able to follow emerging developments for practice-based and practice-led research in curating new media art upon reflective practice and experiential learning. Key to this detailing is an outline of the PhD Study, which articulates the Problem and Contexts of the study as well as the proposed Methods and Outcomes.
Chapter 2 will examine the interdisciplinary theory and practice-based research publications affecting the formation of New Media Curation and informing my practice. It provides a State of the Art Review from very recent to quite historical premises for the study whilst also revealing the gaps in current knowledge regarding the curation of interactive art, indicating that there is currently no criteria governing the curation of interactive art. This review also includes the relevant Foundational Work of New Media Curation, a series of case studies I collaborated on that existed outside
29 exhibition spaces in public arenas. I will reflect on their place in my curatorial process under the NMC banner to establish an arena of practice-based research in my methodology.
Chapter 3 articulates the multiple methodologies as stipulated in Bricolage Research and tested through three interventions over the course of the PhD:
1] Denouément, as part of VIVID 2015’s Musify+Gamify (highlighting the process of emergent practitioners, students at UNSW Art & Design);
2] ISEA 2015: disruption (a reflective practice case study on Denouément, in a larger testing ground of artists at various stages in career and prototype); and
3] Re/pair at the Black Box during UNSW Art & Design’s Big Anxiety Festival (highlighting the process of established practitioners working with the Creative Robotics Lab at UNSW Art & Design).
Chapter 4 reveals the collaborative work of the curators, producers and artists in the New Works case studies, and how what was done supports a novel NMC methodology that emerges in the context of the experiential learning captured in the Foundation Work, but experimented and reflected on with these New Works.
Chapter 5 details the resulting methodology and preliminary criteria upon reflection and collated audience evaluation. I am not positing a new, all-inclusive way to curate interactive art, or creating a canon of the best interactive art or artists. Rather, I am examining the art I come into contact with and analysing and reflecting the way that I might curate it as the artists and designers communicate in the making—with experiential learning and reflective curatorial practice in mind.
Chapter 6 will provide a conclusion by way of discussing the impact of the emergent criteria for curating interactive art outside of museums and galleries in public spaces, based in reflection on and revision of NMC’s practice-based research methodologies to reveal a new and novel methodology. As with Artaud’s observation quoted initially, as we curators of new media art acquire new techniques and hone our skillsets, we should stand as changed people, having learned and been transformed in that learning and, from that transformation, struggle to behave as we did before.
30
Chapter 2. State of the Art Review
This chapter provides both a critical review of practice-based research in the field of curating interactive art and an account of the development of my appreciative system as a reflective curator. It argues that through my research platform and curatorial practice, New Media Curation, I am able to apply design techniques (such as Living Laboratories and disruptive design methods) to exhibitions at various stages to reveal new criteria (specifically dealing with the authentic experience of the audience) for the field of curating interactive art. It demonstrates how, through a review of foundational mentorships, new collaborative partnerships and experimental platforms, the New Media Curation methodology was able to grow and develop. These elements interwoven with a review of the key literature in this field specifically articulate the gaps in knowledge and the significant contributions to the field—namely a novel model and preliminary criteria for curating interactive art.
31 2.1 An Introduction
[W]e live in the age of experience and it is to that, that we respond . . .
———Sarah Kenderdine (Palmer, 2015)
In 2015, Natalie Palmer interviewed then UNSW Art & Design Professor Sarah Kenderdine on new ways to engage with museum content via technology and what that means to socially navigate public spaces. Kenderdine speaks to the use of technology in memory making as a layer or paradigm in a re-negotiation of different aspects of object-based museological practice. She is a former maritime curator and archaeologist who began re-envisaging what the integration of technology into museum systems meant to the experience of those objects by audiences from as early as 2007. With this re-negotiation of engagement, and possibly with copies of supporting documents of objects instead of the objects themselves, Kenderdine writes to shifting centres of the aura of the object, the authenticity of the object and the authority of the institution that holds the object. This was at approximately the same time I was hired as a Research Assistant at the Creativity and Cognition Studios at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Excited to be working for logician and artist, Ernest Edmonds, I soon learned that a public exhibition space existed that required curatorial support. Lizzie Muller had launched Beta_space as part of her PhD with Professor Edmonds, and in collaboration with Powerhouse Museum Curator Matthew Connell.
2.2. Practice-based and Practice-led Research: foundational frameworks
As stated in chapter 1, part of the problem of exhibiting and evaluating interactive art is “its immateriality and repositioning in time and space”. This next section will introduce this issue in terms of contextualising my independent and traditional curatorial roles, which eventually lead to the tension between my creative and professional practice and the exploration of this in my foundational work. This section reveals how I sit between practice-based and practice-led research.
This inability to properly articulate an evaluation has to do with engaging an audience and having them relay an authentic, or true, experience of interactive art when there is a lack of available language. I had first come into contact with this issue in my undergraduate honours year (2001) where we were charged with reading theorist and art historian Michael Baxandall’s (1985) Patterns of Intention. The first exhibition I curated and published explored the audience engaging with media art truthfully, with truth as defined by Baxandall through the semiotic branch of linguistics. This exhibition was Image Ecologies in 2009 at the UTS Tower Building Foyer and managed by UTS Events & Exhibitions (Figure 8). In the essay I co-authored with Matthew Connell, we articulate that understanding an image in league with Baxandall consists of five components of
32 truth. The first four are tools that can reliably measure an image: reality, legitimacy, order and integrity. The fifth tool is inferential criticism: the discussion of how something came to be the way it is. According to Baxandall (1985), truth can only be obtained in any art as you move through stages of knowing, rounded out by robust discussion.
Figure 8. Stills from Image Ecologies, 2009, by New Media Curation in the UTS Tower Foyer Exhibition Space, Sydney Australia. Artists featured: Ian Gwilt, Folderfloor, 2009 (left); Ernest Edmonds, Shaping Form, 2008; Brigid Costello, Just a Bit of Spin, 2008; Gwilt, Save_as, 2006-8 (right). Images courtesy of Aram Dulyan.
This was the first exhibition where I utilised the Living Laboratory ethos under the New Media Curation banner in a public, non-gallery setting. In looking at how pictures (or artworks) come into being, Image Ecologies examined the student/mentor relationship between myself and Connell; Sara Gibson, Norie Neumark and Maria Miranda; Eamon Davern and Ian Gwilt; and Brigid Costello and Ernest Edmonds. In thinking through the experimental and iterative approach to creating interactive art, here the images of understanding are created through the cultures of the UTS Schools of Thought around Creativity and Cognition, Design and Visual Communication, and Innovation in Media Arts, and are robustly discussed in four essays (Turnbull, 2009). This pragmatic approach echoes Baxandall’s, who continues the work of Charles Morris in an attempt to articulate “symbols in relation to the speakers, listeners and [their] social contexts” (Morris, 1938). When
33 utilised in a setting where curators are working with interactive art makers and their audiences, we become collaborators with artists and audiences in meaning making. This reflection becomes important in the design of my third intervention, an artist-led Living Laboratory intervention titled Re/Pair.
This has a relevant crossover with authenticity as relating to communication between human and machine systems in the field of Human-Computer Interaction. Here authenticity, or a true connection between systems, is often used in its verb tense: to authenticate. This is a world of seeking approval to gain entry to information, and the wait for this communication to be answered. It is a realm defined by digital parameters. There are further inter-disciplinary crossovers in terms of originality and replica works that come out of digital and new media applications of the manipulation of a true image. Philosopher Jean Baudrillard speaks to this in his famous examination of simulacra and simulacrum in:
1. Stages (relating to linguistics and language),
2. Degrees (relating to modern historical moments), and;
3. Phenomena (the occurrence sites around which simulacra/um gather due to lack of distinction with reality) (Felluga, 2015).
The most relevant to reflection on my own practice occurs in the belief that prototypes can be considered just as real as their future final selves and the concept of precession simulacrum, in which the copy of something precedes the original. These ideas presuppose that both an original (authentic or true essence of something) and a copy (an echo, trace or iteration) can occur and be engaged simultaneously with just as much merit as the version that come before or after the current one (Hegarty, 2004). In discussing this in relation to interactive art, this might be a screen activated by an input mechanism driven by a software system, or a projection or digital soundscape activated by motion or bio-sensors, also software driven. These systems are often called art systems when the algorithms are driving artworks. The focus of the audience member is usually on the simulation first, and the real and navigable hardware that activates the simulation second. Here, the precession simulacrum resituates the person engaging with the object, bringing them through a simulated environment in real and negotiable ways. In this way, I would argue that interactive art can act as a phenomenon where participants having an authentic experience can gather around or be delivered. Where Baudrillard focuses on the decay of the original, I would argue that a new reality and new truth be experienced through art when intersected with technology, urbanisation and the new
34 realities they present to us as conceptualised by artists, realised by designers and technologists, and produced by curators.
The artist does not stand apart from the world. By virtue of unique inner visions, they transform the culture of the time. By undertaking “works”, they undertake an exploration of both their innermost selves and the cultural context in which we all live. (Candy, 2002)
When writing my Master’s thesis on how technology augments traditional art practice (Turnbull, 2006), I came across a book by Linda Candy and Ernest Edmonds (2002) called Explorations in Art and Technology. It speaks of a collaborative approach to artworks utilising technology in their design and making with an emphasis on the audience, taking particular notice of several themes that interested me: 1] the changes happening within artmaking processes because of technology; 2] how interaction within art practice was being supported with computers, but also other visual media such as film and performance; 3] how audiences were steadily becoming more a part of making art; and 4] what we might learn from this approach of art/technology collaborations through field research and reflection. For the first time, I felt I had finally found some terminology, discursive language even, to help situate what I was trying to articulate in my Masters’ thesis.
In her early definition of interaction above, Candy (2002) articulates the artist’s role in society as one where the works they make contextualise the world in which we all exist. Having worked in close proximity to artists, and herself a specialist in computational research and computer science, Candy is a social scientist interested in understanding the effects of art and technology on society. She is particularly interested in this as understood through the distinct disciplines that contribute to “the development of ideas, artefacts and new forms” . The practitioners of these disciplines she identifies as artists, designers, engineers and technologists . This list would grow to include curators in her groupings of collaborative practitioners by the time she co-edited a book with Ernest Edmonds on the activities of Beta_space in 2011 titled Interacting: Art, Research and the Creative Practitioner. Here she and Edmonds track a digital art history from 2000 to 2011. In a modification of Nicholas Lambert’s Digital Art History timeline, Candy and Edmonds consider the variables Lambert indicates as affecting the emergence of digital art (the ancient use of mathematical systems, the rise of mechanical sculpture, art and music, design and industrial drafting, architecture and engineering and perspectival geometry; (Lambert, 2003) against a timeline of art, innovations and key publications in art and technology (Candy and Edmonds, 2011)(Figure 9).
35 Figure 9. Nicholas Lambert’s timeline of art, events, innovations and publications, modified by referred to in Candy and Edmonds’ Interacting (2011).
A closer look shows interactive digital art sitting along a timeline of contemporary art disrupted by technology and inclusive of the audience’s participation in its design. Lambert’s timeline recognises twentieth-century practitioners in 20-year increments. It is no surprise that the more active decades in the timeline appear after 1960, when the computer began being utilised more popularly and valued across mediums for its software functionality, rather than just as a hardware device. Of particular relevance in the writings of Lambert are his views on “the original” and “most concrete” aspects of Computer Art.6 Noticeable on this timeline are the establishment of three projects I was involved with, namely Beta_space, the Engage Symposium and the founding of New Media Curation.
Upon successfully completing my MA thesis, I applied for and won a position as a research assistant for Ernest Edmonds in the then newly established research lab, the Creativity and Cognition Studios at the University of Technology Sydney. Here I was to provide research support to Edmonds, but also to his post-doctoral staff (including Candy) and post-graduate students (including Muller). Part of this task was to assist Lizzie Muller with the programming and facilitation of Beta_space at the Powerhouse Museum and realisation of the Engage Symposium (Edmonds et al., 2006). In these
6 http://computer-arts-society.com/static/cas/computerartsthesis/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Digital-Art- History-diagram-20101.jpg. Accessed throughout February 2017.
36 learning environments, I was introduced to practice-based research in a broader sense by Edmonds and Candy but, most importantly to my own interests, also within the realms of curating. In terms of foundational curatorial practice, Muller allowed me to learn from her own practice, connecting me with others curating in the realm of digital interactive artworks and introducing me to her collaborator at the Powerhouse Museum, Matthew Connell. Connell later became an important collaborator to my own practice, both as an independent and traditional curator. The influence of these practitioners—artist/research director (Edmonds), arts and technology methodologies expert and editor (Candy), reflective and in situ experimental curator (Muller) and objects and experience curator (Connell)—played an active role in forming the base of my foundational practice as the Beta_space curator and engaging me in experiential learning (Lachapelle, 1997).
In chapter 1, I briefly introduce Graham and Cook’s thoughts on curating new media, particularly in terms of language, types of curators and modes of curating. To extend on that, in their seminal text ReThinking Curating: Art After New Media (2010), Graham and Cook track the state of new media curating as of 2010, with reflective sections in each chapter. Embedded, Adjunct and Independent curators occupy institutions, cityscapes and alternate platforms for creative engagement such as science and technology museums or festivals. They produce Iterative, Modular and Distributed exhibitions based on spaces, scalability or available agency. With it being published just two years after I started New Media Curation, I found the book to be a relevant and inspiring text that also acts as an encyclopaedic repository for new media curators and new media exhibitions of note. It is a fascinating read full of multiple practitioner perspectives and voices found in the quotes at the beginning of each section. The contribution of this text to my thesis is three-fold: 1] it aims to discuss these complex ideas in common-language terminology, denoting inclusivity; 2] it isn’t interested in creating a canon of the best new media artists or artworks, denoting egalitarianism; and 3] it speaks to just how many facets of curating there are, which was in keeping with the tension I felt between creative and administrative tasks. In finding this text, I felt like I had found my tribe.
Graham also produced and managed C.R.U.M.B. (the Curatorial Resource for Upstart Media Bliss) between 2000 and 2015.7 This is a website, but also represents a Baudrillardian phenomenon where creative practitioners, namely curators, can gather around to discuss new media curating in terms of practice, tools, interviews, seminars and the contributions that C.R.U.M.B. has made to the larger field of curatorial research and practice. It is through the C.R.U.M.B. discussion list that I first realised I could use curating as a tool for activist change. Notions of experimentation and misbehaving as critical approaches to occupying public spaces began to creep into my subconscious
7 http://www.crumbweb.org/
37 as I followed discussion chains, interviews and seminars. It is C.R.U.M.B. that I thought of when establishing New Media Curation as an alternate research and exhibition platform, independent and adjunct to institutions and corporations and all the more fast and fluid with results by collaborating rather than being co-opted.
Experimental and upstart new media practice was soon demonstrated to me by three of the practitioners that I was learning from. Edmonds, Connell and Muller set up Beta_space through the Powerhouse Museum (a public lab) and the Creativity and Cognition Studios at UTS (a private lab) to investigate “the complete matrix of audience experience and art systems embedded in real-world settings” (Muller et al., 2006). Because audiences are necessarily situated outside traditional laboratories and their constraints, real-world labs like Beta_space were becoming important to museum studies. Curating the experiences of audiences engaging with interactive art, the audience’s role in the making of interactive art and practice-based research started to become more important in both universities and museums. Connell describes the value of Living Labs like Beta_space to a museum like the Powerhouse when he states:
Ultimately, we managed to establish a programme that has delivered thirty installations in five years. We’ve seen a community develop, the Beta_space brand become known and the culture of the museum change from one of mild scorn to one of interest, with technical staff often eager to tell us what the artists should have done. And now I see a model for partnership and interaction, perhaps a proof of concept and a prototype idea ready for its next iteration. (Turnbull and Connell, 2011)
Edmonds, Muller and Connell further investigate Beta_space as an experiment in which to explore audience engagement with art systems in their article On Creative Engagement (Edmonds, 2006b). Here all three mentors speak to their own interests in Beta_space. Firstly, Edmonds speaks to the history of art systems and the usefulness of the computer in art. He does this by noting that the essence of computer art is about interaction:
In interactive art, the complexity, the key experiences, the value is surely embedded in the interaction itself, not in still frames. That is the concrete reality of such art. The essence is the lean, economically realized, process of interaction. Interaction is not material. It is experienced, perceived and understood, but we cannot touch it. It is a somewhat difficult concrete reality to deal with, but it is the concern of many artists today. (Edmonds, 2006b)
Secondly, Muller articulates the relevance of Lucy Suchman’s HCI findings on engagement. She does this in discussing how situated design experiments have methodologies where actions are central and goals emergent, and where meaning is in the situated engagement itself as a way to understand and convey shared knowledge amongst people. Finally, Connell tells of setting up Beta_space within the museum, and how necessary the relationships between cultural and academic groups are to the success of this and like projects.
38 This notion of the museum and its staff being interested in contemporary and in situ social experiments involving their audiences in the fields they are authorities in (for example, how the Powerhouse Museum stands as an authority on Science, Design and Technology) and how the audience responds in these situations echoes what Sarah Kenderdine discusses in terms of a shift in paradigm from valuing objects to valuing experience (Palmer, 2015). Beta_space seemed to value the authenticity of the wants of the museum and the capabilities of the interdisciplinary experiential variables, as Candy delineates.
From this research, Muller comprised and produced her PhD: The experience of interactive art: a curatorial case study (2008). This body of work and the writings around it have been influential on my own development as a curator. Learning under Muller shifted my gaze from focusing on the authorship and authority of objects to understanding how audiences experienced the art works, particularly prototypes, in public spaces through lenses such as science and technology. This was reinforced in both the university and museum environments I was working in. Of the methodologies Muller was investigating, she settled on John Dewey’s Pragmatist approach, Donald Schὅn’s appreciative system and Jennifer Preece’s Interaction Design Activity Model, synthesising these with the facilitation of exhibition and audience research. This research was realised in interactive art prototypes and tested with museum audiences in the Beta_space public laboratory. In fact, a useful tool in following her methodology can be found in her adaptation of Preece’s model, which she published as a framework and methodology for experiential curating for interactive art (Muller, 2008). She tested this methodology through Beta_space and extended it her 2008 exhibition, Mirror States, in collaboration with Alex Davies and Kathy Cleland (I appropriate and experiment with these models in “Chapter 4: New Studies”).
2.3 Creative Collaboration: a shift to independent curation
In individuating from Beta_space and setting up New Media Curation, I began accepting contracts from commercial galleries, universities, corporates and independently funded artists. I was particularly interested in exploring the notion Muller speaks to in the concluding section of her thesis when discussing contributions to the field. In reflecting on her experiential approach to curating, Muller (2008) speaks to: 1] Experience Workshops; and 2] public exhibitions as laboratories for prototyping artworks as being original contributions of her thesis. Here she articulates that “museums and galleries are currently making the transition from an object-based to an experience- based culture” and that “in this context public prototyping can itself be considered as a kind of prototype for a new way of conceptualising the role of cultural institutions and associated curatorial practices” . The individuation process from working under and learning from Muller happened with
39 the foundation and launch of New Media Curation in 2008. This began my trajectory of working in the public sphere, setting up prototype exhibitions and Living Laboratories outside institutional galleries and museums.
At this stage, we arrive back at Image Ecologies, where my pursuit for a true or authentic experience for audiences becomes methodological and intrinsically linked with the people I chose to collaborate with. From here, I focused on creative collaboration to grow NMC as a small and disruptive business Once I had established a set of repeat clientele, I could relax and return to thinking about things like authentic audience experience and disruptive design methods. In a way, the creative collaborations I pursued and developed became ancillary professional tactics to the secondary research concerns of my creative curatorial practice.
In the reverberation of Image Ecologies, key collaborative relationships to date shifted from necessary to more peripheral. In establishing NMC as an independent practice that could sustain itself as a small business, my experiential learning relationships with Candy, Edmonds, Connell and Muller took on a mentorship role that sparked new business relationships with repeat funding potential with artists, designers, technologists and curators Ian Gwilt, Amy Common Norie Neumark and Maria Miranda, Martin Tomitsch, Hank Haeusler, Lian Loke, Oliver Bown, and Rob Saunders. Also, through a recommendation from curator Kathy Cleland, came a very lucrative collaboration with Ausgrid (formerly EnergyAustralia) managed by Kate Gunton. Each of these collaborations held iterative research and teaching opportunities, which established DAB-UTS (UTS’ Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building); the Design Lab, Sydney; the Centre for Media Arts Innovation; and Ausgrid as repeat clientele.
At this time of my transition, Ian Gwilt was a lecturer in the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building at UTS. Also a research associate of the Creativity and Cognition Studios, Gwilt began encouraging me to establish my own practice and begin to document it through publication and web presence. His own PhD was due to be assessed and he offered me a production and editorial role in his PhD exhibition, Mundane Traces (2008). It required an accompanying catalogue which we co- edited (see Gwilt and Turnbull, 2008) and which the then Head of Design at UTS, Kees Dorst, and Director of the Austranlian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT), Melinda Rackham, also contributed to. It looked specifically at Transitional Art Practices, with Dorst introducing the projects and contextualising them within contemporary culture. My essay introduces Gwilt’s PhD Exhibition on Mixed Reality aesthetics, as they were transported from their prototype iteration in Beta_space. Their re-creation in a university space under construction from one functionality to another was a rich way for me to reflect on the transition I was going through in terms of practice. Gwilt’s essay is
40 titled transcoding and deals largely with the description of his works in relation to Mixed Reality Aesthetics and the Graphic User Interfaces (GUI). Melinda Rackham’s essay is titled transverse and looks at the endless possibilities this aesthetic might bring to media arts. We launched both Mundane Traces and New Media Curation on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008. I took this opportunity to also hire a technical collaborator, Aram Dulyan, to both manage my website and consult on exhibition installs as required.8
Figure 10. Stills from the mundane_traces PhD exhibition by Ian Gwilt, 2008—New Media Curation’s inaugural production and the launch of this research and exhibition platform. Images courtesy of Aram Dulyan.
In terms of research frameworks that supported my creative collaborations with other curators, technologists and artists, I find the methodologies of Ben Shneiderman and Ernest Edmonds most useful in understanding my practice in terms of discursive language and exhibiting experimental prototype work through creative collaboration.
As stated in chapter 1, Shneiderman subscribes to two key principles and five research life cycle strategies that are framed by context and result in new knowledge. They are articulated in the below model:
8 www.newmediacuration.com
41 Figure 11. Ben Shneiderman’s “The New ABCs of Research” (2016).
The movement of context and strategies are contrasted by the static nature of the guiding principles and new knowledge produced. When compared with historical examples of audience engagement and iterative cycles, for example Kurt Lewin’s Spiral of Steps (1948), Lucy Suchman’s Expert Help System (1987), E.T. Stringer’s LOOK →THINK → ACT (2003) and Richard Johnson’s UNFREEZING → CHANGING → REFREEZING (1976), Shneiderman’s approach, where more layered in complexity then perhaps Stringer’s or Suchman’s, remains linear. With each of these models you can stop at a certain phase and re-iterate, allowing for continual learning within the same parameters in an iterative way. It does not, however, allow for entry at any stage. Mostly, the preliminary steps need to take place prior to the latter steps in order for incremental progress to be achieved in a measurable way.
“The interaction is instrumental;
The possible goals of interaction are defined by the machine’s functionality;
The structure of the interaction is procedural, constituted by a sequence of actions whose order is partially enforced;
The criteria of adequacy for each action can be specified.”
Figure 12. Lewin’s “Spiral of Steps” (1948) Figure 13. Suchman’s “Expert Help System” (1987)
“The interaction is instrumental; Figure 14. Lewin’s “Spiral of Steps” (1947) Figure 17. Suchman’s “Expert Help System” (1987) The possible goals of interaction are
defined by the machine’s Figure 15. Lewin’s “Spiral of Steps” (1947) Figurefunctionality; 18. Suchman’s “Expert Help System” (1987) 42
The structure of the interaction is Figure 16. Lewin’s “Spiral of Steps” (1947) Figureprocedural, 19. Suchman’s constituted “Expert Help by System” a (1987) sequence of actions whose order is
Figure 14. Stringer’s “Action Research in Education” Figure 15. Johnson’s “Systems Model of Action (2003) Research” (1976).
WhereFigure 20these. Stringer’s models “Action affect Research an event in (or Education” series of events)Figure comprised23. Johnson’s of “Systemshumans Modelas they of engage Action with machines(2003) or computers, the language remains specificResearch” to the (discipline.2008). In contrast, Shneiderman recommends a blended approach to science, engineering and design and, based on applied and basicFigure research, 21. Stringer’s I find “Action Ernest Research Edmonds in ’Education” (2006a) model Figure of language 24. Johnson’s creation “Systems discussed Model in of the Action creation (2003) Research” (2008). of his White Noise artwork more suited to attempting to establish criteria for public curatorial work.
Figure 22Within. Stringer’s the arts“Action and Research social sciences, in Education” practitioners Figure have 25. Johnson’s responded “Systems to a call Model for moreof Action distinct language(2003) frameworks describing how audiences experienceResearch” interactive (2008). art specifically within the context of Human Computer Interaction.9 In his journal article The Art of Interaction, Edmonds Edmonds (2010) speaks to a series of practitioners who bridge art, design, technology and science. He speaks of artist Brigid Costello who developed what she calls a ‘pleasure framework’ for playful engagement. This taxonomy articulates 13 different descriptions of pleasure that people experience when engaging with gamified or interactive art forms. Dialogue emerged around descriptions of exploration, competition, captivation, sympathy, camaraderie and subversion. In active research, social scientist Zafer Bilda has developed a model of engagement, specifying interaction modes and phases that a user might move through when experiencing interactive art. Modes are described with words like unintended, deliberate, intended/in control, intended/uncertain and unexpected; where phases are described in stages of learning, adaptation, deeper understanding and anticipation. In developing interactive systems for expert users rather than general audiences, Andrew Johnston has identified language around digital music—for example, engagement that is instrumental (the musician plays the system), ornamental (the system adds something to the original sound) and conversational (where the expert and the system respond to each other)(Edmonds, 2010).
9 Parts of the following section are reworked from TURNBULL TILLMAN, D., FORSECK, J. & VELONAKI, M. 2017. An Exploratory Case Study into Curatorial Intervention Within the Context of HCI. In: MARCUS, A. & WANG, W. (eds.) Design, User Experience, and Usability: Understanding Users and Contexts. Springer International..
43 Figure 16. Zafer Bilda’s “Modes of Interaction”, 2008, from Edmonds (2010).
When relating processes like these to curatorship, exhibition and evaluation, the creative and professional progression of my practice-based research incorporates the design functions of art experience through human-computer interaction. As such, of the systems Edmonds discusses, Bilda’s model for Modes of Interaction as he observed and analysed artworks related to the artists at the Creativity and Cognition Studios is most relevant to New Media Curation practices. When measuring the experience of interactive art across disciplines and groups, conceptual development generally takes place with the curator offering a brief and the artists/practitioners responding to it. These are the main events we can articulate, but as with Bilda’s model, there is much more going on in these creative engagements then we can articulate, even in the making of them. In the New Media Curation model, the curator is not always the catalyst, more a platform for or conduit to the audience and their engagement of the work. Here a Curator-as-Producer mode of capturing and utilising audience experience shows that curators are definitely becoming a participant in new media and interactive practice. In meeting with, evaluating, iterating and exhibiting prototypes with an emerging or established practitioner, this feeds the reflective curatorial process, as does the evaluation of audience experience.
As Edmonds’ article demonstrates, the pragmatic results of examining responsive systems collaboratively is happening in groups consisting of media artists and curators creating content for audience members to engage with critically and creatively via speculative design and evaluation of their experience by social scientists. Reflection on the part of researchers is presented in analysis of the data collected. In working through the reflection-in-action practice-based research methodology,
44 this study is an opportunity for me to reflect on the way my appreciative system has developed over 10 years of both independent and institutional curation, taking note of any behaviours or critical language that emerge around the audience’s experience of interactive art as my practice developed.
2.4 Authentic Audience Experience: Passive & Active Engagement10
As mentioned previously, the framework for this study utilises variables such as authenticity, prototyping, audience evaluation, elicited response and disruptive technologies. Authenticity has been investigated within the context of digital interactive art whilst emphasising the prototyping process as a disruptive force in the making of such art. It also queries the audience’s role in eliciting reciprocity from computational systems and the ability to analyse this via evaluation. Situating this curatorial study across traditionally disparate media and creative making practices will help in establishing specific criteria. These criteria will be informed by the contemplation of different definitions for authenticity across an interdisciplinary inquiry. Together these outcomes assist in establishing a common language for the experience of this hybrid art form. If this task can be accomplished, the disruptive nature of the curatorial process in light of new—and arguably disruptive technologies made by disruptive practitioners—can, at this point in visual and art histories, assist in establishing experience curating as a revolutionary act rather than an evolutionary constraint. Preliminary criteria or standards for this process may prove useful in the ongoing debate around navigating hybrid and changing processes. As yet, they do not exist.
In looking at the audience’s role in authenticating the experience of interactive art through contemporary curatorial practice, I first examined the emergence of disruptive technologies on the larger global digital market, via business theory and in thinking of New Media Curation (NMC) as a small business. Where this worked as a preliminary platform for examination, I later realised that Disruptive Design Methodology was much more useful to structure and frame the overall study with. I then transferred this understanding and application to a contemporary art context, wherein an analysis of the participation by designers (artists, curators and technologists) in a prototyping project across three case studies was put forward as presenting variables disruptive to the way that a curator would normally work with artists in the capacity of exhibiting finished, rather than in- progress, works. This discussion will provide the specific context in which I am currently examining curatorial practice within experimental environments. Within this context, I demonstrate how to test
10 This section has been modified from previous publications, namely TURNBULL TILLMAN, D. & VELONAKI, M. 2016. Disruption and Reflection: A Curatorial Case Study. In: ENGLAND, D., SCHIPHORST, T. & BRYAN-KINNS, N. (eds.) Curating the Digital: Space for Art and Interaction. Springer International. and TURNBULL TILLMAN, D., VELONAKI, M. & GEMEINBOECK, P. 2015. Authenticating Experience: Curating Digital Interactive Art. Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interfaces. Stanford University..
45 my theories on audiences, and begin to formally develop exhibitions in the way that artists/technologists develop the work—that is, through a series of iterative exhibitions that may cause discomfort or anxiety on the part of both creators and consumers of digital interactive art. This discomfort, based on the experimental nature of the process, aims to lead to the discovery of new knowledge. This is echoed in the theme of the third Case Study, Re/Pair, where there is a moment of anxiety in waiting for the systems in an interactive art exhibition to respond.
In presenting digital interactive works at the prototype phase, I am participating in a disruptive practice for all parties concerned (artist, technologist, exhibitors and audience members). I posit possible solutions to fallouts based on refining the methods utilised in a case-by-case analysis of three of the exhibitions produced by the experimental research initiative that has formed my curatorial practice: New Media Curation (NMC). These evaluations will establish a set of criteria that extends the current knowledge of what it means for an audience member who engages with digital interactive art to have an Authentic experience within the context of prototype interactive art, and what language might be used to describe it.
To date, a key problem in this field of inquiry is the meaning of authenticity itself. Where two definitions are utilised in this thesis, both a technological and a humanities one, I largely subscribe to a specialised, humanities definition. Universities, such as the Institute of Aesthetics in Denmark, are beginning to utilise the philosophical definition of authenticity: being true to one’s own experience in relation to external forces, pressures and influences which are different from, or other than, oneself—and applying this to courses on digital art (Wood, 2008). In Lotte Philipson’s course (2010), students are encouraged to understand all definitions of authenticity and apply them to the digital medium. Drawing on the work of Dennis Dutton, two closely examined definitions in this course are nominal and expressive authenticity. Nominal authenticity is more in line with traditional curatorial techniques. It follows the practical history of a work, correctly identifying materials, authorship, provenance and origins when its practices are applied. Expressive authenticity is more about critiquing experience through emotions that act as a marker of the artist’s society or an individual’s belief (Dutton, 2003). Where the nominal definition is useful in terms of taxonomy, the expressive definition would be more difficult to evaluate and can perhaps only be done in asking the audience how they feel about their experience.
In defining the parameters of an authentic experience, this research draws on the relevant fields of creative robotics, fine art and disruption theory. Where authenticity in fine art may include nominal curatorial practices as defined by Dutton, authenticity in creative robotics may require the ability to replicate expressive authenticity via computer science and engineering. Authenticity across
46 these fields means establishing a provenance precluding a genuineness and truthfulness about the work; however, in drawing on the work of Julienne Greer (Senior Lecturer in Theatre) and the early work of Sherry Turkle (PhD in Sociology & Personality Psychologist), authenticity also means a successful transmission—a pleasurable experience and an emotional connectedness at the conclusion of an engagement or interaction (Turkle, 2007, Greer, 2013a, Turnbull Tillman et al., 2015).
Of particular interest to my own study is Matthew Connell’s description of how the Beta_space example is satisfying to museums as a way to authentically (in a technological sense) exhibit information technology as it is meant to be experienced by humans. On asking him to elaborate what he meant in this text, Connell commented that to him, to experience an authentic piece of information technology (IT) is to experience “the real thing”, as in an example of that piece of IT rather than a simulation of it (often through a museum prop like a video or model of “the real thing”). He considers the Beta_space project authentic because not only was it actually showing in situ research into human computer interaction, it was also the most authentic of all of the Museum- University research collaborations he hosted because, built as an example of HCI itself, the design of the space incorporated human test subjects whilst simultaneously testing the computer systems running the artwork.11 It was disruptive, but in such a way as to be useful to the larger curatorial discourse on the topic, as revealed in chapter 3 (Methodologies) and chapter 5 (Results).
2.5 Disruption: Theory & Design Method for the Creation of New Experience12
Disruptive technologies as understood in a broader context are rather exciting in terms of the evolution of materials for making thought about them. The term “disruptive technologies” was coined by businessman and technologist Clayton M. Christensen in 1995 (Bower and Christensen, 1995). Throughout the end of the ‘90s and 2000s, Christensen wrote with and in response to various researchers on this topic, posing dilemmas and offering solutions through various publications. Where he argued for market stability by keeping disruptions minimal and offering explanations when markets were interrupted by what he later termed “innovations,” there were several theorists who countered that disruptions were totally negative to any marketplace. Oliver Gassman (2006) describes technology as being considered ‘a form of social relationship,’ that is “constantly evolving.” In fact, he defines these ecologies and the variables within them as unfixed.
11 Clarification discussion with Matthew Connell on 19 April 2017, 3:41pm. 12 Parts of this section have been modified from the previous publication TURNBULL TILLMAN, D., VELONAKI, M. & GEMEINBOECK, P. 2015. Authenticating Experience: Curating Digital Interactive Art. Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interfaces. Stanford University..
47 It is at this point that the nature of speculative design, in which experimental practice and prototyping may be both disruptive whilst also establishing commonalities. There is merit in articulating that the way the materials of interactive art (digital technologies) and the processes for exhibiting (prototyping) and designing (speculative) exhibitions featuring digital interactive art overlap, interweave and develop. Where speculative design tends to find a provocation to start from rather than a design problem to solve, prototyping is a scenario- or event-based type of testing where each iteration is either a little or a lot better than the previous model. The development of the digital component of these works are further outlined below.
In an online database, Gassmann is further credited with thinking that ‘technology starts, develops, persists, mutates, stagnates and declines, just like living organisms.’13 Within this particular ecology are different technologies battling it out with each other for the label of high technology (in comparison to creative practice of different aesthetics battling it out for the label of high Art). Life-cycles that emerge as new technologies are created and utilised by target markets. When a high technology is determined as the best and most used it challenges the current Technical Support Nets (TSNs) which facilitate and govern market value in terms of technology. Instead of dying out, the governing system has the option of co-evolving. Where Christensen is critical of this interpretation, colleagues of Gassman and Christensen argue for the power of disruptive technologies. For example, Joseph Bower (2002) speaks of how disruptive technologies can transform an industry, and Milan Zeleny (2009) speaks of how disruptive technologies can cause resistance—not to the technologies themselves, but to the change they bring to people already reliant on the current dominant system to thrive in the changing of language and practice.
When one thinks through disruptive technology theory and then introduces its techniques to traditionally ordered processes, like curating art exhibitions, a space opens up wherein experimental enquiry can take place. Many cross-disciplinary practitioners write in this way about the emergence of technology and its effects on aesthetics. As with any emergent technology, some fear it (for example, Sherry Turkle), others embrace it (Julienne Greer), and eventually a co-existence emerges that challenges the previous dominant norm. The effects of technology on the body and on works created performatively are of particular significance to this study, as many of these disruptive techniques were previously initiated and observed by myself and my mentors and collaborators through the Beta_space project, but also in the research environment at the Creative Robotics Lab (CRL) at the University of New South Wales (UNSW).
13 Where this analogy is quoted from a discussion WIKIPEDIA 2018. Disruptive Innovation., Gassmann discusses the Trends and streams of open innovation between pages 223-225 in, GASSMANN, O. 2006. Opening up the innovation process: Towards an agenda. R&D Management, 36, 223-228.
48 Above I mention Bower and Christensen in relation in Disruption Theory in business because New Media Curation exists as a small business as well as a research platform. However, powerful responses, such as those by Jill Lepore (2014) in her New Yorker article The Disruption Machine: what the gospel of innovation gets wrong, contextualises the over exposure and perceived harm of Disruption theory on the business world. In echoing the terminology of Cook and Graham in claiming “upstarts” as a type of innovative creative practitioner, Lepore informs her opinion piece by telling the story of working in tech industries in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, in places that she terms “finish-downs” instead of “start-ups” due to their failure to meet market demands. She discusses Christenson’s interest in why businesses fail, what she perceives as his black and white notion that businesses fail if they don’t disrupt innovatively. Where I find the idea posited by Christenson that technological innovation as a disruptor and predictor for the future a useful analogy for designing prototype interactive art exhibitions, Lepore finds it wholly lacking, calling the theory “blind to continuity” and “a very poor prophet” (Lepore, 2014). Where I can accept that the spread of Disruption Theory has become so ubiquitous as to be taxing and not nearly disruptive enough to the hegemonic acceptance of its embrace, I find it difficult to reconcile her claim that “disruption is a theory of change founded on panic [and] anxiety” with my own practice of aiming to dispel fear in the making, exhibiting, evaluation and acquisition of digital interactive art. Where we should definitely question any theory that so popularly infiltrates our society, and Lepore’s article details the shortcomings of Disruption Theory very well, there are others who embrace, evolve and embellish Disruption Theory for their own purposes in a more practice-based approach. Perhaps the key is not to be fundamentalist in the approach to utilising or discarding the aspects of any theory, but rather to be flexible in appropriating what works and shelving what doesn’t. This notion appeals to me, and following this line of reasoning has lead me to the Bricolage Research approach in honing my appreciative system in establishing flexible criteria and a model accessible from any access point.
In following this, what has become more useful in this thesis is a more contemporary approach to interdisciplinary design for the practitioners working this way; artists, curators and technologists. Leyla Acaroglu’s (2017a) design practice encompasses activism, environmentalism and being a thought “provocateur”. Where the activities surrounding the term “provocateur” have much in common with the term “upstart”, it could be argued that both of them are disruptive. The methodology Acaroglu has designed also frames this thesis. As such, it is a useful platform for framing deep research. It is cyclical and three-dimensional, so it allows for both iteration and non- linear development in controlled environments, like living labs. The stages are platforms for changing destructive behaviour through disruptive means. Table 1 demonstrates the way I have integrated her three-step system into my practice-based research:
49 Table 1. Acaroglu’s (2017a) Disruptive Design Methods in relation to this thesis.
MINING SECTION – “Problem Loving”: “Dive deep into the problem arena. Develop Disruptive Design research approaches. Explore the elements within and develop insights” Method 1 This section incorporates the problematisation of my thesis in the Introduction and State of the Art Review. This is tested in the first Case Study: Denouément. LANDSCAPE – “Systems Mapping”: “Identify the main elements in the system and Disruptive Design map how they interact, relate and connect. Identify points of intervention” Method 2 This section incorporates the clarification of the Methods and Foundational Work that will attempt to demystify the problems articulated in the first two chapters. BUILDING – “Ideation and Intervention”: “Generate disruptive ideas for intervention. Explore viability. Test, prototype & repeat. Make change!” Disruptive Design Method 3 This section tests the clarification and attempts a way forward through 3 exhibition Case Studies that prototype, test, reflect and repeat the methodologies within the foundational work.
Where Acaroglu’s Disruptive Design Method has helped to frame this thesis, it also offered a kind of clarity in terms of my own curatorial activity. This is captured in the disruptive approach to my case studies, but also in their speculative design and eclectic approach to data collection and analysis. Where I can see value in Christenson’s approach, and Gassman and Lepore’s responses to it, I feel as though Arcaroglu’s approach is much more practical, contemporary and fluid. Disruptive Design Methods fit well into both practice-led and Bricolage Research.
Early evidence of this approach to my conceiving, collaborating on and producing exhibitions can be found in the work I performed with the Centre for Media Arts Innovation (CMAI) at UTS and the Design Lab, Sydney at the University of Sydney.
Memory Flows, Centre for Media Arts Innovation, UTS
After the establishment of my independent practice through mundane_traces and Image Ecologies, two research centres contracted me for teaching and curatorial work. The first was the Centre for Media Arts Innovation (CMAI) in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at UTS. Along with the work she featured with Sara Gibson, Norie Neumark, then head of the CMAI, also included a sound and film reel of a body work she was testing for a festival called Liquid Architecture titled Memory Flows. She wanted to test the concepts of the work on a similar audience to one that might attend a festival on experimental sound, and also to give the artists a chance to start sketching their works. Neumark had received some Australia Council Funding to exhibit research works, and the process of the collaborating artists was to do this in stages so as to work through any errors or glitches before the more polished or final exhibition. As such, I was assistant curator, curator, author and editor on this project, overseeing various curatorial and administrative aspects of it over three major iterations: 1] Image Ecologies—sketch phase; 22 Liquid Architecture at Carriageworks—prototype phase; and 3]
50 Memory Flows at the Newington Armoury, Sydney Olympic Park—the final development phase of the research artworks.14
The Design Lab, Sydney, University of Sydney
The other research centre interested in collaborating was the Design Lab with the Architecture, Design and Planning Faculty, where I was hired by Andy Dong—then head of the Design Lab. Here I was hired to work with students in their final year of a bachelor’s degree or working inside the M.IDEA course (Masters of Interaction Design and Electronic Art). I worked closely with artist Lian Loke, curator Martin Tomitsch, technologist Rob Saunders and musician Ollie Bown. Over the course of three years and four projects, I worked closely with the staff and students of the Design Lab as a curatorial consultant. I would come into courses at different stages, teaching and demonstrating curatorial processes from budgeting, to setting a brief, finding funding, sourcing venues, and finally exhibiting.
Urban Realities & Augmented Play (prototype for working with Dr. Martin Tomitsch and Dr. Rob Saunders)
The School of Design at UTS and the Design Lab at the University of Sydney (USYD) collaborated along the themes of augmented reality and urban playgrounds. This collaboration, managed by New Media Curation, is titled Urban Realities & Augmented Play. The project consisted of a joint exhibition, launch and publication—all of which served as public platforms for emerging interaction design students. On launch night, students, industry experts, academics and the general public converged to create an environment of creativity and experimentation featuring prototype works and site visits to the Grid Gallery in the Sydney CBD.
14 The 3 iterations of the Memory Flows concept through exhibition are documented in photographs at http://www.newmediacuration.com/gallery/3/ | http://www.newmediacuration.com/gallery/2/ | http://www.newmediacuration.com/gallery/14/ - accessed throughout the research period from July 2014, most recently accessed April 2018.
51 Figure 17. Design Lab students engaging the student prototype works on the SmartSlabs as part of the Grid Gallery studio Urban Realities and Augmented Play exhibition launch, 2011. Artwork featured: Stephanie Fynn, Heather McKinnon and Jane Sivieng, A Flanuer’s Trace, 2011. Image courtesy of Aram Dulyan.
ATTRACT::RELATE::SUSTAIN (second collaboration with Dr. Martin Tomitsch)
The Design Lab students prototyped this exhibition at the Web Directions South conference at the Darling Harbour Exhibition & Convention Centre. This prototype exhibition set the scene for the Verge Gallery exhibition of the End of Year Showcase for the Design Lab. ATTRACT::RELATE::SUSTAIN focused on creative technologies (see Dong, 2011). Its exhibition design encouraged the playful and engaging projects that often take on the form of interaction and object design and resulted in artworks, physically built devices and robots.
52 Figure 18. Stills from the ATTRACT::RELATE::SUSTAIN Launch, 2011, at the Verge Gallery, University of Sydney. Artworks featured: Emma Chee, Curious Whispers 2.0, 2011 (top); Harry Mann, Temporal Luminescence, 2011 (left); Claudia Nunez- Pacheco, LÚCILA, 2011 (right). Images courtesy of Lightpop Photography.
The preliminary exhibition theme was interconnectivity, and the programming, coding, model-making and aesthetics that comprise contemporary interaction design. The notion of daisy- chains are at the forefront of this interconnectivity, both in the form of a large mechanical device made up of independent machines and as an installation technique—in terms of connecting the machines representative of a research facility's theoretical output and the lecturers who inspire and guide it (with an emphasis on the links between the students and their mentors). To support this metaphor, along with the larger device, there were projected films, touch tables and the SmartSlab
53 interactive works from Urban Realities and Augmented Play,15 along with historical and iterative artefacts from previous prototypes.
Ghost[s] and the[ir] Machine[s] (collaboration with Dr. Lian Loke)
Interactive designs by postgraduate students in the Master of Interaction Design and Electronic Arts (M.IDEA) led by studio master Dr. Lian Loke explored the theme of excavating the future within interactive installation. The Old Darlington School managed by the Sydney Conservatorium, offered the backdrop for the interactive pieces, with the mirrored history of play, of industriousness, and of creativity.
Ghost[s] and the[ir] machine[s] (2012)16 evoked the experience of Cockatoo Island in Sydney’s Harbour through design elements such as time, place and occupied space in comparison to former and current inhabitants. Interactive instruments produced a means for participants to sift through the past to pave a way forward and excavate towards the future as a way of making sense of the past. Their works make strange the perception and remembrance of space by equipping participants with technology for bodily interaction with the space. The design elements from Cockatoo Island are pulled through and remixed in the Old Darlington School to form contact surfaces between Cockatoo Island’s history, the Old Darlington School, and the participants.
The result of the body probe method in discovering the elements of the space involved trace- making and strange or dislocated play in these dark, decorative, industrial and apparently haunted spaces. I aimed for the design theme to re-create a similar environment as a backdrop for the students’ interactive designs, with the theme of ghostly traces and how they affect interactivity tangentially as a medium and in terms of the tools they are creating experience with.
15 http://www.newmediacuration.com/gallery/22/- accessed throughout research period from July 2014, but most recently in March 2018. 16 http://www.newmediacuration.com/gallery/26/- accessed throughout research period from July 2014, but most recently in March 2018.
54 Figure 19. Presentation Slides for pitching the Ghost[s] and the[ir] Machine[s] exhibition to the CyberStudio students at the Design Lab. Left: Lian Loke and Deb Turnbull Tillman “making strange” their environment with Baki Kocaballi documenting. Right: Images of the Old Darlington House over an image from Cockatoo Island to show shared history.
Figure 20. Stills from the Ghost[s] and the[ir] Machine[s] exhibition at the Old Darlington House, University of Sydney, 2012 (see http://www.newmediacuration.com/gatm/01-13/13.html). Left: Artwork featured is The Pattern of Life by Roven Yu, Yoko Tomishima, and Fan Wang, 2012. Right: Deb Turnbull Tillman operating the artwork Islander, 2012, by Ariel Chou, Cindy Zhou and Kyle Zhu.
Organised Cacophony (first collaboration with Dr. Ollie Bown)
Since the Design Lab aims to foster design as a means of knowledge production in its own right, they see design as a study of the world the way it could be through the creation and interrogation of the ‘designed’ world.
55 The key question we asked for this exhibition was: If we were assigned a piece of the cityscape, how would we interrogate and create a space for ourselves? We might also ask: who was here before me, what did it look like, how did it sound, how did people communicate, what did they do for fun? We might then ponder: now that I’m here, what should it look like, how should it sound, how do we organise communications, how should we present ourselves? With multiple screens, cacophonous sounds, increasingly mobile technologies and deeply personal narratives assailing us constantly, how can we make sense of our surrounds in a creative way?
New Media Curation and the staff at the Design Lab led by Ollie Bown answered the call for content at The Rocks Pop Up spaces for their annual End of Year Exhibition. The call stated a need to re-enliven, rework and rejuvenate historical spaces with contemporary artwork. At this time, The Rocks sits adjacent to one of the most famous harbours in the world and is managed by the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority. It is a lively commercial, tourist, and artistic destination for visitors to and residents of Australia. It has been able to maintain this reputation based on an ever-evolving sense of community, of multiple identities clustered around change, growth and renewal.
Figure 21. Stills from the exhibition Organised Cacophony, 2012; a collaboration between New Media Curation, the Design Lab, University of Sydney and the Rocks PopUp. Left: Artwork featured is Human, Nature, Urbanisation, 2012 by Chia Yuan Chang, Shumei Li and Mirinda Kulsrisuwan. Right: Artwork featured is Sensitive Surface, 2012 by Ingrid Maria Pohl. Images courtesy of the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Panning, University of Sydney , 2012. Names of Artists and Artworks sourced from the Organised Cacaophony catalog (Dong, 2012).
Once we had carved out a space for ourselves in the Sydney-scape, we used contrast to contextualise the concept of community, and articulated that idea through the metaphor of distributed nodes and networks. Our tools utilised these frameworks; our physical site mirrored this idea in that it offered one central space with the opportunity to infiltrate or infringe on other spaces. We exhibited some of the designs of the studio masters in the central space, with the works of the students distributed throughout The Rocks Pop Up sites. This layered metaphor mirrored the history
56 of The Rocks itself and was communicated through a series of interactive works for the public to engage with and enjoy.17
2.6 The Gaps in Knowledge
What I have demonstrated in this State of the Art Review is that though there is quite a lot of academic discussion around language and best practice concerning curating new media art, there as yet isn’t a set of criteria or standards that articulate best practice for curating new media arts through practice-based and -led research. In order to lend dynamism to the criteria, I have also modelled a novel way to curate interactive art, whereby the practitioner can enter the process at any stage and be successful. In ensuring this was in fact the case, I met with UNSW research librarian Kassie Dmitrieff who stated, “You’re in a bit of a sweet spot. Where there is a lot of discussion around curatorial practice and language, no one else is doing what you are” (2018, pers. comm. 9 January). The methodologies, data, and coding of the criteria are detailed in chapters 3 and 5, and discussed in practical contexts in chapter 6.
Upon reflection, I realised that the independent curatorial work that both helped me build confidence and start to work with criteria—though specifically for artists in response to a call—was the corporate contracts. The beginning of my interest in criteria and recognising standards or practice was made clear to me when corporate clients began asking for me to be authority for them. This happened over three key collaborations with EnergyAustralia as it changed brands to Ausgrid. The resulting early criteria relates to the standards the artists had to maintain in order to be successful in the commission of a public work. The shift to reflecting on my own practice and established criteria seemed natural from there. These corporate case studies are outlined below, and are published in my co-authored book chapter with Matthew Connell, chapter on Curating Digital Public Art (2014).
Grid Gallery (2010)
EnergyAustralia launched Grid Gallery, Sydney’s first permanent and public media-based gallery space dedicated solely to the exhibition of media art, in 2010. Leo Burnett and New Media Curation were commissioned to manage the gallery space and work with the community to display art.
17 http://www.newmediacuration.com/projects/past - accessed throughout research period from July 2014, but most recently in April 2018.
57 Figure 22. Stills from the launch of the Grid Gallery, 2010. Top: Artwork featured is Sansuigo .03, by Chris Bowman. Bottom: Guests from the launch viewing the gallery from across the street. Photography courtesy of Aram Dulyan.
I found this project intriguing because it is physically, architecturally and virtually situated; and has been conceived this way from the structure’s preliminary planning 10 years ago. The architectural structure of EnergyAustralia’s Substation 4 houses the physical component at the corner of Erskine and Sussex Streets. The web portal, formerly at www.gridgallery.com.au, was also a key component; allowing a visitor the chance to view the online gallery, while an artist can submit works.
58 Over 6 months, each month, a new brief with a unique theme was released for media artists from across Australia to respond to. Artists are provided with a specific time frame to submit an idea via sketch synopsis. Feedback was provided to selected artists, with the opportunity to revise and further develop their final artwork for upload onto Grid Gallery’s 15 metre x 1 metre LED screen, powered by 100% GreenPower.18
It is important to note that this project came about because of my experience working with prototype spaces and emerging practitioners. My experience with Beta_space and working in University studios led to a colleague recommending me when EnergyAustralia approached her. The influence stretching back to my foundational practice, and forward to influence my current practice as an authority is a significant milestone in my practice-based research.
The Silverwater Learning Centre Commission (2011)
Ausgrid established its new Learning Centre at Silverwater in August 2011. The site is primarily designed for its apprentice and employee training but also includes a contemporary Energy Efficiency Centre to promote environmental sustainability and current research and development projects to the public through a series of interactive, hands-on displays.
18 http://www.newmediacuration.com/gallery/15/ - accessed throughout research period from July 2014, but most recently in March 2018.
59 Figure 23. Stills from the launch of the Silverwater Learning Centre, the call for a permanent sculpture and digital work for STEALTH screens were a collaboration between Ausgrid and New Media Curation. Left: Sculpture featured is Mother of Invention, 2010, by Chris Fox and Dillon MacEwan. Right: Artwork featured is Phases by Sohan Ariel Hayes, 2010. Images courtesy of Aram Dulyan.
A centrepiece of these installations is two back-to-back, vertical Stealth LED screens that utilise motion graphic video content. New Media Curation hosted an Ausgrid-sponsored, competitive commission for the design and implementation of two digital artworks for these screens—the subject matter of which was to be harnessed or focused energy. Using a lightning bolt (natural phenomenon) or a Jacob's Ladder (scientific icon) as inspiration, the successful applicant's submission was to contain a unique approach to either these two design icons or their own unique realisation of harnessed energy.
In order to mark the launch occasion and offer a firm visual architecture that links the structure and the exhibitions housed within, EnergyAustralia commissioned a sculpture comprised of recycled materials sourced from the EnergyAustralia warehouses in Chullora and Oatley (both in NSW, Australia). The site is a garden bed within the basement which is 10.2 m x 8.4 m with a two- tier visual scope measuring approximately 4 m from finished ground level to the top of the
60 balustrade surrounding the void. It was the request of the Learning Centre Committee that the sculpture be visible from both the basement level and the ground floor level.19
The competition included a site visit to the Learning Centre, a site visit to the warehouses for materials sourcing, a presentation to the Learning Centre Arts Committee and a willingness to incorporate Committee feedback into final designs. The successful applicant was awarded a small stipend with which to realise their design. It is important to note that this collaboration was of interest to the arts publishing world and I was offered full page article for Artlink Magazine (Turnbull, 2011).
Important deadlines for the commission competition are outlined in Table 2:
Table 2. Artist criteria for entering the competition for permanent sculpture and digital work for the Ausgrid Silverwater Learning Centre
Express your interest by Friday 8 October 2010 @ 5pm
Be prepared for a site Wednesday 13 October to the Holker Street site in Silverwater @ 9:30- visit 10:30am (wear steel-toe boots if possible, if not please ensure fully enclosed leather shoes are worn) Potential Sculptors Be prepared for a warehouse visit - Wednesday 20 October 2010 @ 1pm
Potential Digital Artists Preliminary Tech Specs: Screen size - 400x400mm(H) | Brand - Stealth LED panel(s) | View - Back-to-back LED panels; screen visible double-sided | Resolution - 25mm Pixel pitch hi-luminosity LED | Realization - it is recommended that the artist provides motion graphics/video content only, text will not be permitted Present your ideas to Wednesday 3 or Thursday 4 November 2010 the Learning Centre Arts Committee
Hold a valid ABN Should you prove successful in one or both of your design ideas, we require that you invoice for the stipend, and as such, we require that you hold a valid Australian Business Number.
Urban Art Projects and the City North Public Sculpture Commission (2012)
Urban Art Projects (UAP), Brisbane, and Ausgrid contracted New Media Curation to curate a commission for public sculpture at their Erskine and Sussex Streets City North Substation. Previously the home of Grid Gallery, the space was redeveloped to enliven and enrich this busy city thoroughfare with the new name City North.
19 http://www.newmediacuration.com/gallery/23/ - accessed throughout research period from July 2014, but most recently in March 2018.
61 There were three phases to this process: 1] an invited longlist of interactive artists as selected by NMC; 2] a shortlist chosen by Ausgrid and UAP for ideation; 3] a final artist chosen to realise their design.
The Curatorial Rationale
. . . in effect, we cannot make our work without your product. . .
——— Ernest Edmonds to George Maltabarow at the launch of Grid Gallery, June 2010
The above sentence was re-quoted by Maltabarow—then Managing Director of Ausgrid—in his opening speech at the launch of Grid Gallery. Here, in a discussion prior to his speech, one of the artists featured at the launch (also a Professor of Information Technology) articulated an undeniable relationship between electricity and digital art. This articulation sparked a greater awareness in the Maltabarow for the activity at hand: that digital art as a medium is on the rise in Australia and Ausgrid, whether officially or unofficially, is the sponsor of that movement. Buildings now incorporate media facades, screens are prevalent in shared spaces, and Internet access is readily available via wireless hubs. This sense of movement, of forward motion, and that knowledge is in the palm of our hands due to a bountiful supply of energy in our country; the pushing, the pulsing, and the very static of electricity is what inspires digital artists to create in this medium.
The space under consideration at Sussex and Erskine Streets in the Sydney CBD is itself a thoroughfare, one that connects commuters with trains, buses and ferries between Darling Harbour and Wynyard Station. With this area up for further development via the Barangaroo project, an area that could easily be termed “dead” or “junk” space in urban development terms has the opportunity to morph into something spectacular.20
The final artist chosen for a permanent installation at the Sussex and Erskine Street site was take from 10 invited and 5 shortlisted artists. The final choice was Queensland media artist and printmaker David Nixon. His concept proposal for the City North site is below.
20 http://www.newmediacuration.com/projects/past - accessed throughout research period from July 2014, but most recently in March 2018.
62 Figure 24. Mock-up of the Ausgrid City North winning proposal: Momentum, 2012/13 by David Nixon (UAP, Concept Proposal, p. 10).
2.7 Conclusions and Segue
This chapter articulates both a continuation and variance in my practice. I continued to creatively collaborate in experimental settings, but in order to establish myself as an authority for my clients. In doing so, I realised I lacked a set of standards or criteria I held myself too. In performing a State of the Art Review, I realised that this was an issue amongst new media practitioners and audiences as well. The language we used for artists didn’t suffice for what I, as a new media curator, was required to do, or for audiences, how they were meant to participate and contribute to future design iterations—they were purely for the artists responding to very specific, rather than overarching, criteria. Upon further research, I found that in the current curatorial literature and amongst my contemporaries, there wasn’t any alternative.
The first half of this thesis argues a call for a revision of practice, showing who has attempted these changes, and how and why it has only progressed so far in my foundation work as influenced by key practitioners in the field. The next half of the thesis will focus on honing the NMC Methodology, and establishing criteria as flexible and movable guidelines with which to navigate this transdisciplinary and constantly changing plane.
63
Section II: LANDSCAPING
In this section, we look at “identify[ing] the main elements in the system and map how they interact, relate and connect. [We also] identify points of intervention” (Acaroglu, 2017a).
64
Chapter 3. Methodolog[ies]
This chapter will describe and justify the methods used within the case studies of this thesis. In presenting and reviewing the four key components of the study in chapter 1 and examining how they affected my foundational practice and the State of the Arts in chapter 2, I will now move into examining how the four key elements of my curatorial practice (practice-based and -led research, creative collaboration, authentic experience and disruptive theory and methods) have influenced my appreciative system through experiential learning via my own curatorial practice. The overall methodology will encompass a bricolage approach utilising and blending the methods, materials, partnerships and platforms available and being willing to participate at the time of the study “based on notions of eclecticism, emergent design, flexibility and plurality”(Rogers, 2012).
65 3.1 Setting up a PhD Study: designing a study through observation, planning, testing and reflecting – using Bricolage Research as a metaphor for multiple research methods.
In the first defence of my thesis, I presented a plan I was already in the early stages of executing. It spoke to my practice and what I felt I had contributed to my overarching framework of practice- based research in terms of curating exhibition experiences, collaborating across universities, museums, and both corporate and government funding bodies; what I referred to previously as the NMC Methodology was beginning to take shape. I had a path charted through the study and collaborators from previous contracts waiting to assist me in contributing to the PhD, but how exactly I would approach the PhD was still to be determined. The first NMC methodology I presented, complete with steps, is below:
Figure 25. Early NMC practice-based research methodology (2015).
In planning the second Case Study, the path changed only slightly to include and situate the subject of the study, ISEA2015: disruption, wherein the methodology changed to accommodate a reflection cycle as below:
66 Figure 26. A slightly refined NMC Practice-based research methodology (2016)
Where these paradigms ensure rigorous approaches to my investigations and provide continuity across the Case Studies, the outcomes of the final Methodology will be discussed in full in Chapter 6. The current chapter will investigate the elements of different methodologies that come to make up the final NMC Methodology, and how they were deployed within my Case Studies in order to allow for a coherence and communicability across disciplines.
I use the Bricolage/Bricoleur terminology as a metaphor to reflect on and learn about how my multiple-methods-and -voices research informs the key contribution, namely the criteria. A few critiques of the language for Bricolage as a way to think through my multiple approaches and voices aspects are investigated in (Wibberley, 2012) and (Levi Strauss, 1962), who both support this way of using the terminology of Bricolage as a way to understand seemingly disparate methods, particularly to make sense of one’s knowing. Wibberley’s article Getting to Grips with Bricolage: A Personal Account responds particularly to his post-graduate students experimenting with ‘the best’ research methodologies. Where he is critical that bricolage research can lead to misunderstandings or misconceptions based on relying on text-book definitions about what the methodology looks like as an end product, he embraces the actual ‘doing’ of bricolage, of the opportunity to accurately write about what you have done because you have done it. In his work The Savage Mind, Levi-Strauss is writing as a social anthropologist seeking to understand human relationships in post war France. He first critiques the terms bricoleur and bricolage linguistically, instead pointing out how it is more
67 useful as a metaphor in terms of thinking through one’s research and understanding it, rather than thinking of it as a practical skill to add to one’s Appreciative System.
Where I speak in general about Bricolage Research in Chapter 1, it is important to the methodologies I work through that I am thinking about my research in a hybrid bricoleur approach amidst five types. They are defined in Table 3 in a post-structuralist way. As with finding Edmonds and Candy, Muller and Connell, and Graham and Cook influential in establishing, moving through and then situating myself in my practice, I find the definitions that Rogers explores below as apt descriptors for the methodologies I was moving through, but hadn’t yet found relational language for. Where the NMC Methodology as enacted through the three Case Studies most closely follows the interpretive and methodological bricoleur approaches, there are necessarily elements of the theoretical and narrative bricoleur in presenting the research as a practice-based and –led PhD.
Table 3. Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln’s categories of Bricoleur Practice (Rogers, 2012)
Type of Bricoleur Definition and characteristics The interpretive bricoleur This practitioner understands that research is an interactive process that is social and inclusive of their own demographic. They don’t just examine any one thing (object or idea) but they do so in relation to their own relationship to the research process. They are usually qualitative and reflexive researchers and allow other media or specialities to be explored in line with their research. The methodological bricoleur This researcher combines multiple tools to accomplish a meaning-making task. They are generally fluid, eclectic and creative in their approaches and respect the complexity of making meaning in allowing the context to dictate the approaches to data collection and analysis, rather than imposing one that may not work as well. They generally use the tools “at hand” to accomplish their work, and choices tend to take shape as other aspects of the process unravel. Decisions aren’t necessarily made in advance. The theoretical bricoleur This type of researcher reads A LOT. They are able to apply many different theories to any given theoretical problem which provides different theoretical contexts in which an object or idea can be interpreted. This gives multiple perspectives and a plurality of influences for any given phenomenon. The political bricoleur These researchers are clear on how knowledge and power are connected, and often use this to fight hegemony, social injustice and disenfranchisement that is rampant within white patriarchal society.
68 The narrative bricoleur This practitioner understands the context in which things are perceived, understood and recorded. They do not take the ideologies and discourses in which narratives emerge for granted, rather they reject any single voice narrative in favour of multiple perspectives, voices and sources.
3.2 Living Laboratories: Experimenting with disruption and authenticity in Denouément
Living laboratories have a history quite devoid of artistic experimentation, concerned as they are with technical innovation based on user feedback. Where there are now many different definitions of what a Living Lab is, it is most important to my research in that the outcomes of these Living Lab experiments are linked to experiential learning. It is generally agreed that there are four key components to a Living Lab: 1] co-creation; 2] exploration; 3] experimentation; and 4] evaluation (Pallot, 2010).
In the creation of Beta_space as a Living Laboratory inside an institution, there was room left in Muller’s relevant research to explore a Living Lab outside of the espoused spaces of galleries and museums. Festivals such as La Nuit Blanche (Paris, FR), Ars Electronica (Linz, AU), ISEA (Brighton, UK), Experimenta (Melbourne, AUS), ANAT (Adelaide, AUS) and other international platforms for art and technology research have a long-standing history of exhibiting interactive art, and even of supporting such exhibitions with research residencies. What they often miss, being festivals, is the carrying over of tacit or experiential knowledge to the next iterative cycle, thus not making full use of the audience as a tool for co-creation.
In Case Study #1 – Denouément, I explore the four key components of the Living Lab expressed Table 4. This exhibition marked the first and exploratory leg of my thesis study. In following my NMC Methodology, I worked closely with the curators to produce the exhibition component of Musify+Gamify for VIVID Music in June of 2015. As part of the exhibition and launch, I intervened as a planned disruption to the order of the project by inserting Denouément as my exhibition piece. In the lead up to this, I worked with students in their studios and along with their tutor, Tom Ellard, I provided them with a brief in line with the Musify+Gamify theme and visited the class on a few occasions to check the progress of those interested. Of the 30 or so students, two maintained an interest in exhibiting prototype works. As such, realising I had material to work with, I liaised with the Seymour Theatre Centre staff to ensure ethical standards21 were maintained for
21 A UNSW HREA Panel B: Arts, Humanities & Law Ethics Application was applied for and modified twice over the three Case Studies. Its policy number is HC15109.
69 their staff and audience during my study, and once we appropriated the screen adjacent to the square in front of the Theatre, I was ready to evaluate the works with the audience and for the emergent practitioners in interactive media art.
Table 4. Living Lab components as utilised in public space
Pallot (2010) Turnbull Tillman et al. (2017) 1. Co-creation 1. Working with the students in SOMA3412 in Semester 1 of the 2015 school year to bring viable ideation to a set of working prototypes suitable for exhibition Co-creators: Tom Ellard, Laura Wenham, Seunghyun Kim 2. Exploration 2. Securing partners, exhibition space, and ethics approval to promote and support a study that disrupts the audience’s experience of interactive art in a public space Worked with curators Oliver Bown and Lian Loke and the Seymour Centre Theatre 3. Experimentation 3. Staging the exhibition on a reclaimed (hacked) screen prior to the proper exhibition site, thereby waylaying participants to the scheduled exhibition and performances 4. Evaluation 4. Utilising questionnaires to perform evaluation on 95+ willing audience participants over 5 nights
In performing the exploratory study by following aspects of both practice-based and -led methodologies, I had a path to follow. This first event set up and tested partnerships within one of the parameters of my practice (working with emergent practitioners), involved the audience, set up my ethics, allowed me to produce to an international festival standard, and connected me to my next study. It was rich and fertile ground and allowed an effective platform for me to set up and begin my further research methodologies.
3.3 Auto-Ethnography and Reflective Practice - ISEA2015: disruption
There is a branch of auto-ethnographic research (the study of reflexively writing about oneself) that explores a divergence from traditionally discipline-based qualitative methods based on the research of others. Social scientist Carolyn Ellis (2004), credited with being the originator and a key developer of auto-ethnography within her study of qualitative research, has noted several “traditional criteria” for “good auto-ethnography”. Her approach is in keeping with the bricolage theme of my own methodology in that rather than applying a dictionary definition to her own experience, she instead collates the work of several other authors in her 2004 book The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel about Autoethnography. Sufficing as a definition for this section, Ellis first borrows from Laurel Richardson who approaches any social experiment in terms of:
70 (a) Substantive contribution: Does the piece contribute to our understanding of social life?;
(b) Aesthetic merit: Does this piece succeed aesthetically? Is the text artistically shaped, satisfyingly complex, and not boring?;
(c) Reflexivity: How did the author come to write this text? How has the author’s subjectivity been both a producer and a product of this text?;
(d) Impactfulness: Does this affect me emotionally and/or intellectually? Does it generate new questions or move me to action?; and
(e) Expresses a reality: Does this text embody a fleshed out sense of lived experience?
(Richardson, 2000)
Eleven years later, Ellis, in collaboration with Tony Adams and Stacy Jones (2015), nutted out a four- stage process for the evaluation of auto-ethnographic work that encompasses “descriptive, prescriptive, practical and theoretical goals”. Any good auto-ethnographical study should:
1. Make contributions to knowledge 2. Value the personal and experiential 3. Demonstrate the power, craft, and responsibilities of stories and storytelling 4. Take a relationally responsible approach to research practice and representation
Where there is space within practice-based research to encompass auto-ethnography, it differs slightly in that there is an emphasis on iterative process and evaluation of data within practice-based research. The iterative process allows for testing similar methods more than once, and the evaluation of data is usually more interpretive and analytical then merely tallied or opinion- based. In fact, auto-ethnography takes into account the metrics of many professions—namely those where first-person accounts are valued, like the humanities disciplines of performance studies, education, English literature, history and arts education (2018); human sciences like social work, sociology, psychology, and anthropology; and more human-centred studies like physiotherapy, communication studies, marketing, business and educational administration (Bochner, 2014). As such, it needs to be flexible and adaptive in its approach to analysis.
In setting up Case Study #2 – ISEA 2015: disruption, both reflexivity and auto-ethnography became useful in living, recording, recalling and re-iterating my experience for learning and publication. Echoing my first study in a Curator-as-Producer role for Musify+Gamify, I began working with the organisers of the symposium, which was to take place during the New Forms Festival and the Vancouver Art Gallery’s FUSE Festival. I had also previously produced an ISEA 2013: resistance is futile exhibition in my role as Assistant Curator at the Powerhouse Museum. Both of these roles informed my decision-making in the lead up to the realisation of this case study. Where one can read
71 the full account of this reflective practice case study in my co-authored book chapter with Mari Velonaki titled Disruption and Reflection: a curatorial case study (Turnbull Tillman and Velonaki, 2016), one of the key takeaways for me from this project was a curator-as-producer model adapted from Donald Schὅn, Joelle Killion & Guy Todnam, and Narelle Hempe. Hempe appropriated terminology and process from Schὅn and Killion & Todnam to create her own map for practice-based research, which I then utilised for curatorial production (see both models in Figures 27 & 28).
Figure 27. Reflective Cycle Model (Hampe, 2013).
Figure 28. My Reflection Cycle for Curator-as-Producer developed in 2016
72 Once I had decided on the relevant terminology to describe the stages through which I would pass during the reflection cycle, I was able to break down the experience into linear timeframes (Pre, During and Post-Production), but as attached to an analytical type of reflection relating to experiential learning that reveals meaning in otherwise relatively mundane administrative tasks attached to exciting outcomes. This is because the situation in which I was Reflecting for, in and on Action was a series of high quality pop-ups over five nights at five different locations involving 85 interactive artists at varying stages of their academic and creative careers. As such, I was able to group my experiences into the below chapter headings:
Table 5. Chapter headings and synopses for reflection processes as published in Turnbull Tillman and Velonaki (2016).
Chapter Headings Synopses 12.5.2 Pre-Production: Reflection- This section describes setting up the contract, setting the for-Action |Knowledge for parameters for work, what the key production problems might planning actions (p. 190) be and countering with knowledge from previous experience. 12.5.3 Production: Reflection-in- This section describes the situated experience of producing Action | Knowledge for Doing (p. away from your normal networks and in challenging and ever- 193) changing environs. The key challenge here was managing up, down and across to maintain relationships through production being a large part of this in-situ experience. Staff availability, artist expectation and budgetary and curatorial requirements from upper management were constant constraints. 12.5.4 Post-Production: Reflection- This section highlights the tasks and challenges of closing a on-Action | Knowledge of Self, festival over multiple sites and platforms and returning both Derived from Doing (p. 196) national and international artworks to participants.
Another way of tracking this learned experience is presented in Table 6:
Table 6. Tracking my experiential curatorial learning from theory to practice.
Killion and Schön (1983) Hampe (2013) Turnbull Tillman and Velonaki (2016) Todnem (1991) Reflection-for- Knowledge for Pre-Production – Thoughtfully learning to Action Planning Actions collaborate and plan an exhibition; meeting people, gauging personalities, opening and securing lines of communication across all platforms Reflection- Knowledge for Production – Thoughtfully operating whilst in-Action Doing inside the happening of the exhibition; failures, problem solving, and successes happen here Reflection- Knowledge of Self Post-Production – Thoughtfully reflecting on-Action Derived from on the final stages and wrap-up of the Doing exhibition; articulating the lessons and communicating them to relevant parties
73 In the closing section of Disruption and Reflection: A curatorial case study, I speak to what I learned from performing the role of Curator-As-Producer for ISEA2015: disruption:
In every way, treating this contract as a reflective practice case study allowed me to step back and observe, as well as perform within, the study. Surprisingly, this conscious disconnect minimized my stress levels, and eased my usual need to control the outcome of exhibitions I am involved with. This acceptance of my place as observer and social scientist allowed me room to really stop, think, and look at what was happening at any given time. In this way, I could quite quickly come to accept any situation as either solvable or irrelevant. (Turnbull Tillman and Velonaki, 2016)
3.4 Trial and Error: The Media Architecture Biennale 2016
Where Trial and Error (TaE) is credited as being the main experimental methodology of Thomas Edison (Simonton, 2014-15), it is more commonly understood as “a fundamental method of problem solving . . . characterised by repeated, varied attempts which are continued until success [is achieved], or until the agent stops trying” (2017). In thinking through my time as Exhibition Chair22 and Supporting Organisation for the Media Architecture Biennale 201623, this methodology best describes my initial approach to this Case Study which didn’t eventuate within my PhD research. Like Edison, I am happy to know that this didn’t work, and found another way to investigate similar parameters in Re/Pair. It is interesting to investigate and record why it didn’t work despite repeated attempts on my part and in varying ways before finally conceding defeat.
As I continue to hone my appreciative system, using what works and shelving what doesn’t for another time, this case study becomes an important one. In terms of Creative Collaboration, I had known and worked with the Media Architecture General Chairs and academics, Dr. Matthias (Hank) Haeusler and Dr. Martin Tomitsch, in various capacities since 2008 and 2009 respectively. We had mutual trust and understanding in regard to what I would need to do within the parameters of a PhD study, namely operate as both an active member of the team but also in the role of researcher—meaning observation, evaluation, interviews and follow-through on ideas that worked (and didn’t) were highly important. It was agreed upon that I would assist in grants application, venue sourcing, exhibition planning (content and placement), award adjudication and publication.
22 “EXHIBITION: Through its many components MAB16 will showcase outstanding media architecture artworks that explore experimental materials and practices for creating places in the urban environments of contemporary cities. The MAB16 exhibition will primarily focus on showcasing local, emerging artists and their culturally diverse approach to creativity in this field of interactive public art” 2016c. Exhibition [Online]. MAB16: Media Architecture Biennale. Available: http://mab16.org/pages/exhibition.php [Accessed].. 23 “The Media Architecture Biennale includes a conference, a series of exhibitions, symposia, workshops and an award ceremony. It provides a forum for exchanging ideas and outlining the media architecture of the future – from media facades to projection mapping, urban screens to localised media interventions in cities” 2016a. MAB16: Media Architecture Biennale. Available: http://mab16.org/ [Accessed]..
74 Initially the project was perfect; there were both curatorial and production tasks, it was a festival environment and I was working with two collaborators who I had known and trusted for close to a decade. The core team also included Glenn Harding and Emma Shearman of Urban Screen Production, responsible for launching the screen at Federation Square in Melbourne, whom I hadn’t met or worked with previously but whose expertise at obtaining sponsorship and conference production spoke for itself.
Upon reflection, my key contributions to the Media Architecture Biennale 2016 were perhaps the suggestion that we partner with VIVID for press/promotion and ticketing, and the organisation of an introduction to Jess Scully, then curator of VIVID Ideas, to the core team. As she is one of my professional contacts, it was understood in a curatorial and educational perspective that I should be included on meetings to do with this line of the festival production, important as it was for my study. It soon became quite apparent that where Tomitsch and Haeusler were familiar with basic premises for acknowledging and honouring creative processes for educational output, Harding and Shearman were not. Coming from a more commercial than creative background, their agenda became increasingly competitive. Where we would agree on processes, approaches and tactics at bi- monthly Organisation Committee meetings, I began to be left out of key meetings with VIVID sponsors, left out of credits for key documents—namely grants and calls for participation that I had significantly contributed to—and was asked to resolve key issues that all of us were meant to tackle together. It became apparent that I was being relegated to a support role to the main production team.
When I raised my concerns with Harding, Shearman, Tomitsch and Haeusler, it soon became apparent that there was only room for one production team and that my operating as a PhD student, whilst affordable, wasn’t welcomed in the VIVID platform. Unsure how to proceed, Harding and Shearman had pursued opportunities without me to ensure the larger festival received sponsorship, while giving me the tasks they thought would keep me interested in the overall project. Unfortunately, administrative tasks without recognition didn’t fit with the parameters of my study, and I was forced to reconsider my role in the project and if I would continue.
After much discussion with the General Chairs, it was decided that I would stop work on production of the larger Biennale, discontinue my qualitative data collection and work more on the conference side, where I acted as a judge for artworks24 and exhibition chair. I was also offered a
24 “AWARDS: The Media Architecture Awards are given to outstanding projects at the intersection of architecture, media and interaction design. Three projects are nominated in each of the five categories – Animated Architecture; Money Architecture; Participatory Architecture and Urban Interaction; Spatial Media Art and Future Trends and Prototypes. The
75 small paid curatorial role for a satellite project titled Ubiquitous Cities Exhibition accompanied by a Smart Cities talk at the State Library for the Faculty of Built Environment (UNSW).25 While I couldn’t collect data from these tasks, they engaged me as an academic and curator and, as such, my professional relationship with Tomitsch and Haeusler remains strong. My relationship with Urban Screen Production, however, did not withstand this lesson. We remain cordial, but likely won’t work together again.
Where I attempted multiple times over approximately 18 months to secure this project as a Case Study for my PhD, I was always hindered by my less then optimal working relationship with Urban Screens as the producers of the Biennale. When it became apparent that I was not useful to them in a capacity that would also serve the parameters of my PhD study, I became the agent that stopped trying for lack of success. Instead, the General Chairs and I employed a heuristic approach. Heuristics are the branch of problem solving to which the TaE methodology is the most common- sense approach to solving people problems (although heuristics can also be applied to machines and abstract issues). When TaE didn’t work, the next logical step was to try and solve a simpler problem first, which was to transfer my academic and curatorial know-how to conference tasks such as content specific adjudication and the realisation of the pilot satellite project. In keeping with the branch of heuristics employed when TaE doesn’t work, we followed a basic mathematical methodology whereby we solved smaller problems first by invoking the “inventor’s paradox” which states that if you can solve more general and related problems first, the larger and more ambitious project will likely also succeed (Polya, 1957). This also worked for Harding and Shearman and the larger festival, but not so much for me and my aim of collecting and analysing data for a PhD case study.
3.5 Discourse Analysis: The Big Anxiety Festival and Re/Pair
When it became clear that MAB’16 wasn’t going to be a viable case study, I began thinking of possible opportunities available to me for financial and venue collaboration. It began to make more and more sense to collaborate with my host institution, UNSW Art & Design. I researched and visited the galleries and spaces available to me as a student on campus, namely Kudos Gallery, UNSW Galleries and the Black Box Theatre. There are also public spaces, like the concrete stage in the winners in each category will be announced during the award ceremony on the evening of June 3rd, 2016” 2016b. Awards [Online]. MAB16: Media Architecture Biennale. Available: http://mab16.org/pages/awards.php [Accessed].. 25 “The theme for the Media Architecture Biennale in 2016 (MAB16) is ‘Digital Placemaking’. MAB16 brings together architects, designers, artists, academia, government and industry in a shared exploration of how technology and digital media as part of a ‘Smart Cities’ approach can lead to more liveable city environments” 2016a. MAB16: Media Architecture Biennale. Available: http://mab16.org/ [Accessed].. http://www.newmediacuration.com/projects/past - accessed April 2018.
76 campus courtyard, that are “bookable” by members of the student body. Once I had a solid plan in place, I approached my supervisor, Mari Velonaki, and pitched my idea to her. I proposed an exhibition featuring artists affiliated with the Creative Robotics Lab. She was very supportive of the idea, even agreeing to exhibit a prototype work of hers in the exhibition. Upon consultation, Velonaki’s preference for venue was the UNSW Galleries, as it was the highest profile for everyone involved in the final Case Study and didn’t relegate it to being merely a ‘student show’. I had worked with emergent practitioners, I had worked with mid-range practitioners, and now I was set to work with established practitioners.
In terms of a methodology, I wanted to apply elements of Discourse Analysis, particularly in light of Baxandall’s take on signs, signifiers and what is signified in making, and the influence it had on the NMC Exhibition Image Ecologies (Baxandall, 1985, Turnbull, 2009). I also wanted an evaluation method that allowed for an exhibition on interactive art and the propositions made within that context (arguably a communication event), to be considered a type of text for analysis. In adapting Foucault’s approach of a moving and changeable text based on a given situation (and enforced by patterns within connections of knowledge and power)(Foucault, 2002), I wanted to be able to utilise the institution of the University in a festival setting; the early ideation of the prototype works of the established artists associated with the Creative Robotics Lab (CRL); and the language of an audience participating in the exhibition as a communication event. I want to capture this data pragmatically, through a conversation-in-interaction approach to observing and then interviewing participants. The three contexts in which I planned to capture and analyse data are:
1. Action - Organization of actions distinct from outside of a conversation. This could include openings and closings of conversations, assessments, storytelling, and complaints.
2. Structure - All human social action is structured and has rules, conversation is no different. In order to participate in a conversation the participants must abide by these rules and structures to be an active participant.
3. Intersubjectivity - talk and interaction are examined as a site where intersubjective understanding concerning the participants’ intentions, their state of knowledge, their relation, and their stance towards the talked-about objects is created, maintained, and negotiated (Peräkylä, 2007).
I felt this method had a strong philosophical base but also allowed me to work within the spaces and with the artists I had available to me through creatively collaborating with my host institution. I was hoping to reveal characteristics in the artists and the way they worked that I, as a curator, could fit in
77 with, to ease the transition from making to exhibiting (the results of this are covered in section 5.3 of this thesis).
From here I began to infiltrate my NMC Methodology with Discourse Analysis. I approached the artists associated with the lab, pitched my idea via a group email (Appendix 4), collected responses and began to plan a project whereby an exhibition initially titled Prototype to Process was the platform for testing works made in collaboration with the CRL studio space. From there, we would secure a venue and exhibit the works in prototype phase for audience evaluation, preferably during a festival of sorts. Upon application to the UNSW Galleries and some local and international follow up with then Galleries Director Felicity Fenner, I was told it was a strong idea with good artists but that all the spots were already booked for 2017 due to The Big Anxiety Festival running from September to December (directed by Jill Bennett). It was then that a colleague from CRL suggested I book the Black Box, which I then did for the opening week of the festival. It was too late to apply to actually be in the festival or perform a Curator-as-Producer role as I had in my two previous case studies, but perhaps I could collaborate with the festival in some way or at least make use of the festival audiences during either the opening or closing week.
Where there is a lot of data regarding the processes I went through to secure and begin to work with the CRL artists, it is much more easily digested in Tables 7 and 8:
Table 7. Preliminary tasks, events and timelines for artists agreeing to be a part of Prototype to Process (which became Re/Pair).
Key Communication Events Communication Event Requirements Dates (Attendance Req’d) Interviews Minimum of 6 interviews requested 1st half of 2017 Experiential Workshop 1 morning of artwork/exhibition 22 March 2017 planning Exhibition during the BAF 1 week of install, launch, evaluation, Initially 18-22 Sept 2017 bump out Switched to 6-11 Nov 2017
Table 8. Tracking invitation replies to CRL affiliated artists for Prototype to Process (became Re/Pair)
Communication Date Artist(s) Result Events Supervisor Approved idea for Case Study 3 and agreement Meetings, Skype 29 July to participate as an artist, then met with me 9 Interviews, Mari Velonaki 2016 times and participated in the Experiential Experiential Workshop Workshop Group Email, Replied “yes” and met me for 2 artist 14 October Alex Davies Interviews, interviews and participated in the Experiential
78 2016 Experiential Workshop Workshop Group Email, Petra Replied “yes” for herself and Rob Saunders, 14 October Interviews, Gemeinboeck & performed 1 artist interview and participated 2016 Experiential Rob Saunders in the Experiential Workshop Workshop Replied “yes”, met with me 3 times, offered me an evaluation slot on his tour of Robot Group Email, 14 October Wade Opera to Taiwan, later offered me a paid Private Emails, 2016 Marynowsky writing role to produce the catalogue essay for Interviews, his launch of the work he would iterate for my Case Study #3 Replied “yes” and made her notes with MIT Group Email, collaborator Sang-won Leigh available to me as Interviews, well as meeting with me 8 times. She also 14 October Experiential Rochelle Haley supported a NAVA grant to travel with her to 2016 Workshop and MIT, but it wasn’t successful. She attended the Grant Support Experiential Workshop and also performed the closing interview with me Replied “yes”, met with me 2 times for Private emails, 4 May curatorial and 2 times for evaluation, did not Interviews, Tricia Flanagan 2017 attend the Experiential Workshop as she was Meetings O/S 14 October Group Email (too No reply after initial chat regarding Kate Dunn 2016 busy) participation
In thinking through my original request to each of the artists, there were variations to the methods I requested. Namely the methodology I was following wasn’t going to be straightforward for each artist as most of them were collaborating with other parties and so required consultation with their partners. The key modifications to the methodology can be found in Figure 29:
79 Figure 29. Deborah Turnbull Tillman’s Methodology, 2017 – the blue arrows indicate iterative cycles during the planning sessions for the final case study exhibition of the PhD and touring exhibition plans afterwards.
i - Setbacks: “Surfacing the Conflicts and Complexities”26
1] Curatorial
In relation to exhibition process, there were a few key setbacks that could have caused the exhibition to derail. The first was in relation to funding. I was unsuccessful in obtaining the Freedman Foundation International Scholarship for Curators, funded by the National Association for Visual Artists, which would have allowed me one international trip and enough money to host the exhibition within UNSW Art & Design. It would also have allowed me to view Haley’s MIT collaboration with Leigh face-to-face and perhaps reignite collaborations with the Vancouver Art Gallery from the second Case Study. Where not obtaining this funding was disappointing, the expected outlay of costs wasn’t enough to dissuade me from hosting it for my final Case Study.
The second setback was in relation to venue and collaborating with The Big Anxiety Festival. Once I had booked the Black Box Theatre for the opening week, I contacted the Director of the festival, Professor Jill Bennett, in early July 2017. It turns out they did need the Theatre for a prominent commission but hadn’t booked it yet, so instead we negotiated a closing event and I re- booked the Theatre for the final week of the festival. From here we parlayed back and forth,
26 After Loke (2017, pers. comm. 13 December 2017, 1:35pm)
80 renaming, rethinking and rebranding Prototype to Process to better fit within the festival theme of mental health. A prominent theme in art, technology and authentication is communication breakdown resulting in anxiety between what is intended by the artist, animated by a programmer, and received by the audience. Being unable to communicate or unable to receive that communication, or an answer of any kind, brings on the type of fear and anxiety that causes artists, technologists and audiences not to engage with interactive art—a leading reason for starting NMC.
From this rethinking came the name Re/Pair, with the exhibition standing as a marker for hope at the testing phase of an artwork to head off this miscommunication problem at the pass. Where Jill accepted this new premise, she wasn’t yet convinced of the language I used to describe my project, seeing it as too formal and removed for a general audience to understand. And then the festival started and our communications ceased, as over the next three months she was far too busy to continue informal negotiations. Despite my varied attempts to solidify our collaboration through emails, shared staff and even student volunteers, there was no reply; an ironic twist considering the new theme and title of the exhibition I was seeking a festival platform for.
I kept the artists abreast of this development and none of them seemed concerned, and it wasn’t until the week before the close of the festival when I again approached Jill in a last effort to publicise the launch and event and found she was still excited about our project. A trip to her office to perform final edits on the language used to describe the project had us up on the website the following day and for the final 10 days of the Big Anxiety Festival. While the artists were pleased and it certainly elevated the Case Study, it became more about the audience in the end. Jill visited us the morning after the launch to let me know that quite a few people had emailed her to rave about the exhibition, people she hadn’t expected to connect with it from the health audiences affiliated with the festival. They thought it deserved better signage and asked that it be extended to remain open for the final celebration the following day. A few emails to the artists and a word to the venue managers, and we were extended.
2] Artistic
Four other setbacks in the project in terms of methodology were around evaluation and the absence and presence of collaborators. The first regarded Alex Davies’ work Parra Girls, a DECRA grant artwork with Lily Hibberd and Volker Kuchelmeister, about the abuses suffered by girls in state custody at Parramatta Girls Home. Where Davies was an active participant in the interview process and the Experiential Workshop for my case study, when it came to evaluation of the work it became clear that his collaborators weren’t comfortable with my bringing audiences through to evaluate the
81 prototype of Parra Girls. An interview with Volker Kuchelmeister (the videographer for the project) disclosed that they already had a complex evaluation designed for this work due to the multiple layers (of narrative, audio and video) and also it’s display in the launch of the EPICentre.27 Where Kuchelmeister was empathetic to my experimental approach, this key process had been formalised long before and he didn’t want the audiences getting evaluation fatigue. He did, however, attempt to connect me with the manager of the EPICentre so that I could learn more about their evaluation processes in the interests of assisting my PhD study. Where this was a generous gesture, it didn’t come to fruition in the lead up to the Festival with three competing schedules to consider. As such, Alex Davies wasn’t able to continue as a participating artist in my Case Study.
Figure 30. Parra Girls, 2017 for the Big Anxiety Festival. Creative Team includes: Art Director and Production Design, Volker Kuchelmeister; Sound Design/Editor, Alex Davies; Writer/Editor, Lily Hibberd; Co-producers Jill Bennett, Bonney Djuric, Lily Hibberd; Writer/Narrator, Bonney Djuric; Narrator, Lynne Edmondson Paskovski; Narrator, Gypsie Hayes; Writer/Narrator, Jenny McNally; Narrator, Denise Nicholas (see https://www.thebiganxiety.org/events/parragirls-past-present/ ).Image reproduced with the permission of Volker Kuchelmeister.
Secondly, and on the flip side, artist Tricia Flanagan’s main purpose for participating in the Case Study was to develop collaborators, as her key work Generative Textile Systems was not yet interactive. In the lead up to the exhibition, she shared with me that this was the first time she had developed a work alone, without a consulting digital practitioner to help her plan the interactive components. She was finding it very challenging and was keen to obtain evaluation on best ways to
27 https://www.artdesign.unsw.edu.au/research/epicentre-expanded-perception-interaction-centre - accessed October and November 2017, and March and April 2018.
82 collaborate at the stage she was at, sort of mid-making. When consulting on the types of evaluation the other artists would like done, I found that the questions they had at an early ideation stage were quite minimal and mostly focused on general reactions or first impressions. Nevertheless, there were a few specific questions about aspects of the work that were clearly asked in order to move the development forward. However, Tricia articulated that she wanted to trial a method she was working on with her students, an Individual Reflection Tool worksheet (Miller, 2015) which she wanted to work on with general audience members, but also the artists in the exhibition, to better understand their methods for collaboration.
Figure 31. Artist Patricia Flanagan and volunteers Ella Byrne, Skye Skagfeld and Rosalie Hopkins installing her artwork Generative Textile System for Re/Pair, 2017.
Over two meetings, we discussed this approach and I shared how the artists that attended the Experiential Workshop weren’t at all keen on the worksheet I prepared or about having data about their processes analysed and published. They were more interested in my processes, and how their making might intersect with that in collaborative ways. They preferred a semi-structured interview rather than the closed questions of the worksheet. To the artists participating, the data was merely another layer, but not the key component of my study. I shared this with Tricia, recommending against getting them to do anything as formal as she was proposing based on the outcomes of the Experiential Workshop (Tricia couldn’t attend as she was teaching overseas at the time). I also shared my concerns that what she was proposing was quite similar to what I was
83 attempting to do at a PhD candidate level and in the interests of generating new knowledge for the University and for my own practice, to hone my methodology through reflection and experiential learning. If she did something similar, it might discredit my study. She didn’t see her worksheet or data collection as too similar, since my work was curatorial and hers was artistic. For me, the methodology and resulting process was more important than the roles we played, and I was uncomfortable with what was proposed.
In the end, and in the spirit of experimentation, I relented despite my reservations and we scheduled an event titled Artists Incubator where she could distribute her worksheet to the artists in hopes of them generating a series of nodal maps of their processes that she could then learn from and move forward with in her own practice, and work into her teaching. We needed to select a time when all the artists would be present, so we selected just before the launch. We sent emails describing the activity and all of the artists attended. Unfortunately, when Flanagan pitched her idea to her fellow participating artists, they were unanimously in opposition to the process. Some of the comments as to why were, “It’s too personal”, ”isn’t that what Deb is trying to do?”, “we are not students, we are equal practitioners to you”—and one question directed at me as to why I let this occur: “we thought we were coming here for you, why is Tricia now running a workshop to gather our processes?” Regrettably for Tricia, my concerns were correct, and she didn’t enlist a single participant. The artists dispersed to their artworks and socialised until the launch. Tricia appeared quite agitated and left the lab environment until the launch commenced an hour later. Where this was an awkward juncture, Tricia did much better in garnering data and collaborators in her second scheduled event titled Audience Evaluation, where we invited a few computer scientists and digital practitioners that she could give the worksheet to and generate results from. In terms of the Living Laboratory environment, I think a negative outcome like the Artist Incubator could only be recovered from so quickly in such an experimental situation. The distraction of the launch afterwards ensured that any negative or uncomfortable feelings didn’t linger.
There were two other final aberrations to the scheduled works. The first involved Mari Velonaki’s works. Velonaki had initially hoped to exhibit two prototypes, one being a mnemonic device she was working on for patients with dementia titled When I will visit again, the other involving sketches of a robot she was designing for corporate collaborator Fuji Xerox based in Yokohama, Japan. Where we were successful in displaying the mnemonic device, we were unsuccessful in displaying the sketches of the robotic design. This was largely due to the Confidentiality Clause in her contract stipulating that any exhibition of the designs needed to be in association with the corporation that was paying for them. We had thought we circumnavigated this
84 in showing the sketches, and initially her collaborator agreed. Unfortunately, she ended up having to pull them from the exhibition roster when we decided we needed to know more then was permitted in her non-disclosure agreement about what shape and form the designs would take so we could plan for their installation. In checking with her collaborator, it became apparent that the larger corporation outside of Velonaki’s collaborator were uncomfortable sharing the designs at ideation stage, and Mari would only be displaying the one work.
The final aberration from our planned exhibition was a collaborative human/drone painting performance by Rochelle Haley. We were hoping to initially demonstrate the hacked drone in the Black Box, but it turned out that this was only permissible in line with Work Health & Safety (WH&S) policy if we had very small audiences and a few very specific precautions in place—namely a minimal number of attendees at any given time, netting for the drone and ventilation more sophisticated then opening the doors for the aerosol spray paint. We thought then that we could have documentation of the performance in the Black Box and perform outside in the courtyard, where there is a cement stage. After meeting with the WH&S committee, we learned that Haley would have to qualify as a drone pilot and that the drone would have to be tethered to the site. In theory, these things were possible, but seemed almost contradictory with the whole premise of hacking a surveillance technology to perform a kind of creative rebellion. In the end, Haley and her collaborator, Sang-won Leigh—a Master’s student at MIT in Boston—filmed documentation of their prototyping sessions and displayed an edited video of the works. This in line with the canvases displaying the paintings created in these sessions worked to display her ideation for future iterations of the project.
3.6 Conclusions and Segue
This chapter outlines and justifies the methodologies used in performing the PhD Case Studies. In using the Bricolage Research approach as a metaphor for my mixed methodologies and incorporating multiple voices into the final criteria, I was able to explore each Case Study in a different way with the resources I had available to me at any given time. I was able to step back and engage with the exhibition production in an analytical way, reporting what worked and what didn’t in my approaches and collaborations, and how these affected the outcome of each individual Case Study. This chapter was important to me realising that all of my Case Studies took place in a Festival setting, and that each of the case studies veered from the traditional curator-artist relationship in some way. I was able to then begin to look more closely at the NMC Methodology as a way of tracking a curatorial practice tracking an ephemeral art form. In reflection of the contribution of the curatorial criteria for new media and interactive art, I feel satisfied that the methods that extracted
85 these preliminary criteria echo the qualities of the criteria themselves. In keeping with Roger’s definition of Bricolage Research, both the methods and the outcomes are “eclectic,” “flexible,” “plural” and relevant examples of “emergent design” (Rogers, 2012).
The next section of the thesis focuses on the “Building” part of Acaroglu’s Disruptive Design Methodology, where New Works, Results and Impact on the field are presented and discussed.
86
Section III: BUILDING
This is the “Ideation and Intervention” section. Here we “generate disruptive ideas for intervention, explore viability, test, prototype & repeat. [Here we] make change!” (Acaroglu, 2017a).
87
Chapter 4. New Works
This chapter describes the new works produced within the frameworks of the PhD study and their processes of production. It will focus on explaining the design and execution of a set of Case Studies that explores the NMC Methodology, testing it within a Living Labs model in a disruptive way to traditional curatorial process but resulting in an authentic experience for the audience. The new and novel result of these works is a model for curating digital interactive art. This model is important to generating the accompanying criteria that together will make up the contribution to knowledge.
88 4.1 Introduction: Testing Methodologies within the Creative Robotics Lab
This section situates testing methods inside the Creative Robotics Lab (CRL), combining foundational knowledge with reflective and experiential learning and methods to create a new model for curating interactive art. When I began my PhD, I was invited into a scholarship program and accepted to study under Petra Gemeinboeck, who was then Deputy Director of the CRL. I soon began to work more closely with the lab Director, artist Mari Velonaki, even interviewing her and co-authoring with her for key stages in my research findings. One such interview is reflected on and recorded in our co- authored book chapter, and reports the below:
Where [my] work at the Creativity and Cognition Studios strongly informs [my] independent practice, it is but one of many places interested in investigating the potentially disruptive nature of prototyping in the making of interactive art. In [my] current research environment at the Creative Robotics Lab at [the National Institute of Electronic Arts] NIEA, UNSW, [I have] sophisticated, but artistically subtle, prototype artworks that engage and respond to the humans interacting with them. Dr. Mari Velonaki, co-author and director of the CRL, is an artist currently collaborating with the Object Design Centre in Sydney on a prototype curatorial project through CUSP. CUSP, curated by Object’s Creative Program Manager Danielle Robson, is a platform whereby artists can present their design ideas regarding the way we inhabit the world as humans within a complex set of digital systems. Sometimes in institutions, sometimes out in the urban landscape, CUSP is pushing the boundaries of experimental design practice to see what designing the future might be like for artists, technologists, engineers, and architects.
Where Velonaki has previously participated in CUSP in presenting talks on a train that runs from Central Station to Casula (the Talks in Transit series), a more recent work of hers is being presented in a prototype way as “chapters” across several venues, the first currently exhibiting at the State Library of Queensland. The work that Velonaki and her technological collaborators are staging at various stages in CUSP is called Blue Iris. This is an interactive work that presents like digital wallpaper, but acts as a both a repository and narrator for audience members who participate with it. It activates the histories of buildings and their occupants by occupying space and recording how spaces and surfaces are experienced by audience via engineered screens comprised of thermochromic/thermoresistive patterns and a gold nano- particle-based floral motif.
Velonaki finds the prototyping process disruptive in the making of digital interactive art. The physical disruption, however, takes a backseat to the rewards gained from discomforting herself and her team. This discomfort extends to the exhibition phase, where she feels no one is really happy with the prototype being on display because it is not yet representative of the bigger picture everyone has in mind. In living this discomfort, she also finds the process invaluable. In being exposed in this way, in exhibiting a raw model of her aesthetic ideal, in fashioning a “good enough” version of the idea and then standing back and releasing the concept as a simpler version/form of the whole idea to the audience, she, as the designer, becomes removed from it. Velonaki can let it be experienced this way because she knows that the feedback from this process will inform future design decisions across the team. Together everyone, the artist, the engineer and the computer scientists, have all taken a step back and viewed how the audience engages with the work. Velonaki now finds this incremental
89 processing so fundamentally helpful that she would not do it differently. The discomfort has become more ideologically disruptive, with the rest becoming and remaining her process.
One of Velonaki’s collaborators, mechanical engineer David Silvera-Tawil, considers the prototype process to be incredibly disruptive, particularly in terms of construction briefs. In the engineering world, prototypes are built to test an idea and can be “quick & dirty’” with minimal consideration to aesthetics. Alternately, one of the predominant concerns of any collaborating artist would be aesthetics, so ensuring a prototype system looks cohesive enough to both exhibit and engage/hold an audience is a challenge. In participating in this interdisciplinarity, Silvera-Tawil thinks of research outcomes first and what they might learn from the project as a whole. Where he finds creative prototyping “incredibly disruptive” to his engineering practice, he also finds much value in approaching these challenges differently then he would traditionally, with the end goal of producing a different kind of data set or a different kind of new knowledge.
(Turnbull Tillman and Velonaki, 2015)
This interview reveals an early exploration into the methods I perceived myself as following within the NMC Methodology: Foundational Experience (Creativity and Cognition Studios) + Applied Method (exploring artist-led projects with their collaborators within their studios) = New Work (I viewed how this process led to prototyping new works at various stages with public audiences). Once I was secure in the knowledge that the artist directing the lab (Velonaki) and her main technical and engineering collaborator (then Silvera-Tawil) were working in a similar vein to what I had learned and put into practice, I felt confident that I was in an environment that would provide a suitable testing platform for my own New Works produced during the course of the PhD. Where the approaches, skills and lessons I had learned at Beta_space would always be a kind of foundational control I return to, I have moved past that space and those collaborators to establish a separate practice in New Media Curation. Where the methodology was still grounded in practice-based research, my new curatorial practice led to new partnerships through creative collaborations and disruptive design methods honed by experimental approaches—all in a quest for providing audiences with an authentic experience. The Creative Robotics Lab appeared an excellent place to extend the NMC methods, so within this space I designed three Case Studies. Their design would follow a classic practice-based research methodology in that the first case study would be exploratory, the second reflective and the third focused and more sophisticated while still being a clear iteration of the first two. Their design and execution are outlined below.
4.2 Case Study #1 – Denouement (Design Lab, Grid Gallery and The Rocks Pop Up)
As mentioned in chapter 4, the design of Denouément was carefully considered and collaborated on with the Musify+Gamify curators Ollie Bown and Lian Loke on the production side and Media Arts
90 professor Tom Ellard and UNSW Art & Design students on the content side. In following the NMC Methodology, I secured collaboration with the curators and venue, while also explaining to Ellard that I would need access to the emerging practitioners (Media Arts students) over several studio sessions (visits to their classes), the first one comprising an introduction to the premise of my study and the brief for Denouément in relation to the Musify+Gamify exhibition.
Where I had worked in this way previous across Design Lab, Sydney collaborations with Grid Gallery (with EnergyAustralia) for the Urban Realities & Augmented Play project and again with the Rocks Pop-Up for Organised Cacophony (see chapter 2), distilling a larger study into a smaller one to really observe, evaluate and analyse what is happening at each stage of making and testing was incredibly useful to articulating what occurs at each stage. Part of this initial design practice, with a focus on the artistic content, is captured as an auto-ethnographical reflection in my co-authored conference paper on the final results:
Where 10–12 students showed interest in exhibiting prototype works, only two prototype works from the SOMA3412 class were selected to exhibit in this experimental setting: Puppet Boyfriend, by Lauren Wenham, and; Apollo Vs/. . ., by Seunghyun Kim. This was largely because these were the only two students who followed through on their interest to exhibit and test their prototypes, which were both robust enough for exhibition with the public, and sophisticated enough in both ideation and functionality that they could engage that public. Wenham’s work consisted of a series of sonified and animated photographs that the audience engaged with through a track-ball mouse. By moving the track- ball and clicking the mouse buttons, a simple switch patch created in IsadoraV2 gave the audience control over Lauren’s Puppet Boyfriend for as long as they chose to choreograph his movements. Kim’s work was slightly more complex. It was a game comprised of tiny moving squares meant to represent cells. Here the audience member (the offense) engaged with the work to battle a disease (the defence). Designed in Adobe Flash, it had an engagement timeline of no longer than 5 min. The input mechanism for Apollo Vs/. . . required a keyboard with a trackpad for both movement through the gamespace and the generation of cells on either side of the battle.
The overall engagement was speculatively designed by [me] as a single disruptive experience prior to entering the main exhibition space. The screens displaying the works served as the attractors, where the plinths displaying input mechanisms (trackpad/keyboard and track-ball mouse) served as sustaining mechanisms. As such, the questions on the survey for audience evaluation queried the two artworks as one experience . The evaluation methodology of surveys over semi-structured interviews or video-cued recall were selected because of the location, the time the audience might be able to commit before viewing a ticketed concert, and the data set suggested for the study which was minimum 100 people.
Immediately after the participants interacted with the artworks, they were asked to complete a simple survey designed specifically for this experiment. The survey consisted of a set of 16 questions divided into three groups: Demographic, General, and Experiential (Appendix). The data was then captured, categorised and analysed to pinpoint any emergent trends.
(Turnbull Tillman et al., 2017)
91 It is useful to consider that in the design and close examination of a focused case study like Denouément, I was able to draw on my experience from both Grid Gallery, which became Urban Realities and Augmented Play with the Design Lab staff and students, and the Rocks Pop Up, which became Organised Cacophony. Each of these larger student exhibitions assisted in honing the NMC Methodology of working with artists in their spaces to design works for site specific public spaces. I would secure partnerships in university research groups, pitch to the classes the students gathered around, and then work closely with the students to develop and feedback on the works intended for exhibition. Each of these exhibitions contained many individual works, so the unpacking of a smaller sampling of a familiar process through Denouément was incredibly enlightening.
4.3 Case Study #2 - ISEA2015: disruption (ISEA 2013: resistance is futile)
As is often the case in independent production work, one contract leads to another, and my work with ISEA2015:disruption was no exception. As we acquitted the report to the Australia Council for Musify+Gamify, I learned from Ollie Bown that the Vancouver ISEA team were in need of volunteers to assist in the art program. Ollie wrote an introductory email and recommendation to one of the Symposium directors, Philippe Pasquier, who passed my CV on to the Art Directors Kate Armstrong and Malcolm Levy. Where I had hoped to volunteer and defer some of my fees, I instead received an enthusiastic email from the Art Directors requesting that I work as a Production Manager and help them design and facilitate the art experience across 5 pop-up venues over 5 nights. I requested early in our negotiations that I would like to use my experience as a reflective practice case study for my PhD and they agreed. The reflection on how my role and the exhibitions were designed is also outlined in the book chapter co-authored by myself and Velonaki, and is reported below:
I joined the ISEA2015 production team as the Exhibition Production Manager after I had been accepted to the symposium as presenter of a long paper. On the recommendation of a colleague, I wrote to one of the directors (Phillippe Pasquier) to volunteer for the Art Program.
When my CV was passed on to the Art Directors (Kate Armstrong and Malcolm Levy), they contacted me, said they could use my expertise in large scale interactive arts production, and offered me a short contract at a set fee. I was very happy to accept and a contract through Simon Fraser University was drawn up for May–August 2015.
Three months of the contract would be performed remotely, and one month in situ. Many members of the team were already situated in Vancouver, BC (the site of the conference), but were independent contractors, staff at partner universities, and often travelling or living in other countries. As a shared network drive in the form of Google Folders had already been established, I was invited to join in, and began reviewing the processes for production as provided by the Conference and Art Directors (as above, plus Thecla Schiphorst). At this stage, I was heavily reliant on the Art Directors, Armstrong and Levy, and Program Manager, Kristina Friedrich, to feed me information and images collated from individual applications through
92 this shared system. These processes were augmented by daily emails and weekly Skype calls to cover all bases.
I augmented this system by setting up a folder for Production Processes in the networked Google drive, and began drawing up a template for operating across disparate countries, venues and professionals. This process was directly derived from my previous experience with the UK-based ISEA brand, ISEA2013, when I was Assistant Curator in Art and Technology for Matthew Connell at the Powerhouse Museum. That year the theme was Resistance is futile… The Museum was only 1 of 35 exhibition venues in Sydney, for what was possibly the largest realization of the ISEA brand. Hosted by the Australian Network for Art and Technology and lead by their director, Vicki Sowry, Sydney was an electronic arts playground for in and around 2 weeks of openings and exhibitions. Our own instalment at the Powerhouse Museum (8 June–21 August 2013) boasted 2 floors of interactive art featuring Experimenta’s Speak to Me, ANAT’s own Synapse: a selection, and Symbiotica’s Semipermeable(+) Bio-art, robotics, and integrated screen and sculpture works took over the Museum much to the delight of a diverse range of school, family and arts audiences, including staff and volunteers. Reflection on this experience with the brand fuelled my confidence in working with the Vancouver instalment of ISEA2015: disruption.
From quite early on, I could detect that a key challenge over the course of this project might be personnel and communication. As with any large, transient arts festival, once strong processes are in place, elements of those processes are quite subject to change. Due to past working relationships, some finessing was involved to ensure the preferred staff was secured and felt confident in their roles. At the pre-production stage, some time went by before I realized that key members of the production team felt comfortable working without contracts, due to their close working relationship with Levy, who has also lead the New Forms Festival out of Vancouver for the last 15 years. As I had secured my own contract before starting work, I assumed other independent practitioners would do the same. After one of them tendered their resignation due to feeling unclear about his role within ISEA2015, including what his title, pay and tasks might be, I was able to suggest that clarity could come in the form of a contract, with the requested titles tasks laid out for them in black and white. Once this key member of staff was re-secured, many of his colleagues were happy to follow suit. When the contract was in place, confidence in the arrangement could be measured through improved communications and meeting attendance by this particular key member of staff. It was at the time that I realized we required a Plan B for all key members of staff. Upon reflection of this occurrence, I realized this also happened with ISEA2013, when Alessio Cavallaro replaced Marcus Westbury as Executive Creative Producer. Knowing that this could happen at a more senior level then we were experiencing reassured me that change of staff happens, and the best thing we could do was be prepared.
(Turnbull Tillman and Velonaki, 2016)
4.4 Case Study #3 – Re/Pair (Media Architecture Biennale 2016)
This final case study came about in response to the Media Architecture Biennale 2016 case study falling through in late 2015. Where I describe the circumstances under which Re/Pair was conceived and the methodology aligned with Discourse Analysis, in terms of designing and implementing Re/Pair, the Experiential Workshop I hosted in March was key to the direction the exhibition would
93 take. At this stage, we were still thinking of the exhibition as Prototype to Process, an earlier working title.
In researching the foundations of Interaction Design regarding exhibition planning, I came across the work of Julienne Preece and her Interaction Design Activity Model, as adapted and extended by Lizzie Muller. After examining a table Muller produced for her own PhD, I made notations and adapted it to extend for my own curatorial purposes.
94 Figure 32. Preece and Muller re: Interaction Design Methods, with Turnbull Tillman’s design annotation, 2016. Original table: Muller (2008)
This table helped me to situate my own curatorial practice with that of other key practitioners Figure 50. Preece and Muller re: Interaction Design Methods, with Turnbull Tillman’s designing for audience interactivity and engagement resulting in lived experience. I didn’t use this design annotation, 2016. Original table: Muller (2008) template for the first two case studies, as I had already decided on quantitative survey collection for
Figure 51. Preece and Muller re: Interaction Design Methods, with Turnbull Tillman’s design annotation, 2016. Original table: Muller (2008) 95
Figure 52. Preece and Muller re: Interaction Design Methods, with Turnbull Tillman’s Denouément and reflective practice journaling for ISEA2015: disturbance. As such the designs of these exhibitions were different then Re/Pair.
I began by setting up a premise for bringing the artists together to discuss the exhibition. With both Mari Velonaki and Petra Gemeinboeck overseas for 2017, we mapped out a date where both would be returning in the first quarter, settling on 22 March 2017. I booked the CRL studios for a half-day workshop and was very happy that three, including Alex Davies, out of the six artists slated to attend could do so in person, with the fourth (Petra) attending via Skype. Wade Marynowsky and Patricia Flanagan both had overseas teaching commitments, unfortunately, and could not attend.
Figure 33. Still from the NMC Experiential Workshop, March 2017. Featuring (L-R) artist Alex Davies, curator Deborah Turnbul Tillman, artists Rochelle Haley and Mari Velonaki. Offscreen on Skype: artist Petra Gemeinboeck. Image courtesy of Rachael Kiang.
Having been influenced by both Schὅn and Lachapelle, I designed a worksheet in the Kolb Cycle tradition28 to allow for inquiry-based learning and reflective practice and appropriated a five-
28 The Kolb Cycle is developed by David Kolb who continued the work on experiential learning as popularised by John Dewey and Carl Rogers. He developed the Learning Style Inventory which is based on his model for
96 step experiential design definition module, including a sixth step for reflective practice towards iterative making. I also included a power point presentation to lead us through the workshop Overall, it was essentially a planning meeting to compliment the individual interviews I requested of each artist (outlined in section 3.5, Table 8), with feedback on the processes of evaluation and data collection and, most importantly, what works the artists were thinking of submitting as prototypes. What I really wanted to do was capture a kind of essence in the making/learning dynamic of these artists that I worked so closely with, and as defined below by Keeton and Tate:
[Experiential learning is] learning in which the learner is directly in touch with the realities being studied . . . EL typically involves not merely observing the phenomenon being studied, but also doing something with it, such as testing the dynamics of the reality to learn more about it. . . (Keeton, 1978, my emphasis)
The worksheet (Figure 50) was meant to guide the artists through this process, but they were unanimously disinterested in this step. They took the phrasing of each step quite literally and felt it was too formal for a gathering of people who knew each other. My observations of the workshop as a whole was that instead of standing as an example of experiential learning only for me, it became more of a group brainstorm where the artists worked on thinking of their artworks past the ideation phase and bringing them into physical being, initially through description. At the close of my presentation and upon the decision not to follow the rigour of the worksheets, the artists instead spoke to the works they were thinking of including. A table of the proposed works and notes on the group’s conversation are in Table 9.
New Media Curation’s Experiential Learning Workshop Intervention #2 – Working with Established Artists (from the Creative Robotics Lab, UNSW Art & Design) - Wednesday 22 March 2017, 9:30am-12:30pm
Experiential Learning Defined: “…learning in which the learner is directly in touch with the realities being studied… EL typically involves not merely observing the phenomenon being studied, but also doing something with it, such as testing the dynamics of the reality to learn more about it.” (Keeton and Tate, 1978, p.2)
In this workshop, I am testing the curatorial process utilised in New Media Curation when working with established artists. For this, I am utilising a combination of Experiential Learning styles, taken from a modification of the Kolb Cycle (Kolb, 1984) to allow for inquiry-based learning and reflective practice.
6-Step Learning Cycle Definitions (to happen in 10-minute intervals)
1. Exploration: “Do It!” – perform a planning or design aspect of a recent artwork
Experiential Learning Cycles. This model is comprised of four main elements: 1] concrete experience; 2] reflective observation of the new experience; 3] abstract conceptualisation; and 4] active experimentation – further explanation and reading can be found at MCLEOD, S. A. 2017. Kolb - learning styles. [Online]. Available: www.simplypsychology.org/learning-kolb.html [Accessed].
97 Features of this experience include: i. May be an individual or group experience, but involves doing ii. Will most likely feel a little unfamiliar to those present, perhaps this is a first time activity iii. Pushes the participant beyond a previous performance level iv. Participant may be uncomfortable in some aspects of the activity
2. Sharing: “What happened?” – Publicly share the results, reactions and observations of the above. Guide to sharing information publicly: i. What did you do? ii. What happened when you did it? iii. What did you see, hear, feel? iv. What was the most difficult?
3. Processing: “What’s important?” – Discussing, analysing, looking at the experience. Examples of processing questions: i. What problems or issues seem to occur over and over? ii. What similar experiences have you had?
4. Generalising: “So what?” – Connect your experience with real world examples. Examples of generalising questions: i. What did you learn about yourself through this activity? ii. Why is (learned skill) important to your practice? iii. How does what you learned relate to other parts of your practice?
5. Application: “Now what?” – Apply what was learned to a similar/different situation and practice Example question about applying the experience: i. How can you apply what you have learned to a new situation? ii. How will you act differently in the future? iii. How could you apply this (learned skill) through your practice in future?
6. Reflection: “What about next time?” – Repeat this cycle to hone your practice/skill Example questions for reflecting: i. What worked and what didn’t in this approach? ii. Does it relate well enough to my practice? iii. Should I invest in trying again?
References *Keeton, M. T. & Tate, P. J. (1978). The boom in experiential learning. In Keeton, M. T. & Tate, P. J. (Eds.), Learning by Experience: What, Why, How. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. *Kolb, D. (1984). Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. *Lachapelle, R. (1997). Experiential Learning and Discipline Based Art Education. Visual Arts Research. 23,2 (Fall 1997). Pp. 135-144. University of Illinois: USA. *University of California, Davis. Handout on Experiential Learning Workshop: Level II (Intermediate Level): http://www.experientiallearning.ucdavis.edu/module2/el2-40-5step-definitions.pdf - accessed 2 March 2017.
Figure 34. NMC Experiential Workshop Worksheet.
Table 9. Notes from the NMC Experiential Workshop as participating artists discussed what to exhibit for my final Case Study.
Artist Proposed Artwork Notes from Artists Mari Velonaki Fuji Xerox Robot - designing and prototyping an ongoing creative idea rather than an artwork (MV) - can only prototype, final reveal has to stay with [Fuji Xerox] - working on a conceptual model of how you connect with a robot - all elements come away and function separately and come back together as a whole
98 DTT observation: a bit anxious and hesitant to share – a new approach to design and making process for MV Alex Davies Parramatta Girls - two renditions: (AD) Home Narrative 1. Non-interactive cinematic experience at the EpiCentre in C-Block, possibly (with Lily Hibberd with a head-mounted VR display; can’t really be publicly prototyped, more and Volker recommend[ed] focus groups for private feedback; more designed for a group Kuchelmeister in experience for the Big Anxiety Festival the EPICentre, C- - meant to be experienced by 10-15 ppl per experience, dynamic, a more Block at UNSW Art gallery approach to analysis & Design) - work can be approached in different ways; very clean and new; there are interactive capabilities, but not polished so wouldn’t add at this stage - moving through 32 channels, get a coherence of ideas regarding the experience of the Paramatta Girls Home, trying not to be too literal; trying to fragment the image from the sound 2. a site specific onsite sound walk; sending people in loops, but different stories, a cyclic reveal of stories Rochelle Drone Drawing - earlier iterations happened with different technologies (mapping and Haley (RH) Dancing (possibly projections and dancers, with RH drawing); has already shown in prototype, with drone but still not finished; dancing and drawing work with each other well, but still performance isn’t finished outside C-Block at - in speaking to audiences, they aren’t sure how the separate parts work as not UNSW Art & all the elements are clear Design) - something more is happening then just drawing and dance, some conducting and other directional aspects going into creating an experience, but they don’t see these parts - it is the same with Sang and the drones – the process for activating them as RH does the drawing is a similar process; they both draw and express through a stylus and technology; their mark making is similar; experience is created with his drone and RH’s process of scaled drawing - kind of motion capturing drawing on a larger scale - July 2017, prototype the mechanism in Boston at MIT; RH/ looking at the ontology of drawing and mark making; gesture becomes separate from the maker; can see and draw, but tech can augment the sensible aspects of movement, it can produce a draw mark that repeats, a single movement can speak to many via distribution and mechanised reproduction at different locations Artist Discussion MV: Can be both large and intimate, but not about mirroring; it’s hard to articulate what we might produce because we don’t always have a vocabulary for it; we know why we are making something, but the work itself is still beyond an explanation AD: Depends on the work RH: Also need to remember that aspects of the project can be uncomfortable for the artist, and can be hard to reconcile with using those aspects to create (like drones) MV cont’d: definitely, for me [working with FX] is a brand new process; have to rethink and redesign the prototype process - a new way of working with designers; not a gallery piece that captures different audiences for max 15 mins at a time; now a creative piece that captures the same person/audience over an extended period of time as they spend time and live with this object (or aspects of it) - doing a series of workshops instead of an exhibition - see interaction as a meeting point between work and object and audience - how do people identify – what are the readings, what is the material identity? This needs to be defined, recreated, symbiotic; what happens when it breaks? - designed to be a platform for development, a long term project, connect with
99 audiences and revise at 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years… - as the designer, MV concerned with materiality and the object, exterior constituted in parts, lives with multiple owners, Mari’s design, but aspects from preliminary users inform the next iteration - basic aspects are recognition, in AI, more concerned about cognitive robotics, serious about social robotics and the design evolving as a robot, not as a human Petra Dancer & Cube & PG: audience engagement is already written into the process Gemeinboeck Tetrahedron - robots aren’t social, but we are exploring ideas of socialness in robots (PG) & Rob - want to expand the field, by using the audience for feedback; then you’re not Saunders just stuck in your own idea - premise is to look at social potential of non-anthropomorphic robots – not people/ animals/ plants – nothing considered alive - movement an important element – invoke a notion of aliveness not attached to organic life - tested in animation a lot - also developing and testing a methodology as movement; we’re using dancers, but it could also be acrobats or similar - dancers are idea because they already work past their body as human – already its own ecology with tensions - conflating human bodies into machine movement - recording human movement in mechanistic form – don’t have to then code separately - looking at cube and delicate re-shaping of it - likes contrast - cube has an almost comical capacity to express itself; has an avante-garde movement structure – easier to build, but still a conundrum Artist Discussion MV: so much more compositional freedom, more about inhabiting and co- existing PG: machine costume, exploring concepts in exhibition really interesting - Machine and performer are operating together - We want to record the response of the prototype to the dancers - Got very different results - Were they physically in the sculpture as part of it, or outside, operating and moving it? - Either outside puppeteering, or inside intermingling - technically challenging to move in space - can move and test, but it is fixed to the ground; a kind of stationary sculpture as is a bit fixed - worried about the object being mistake as a prop…want people to be able to relate to it and effectively respond to it. Not just accept it as part of the environment - problematic because performer normally takes centre-stage, but ideally we would have the prototype and dancer moving as a singular activity – easier then working with a whole audience MV: limitations really just different experience and dynamic - I like that it’s not bulky RH: reminds me of 20th-c movement (makes various recommendations, Rudolph Laban’s Kinesphere, Oskar Schlemmer’s Stick Dance, Sarah Aitken as choreographer) MV: Also Philip Kinear’s (?) structures – this feels new/fresh – not about military movement, more about movement through space - We can’t underestimate the new the new propositions RH: I think it’s ok if the audience doesn’t ‘get it’ straight away
100 PG: have to be careful not to present the machine as a robot, this term holds too many preconceived notions about behaviour…it’s more a kinetic sculpture - Want it to learn to improvise, so it learns constraints from the dancer but the knowledge stays with the machine RH: so the dancer can move in and out of the sculpture, it doesn’t have to only occupy in or out MV: conceptual model of how we connect to the world AD: platforms are problematic in this way – perhaps the platforms are tools, then move away Wade Robot Opera/Synth- Not in attendance Marynowsky bot (WM) Tricia Generative Textile Not in attendance Flanagan (TF) System
These notes reveal the early planning stages of the exhibition. What I had intended for the workshop and what actually happened were not too dissimilar, but it was the artists participating in the workshop that ultimately decided how the exhibition would take shape and what would ultimately be exhibited.
The other element that I was concerned with was data collection. There were initially plans to collect data at the Black Box Theatre, the EPICentre, and the outside stage in the campus courtyard. When I spoke my concerns to the group, they had the below feedback:
In thinking about the exhibition, think of it as a hybrid project—a lot of things going into it, PhD study, new and experimental practice. . . particularly about showcasing research from our faculty, and new concepts like practice-based research. . . Petra Gemeinboeck
Remember that data collection is informing the conversation, but it doesn’t make your PhD. [You] need to focus on which process will work better for you, what do you want to address with this hypothesis? Mari Velonaki
Data collection doesn’t all have to happen at the same time . . . [it] might even present a richer discourse [to collect it at different sites] . . . Rochelle Haley
[You] want to think about capturing all the dynamics and messiness [of the process] . . . again, data is just another layer that produces some nice graphics and generates different outcomes [then what is expected] . . . Mari Velonaki
To balance the artist-led feel of the exhibition, my supervisor (Mari Velonaki) suggested I interview other curators working in the similar field of interactive art, particularly those concerned with quite contemporary technological realisation of art and design. In taking this feedback on board, and because the artists largely had their own ideas for the collection and analysis of the data from their
101 work, I focused the design of the evaluation of the overall exhibition to be one of semi-structured interviews whereby I invited curators working in my field to view the exhibition, provide a synopsis of their general thoughts, and answer a short online questionnaire using Survey Monkey.29
4.5 Conclusions and Segue
I produced three successful case studies that were designed and created with the following process in mind: Foundation Work + Method = New Work. Due to evaluations happening with both the artists and the curator, separate sets of criteria emerged that will fill out the proposed model for curating interactive art in the NMC way. These criteria and how the model will be examined and articulated in the following chapter.
29 www.surveymonkey.com
102
Chapter 5. Results
This section reveals how the evaluation and analysis of the results or processes of the New Studies have led to certain results or conclusions. Contextualising the results of the Case Studies in chapter 4 is important. In this chapter, outcomes mentioned in chapter 1 (“a set of criteria and novel model for curating digital interactive artworks that better evoke an authentic experience in the audience”) are shown to have been achieved, with the criteria for curating interactive art lifted directly from the Case Study data and detailed in reflection on foundational works. The new model, accessible from any starting point, is also detailed here.
103 5.1 An Introduction
In chapter 4, I set out to articulate the methodologies that I utilised in each case study for the PhD and how, through a Bricolage approach, I was able to formulate this new NMC Methodology that was flexible in terms of partnerships, materials and platforms. The design of the new works using this methodology included space for reflection and honing my appreciative system—an experiential learning process that was then brought forward into the ensuing case studies and applied in each one. In this chapter, we will look more closely at the elements of the model; examine terminologies that emerged from each study; and articulate any criteria that have so far emerged in relation to curating interactive art. As posited in chapter 1, this process builds on the work of Sarah Cook and Beryl Graham, Lizzie Muller and Ernest Edmonds, building on the practice-based research methods they used to coax forth and identify earlier characteristics and language for curating interactive art.
After the execution of all three case studies, the NMC Methodology model could now be represented as below:
Figure 35. My NMC Curatorial Model for Designing Interactive Engagement, 2017.
104 A practitioner should ideally be able to enter the model at any stage and be able to connect with some resonance to other stages of the process. In discussions and interviews with artists such as Lian Loke, Rochelle Haley and Mari Velonaki, I was encouraged not to follow a linear path. In an artist-led study, I was reminded that “what is more interesting and convincing is to critically engage with your own findings and methods, surface the complexities and conflicts” (Loke 2017, pers. comm. 13 December 2017, 1:35pm); and that “data collection is informing the conversation, but it doesn’t make your PhD . . . focus on which process will work better [and] think about capturing all the dynamics and messiness [from that process]” (Velonaki 2017, pers. comm. 22 March 2017). In keeping with the spirit of these recommendations, I would now like to examine the results in more detail, not just the data—which pretty clearly indicates positive and repeat engagement (achieving our arts humanities definition of authenticity)—but the language used in the evaluations by audience members, artists and curators (as producers and cultural workers as well as curators) in both the practical and reflective modes of curating. It is these characteristics which set the NMC Methodology apart from Disruptive or traditional design methods. Indeed the Case Studies are informed by artists, curators and the audience (a multiplicity of voices) from a variety of at-hand resources (the Bricoleur’s method or a Bricolage metaphor).
5.2 Curatorial Criteria
Where I have discussed criteria as a possible outcome throughout this thesis, I haven’t discussed it in much detail past Carolyn Ellis’ criteria for “good auto-ethnography” (see section 4.3) and the philosophical definition presented in the Glossary of this thesis, which I adopt in my practice:
[A] distinguishing mark; a standard or rule for judgement or decision. The debates among the ancients (especially the Stoics and the sceptics) about “the criterion”concerned the criterion by which we would be able to distinguish true opinions from false ones. (Mautner, 2000)p. 116)
I chose to develop criteria over, say, praxes as the common motions through which curators of interactive art might move, because criteria speak to an authentic or true opinion and lend weight to my own curiosity regarding designing more authentic experiences for the audience. The language these practitioners use, particularly in terms of practice-based research, hasn’t yet been recorded in much detail and by definition is debatable—and therefore flexible. The collection of NMC Criteria was different in that it was done in a live manner as part of attempting to define a new way to curate experience when traditionally curatorial criteria is formulated around the collection and preservation of objects.
105 As a starting point, any institutional curator has come into contact with standards or rules for collecting objects, or even determining significance. This could range from answering the Selection Criteria for their position to contributing to collection policy or attempting to articulate significance when collecting an object. As mentioned in chapter 1 in explaining the difference between curating objects and curating experience (section 1.4, i), I previously held an institutional curatorial role at the Powerhouse Museum (now part of the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences [MAAS]). Their collection policy reveals criteria for objects collection and how to articulate significance in the following manner:
3.3 Collecting criteria Curators assess all objects proposed for acquisition, whether by purchase, donation, bequest, sponsorship or transfer, by assessing their significance. This is done with reference to the existing collection. Significance is assessed against consistent criteria: 3.3.1 Each object collected will have significance to past or present Australian society within a global context, reflecting important innovations, changes, themes and processes in material culture with regard to one or more of the following criteria: design: the object’s innovative, effective and/or highly creative design and production and/or its inherent ability to reflect a design trend, theme or movement, and/or the influence and reputation of the designer/maker; scientific and research significance: the object illustrates significant innovations in science, technology and industry, and/or has, alone or in association with other objects, significant research potential; historic significance: the object’s association with people, events, places and themes; its history of use; how it operates and/or functions, and its implications for the future; cultural and social significance: the object has symbolic status that links it to cultural traditions or social/spiritual contexts, and/or reflects beliefs, customs and lifestyles in Australia or globally. aesthetic significance: the object may be aesthetically significant for its artistic merit, craftsmanship, style, technical excellence, beauty, demonstration of skill and quality of design and execution. 3.3.2 The main criteria for assessing significance are modified by considerations of: provenance: preference will be given to objects with established provenance and detailed documentation; rarity: preference will be given to unique and rare objects documenting important developments, themes and processes; representativeness: in some cases the fact that an object is typical of its kind will add to its significance; condition, material stability and completeness: sufficiently robust to render the object suitable for storage, access, and use in Museum programs; interpretative potential: having the capacity to demonstrate achievements, themes and changes in technology and design practice, and/or to communicate social and cultural practices and meanings for our diverse audiences. The criteria above are a modified version of guidelines published in the Collection Council of Australia’s Significance: A Guide to Assessing the Cultural Heritage of Objects and Collections
106 (2001). They reflect the nature and breadth of this Museum’s collection and the Museum’s mission and vision.
(2015)
By way of comparison, the City of Sydney’s Civic Collection Policy cites the below criteria for any object coming into the Collection, which is spread across Sydney’s Civic Buildings, “including Sydney Town Hall, Town Hall House, Customs House, and town halls, libraries and community centres owned by the City of Sydney”:
the object is of social, historical or cultural significance to the City of Sydney; the item has a distinct and verifiable connection to the City of Sydney and/or its civic properties; the item enhances the scope and standing of the Collection; the item is in good condition; the item can be conserved, stored and catalogued; the legal title of the item can be transferred to the City of Sydney and the item is free of any financial or legal encumbrances; the item has a clearly established and verifiable provenance; the item does not duplicate existing material in the Collection; and the item enhances the interpretation of existing items or has a significant relationship to other items in the Collection (Sydney, 2016)
Finally, in terms of Contemporary Design, the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) recently acquired the “@” symbol. Realising this isn’t a normal collection object for their Architecture and Design collection, curator Paola Antonelli explained how communication and its expression plays a large part in design. She also states, “There are no hard and fast rules, but there are several criteria that come into play in the discussion” (2010).
• Form and Meaning. The formal, visual qualities of an object are tied to beauty, an important prerequisite in an art museum, but also an elusive and subjective one. Objects are expected to communicate values that go well beyond their formal and functional presence, starting with the designer’s idea and intention. The best design embodies the designer’s original concept in the finished object in a transparent and powerful way.
• Function and Meaning. The appreciation of function has changed dramatically in the last few decades. Some objects are designed to elicit emotions or inspiration, and these intangible purposes are also considered part of their functional makeup.
• Innovation. Good designers transform the most momentous scientific and technological revolutions into objects that anybody can use. With this in mind, curators often look for objects that target new issues or address old ones in a new way.
• Cultural Impact. MoMA has always privileged objects that, whether mass-marketed or developed experimentally in a designer’s workshop, have the power to influence material culture and touch the greatest number of people. Their impact can either be
107 direct–effective the minute they are purchased and used–or unfold over time through the inspiration they give to other designers.
• Process. Curators don’t stop at the object–they also take into account its entire life cycle as a product. This includes the way it is designed and built and the economy of means in its production, distribution, and use; the way it addresses complexity by celebrating simplicity; its impact on society and the environment; and the way it ages and dies.
• Necessity. Here is the ultimate litmus test: if this object had never been designed and produced, would the world miss it, even just a bit?
(Antonelli, 2010)
Where each of these examples provides familiar and accessible criteria for any curator of objects or design, it is the language used in the design collection criteria from MoMA that most closely resembles language found in my own research regarding experience design. Each of the criteria listed there could easily be applied to designing exhibitions containing interactive art or, rather, collecting the things that reflect experience, like transcriptions from audio or video recordings or analysed data from interviews or surveys. When one thinks beyond the collection of the object and instead focuses on collecting aspects of the experience, it is here that the audience’s experience of the works, as designed into exhibitions, can begin to reveal the language that can then be shaped into criteria. As detailed in “Chapter 2: The State of the Art Review”, the standard to which an artwork is judged, selected and displayed as a public artwork is not what I’m speaking to in my co-authored book chapter on “Curating Digital Public Art”—although the quality of the work, which these criteria largely speak to, lends to the potential for an authentic engagement through genuine experience and the opportunity to articulate that experience, especially upon return or repeat visitation.
5.3. Denouément - Living Laboratories and experimenting with authenticity and disruption
As promised in chapter 1, the application of a Living Laboratories method of experimenting with the variables of disruption and authenticity are laid out in the methodology and design (chapter 3) of Denouément for the VIVIDMusic exhibition Musify+Gamify. Exploring the foundational NMC exhibitions of Image Ecologies for a true or authentic engagement, Urban Realities and Augmented Play (URAP, with Design Lab, Sydney, and Ausgrid) and Organised Cacophony (with the Rocks Pop- up) for disrupting urban and historical spaces, enabled me to distil the lessons I learned into a single study. This allowed for detailed analysis of the technological innovation across the design, making, curating and exhibiting of experience-led engagements. The quantitative and qualitative analyses are captured in the co-authored conference paper on the case study An Exploratory Case Study into
108 Curatorial Intervention Within the Context of HCI for the Human Computer Interaction International conference . Because it is the only Case Study looking at data gathered and analysed empirically in league with a computer scientist, the language is different than the ensuing two Case Studies which more embrace the reflective practice approach. We, the authors, actually spent a lot of time ensuring the language was familiar to those that might attend an HCI conference. As such it is less reflective and more reportative in nature, with the qualitative analysis happening in the following section on the terminology that emerges from the surveys collected. It is the same article from which the below tables are lifted (Turnbull Tillman et al., 2017):
Table 10. Age distribution (p. 546)
Table 11. People in attendance per day, by gender (p. 547)
Table 4. People in attendance per day, by gender (p. x)
Table 5. People in attendance per day, by gender (p. x)
Table 6. People in attendance per day, by gender (p. x)
109 1. Mostly 25- to 35-year-olds performed the survey,
followed closely by 15- to 24-year-olds and then Table 12. Reasons for lack of awareness ranked by percentage (p. 548) 35- to 44-year-olds. (Table 10)
2. More men than women performed the survey Table 7. Reasons for lack of awareness over the six nights, with the exception of one ranked by percentage (p. x) night. More men overall performed the survey (Table 11). Table 8. Reasons for lack of awareness ranked by percentage (p. x) 3. When asked if they knew what they were
engaging with, most people didn’t comment. The Table 9. Reasons for lack of awareness second highest group of respondents indicated ranked by percentage (p. x) that they didn’t know what they were engaging with. This was tied with an equal group of
different respondents thinking they were playing Table 13. Responses of subjects who couldn’t a game (makes sense due to the Musify+Gamify identify the Intervention as interactive (p. 549) title of the exhibition they were attending). The next three groups of respondents were tied across thinking it was advertising the exhibition, noticing that there was usually something else in that space, and expression a personal opinion about the quality of the artwork. The final category had four groups of respondents recognising that it was an interactive work, that it was part of VIVID, that it appeared to be modelling something, and that there were people sitting around and writing (presumably filling in the survey).
4. Of those that couldn’t identify the work as interactive, the highest group of respondents didn’t comment. The second highest group of respondents required being told, or cued, that it was an interactive work they could engage with, despite the fact that there was a plinth present
110 with a track-ball mouse and keyboard in front of Table 14. What the artworks made the subjects the screens. The lowest two groups of think of (p. 550) respondents tied in commenting that most
interactive engagements were meant to be at Table 13. What the artworks made the subjects think of (p. x) eye-level, and that they thought it was some
other kind of set-up. Table 14. What the artworks made the subjects 5. When asked what the artworks made people think of (p. x) think of, the top two highest ranked terms were Games and Biology. Third was Art and fourth was Computer Science. The next four groups of respondents used the terms Dance, Media, Music and Movies as descriptors for their experience, followed by the next two groups as using Emotions and People to describe their experience. The next five groups of respondents equally described their engagement in relation to Table 15. Where the test subjects engage with art (p. 551) Chaos, Future, Life, Science and Don’t Know.
There were two miscellaneous categories where Table 15. Where the test subjects engage with people didn’t comment or their reply was art (p. x) nonsensical.
6. In relation to asking people if they often engage Table 16. Where the test subjects engage with art (p. x) with Art, almost double the respondents replied
yes rather than no. When asked where they engaged with Art, the top five named spaces Table 17. Where the test subjects engage with art (p. x) were Art Galleries, in Music, in Digital Media, Anywhere, and in Museums. The next two groups
of respondents tied in replying Online and in Table 16. Reasons given for awareness of an Theatres. The final three groups replied at VIVID, interactive piece (p. 552) in Dance, and at Outdoor Exhibitions. The largest group of respondents had no comment. Table 18. Reasons given for awareness of an interactive piece (p. x) 7. Of those who could identify that the work was
interactive, the largest group of respondents describe knowing it was interactive by following Table 19. Reasons given for awareness of an interactive piece (p. x)
111 the textual “Click Me” prompt on one of the works. The second largest group indicated they could recognise the invitation to engage through the keyboard and mouse set up on the plinth in front of the screens. The third highest group of respondents had no comment, with the fourth and fifth groups tied in articulating that they saw other people interacting and they recognised the set up/display as interactive. The smallest group of respondents had to be told before they understood.
8. Of those asked if they would engage with this kind Table 17. Percentage that would engage with of work again, 91% replied yes, with 6% saying no this kind of work in the future (p. 552)
and 3% being unsure.
9. When asked why they would return, the highest group of respondents replied that it was Fun. The next highest group replied that they found it Table 18. Reasons people would engage again Interesting. The next two groups tied in saying (p. 552) that they would return out of Curiosity and
because it was Different / Uncommon. The next Table 20. Reasons people would engage again two groups of respondents amounted a return (p. x) visit to both Enjoying New Things and having found this experience Enjoyable/Entertaining. Table 21. Reasons people would engage again (p. x) 10. Regarding improvements for another iteration of the work, the largest group of respondents commented that the Design should be improved. Table 19. Suggestions for improving the work (p. 553) The second largest group had No Comment
regarding improvements, where the group after Table 22. Suggestions for improving the that indicated that the Interface could be work (p. x) bettered. The next group commented that the Audio/Sound could be better, with the two lowest Table 23. Suggestions for improving the groups of respondents commenting that the work (p. x) Exhibition Design could be improved, or their data was Not Applicable.
Foundation Work: Beta_space, but also Image Ecologies and Urban Realities and Augmented Play and Grid Gallery.
112 Key terminology for a micro-case study:
In utilising Denouément for a small and intense, or micro, case study for audience engagement with prototype interactive art, we were able to do a quantitative as well as qualitative analysis on the data that came back. From the results, a few key phrases and words emerge:
1. Fun/Enjoyable/Interesting – words used to describe the experience by those that understood it and felt confident speaking about it; 2. Curious/New/Different – an articulation of the above positive experience; 3. Games/Art/Sound – what it made the audience think of in relation to the work; 4. Art Galleries/in Music /in Media/Anywhere – where the audience might see this work being displayed in another scenario.
What also became apparent in each question was that there are large portions of the survey where “No Comment” or ‘”I Don’t Know”, or “Other/Not Applicable’” was chosen. Where “Other” and “Not Applicable” could indicate nonsensical, irrelevant or insignificant data, there was a large number of participants in the survey who did not have the language to describe what they thought or experienced. A significant proportion of people understood once they were cued as to what was happening, either by a researcher or in watching how other participants engaged.
It is encouraging to see that many participants saw the work as “art” and could see it being displayed either in a Gallery or in some sort of Musical or Media Setting. I would argue probably another festival would be the best fit. The indication that this work could happen ‘anywhere’ is really very encouraging for curators looking to engage a public audience outside Galleries, Museums and Concert Halls, in the form of Digital Public Art.
Overall, of those that understood, they had what I would consider an authentic experience in that they enjoyed it, would come again and even had suggestions on how to improve it. Those that didn’t understand the engagement either waited to be cued or accepted that they didn’t know what was happening and moved on. Where the first group of people were useful in proving the humanities definition of authenticity was being experienced in this disruptive way, the second group are useful in demonstrating a need for common language to describe this experience.
As such, the Living Lab method for exploring the VIVIDMusic Festival audiences’ responses to the work, as disrupted on their way to Musify+Gamify, was a successful way to provide an authentic experience of prototype interactive art for festival audiences.
113 5.4. ISEA2015: disruption – Auto-ethnography and reflective practice
The disruptive design methodology and theory put into practice and tested in Case Study #1 required a reflective practice case study prior to designing the final Case Study. As discussed in chapter 4, I utilised the methodologies of auto-ethnography and the reflective aspect of practice- based research to think through, journal, organise and eventually publish on my own experience as Curator-As-Producer for ISEA2015: disruption, a symposium on electronic art that in this Vancouver iteration collaborated across the New Forms Music Festival and the Vancouver Art Gallery’s FUSE Festival in order to exhibit the “ambitious” design of 120+ artists in five sophisticated pop-ups over fve consecutive nights. Myself and my production team were responsible for 85 of these artists.
In chapter 4, I go into detail about how Carolyn Ellis distils her criteria for “good auto- ethnography”. It might be more useful to think of it as how to perform good auto-ethnographical praxis when formulating criteria. In thinking through these issues again, and in relation to Richardson and later Adams, Jones and Ellis, I argue that Case Study #2 connects to both practice-based research and auto-ethnography in that it is iterative and evaluated within the qualitative research frameworks of reflective practice and experiential learning. I also argue that my own publication on the process addresses the requirements of what Adams, Jones and Ellis term “good ethnographic evaluation”:
Table 20. Adams et al. (2015) “good auto-ethnographical evaluation” in relation my own auto-ethnographic and reflective evaluation of ISEA2015:disruption
Adams, Jones and Ellis’ “good auto- Auto-ethnographic reflection on ISEA:disruption ethnographical evaluation” criteria 1. making contributions towards This Case Study has a theoretical goal in contributing to my knowledge research, my thesis and the wider discussions on curating interactive art. 2. valuing the personal and The published chapter is written from the standpoint of my experiential own experience, and what I learned from it. It lends to my authority on the subject, making the use of language and creation of criteria more viable. 3. demonstrating the power, craft, The dual platform of symposium and festivals allows for and responsibilities of stories and multiple voices across multiple mediums to be heard and storytelling valued, attempting to broach inclusivity and accessibility for academics, artists, curators and audiences. 4. taking a relationally responsible The work (design, exhibition, live research, reflection, and approach to research practice and publication) has the practical outcome of contributing to representation my process, language development and criteria regarding my practice.
Foundation Work: Organised Cacophony, ISEA2013: resistance is futile
114 Key terminology for a macro-study.
In thinking through Case Study #2 as a reflective practice case study of a larger sample of practitioners (or a macro-study) in relation to Case Study #1—an exploratory study with only two practitioners (or a micro-study)—and with Better Design and Interface Improvements on my mind, key terminologies emerged from this case study:
1. Accessibility and Inclusivity: In order for the artwork to be available to most people who approach it, whether it be the point of engagement or the content they are engaging, it would be best practice to have a legible and easy-to-use or intuitive interface, whilst not simplifying the story/message/other communication in order to do so. 2. Plurality of voices and mediums for diversity in stories and storytellers is important in navigating an interdisciplinary medium with practitioners from different fields coming together on one or a series of related projects. 3. Authoritative and Contributory: For those in Directorial, Managerial, or even Marketing positions (including the generation of social media content), you want to be sure the information you are grouping together and how you communicate it is strong and contributes to an existing dialogue. 4. Relational and Representative: A context and core message/critique/communication is important, especially when showing prototypes or Works-in-Progress. 5. Absent Presence and Present Absence: This refers to the ability of the Curator-as Producer to be present but removed as work unfolds around them, accepting that they are unable to control outcomes of experimental practice whilst also observing, reflecting and documenting the process analytically. 6. Tacit and Physical Knowledge: These are knowledges internalised and accessible to a practitioner from having performed and thought through the process previous.
As reflecting on the results of the practice case study (Case Study #1) was largely about honing my own skill set to better deliver an exhibition on prototype interactive art, I like to think that what has been effective for me might also assist other curators of interactive art at various stages too. I thus seek to extend my experiential learning to fellow practitioners. Section 12.5.5 What did I learn? of the published work closes by stating:
In considering ISEA2015 as a reflective practice case study, I was able to more closely examine Dewey, Schön and Muller’s approaches to action- and practice-based research. In thinking through and revising Hampe’s model for production based curatorial practice, I was able to extract elements of knowing for planning actions (Reflection-for-Action, or Pre-Production), knowledge for doing (Reflection-in-Action, or Production), and knowledge of my own practices
115 derived from doing (Reflection-on-Action, or Post-Production) in order to hone and develop my appreciative system. This in turn caused me to reflect on current and past collaborations such as with the Creativity and Cognition Studios, the Powerhouse Museum and Beta_space, and within my current research environment at the Creative Robotics Lab in the National Institute of Experimental Art. This close reflection results in a kind of internalization of technique, a physical knowing of what works and what doesn’t when I approach my next exhibition of similar scale, subject matter, and clientele.
(Turnbull Tillman and Velonaki, 2016)
5.5. Re/Pair – the end result of Trial and Error evaluated in terms of Discourse Analysis
Where my next exhibition was meant to be the Media Arts Biennale 2016, I detail in chapter 4 how in the application of production methodology Trial and Error (TaE) in league with Creative Collaboration, my final contribution to this project didn’t end up being utilised for this PhD study. Despite multiple efforts, eventually I had difficulty being recognised as a key contributor in my predominant role as PhD Researcher, and it became apparent that the main sponsors were not interested in having their processes investigated and evaluated.
After some thought, and as promised in chapter 1, the use of different Creative Collaboration resulted in bringing about a platform for exhibition and data collection through survey collection and interviews, and the final application of discourse analysis yielded a way to categorise language in an attempt to generate criteria (Table 21):
Table 24. Major dimensions for the “talking-in-interaction” methodology in Conversation Analysis in relation to data collected during Curatorial Interviews (theoretical) and Re/Paid Curatorial Data (in-situ; practical). Major Dimensions of Terms from Additional Curatorial Terms from Re/Pair Curatorial Data Conversation Analysis Interviews Action (the org of Curiosity Emotional Reaction actions outside the Cultural Thinking Cohesion conversation/communi Confluence Thematic cation event) – NMC: Entertain[ing] Unfinished / Questioning Pre-Production/Post- Curating-as-Action Language Mapping Work Production (words for processes you “do”) Emotional Reaction Making Art Cohesion Collaborate Curiosity Futuring Understanding how art practice is extended Authorship Communicat[ing] Reflect[ing] Mirror[ing] Transposing different communities/demographics Investigate Structure (the rules Curator [title – a power in Emotional Reaction (?!)
116 the communicating what you do to Different and specific learning conversation/communi others] Cohesive cation event follows – Artist [title – a power in Humanisation parameters) – communicating what you do to Embodiment knowledge, tacit and others] Thematic (?!) emergent Peer Mentoring Open NMC: Categories of Creative Practice Didactics/Signs/Props Production/Reflection Categories of Professional Practice Cues/Prompts Situations/Platforms/Contexts Language Mapping Work (?!) Social Practice Boundary-less Cultural Worker/Producer Fluid Longer/Shorter Work Experience Chaotic (Disruptive?) Collaborative Decision Making Bleed (no borders physically) Process over Outcomes Unsure Impact Intrigue Useful Ways of Understanding Clever Moveable Constraints Signage Embedding Flexible Narrative Capable Futuring (?!) Modal Ubiquitous Inclusive Balance/imbalance Authorship (?!) Communication Trust Control Works as borderline objects – instead reflect and mirror Learning objects Pragmatism Medical applications for robots Aging process Sad (sadness about behaviour) Programmed Anthropomorphism Constrained by what they achieve and perform or how well Diverse outcomes Interesting Positive Worthy Investigative
117 Inter-subjectivity (talk Audience-as-Platform History-making and interaction – the Community and Evangelists Interrogation communication event) Festival as proving ground Change-making are examined as a site Tribe Extending your own body where intersubjective Collaborator Identifying mechanisms for oneself as a understanding about Vehicle site for internal discussions the participants’ Human-Robot Connections intentions, their state Interacting of knowledge, their Improvising relation, and their Almost living stance towards the Reflecting/Mirroring our own talked-about objects is behaviours/reflections created, maintained, Companionship and negotiated) Industrial Assistance NMC: Production Transposing experience Diverse outcomes Robots a template/platform for thinking about/fixing human flaws Investigate
(Full data and names of participants (Full Transcripts in Appendices 5 & 6) confidential)
Foundation work: Memory Flows, ISEA 2015: disruption
Key terminology for final case study
In keeping with the groupings for the Major Dimension for Talking in Interaction conversational analysis, I have broken the key terms into the three sections of Action, Structure and Inter- Subjectivity. The key words (italics below) are taken from independent curators working in the field and interviewed separate to the Re/Pair exhibition. The paired word, synonym or discursive definition associated with each key word comes from the interviews and comments section of the curators who participated in the Re/Pair exhibition evaluation, showing a cross-over in the perceived nature of the field and the experience of curators at the Re/Pair exhibition.
I. ACTION 1. Curiosity: Investigat[ive] 2. Confluence/Hybridity: Cohesion 3. Entertain[ing]: Emotional Reaction 4. Cultural Thinking: Thematic / unfinished / questioning / futuring / understanding how art practice is extended 5. Curating-As-Action (discursive words for what curators “do’”): Collaborate / language & mapping work / Authorship & Authority / Communicating / Reflecting / Mirroring / Transposing different communities & demographics II. STRUCTURE
118 1. Curator (as a title – a power in communicating what you do to others): thematic / didactics / signs / props / cues / prompts / language mapping work / constraints / narrative / communication / pragmatism / diverse outcomes / clever / balance & imbalance / interesting / worthy / authorship 2. Artist (as a title – a power in communicating what you do to others): humanisation / embodiment / chaotic / disruptive / unsure / clever / embedding / balance vs. imbalance / control / interesting / worthy 3. Social Practice and the Cultural Producer: emotional reaction / language mapping work / intrigue / futuring / authorship / trust / investigat[ive] 4. Impact: cohesive / fluid / ubiquitous / positive 5. Longer & Shorter work experience in collaborators: balance vs. imbalance 6. Collaborative Decision Making: process over outcomes / useful ways of understanding / capable / inclusive 7. Moveable: boundary-free / bleed (no barriers between works) / works as border line objects, but instead mirror and reflect societies ideas / programmed / anthropomorphism III. INTER-SUBJECTIVITY 1. Audience-as-Platform: interrogation / extending your own body / identifying mechanisms for oneself as a site for internal discussions / reflecting & mirroring our own human behaviours 2. Festival as Proving Ground (as with Ars Electronica): history-making / change-making / interacting / improvising / transposing experience / diverse outcomes / ivestigat[ive] / companionship 3. Tribe & Collaborators (Community & Evangelists): change-making / interacting / improvising / companionship / industry assistance / robot [art] as a template for thinking about and facing human flaws 4. Platforms & Contexts, Situations & Vehicles: history-making / change-making / interrogation / extending our own bodies / identifying mechanisms for oneself as a site for internal discussions / reflecting & mirroring / transposing experience / achieving diverse outcomes
5.6. Conclusions and Segue to Discussion
This chapter has presented the analysed data gathered from the three Case Studies performed during this PhD. It details a new model for curating interactive art that can begin at any stage, and malleable criteria for curating interactive art for creative practitioners—namely curators.
119 The first Case Study (Denouément) took a close, or micro-, study of emerging practitioners in their studios as they made interactive works following a brief and exhibiting as part of the VIVID Music festival in 2015. The data collection was quantitatively designed as a poll for the audience to respond to, giving us the criteria for what they required to return to the work, experience it again and enjoy it more than the first time—in keeping with the aforementioned humanities definition of authenticity whilst disrupting the design, making and exhibition aspects of the artworks the artists created. From Case Study #1 – Denouément came the criteria for what the audience requires of interactive art to enjoy and return to it.
However, there was also qualitative data generated in Denouément, the observation and analysis on the part of a curator-as-producer, feeding into my appreciative system for the next Case Study for analysis, ISEA2015: disruption in Vancouver, Canada. This was a larger, or macro-, study of how mid-career, interactive practitioners were creating, writing about and experimenting with projects around interactive and electronic art. I engaged as a Curator-As-Producer, creating criteria through my reflections of the experience. The data was qualitative; the methodologies of its collection are discussed in chapter 4. From Case Study #2 – ISEA2015:disruption came the criteria for creative practitioners to arm themselves with for their collaborators, namely their clients, practitioners and audiences.
The final Case Study – Re/Pair was specifically focused on a collaborative artist-led curatorial method and involved a close look at who was working in close proximity to me and how, and in what ways, that might be harnessed for exhibition. The exhibition research had a Bricolage approach, and the elements leading up to it held aspects of interaction design for human-computer interaction and reflective curatorial practice. The data was designed to be collected both qualitatively and quantitatively, the artists taking their data, and the curator keeping theirs. From that rich data fortified by 11 in-situ evaluations including a survey and semi-structured interviews and two independent interviews with three lead international curators, came the criteria for curators (traditional and independent, institutional and experimental) working in new media and interactive art. These criteria contain personality characteristics, structural or organisational thinking, and scaffolding to gather and present the works around and through.
The next chapter will detail the criteria separately to the data, instead discussing and concluding the contribution of the criteria to the field in light of the foundation work and methodologies followed via the New Media Curation research initiative and platform.
120
Chapter 6: Discussion and Conclusion
This chapter provides a wider perspective on the results and discusses the implications of them for other broader areas and domains. Future work and outstanding questions are covered, in order to keep the dialogue going.
121 6.1 Introduction
I began this thesis with a quote from Gerard Artaud in relation to experiential learning. In it, he speaks of learning through experience as a situated and personality-modifying experience resulting in “a new vision of the world”, one that provides “a more profound understanding of phenomena that before were hidden”(Artaud, 1989; p.141). Not only is one’s attitude changed, but, as such, their behaviour is changed, making their traditional movements or known ways of doing things difficult. They now struggle to behave as they did before. In Artaud’s opinion, when experiential learning and scientific knowledge intersect, not only have the goals of learning been reached, but they have broadened and consolidated the experience underway, transforming the learner and their process into a new way of being (Lachapelle, 1997, Artaud, 1989).
In applying this idea with a Disruptive Design Methodology to elicit a more authentic experience for audiences of interactive art, I posited three Case Studies that, when evaluated and analysed, would yield flexible criteria to guide this transition from one known space to another through experiential learning. This process of transitioning is where the experiential learning takes place and language begins to develop describing the experience. In my study, New Media Curation is the research platform and my own practice-based research as a reflective practice curator is the subject. In this process and in the ensuing discussion in this chapter, I will draw together how the concepts of design thinking and authentic experiences across curators, artists and audiences resulted in these criteria.
The first part of this discussion will cover the design of the Case Studies as informed by my foundational practice at New Media Curation (NMC). It will show phases of work that honed my appreciative system as a reflective practice-based researcher. The second part of the discussion will focus on what the Case Studies yielded in terms of a working NMC Methodology and criteria across three types of exhibitions with three types of practitioners. This new work forms my significant contribution to knowledge: a novel model and flexible criteria for curating interactive art.
6.2 Chapters 1-3: MINING & LANDSCAPING FOUNDATIONS
In following Leyla Acaroglu’s Disruptive Design Methodology, I have divided the thesis into three key modes of deep research: Mining, Landscaping and Building. In chapters 1 through 3, I do as Acarolgu suggests in terms of Mining (chapters 1 & 2) and Landscaping (chapter 3), in that I dive deep into the problem, develop research approaches, explore elements, develop insights and argue for them in the Introduction and Literature Review. I then map the curatorial process in use, looking for points
122 of interaction, relation and connectivity between the new works and my foundation works in the Methodologies chapter. This section will review those chapters in brief.
In chapter 1, I introduce the PhD research by stipulating the problem, contexts, methods and outcomes I want to broach through practice-based curatorial research. Due to a tension I had noticed in my own curatorial practice, I wanted to answer the call raised by colleagues (Graham and Cook, 2010, Muller, 2008) to revise curatorial practice in light of the infiltration of technology into our making and design systems. For our field, this has resulted in the role of the curator shifting from a carer of objects to a collaborative producer of experience. As a result, the spaces curators are authorities within also shifted focus from one-sided narratives around objects to conversations audiences could participate in for a more authentic experience of the objects. I define my use of the word “authenticity” from an arts humanities perspective on experience, one where the audience’s experience is pleasurable, where the audience member would return to the engagement, and where they might share their experience with others (Greer, 2013a, Turkle, 2007). This happened slowly, but has since extended past the museum walls to be experimented with in public settings with frameworks and approaches outside the arts and within the fields of education, social science and HCI. In setting up this study, I utilised a Bricolage Research approach, making use of multiple and malleable frameworks applied in practice-based research, creative collaboration, disruptive design, and exhibiting Living Laboratories approach within festivals as an in-situ public space for experimentation. Table 22 demonstrates the path of the PhD research, the main research question and the statement of contribution to knowledge.
Table 22. The main research question, the pathway through, and main contributions to this thesis
Research Question: How can contemporary curators apply design thinking techniques to exhibitions comprising digital interactive art at various stages of iteration to reveal new criteria for curating digital interactive art?
Pathway Through the Thesis Contribution to Knowledge
Problem – curating the medium of interactive art is illusive due to its immateriality and shifting position in time and space. It requires a revision to traditional institutional curating. Context – iterative experimentation resulting in Experiential Learning. This happened over three case studies for three different festivals.
123 Methods – first establish a practice-based research Curatorial Platform (NMC) and then test its processes in a rigorous way so as to both understand and hone my own appreciative system, but also contribute to the wider culture of curating new media and interactive art.
Outcomes – a novel model for curating This thesis demonstrates how through interactive art and flexible criteria generated by Disruptive Design Methods and the provision of audiences, reflective practitioner research, and authentic experiences for audiences through curators of new media and interactive art. Living Laboratories model, a space is created for curators to work reflectively with artists and audiences to collaborate on public prototype exhibitions. From dialogue around these creative collaborations, critical language in the form of criteria have emerged and been recorded for the first time.
In chapter 2, I provide a State of the Art Review which includes my foundational work within the landscape of practice-based curatorial research. I further investigate this topic in terms of authentic audience experience, experimental Living Labs in festival settings, creative collaboration, reflective practice and disruption in theory and design. With respect to my attention to these elements, I take my lead from the practice of making interactive art on the basis that what is relevant to making and production of interactive works is also relevant to their exhibition. I include in this review the work done around language to describe this experience of interactive or media- based art. There are many curators that focus on or examine a particular approach or theory, such as Costello’s Pleasure Framework or Graham’s categorisation of curators and how and with whom they work. However, this review reveals that in fact there are no general or specific criteria for curating interactive art due to its multi-modal and ephemeral states. It revealed that most models for audience engagement or exhibition making are linear, or need to start at a certain stage to produce results. The NMC Methodology and criteria are flexible and malleable, cyclical and iterative in their making. Where I have demonstrated ways to intercept, harness, and document experience in these contributions, they are tested only by me. Other new media and interactive art curators work in similar ways, as is revealed in the data for case study Re/Pair, but none, as yet, have stopped to reflect and record criteria through the language used for describing the experiences of the audiences and their colleagues—or even their own practice.
In chapter 3, I map out the methodologies which guide me through and scaffold the study. I examine a number of processes which are captured in visual models that show the progression of my contribution over time. The use of multiple methodologies in an adaptable and changing way is
124 called a Bricolage Research approach, and was examined in detail by Canadian researcher Matt Rogers (Rogers, 2012). From the initial mapping of my process to testing it through public experimentation via Living Laboratories, auto-ethnography through reflective practice, trial and error and then artist-led practice and discourse analysis, I am able to examine the audience, creative practitioner and relational curatorial elements of my work. This examination leads to building new processes for curating interactive and new media artworks. Their application in our field is discussed below.
6.3 Chapters 4 & 5: BUILDING NEW PROCESSES & THEIR APPLICATION
In Step Three, the Building step, of Acaroglu’s Disruptive Design Methodology she encourages “ideation and “intervention” Here you are meant to “generate disruptive ideas for intervention [and] explore [their] viability” You are meant to “make change!” through “test[ing], prototyp[ing] and repeat[ing]” (Acaroglu, 2017a). This is planned and executed in chapters 4 and 5, where I reflect on the Case Studies and how they articulate the areas of research I wanted to address and how. Chapter 5 specifically recalls the results from surveys, reflective practice and semi-structured interviews to reveal the criteria and models that form the contributions of this thesis.
In chapter 4 I draw on my appreciative system, recounting how the exhibitions were designed and produced within the frameworks of the PhD, and explore their processes of production. I map the NMC Methodology as tested in Denouément (the Living Labs setting), ISEA2015: disruption (the reflective practice setting) and Re/Pair (the artist-led and discourse analysis setting). I reflect on foundational works outlined in chapter 2 that inform the thinking through of each case study, and conclude with the first part of the contribution to knowledge: a novel model for curating interactive art, the phases of which are detailed below as the NMC Methodology.
In chapter 5 I analyse the data across the three case studies to reveal preliminary and flexible criteria as stipulated by audience engagement, reflective practice research, and both theoretical and in-situ feedback through semi-structured interview. I structure the results in relation to micro and macro-case studies, and theoretical and in-situ experiential learning as revealed by curators in the field. This chapter constitutes the second part of the contribution to knowledge, that of the criteria revealing guidelines for makers, producers and consumers of interactive and new media art.
The body of this thesis explores the below research question:
125 How can contemporary curators apply design thinking techniques to exhibitions comprising digital interactive art at various stages of art practice to reveal new criteria for curating digital interactive art?
In answering this question by way of the three Case Studies, I was able to assemble the below contributions to knowledge:
This thesis demonstrates how through Disruptive Design Methods and the provision of authentic experiences for audiences through Living Laboratories model, a space is created for curators to work reflectively with artists and audiences to collaborate on public prototype exhibitions. From dialogue around these creative collaborations, critical language in the form of criteria have emerged and been recorded for the first time. A novel model for curating in this way is a secondary contribution.
The preliminary criteria and novel methodology can be found below:
From Case Study #1 – Denouément came the criteria for what the audience requires of interactive art to enjoy and return to it. They are listed below:
1. Fun/Enjoyable/Interesting – words used to describe the experience by those that understood it and felt confident speaking about it; 2. Curious/New/Different – an articulation of the above positive experience; 3. Games/Art/Sound – what it made the audience think of in relation to the work; 4. Art Galleries/in Music /in Media/Anywhere – where the audience might see this work being displayed in another scenario.
From Case Study #2 – ISEA2015:disruption came the criteria for creative practitioners (here curators) to arm themselves with for their collaborators, namely their clients, practitioners and audiences. These criteria are listed below:
1. Accessibility and Inclusivity: In order for the artwork to be available to most people who approach it, whether it be the point of engagement or the content they are engaging, it would be best practice to have a legible and easy-to-use or intuitive interface, whilst not simplifying the story/message/other communication in order to do so. 2. Plurality of voices and mediums for diversity in stories and storytellers is important in navigating an interdisciplinary medium with practitioners from different fields coming together on one or a series of related projects. 3. Authoritative and Contributory: For those in Directorial, Managerial, or even Marketing positions (including the generation of social media content), you want to be sure the information you are grouping together and how you communicate it is strong and contributes to an existing dialogue. 4. Relational and Representative: A context and core message/critique/communication is important, especially when showing prototypes or Works-in-Progress. 5. Absent Presence and Present Absence: This refers to the ability of the Curator-as Producer to be present but removed as work unfolds around them, accepting that they
126 are unable to control outcomes of experimental practice whilst also observing, reflecting and documenting the process analytically. 6. Tacit and Physical Knowledge: These are knowledges internalized and accessible to a practitioner from having performed and thought through the process previous.
The final Case Study – Re/Pair was specifically focused on a collaborative artist-led curatorial method and involved a close look at who was working in close proximity to me and how, and in what ways that might be harnessed for exhibition. These criteria contain personality characteristics, structural or organisational thinking, and scaffolding to gather and present the works around and through. They are listed below within the context of Talking-in-Action Conversation Analysis; under the headings Action, Structure and Inter-Subjectivity:
I. ACTION
1. Curiosity: Investigat[ive] 2. Confluence/Hybridity: Cohesion 3. Entertain[ing]: Emotional Reaction 4. Cultural Thinking: Thematic / unfinished / questioning / futuring / understanding how art practice is extended 5. Curating-As-Action (discursive words for what curators “do’”): Collaborate / language & mapping work / Authorship & Authority / Communicating / Reflecting / Mirroring / Transposing different communities & demographics II. STRUCTURE
1. Curator (as a title – a power in communicating what you do to others): thematic / didactics / signs / props / cues / prompts / language mapping work / constraints / narrative / communication / pragmatism / diverse outcomes / clever / balance & imbalance / interesting / worthy / authorship 2. Artist (as a title – a power in communicating what you do to others): humanisation / embodiment / chaotic / disruptive / unsure / clever / embedding / balance vs. imbalance / control / interesting / worthy 3. Social Practice and the Cultural Producer: emotional reaction / language mapping work / intrigue / futuring / authorship / trust / investigat[ive] 4. Impact: cohesive / fluid / ubiquitous / positive 5. Longer & Shorter work experience in collaborators: balance vs. imbalance 6. Collaborative Decision Making: process over outcomes / useful ways of understanding / capable / inclusive 7. Moveable: boundary-free / bleed (no barriers between works) / works as border line objects, but instead mirror and reflect societies ideas / programmed / anthropomorphism III. INTER-SUBJECTIVITY
1. Audience-as-Platform: interrogation / extending your own body / identifying mechanisms for oneself as a site for internal discussions / reflecting & mirroring our own human behaviours
127 2. Festival as Proving Ground (as with Ars Electronica): history-making / change- making / interacting / improvising / transposing experience / diverse outcomes / ivestigat[ive] / companionship 3. Tribe & Collaborators (Community & Evangelists): change-making / interacting / improvising / companionship / industry assistance / robot [art] as a template for thinking about and facing human flaws 4. Platforms & Contexts, Situations & Vehicles: history-making / change-making / interrogation / extending our own bodies / identifying mechanisms for oneself as a site for internal discussions / reflecting & mirroring / transposing experience / achieving diverse outcomes
After the execution, analysis and grouping of criteria in relation to the 3 Case Studies, the NMC Methodology can now be depicted as below:
Figure 29 (repeated) .Deborah Turnbull Tillman’s Methodology, 2017 – the blue arrow indicate iterative cycles during the planning sessions for the final case study exhibition of the PhD and touring exhibition plans afterwards.
The next section details the broader contexts of these contributions, and how they play out in academic and professional contexts.
6.4 Broader Contexts of the [curatorial] research
Much as I did prior to the PhD thesis and research, I will continue to act as an independent curator, one that is often adjunct to or embedded in institutions like museums, galleries and universities. Within this role, I expect to continue teaching, writing and following my curiosity regarding the
128 curation of interactive art and the audience’s response to art intersected with technology. Where I have been changed and where I will struggle to behave as I did before is in the modification of my approach to curating experience. Where before my approach was reactive, highly experimental and often expensive, I will have to reign those impulses in, utilising my own experiential knowledge as a guide and as encapsulated in the NMC Methodology and ensuing criteria.
Going forward, I have four projects which will provide a broader context for the PhD work. The first is an invitation to publish as part of the Springer Series on Cultural Computing from the series editor Ernest Edmonds. In a book edited by Jonathan Bowen and Tula Gianini on Museums and Digital Culture, I will be contributing my first solo authored chapter with the working title Past the Museum Floor: Criteria for curating experience. This chapter will show, much as the thesis has done, the legacy of creative collaborations between museums and research groups, the value of disruption and authenticity as variables for the audience in engaging with prototype works, and how the rich results from these studies also have a place in the public domain. My work in this thesis uses festivals as the site for public engagement, which has resulted in a new understanding of curating experience and the guidelines and models to go with it. The readership of the last book I contributed to in this series, Curating the Digital, is upwards of 6400, with 6443 being the download tally as I type.30
A second invitation comes from independent curator Lubi Thomas and Ars Electronica curator Kristefan Minski. I interviewed these curators together as Thomas has been working with Ars Electronica at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) where Minski has set up the FutureLab Academy while also pursuing his own PhD co-supervised by the University of Newcastle and the FutureLab at Ars Electronica. After the interview for data collection, we did an edit of the transcription for publication on my website. Upon conclusion of this task, Thomas suggested we co- publish a booklet containing interviews between new media curators and artists. She cited the C.R.U.M.B. project on this same topic as incredibly useful and wondered if we might do something similar for Australia. Similarly, Minski has invited me to collaborate with him on projects between himself and UNSW Art & Design for Ars Electronica. The readership for these two projects might also largely be specialist and student related, but I would hope that they might gain an international readership if distributed through the Ars Electronica festival platform as professional applications. This is an exciting option for me as they would cover the scope of experimental, design, curatorship, experiential learning and publishing.
30 http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319287201 - Accessed 11 March 2018.
129 The third context in which I could extend the research of the PhD is to tour my final case study Re/Pair to the Fuji Xerox Centre in Yokohama, Japan. Each of the works in the exhibition were in ideation or early prototype phase, meaning they are each to be developed further as part of the CRL-affiliated artists’ research. The Japan Foundation here in Sydney offers Major Grants for Arts and Culture with the focus of bringing Japanese artists to Australia. There are usually two exhibitions, one in Sydney and one in Japan. I would suggest bringing some of the work of Mari Velonaki’s collaborators to Sydney, including the works Geminoid F by Hiroshi Ishiguru and the ensuing films made by media artist Elena Knox in association with the Creative Robotics Lab. In return, I will ideally tour the Re/Pair exhibition, with the feature being the work that Mari wasn’t able to show in the exhibition in Sydney: the designs for a social robot within a work environment. It is stipulated in her contract that she can only launch the designs at Fuji Xerox in Yokohama, Japan, and I would love to tour my final PhD case study between Yokohama and Sydney. This would allow the artists to reflect on their ideas, iterate them, include elements that couldn’t be included due to time constraints and Work Health & Safety concerns in Re/Pair, and offer different contexts for the next two iterations of their works.
The final context for furthering my research would be through teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students of curating, design, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and research methodologies. As I developed my model and criteria, I have worked with fine arts, curatorial and design students, walking them through practice-based research with my own work as examples of how to work this way in the curatorial field. I currently convene the Media Arts Professional Practice course and teach Research Methodologies for third year undergraduates at UNSW Art & Design. I also teach in the Masters of Curating and Cultural Leadership, tutoring in Creative and Cultural Leadership course and the Capstone embedded internship programs in this faculty. My teaching has also changed as a result of this research. Where previously I had posited my ideas as theory and fun projects to work on with interesting people, I can now say with more confidence and a degree of certainty how this approach works, and why. It’s incredibly rewarding to share with the next generation of media artists and curators that experimental practice pays off.
6.5 Future Work and Outstanding Questions
In terms of the Future Work and Outstanding Questions of my research, I think again of Lian Loke’s recommendation to “surface the conflicts and complexities” (2017, pers. comm. 13 December 2017, 1:35pm). I think there is more work to be done in terms of commenting on, testing and responding to the criteria and method I have proposed through iterative and practice-based reflective curatorial practice. I would welcome the next researcher to challenge what I have found, and begin their own
130 guidelines in the areas of the field that they are most interested in. I had the most difficulties in the final Case Study, where artists agreed to different aspects of the study, bringing their own ideas that were closely aligned with mine to the Living Lab, not having their prototypes as far along as expected, and having to change their exhibition piece due to non-disclosure agreements. Perhaps the next curator can do a closer study on a collaborative and egalitarian relationship between an artist and a curator, and perhaps this research could even the playing field. Perhaps the next researcher is a technologist in a creative team, or the designer or the artist. More work could be done to look at the complex relationship between these key collaborators in making interactive art. One might also examine the relationship between the artistic team and the audience, or the institution and the audience, or a different audience then a festival one.
6.6 Conclusions
This thesis aimed to contribute a way forward through processes and guidelines for artists, curators, designers and social scientists to modify the way new media and interactive art is designed, curated and exhibited. I offered my established practice, New Media Curation, as the research platform and my own reflective curatorial practice as the subject. In doing so, I was able to answer a call from previous new media curators to revise curatorial practice in light of technology, but also to be transformed in this process of change. Having achieved what I set out to do, I feel less stuck in an endless cycle of production and administration, and more the producer of a new and novel way to approach the trickier aspects of curating experience. In disrupting my own process, I have experienced it on a more authentic level, and plan to return to it again and again with a new focus on audiences, my own appreciative system and the theory and experience of my contemporaries.
131 List of Figures and Tables
Figures
Figure 1. Beta_space in the Cyberworlds Exhibition, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, 2007. Image courtesy of Julien Phalip.
Figure 2. Sarah Cook speaking about Distributed Art with an image of Beryl Graham (2010) at the first Theory Talk at The Temporary Stedelijk in Amsterdam in 2013. Graham is engaging with artist TaeYoon Choi’s robotic duck, Camerautomata Charlie. Projected image courtesy of Sarah Cook; image courtesy of Ernst van Deursen.
Figure 3. Deborah Turnbull Tillman, Assistant Curator Design & Technology, 2013. Image courtesy of the Powerhouse Museum.
Figure 4. The studio space at the Creative Robotics Lab, UNSW Art & Design. The image features Director Mari Velonaki (right) speaking about her kinetic sculpture Diamandini (2011-13) and Fish_Bird (2004) to lab visitors.
Figure 5. A presentation slide depicting images of Denouément, Musify+Gamify, VIVIDMusic, 2015. Individual images courtesy of Lucy Tillman. Figure 6. A presentation slide depicting images of Denouément, Musify+Gamify, VIVIDMusic, 2015. Individual images courtesy of Lucy Tillman.
Figure 7. Machine Movement Lab 1: Becoming Body by Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, Re/Pair, 2017. Image courtesy of Petra Gemeinboeck.
Figure 8. Stills from Image Ecologies, 2009, by New Media Curation in the UTS Tower Foyer Exhibition Space, Sydney Australia. Artists featured: Ian Gwilt, Folderfloor, 2009 (left); Ernest Edmonds, Shaping Form, 2008; Brigid Costello, Just a Bit of Spin, 2008; Gwilt, Save_as, 2006-8 (right). Images courtesy of Aram Dulyan.
Figure 9. Nicholas Lambert’s timeline of art, events, innovations and publications, modified by referred to in Candy and Edmonds’ Interactions (2011, pp. x-xi).
Figure 10. Still from the mundane_traces PhD exhibition by Ian Gwilt, 2008—New Media Curation’s inaugural production and the launch of this research and exhibition platform. Images courtesy of Aram Dulyan.
Figure 11. Ben Shneiderman’s “The New ABCs of Research” (2016).
Figure 12. Lewin’s “Spiral of Steps” (1947)
Figure 13. Suchman’s “Expert Help System” (1987)
Figure 14. Stringer’s “Action Research in Education” (2003)
Figure 15. Johnson’s “Systems Model of Action Research” (2008).
Figure 16. Zafer Bilda’s “Modes of Interaction”, 2008, from Edmonds (2010).
132 Figure 17. Design Lab students engaging the student prototype works on the SmartSlabs as part of the Grid Gallery studio Urban Realities and Augmented Play exhibition launch, 2011. Artwork featured: Stephanie Fynn, Heather McKinnon and Jane Sivieng, A Flanuer’s Trace, 2011. Image courtesy of Aram Dulyan.
Figure 18. Stills from the ATTRACT::RELATE::SUSTAIN Launch, 2011, at the Verge Gallery, University of Sydney. Artworks featured: Emma Chee, Curious Whispers 2.0, 2011 (top); Harry Mann, Temporal Luminescence, 2011 (left); Claudia Nunez-Pacheco, LÚCILA, 2011 (right). Images courtesy of Lightpop Photography.
Figure 19. Presentation Slides for pitching the Ghost[s] and the[ir] Machine[s] exhibition to the CyberStudio students at the Design Lab. Left: Lian Loke and Deb Turnbull Tillman “making strange” their environment with Baki Kocaballi documenting. Right: Images of the Old Darlington House over an image from Cockatoo Island to show shared history.
Figure 20. Stills from the Ghost[s] and the[ir] Machine[s] exhibition at the Old Darlington House, University of Sydney, 2012 (see http://www.newmediacuration.com/gatm/01-13/13.html). Left: Artwork featured is The Pattern of Life by Roven Yu, Yoko Tomishima, and Fan Wang, 2012. Right: Deb Turnbull Tillman operating the artwork Islander, 2012, by Ariel Chou, Cindy Zhou and Kyle Zhu.
Figure 21. Stills from the exhibition Organised Cacophony, 2012; a collaboration between New Media Curation, the Design Lab, University of Sydney and the Rocks PopUp. Left: Artwork featured is Human, Nature, Urbanisation, 2012 by Chia Yuan Chang, Shumei Li and Mirinda Kulsrisuwan. Right: Artwork featured is Sensitive Surface, 2012 by Ingrid Maria Pohl.
Figure 22. Stills from the launch of the Grid Gallery, 2010. Top: Artwork featured is Sansuigo .03, by Chris Bowman. Bottom: Guests from the launch viewing the gallery from across the street. Photography courtesy of Aram Dulyan.
Figure 23. Stills from the launch of the Silverwater Learning Centre, the call for a permanent sculpture and digital work for STEALTH screens were a collaboration between Ausgrid and New Media Curation. Left: Sculpture featured is Mother of Invention, 2010, by Chris Fox and Dillon MacEwan. Right: Artwork featured is Phases by Sohan Ariel Hayes, 2010. Images courtesy of Aram Dulyan.
Figure 24. Mock-up of the Ausgrid City North winning proposal: Momentum, 2012/13 by David Nixon (Concept Proposal, p. 10).
Figure 25. My practice-based research methodology (2015).
Figure 26. Practice-based research methodology (2016)
Figure 27. Reflective Cycle Model (Hampe 2013).
Figure 28. My Reflection Cycle for Curator-as-Producer developed in 2016
Figure 29. Deborah Turnbull Tillman’s Methodology, 2017 – the blue arrows indicate iterative cycles during the planning sessions for the final case study exhibition of the PhD and touring exhibition plans afterwards.
Figure 30. Parra Girls, 2017 for the Big Anxiety Festival. Creative Team includes: Art Director and Production Design, Volker Kuchelmeister; Sound Design/Editor, Alex Davies; Writer/Editor, Lily Hibberd; Co-producers Jill Bennett, Bonney Djuric, Lily Hibberd; Writer/Narrator, Bonney Djuric; Narrator, Lynne Edmondson Paskovski; Narrator, Gypsie Hayes; Writer/Narrator, Jenny McNally; Narrator, Denise Nicholas (see
133 https://www.thebiganxiety.org/events/parragirls-past-present/ ).Image reproduced with the permission of Volker Kuchelmeister.
Figure 31. Artist Patricia Flanagan and volunteers Ella Byrne, Skye Skagfeld and Rosalie Hopkins installing her artwork Generative Textile System for Re/Pair, 2017.
Figure 32. Preece and Muller re: Interaction Design Methods, with Turnbull Tillman’s design annotation, 2016. Original table: Muller (2008, p. 117)
Figure 33. Still from the NMC Experiential Workshop, March 2017. Featuring (L-R) artist Alex Davies, curator Deborah Turnbul Tillman, artists Rochelle Haley and Mari Velonaki. Offscreen on Skype: artist Petra Gemeinboeck. Image courtesy of Rachael Kiang.
Figure 34. NMC Experiential Learning Workshop Worksheet, 2016.
Figure 35. My NMC Curatorial Model for Designing Interactive Engagement, 2017.
Tables
Table 1. Acaroglu’s (2017a) Disruptive Design Methods in relation to this thesis.
Table 2. Artist criteria for entering the competition for permanent sculpture and digital work for the Ausgrid SIlverwater Learning Centre
Table 3. Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln’s categories of Bricoleur Practice (Rogers 2012)
Table 4. Living Lab components as utilised in public space
Table 5. Chapter headings and synopses for reflection processes as published in Turnbull Tillman and Velonaki (2015b).
Table 6. Tracking my experiential curatorial learning from theory to practice.
Table 7. Preliminary tasks, events and timelines for artists agreeing to be a part of Prototype to Process (which became Re/Pair).
Table 8. Tracking invitation replies to CRL affiliated artists for Prototype to Process (became Re/Pair)
Table 9. Notes from the NMC Experiential Workshop as participating artists discussed what to exhibit for my final Case Study.
Table 10. Age distribution (p. 546)
Table 11. People in attendance per day, by gender (p. 547)
Table 12. Reasons for lack of awareness ranked by percentage (p. 548)
Table 13. Responses of subjects who couldn’t identify the Intervention as interactive (p. 549)
Table 14. What the artworks made the subjects think of (p. 550)
134 Table 15. Where the test subjects engage with art (p. 551)
Table 16. Reasons given for awareness of an interactive piece (p. 552)
Table 17. Percentage that would engage with this kind of work in the future (p. 552)
Table 18. Reasons people would engage again (p. 552)
Table 19. Suggestions for improving the work (p. 553)
Table 20. “Good auto-ethnographical evaluation” in relation my own auto-ethnographic and reflective evaluation of ISEA2015:disruption 109
Table 21. Major dimensions for the “talking-in-interaction” methodology in Conversation Analysis in relation to data collected during Curatorial Interviews (theoretical) and Re/Pair Curatorial Data (in-situ; practical). 111
Table 22. The main research question, the pathway through, and main contributions to this thesis 118
135 Appendices
Appendix 1 – Denouément label in Musify+Gamify for VIVID2015
136 Appendix 2 – ISEA2015: disruption website delineating my position and situating me amongst like theorists – and a Thank You from Kate Armstrong, one of the Artistic Directors.
137
138
The note included in a parting gift to Turnbull Tillman from Kate Armstrong, one of the Artistic Directors of ISEA2015: disruption and Editor of the Art Catalogue (Armstrong, 2015).
139
140 Appendix 3 – Re/Pair as advertised on the Big Anxiety Festival Website and UNSW Art & Design Newsletter
https://www.thebiganxiety.org/events/repair/ - accessed March 2018.
141
The Big Anxiety Festival Newsletter was emailed to all staff and students in the Faculty of Art & Design at UNSW. This one is dated 9 November 2017 and came to [email protected] .
142
Advertising poster for Re/Pair. Designed by Iris Shen of EyeShen Studios.
143
Re/Pair Room Sheet, Side A.
144
Re/Pair Room Sheet, Side B.
145 Appendix 4 – Call for Participation in Case Study 3
Email inviting Creative Robotics Lab Artists to participate in Case Study #3 – dated 14 October 2016.
146 Appendix 5 – Interview with Ars Electronica Curators Lubi Thomas and Kristefan Minski.
3 November 2017, 10am Australian Eastern Standard Time
Deb Turnbull Tillman (DTT) with Skye Skagfeld (SS) in Sydney, Australia; speaking with Lubi Thomas (LT) in Brisbane, Australia and Kristefan Minski (KM) in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Introduction Deb provides information on the PhD and discusses how she and Kristefan met and what they have spoken about in terms of curating interactive art and the practices.
DTT: So Kristefan, Ars Electronica is a huge name, and Lubi, I have known your name for so long in association with QUT and in curatorial practice in our field in general. I wanted to let you both know that the PhD is about curating interactive art, namely this tension that I have felt between professional and creative practice, and the way I have addressed this through my own curatorial practice, New Media Curation, which I also treat as a research platform or initiative. Do you have any other questions about the project before we start?
LT: No, that’s good. That’s interesting and I think you’ve picked up on a really interesting area. What do you mean by creative and professional practice? Are they two separate things?
DTT: Well as a curator we wear so many hats, right? So we’ve got administration, we look after artists, think about finance, book flights, find accommodation, so we have all these administrative tasks and you have to think of a creative theme that ties everyone together, then you have to install it and design the exhibition…
LT: ok, great, got it.
DTT: ..so yes, it’s really about dividing the admin from the more creative aspects.
LT: got it, just thought I’d check.
DTT: That’s ok, interrupt whenever you like. I also found that when I was really focusing on the professional side, I wasn’t getting time to stop, reflect and write about what I was doing, so the PhD has been a really great opportunity for that.
LT: Yep.
DTT: Ok, have you had a chance to look at the questions?
LT: Yes, I’ve just started to have a look at them, that’s cool.
DTT: Ok, and we don’t have to stick to these and I’m happy to meander off. Or if you don’t like these questions and want to talk about something else, that’s fine with me too. But I just thought that this is like the bones of what I will ask everyone I interview. My supervisor, Mari Velonaki, has asked me to interview several different curatorial practitioners to situate myself and my practice amongst others in the field.
So the first question I wanted to ask you Lubi, and Kristefan of course, comment as you see fit, I wanted to ask you about your own practice, how it developed and how you identify?
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LT: So how did it develop? Ok there are several steps to this. I was in a visual arts school run by Roy Ascott in the late 80s, early 90s in Newport in the UK, and at that time 2 things were happening; 1. I was practising in sound art and having a similar generational experience of artists, at that time, who were working with technology tools - namely being shown in sites such as science galleries and pop- up informal spaces - pretty much anywhere but art galleries; art galleries were just not an option; and 2. the warehouse dance scene was emerging and the start of the pop-up culture – creative interventions (including dance parties) into temporary spaces such as warehouses and other disused spaces, as well as re-purposing licenced sites (clubs, pubs,) and external public spaces (i.e. quarries, gardens, castles, woodlands), to facilitate a range of creative occurrences - performance, art and installations, in fact turning whole spaces into interactive light sound, performative sites and events. This was happening from the mid/ late 80s into the early 90s. But there were not titles, or job descriptions, just a community of people doing stuff; a bunch of people not fitting into the then standard paradigm of what an art practice was and what artist did.
You can then fast forward a decade or so and I returned to Uni – undertaking a visual arts degree at QUT Brisbane. Clearly a whole bunch of things happened in that time gap. The development of digital/new media as an identified artistic practice space, through to the rise of the curator within the contemporary visual arts scene – although this really wasn’t anything new when you think of the work of Katerine Dreier in the early 1900s . It was in my 2nd year that I heard this term curator - which I’d obviously missed during the 90s. I was like, what’s a curator? This is interesting, so I asked someone if I could be their assistant and find out what it was. Basically I worked out that curating was doing stuff, just as we had been before, but now it had a title and a level of job description/role.
As you know curatorial theory and practice had turned up in the late 90s and early 2000s, so I kinda caught up with the program at this time, as part of my education and started curating - of course my first thoughts where on what I wanted to curate, and although (as you can see from my website), my arts practice is a physical and materials practice, I had come from a sound art practice, and so I started with an video and sound exhibition which we turned into a make your own adventure audience experience; there was a map that took you on a journey through a number of building levels, were you discovered the artworks. We used the architecture of the buildings at QUT to install works in different spaces; the sound work was located in the car park, there where works under the stairs, in toilets, lobbies and lifts...in all these different places. In my own practice I’ve always been really interested in putting works in different locations, and negotiating and unpacking how the context impacts on the experience – site responsive is a key foundational idea in my creative practice, and from this video show onwards it has always played a role in thinking audience experience in relation to art engagement and exhibition design and sites. Needless to say the show went down very well and I kept on curating.
The next thing I knew, QUT asked me to do another project in their newly built venue called The Block: a large fully equipped wired for multimedia venue – heaven. As a new style of venue the then director of precincts Prof. Peter Lavery, had been struggling to find curators to engage with the space because they walked in and saw this huge cavernous space that they couldn’t relate to as a gallery, but due to my previous years in the film industry I saw The Block as a small sound studio and thought, wow, that’s really quite manageable. I saw a site that offered flexibility and a place to play, and thankfully Peter was happy to give me free reign. It is because of the nature of The Block combined with my history and interests, and a complete lack of representation in Brisbane, that I chose to focus on experimental art, digital/new media art and all the other names and iterations that this area of practice has been called along the way from when I was practicing in this space in the 80s and 90s through to curating in that space for the last 12+ years. That’s kind of how I started being a curator. And how did that develop? I think QUT just left me to it really and let me run.
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DTT: That’s fantastic, that’s such a great story. So do you still predominantly identify as an artist, or are you a hybrid
LT: I love this, how do you identify? I would say I am completely hybrid. But because I was mainly practicing in an institution, I was told by HR that I had to call myself a curator. I had wanted to give myself a totally random title, but QUT were just like, NO. We have this admin system and we have to call you a curator. So I became a “curator” in inverted commas.
DTT: But somebody else gave you that name?
LT: yes QUT HR drove this. It was about comparison roles with other members in the team and trying to match up activities to similar activities. QUT have a great white walled gallery that of course has a curator and although we were producing a whole range of activities that differed from the traditional program of a gallery this seemed the closest fit for their purposes. Which is fine – sometimes subversion of the known is way easier than trying to establish a new idea. This titling didn’t happen for a few years but when my role was formalised it was also when I realised the power of the word ‘curator’, just as I had worked out the power of the word ‘artist’ when I was younger. When facing up to and trying to negotiate and be supported by conservative institution, and funding landscapes (which are often functioning under relatively conservative viewpoints), it’s useful to have this title because it is one that is understood and recognised within their own terms. Of course you might not be doing what they think you are, but it gives you an immediate point of perceived understanding from which you can move forward. You aren’t starting from a place where they are freaking out about what and who you are. It’s powerful to have a recognisable title in this situation.
DTT: I totally understand what you mean.
LT: So I’ve embraced the curator thing. I actually really like doing things in stealth, dressing up as one thing whilst doing something different. I actively use the mechanism of the exhibition as a way of problematizing what is Art?, what is inside the art canon and also pushing those boundaries to include new medium, new types of works, new ways of practice and presenting work. This is really what I have used The Block for; I’ve used all these understood terms and mechanisms to achieve a variety of different outcomes. I would definitely say I’m a curator within the freedom that this area of practice allows us - we’re definitely producers, we are definitely practitioners, often collaborators; I’m certainly creative, I’m an artist and I look at my practice (art and curating) through an Arts Thinking lens. This wasn’t a term I heard of until I met Kristefan and he told me that what I was doing was an Arts Thinking driven practice, which I think is a really useful term. I mean, I wasn’t ever interested in putting on exhibitions that gave you a statement or conclusion, or indeed a view point or lens by which to engage and think about the works. I was always interested in the generated of more questions. The program was always driven by speculation – is there something’s going on here? What are the synergies and discourse rising out from these artists’ works or practices, and how are audiences unpacking, engaging and making sense of the works presented. I intentionally didn’t put up curatorial statements so as to keep it open and generate that curiosity.
DTT: Yes, it’s a process that I’m familiar with myself because I think a lot of the time when you’re prototyping work that’s in progress or in
149 LT: Thank you, I think this is something particular of the tribe of people that work in this space, I don’t often come across a curator in this space who’s interested in making definitive statements. I meet curators who work in more traditional art spaces and there is this deep sense of surety in what they are up to and how things play out. But the kind of crew that I’m used to, which you are a part of, function in a space that is much more fluid. A state that is also reflected in the evolving titling of the practice area we are engaged with. I’ve given up trying to define the scope of this practice field, and rather think about the space more in terms of ‘if it has had or will have an electrical pulse running through it, then it in the scope’. When asked by others about the genre or area of practice that I curate it I’ve used this statement. Importantly and maybe no so obvious when first hearing this statement is that it also includes society - us - people also have electrical pulses running through them.
DTT: Oh definitely, I mean I sat in a presentation for the Sydney Biennale where the director at the time said if it has to be plugged in it’s not art. And I had a few things to say to her. What a ridiculous thing to say in the realm of contemporary art.
LT: Yes, when was THAT? Recently? Please don’t say recently.
DTT: No, it was about 8 years ago now, when Christine….(two last names, hypenated). I was like how can you even say that when loads of your works have light and sound and digital components, like you’ve curated them and put them in your show from all over the world. Anyways, I digress.
LT: Yes, and it is that kind of thinking and environment, that has inspired me to intentionally stay in this field of practice, to help imagine and reimagine the boundaries of what and where art is situated in the world and also within the art cannon. I received a lot of pressure to switch my area of focus, I think mainly because this practice area wasn’t being taught at the university, and therefore it didn’t reflect or lead back to any one particular course. Again the recognition issue played a part, as I wasn’t sticking to one field of known artistic practice but rather the program and my practice were based on questions - curiosity driven. Clearly I think dealing with societal challenges, arising questions and shifts in the 21st-century using 21st-century tools – seems kinda relevant so I’ve stuck with it. Additionally, at the time of the Block there was very little of this type of art being shown. It seemed important to wander off the well-trodden path and beat a bit of a trail through some unchartered territory and expand and expose students to other types of art practice. And of course, I decided to keep going until it became part of the broader discourse - which it has now.
DTT: Well that’s really interesting because I’ve heard your name for so long, and I think we’ve met a few times and we’re on LinkedIn together, it’s wonderful to hear you articulate so well so many of the things I’ve been grappling with myself. And I think that when it came to doing the research project, the PhD, everyone wants you to articulate and they want you to write everything down and I’m really struggling to do it because it is fluid and it is shifting (MODAL!) and that’s one of the language problems that I’m looking at as well.
LT: Yes, I can totally relate and haven’t done a PhD for this reason. It’s so fixed. And so much happens in 3 years! Wow! And that’s if you’re doing it (the PhD) fast. So what you’ve started off with at the beginning of the 3 years is done and dusted and gone on by the time you are completing - which is difficult.
DTT: Well I think when I started the iPhone 5 was still prevalent and now the iPhone 10 has just launched. So that just shows you how even the tools move along.
LT:
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DTT: You already mentioned Roy Ascott, so that’s really interesting in terms of a mentor. I mean I’ve been reading about him since I found out about new media and interactive art. And he wrote the preface for one of the books I’m published in for my foundational work. So in terms of a mentor, were there any other mentors? Was he a mentor? Or was he
LT: Well I went to the art school that Roy Ascott ran in south wales, so I was immersed entirely in the Roy Ascott space. We didn’t learn art history, we learned cybernetics and quantum physics, and linguistics, to name but a few areas. We were his lab rats and it was a brilliant experience. I think that I am absolutely a product of a Roy Ascott art school in so many ways. When he did his talk at Ars electronica, 2014 (he won the inaugural digital pioneer award), I just listened to him and at that point, I realised the impact of his thinking on me, and that I was indeed a product of his school. I have to say I am delighted that I chose to go to his school. At the time I remembered really hunting to find the right kind of art school for me. I knew that I wasn’t signing up to a traditional art school and that’s what I was trying to find, a non-traditional space. Obviously I had no idea what I was signing up to because it was so ahead of the curve. I would say he was a major impact on me. Then of course as I started to work in this space in Australia I found a whole bunch of folks, though not so many in Australia. Such as Sarah Cook and Beryl [Graham} - the CRUMB crew in the UK were great at getting all their publications…up, they were really important to me. Sarah and Beryl
Otherwise I’ve been quietly making it up as I go along. It was fantastic to finally meet Kristefan and Horst about 7 years ago. At that time Horst became a fabulous person to talk to. But essentially I’ve just been sort of bloody-minded and got on and tested things out on my own.
DTT: Great. So what is your role at the QUT facility? At The Cube or The Block?
LT: I don’t work at QUT anymore. I started at The Block and
My own practice with my partner, Adrian (working under the banner davisthomas), has always been going along at 101 miles an hour. We have been successful within our practice field and luckily for me this has also been ramping up in the past couple of years. I also wanted to be able to start looking at opportunities and projects through a different lens, this has also meant freelancing back to QUT, which is great. I can go in and do whatever it is I do, but do it from an external perspective, whilst having a deep understanding of the complexities of the community. I’ve also just been curating with Jonathan Parsons – Experimenta. We’ve just completed the co-curation on the Experimenta tour – Experimenta Make Sense. This was an 18 +-month project that launched in October 2017. And now I am plotting and planning with Kristefan around stuff that we’re wanting to develop in Australia as well.
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DTT: Amazing. Well the making sense Experimenta has been really strong. You worked with Jonathan
LT: Well thank you. Yes, we co-curated.
DTT: He looked after ISEA in Sydney in 2013 and that’s where I met him and worked with him as well. I was only involved in 1 of 35 sites at the Powerhouse
LT: Yes, so I knew about Jonathan from the GAME ON at the State Library, do you remember the big Barbican Game On Show?
DTT: Totally.
LT: He took that and got it into the State Library at Brisbane and I met him initially through that, and we’ve been working out how we can work together since. I did some advisory work for Experimenta ReCharge show as I was still working at QUT, so it was great to be invited to joint the team and co- curate the current tour that we’ve just launched.. I really enjoy working with Jonathan; we have really similar and different approaches, which makes for a good team. And, as you know, at the end of the day it really it’s about people who you work with that makes ideas possible. As a freelancer I can be focused on collaborative opportunities. I don’t have program that must run on an annual basis but rather I can work with people who get on well and enjoy each other’s company, because at the end of the day it’s bloody hard work!
DTT: It really is.
LT: As a freelancer I don’t have any of the security of a ‘day job’ but I trade that in for working with great folks on interesting projects, and I can prioritise these considerations. This way the hard work becomes enjoyable and the outcomes become richer. I’m delighted to be in such a space that I can live in this kind of paradigm.
DTT: That’s fantastic! So I think that you kind of answered the 3rd question as well, as in how the people you work with shape the way that you work. The next question I’m really interested in is do you do any reflective curatorial practice where you really sit and think and then write about what you’ve done? And if you do, what do you think it is that you specifically bring to the field, to our field?
LT: I haven’t ever really published much, but I do a lot of presentations, and I feel much more comfortable in that space. Written text is not my first language. I was deaf until about 10
152 in development, developed access and learning programs, mentorship/internships for student curators, and developed and supported communities of practice such as Game On, FashionTalks, Cube Jam etc. I currently have a role with QUT supporting the development of new works in our field, so I think that’s probably a contribution as well.
DTT: I’d say that’s a pretty big one. It’s really hard with experimental work, especially in a university setting. You’d think it would be open and encouraged, but everything really does need to be written down and held to these kind of carefully crafted project KPIs and different things, research grants and course outcomes. It’s quite a challenge to marry the two, or at least I’ve found it to be.
LT: I would say so. Within that academic structure, absolutely, it’s something that I’ve also seen. In terms of an impact, I ran a really big internship program. A number of the gang are in current roles such as Amy Clare McCarthy, who’s has just finished at Metro Arts and has a great collaboration McCarthy-Swann, Brittney Ouston has worked at state library and has a curatorial job in Canada, I’m just trying to think where everybody is... Michaela Hartland is with UAP, Elise Wilkinson has been working on a new creative space in Brisbane, Jacina Leong, joined me on the grand adventure of STEAM at the Cube and delivered a fantastic program with Elise, Revy and many others. So many young women who went through the internship program, which I think ran for about 7 years. I’m not really sure of the final numbers as the senior interns started to run the program themselves, handing over each year or so to a new mob. My focus was to put them into that space of New Media Curatorship, where both a hands on and brains on practice is required. So they were all doing the admin, creative thinking, installation, exhibition design, engagement programming etc. They came into the program and they did everything, importantly they had agency to own the program and bring ideas and opportunities to the table. So I think that’s another contribution - mentoring a whole bunch of young curators that work in a way that is ultimately very flexible and very capable. I think that might be another impact of my practice and time at The Block and Cube.
DTT: I’d say so.
KM: I’d like to add something to that because it wasn’t mentioned before, I just wanted to let things flow. But…I very much see you, Lubi, as an Educator; you do this quite a lot as well. But what’s really important is that it’s not so much in the traditional sense, but you bring this experience and knowledge in such an open way and sharing that so, in terms of the development of the field, it’s contributing so much to the ongoing eco-system, so it’s developing things not only in terms of the practice and so much of what you did with QUT, with the people that worked for you, but also with the education programs that we’ve been doing the last few years. It’s creating the next generation of practitioners who are going to be coming through into this space and these spaces.
LT: Ah yes that’s the Academy, which is a great platform and opportunity for creative practitioner development and the reason why I begged, borrowed and stole
KM: Yes, I think I said it a bit long-winded, but I think
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DTT: I couldn’t agree more actually. It’s really difficult to find people who are open and giving, especially in specialty areas.
LT: Thank you. Well that’s a philosophical position really and the more people we can get enthused and inspired and participating, then the greater the impact, the greater the network, the more the voice gets out there to a bigger audience which is really important. It’s also why I am delighted to work with Experimenta. This organisation does a very important job of reaching audiences who would never normally go into the art gallery, but the numbers and reporting indicate that they go to the gallery for this show. For me, this is one of the best reasons for doing the exhibition.
DTT: Oh yea, totally; to take down the walls. And actually to go out into public spaces has been a big focus of mine as well. To go outside the institutions and in amongst people, and that’s why I think the festival space is so important. And I’m going to come to a question about that, but I kind of wanted to close with that. The next question is, is there any particular problem or issue that you’re grappling with in curating interactive art?
LT: The willingness for places to think outside the box for resourcing and facilitate
DTT: So you’ve
LT: No, it’s more technical. It’s a lot easier, and it happens every day, for the technical staff to hang a
I was talking to someone, and I will try to remain as nameless as possible, who’s organisation intentionally held a digital media, media arts exhibition, but they completely failed to resource it in terms of having technicians there to support the works once they where up. Digital Media art is not a ‘hang and forget,’ install, but this was the level of resource that gallery allocated. This story was told through an ISEA presentation and it focused on the major challenges of the show being that everything kept needing to be tweaked or needing to be fixed and they just did not resource for that. So this Gov. level Gallery spent most of its time with ‘sorry this work is broken’ signs hung on the works’. They didn’t know that they needed to ask questions, or maybe what the right questions where, they didn’t prepare for the works and as such the whole experience was bad for the gallery, artists and audiences. A lot of galleries do still find it a challenge in terms of showing this type of work. I think that’s actually the biggest challenge, if we could get more work out there, then over time it will, like video work , become a more standard process of display and support. Equally the other concern/challenge for galleries is the interactive nature of a lot of this work and audience’s lack of familiarity with this type of work, and the confidence to touch, engage and interact. It just
154 seems to me that these concerns and challenges are based on a lack of access to these kinds of works, and whilst there remains a limited skills capacity and resource it’s going to be a slow burn to include this practice into the mainstream gallery environment. This is maybe why a lot of works and artists have moved to the festival space, which is fine but galleries are important, as it’s only when you start to show in gallery spaces, that you start to get into the Art Canon.
DTT: I agree. I just find the festival environments more giving in terms of accepting an experimental work and giving an opinion on it. We found this in the Powerhouse Museum when we did Beta_space, is if you put art in a space that doesn’t do art,
LT: Yes, and this is why Experimenta is really great and why I curate for them because they are scaffolding the show and installation of the works enough that galleries will go for it. The thing is that once galleries go for it once and have a great experience, they want to do it again. Those really great experiences include the different audiences that come and the whole vibe of the gallery is different, the public programs are active programs, rather than just artist talks. Most of the galleries want the show back. We
DTT: I agree, I do agree. So I think that you’ve sort of answered Question 6 as well, which was how do you address this in your practice, which is by working with people like Experimenta.
LT: Yes, and also at The Block. There we had an amazing tech team and the other way you can address these problems is to know the tech. That again is a unique space for us in this particular practice, most of us curators are also creative practitioners
DTT: Yes. So you need to understand the entire scope. We think of this in terms of scope, I was just thinking of when ISEA was an exhibition at the
155 mezzanine level of the museum was hooked up with 3 interactive shows. Symbiotica, Experimenta, oh and ANAT was on L3 because it took up its own whole wing, but those were the 3 shows I got to curate and we ran almost everything off Raspberry Pi’s but we had a host of volunteers that were specially trained by me on how all of the artworks worked and how to turn them off/on and all these different notations that really engaged and educated them so that they felt confident to treat the work as something that they were proud to show and speak to.
LT: I mean good god, that’s like doing digital media exhibitions on steroids. That’s like bringing bio- art and oh my lord…
DTT: Yea, it was nuts.
LT: Yes, when I saw the show, most of the time I was like how are they doing this?
DTT: Yes, I don’t even know how Jonathan and Alessio even coped with the 35 venues. Like we were just 1 venue, there were 34 other venues.
LT: I know, but you had a lot of tricky stuff at the Powerhouse, it was great.
DTT: Yes, I think it was really good. And one of my mentors, Matthew Connell, was there and I was there and I think that we both knew the language
LTT: Yes.
DTT: So the next question is one that is close to my heart and I’m just going to ask you the first part...are you compelled by any particular aspect of your practice? For instance, I often tell my students I can’t help but make exhibitions. I am incredibly intrigued with computers and the way that they work and the language between people and machines and how that becomes reciprocal in the way that you program that particular machine. For me that kind of confluence is what makes me get up in the morning, and what makes me come to university, and what makes me crazed enough to do a PhD, and make people talk about it and do interviews, and make them think about it. I just wonder if you have anything like that, that compels you.
LT: Oh definitely. You don’t do this because you can’t think of anything else to do with your time, that’s for sure. Because there has got to be easier things to do. For me, this comes from
DTT: Outstanding answer, thank you.
LT: Kristefan, what about you on that one? I reckon that’s one you can answer.
156 KM: Just to absolutely reiterate that last part of what Lubi said. After years of working with Ars Electronica that for myself, definitely Horst
DTT: Fantastic, wow. You guys are giving me so much to think about. I keep feeling floored with every answer, just trying to keep it together and have some time to process.
The last question I have is one that I pulled off the Ars website which really speaks to me because I am, and always have, kind of worked in a living laboratory space where each of the elements of that lab are important to the progress of the making of the work and I found this really great quote in the About section where it speaks to the Festival as a proving ground, and it just kind of shook me and I just wondered if you had any comments about that.
LT: I’m going to let Kristefan go first because I’ve been going to Ars Electronica festival for 6 or 7 years, but Kristefan has been entirely immersed in that space.
KM: Yes, I think actually in many ways Ars Electronica as a platform from the beginning has been doing that in one way or another. That would be my short answer. You remember that in the early email exchanges we had Deb, and I was thinking in the context of the idea of curation, but Ars Electronica for me is kind of like the quintessential example of the philosophy of experimental art, and again, as mentioned by Lubi, this is very much an umbrella term that I like to use, which is beyond and includes media art. But I love the idea of using experimental art as the term in which the Deluze time experiment which used lines of the original kind of pitch document for the Future Lab, which I think kind of sums up one of the first kind of principles that Ars Electronica is based on; that there is that freedom to experiment and to embrace the experiment and to provide those kind of places and spaces where the idea of success can have many different possibilities...and I think Lubi can maybe talk a bit about this. The festival has so many different layers to it, but there are still sections that are absolutely and completely experimental and that’s still absolutely embraced and those spaces should always continue to be there, in my opinion. Then also you can count on some of the highest levels of examples of qualified, robust forms of media art, to full orchestras performing with some of the best media artists of our time. I also liked what you were discussing before with some of the issues and problems this year with the festival. The festival opened up a new gallery space within the festival, looking to address those issues as well (of the artists and the Art Canon), very much like a proving ground because of these issues around support mechanisms around the media art that exists and how you can find ways to bring in another platform or layer to what’s happening at AE Festival that’s identifying this as an issue. We already know that there are a lot of producers, curators and gallery directors and festival directors that are going to Ars to look for certain content and here there’s a makerspace and they put it there for this very reason. The idea is
157 then that these works have gone through a process and are here in this space for a reason, they’re to be displayed as something that has, I dunno, a kind of quality assurance that comes from the expertise. Then around the corner, you’ll see something totally crazy that looks like it’s just been thrown together in the last few days and maybe sometimes it has.
LT: Or maybe it’s about to explode, is the other option.
DTT: Either or, like they’re all fine.
LT: The Ars Electronica Festival flows across galleries, and a festival site (within the city). Works are curated to the different sites with an understanding of how they function. Galleries are by their long history, perceived to be presenting a finished product and that the works presented in these sites have a structure, and know how to function in the gallery space as finished. Whilst the term and format of the Festival (be it outdoor, indoor, city-wide, island, boat, festivals that happen on the ‘net’) is super flexible... Festival is a word that is open enough to accommodate the change and fluctuations of practice and it’s amazing that everyone agrees on this one word for a range of different experiences and outcomes. I think festivals such as Ars Electronica’s allow creative works to exist in relation to other practice areas be that performance, light, material, robotic, technical, scientific. The Festival locates all these discourses and practices into a social or societal eco-system that allows them to riff off of each other and generate a unique context and narrative for a moment in time. I think the annual festival definitely function as proving grounds. I would be bothered if media art, digital new media art or experimental art decided that its home base was the festival, because I think its
KM: Yea, I think that’s a very good point from Lubi, as well. There was the festival, the next thing that came along, even before Future Labs and before the Centre, was the Prix Ars Electronica, which was one of the most highly endowed awards for cyberarts, whatever form, and this gives AE another kind of advantage like the festival does; every year kind of trying to find a topic that is relevant and popular
158 small fee to pay for a festival pass to see some of the performances, talks, symposiums, there’s still a major part of the festival that is completely open in order to attempt to engage with as many people as possible on these topics. That’s something else that ‘the festival’ does and very much what AE does is the kind of idea of the gallery out into the public and the space, that’s your proving ground as well.
DTT: That’s fantastic, thanks so much for sharing all of that you guys.
LT: No worries.
DTT: To give you a bit of feedback, I must have been picking up on some of this dialogue in my last 10 years of practice because so much of what you’re saying is so familiar; the language, the practice, the acts, the flow, the way that we connect and collaborate. I feel like I’m on the right track.
LT: Yes, it’s a tribe, and it’s kind of excellent when you find others in that tribe.
DTT: Correct, I concur.
159 Appendix 6 – Interview with Curator Amanda McDonald-Crowley
By Deb Turnbull Tillman (DTT) With Amanda McDonald Crowley (AMcDC)
23 November 2017, 8am Australian Eastern Standard Time
DTT: Ok, so I’m here today with Amanda McDonald Crowley and we’re going to be doing an interview for my PhD data. It is Weds 22 Nov in NY and Thursday 23 Nov in Sydney. Hi Amanda. So should we get started?
AMcDC:
DTT: Ok, so before we get too far this study is about curating interactive art in examining this tensions that I’ve felt, and I’m sure you’ve felt it too between the creative and the professional aspects of our job. So there’s a want in me to be able to be creative and a want for me to express opinions and do this through the medium of exhibition and the medium of interactive art, but a lot of the professional tasks get in the way, or at least disrupt or hinder what I’m trying to do. So I’m looking at those kinds of tensions and trying to find my niche or contribution which is why I’m interviewing other curators working in the same field. Just to give you a bit of background…
AMcDC: May I ask who else you’ve interviewed?
DTT: Oh yes. I’ve only interviewed, do you know Kristefan Minski and Lubi Thomas? They’re with Ars Electronica out of QUT in Brisbane right now. And I’m chasing Murray Thorne, who Mari also wanted me to interview, who works out of Philadelphia. And then as part of my final exhibition I took curatorial assessment on the final layout of the show and the way it was put together and what they thought of the whole prototyping as a exhibition medium type thing and I have about 13 interviews from that. I don’t know off the top of my head who that is yet, but probably people in and around UNSW Art & Design. Is that ok?
AMcDC:
DTT: Ok great. So the first question I wanted to ask you...oh and I also wanted to let you know that this is a practice-based research PhD so I’m looking at it from the angle of being a curator, instead of from the angle of theory about being a curator or curating. So I wanted to ask you about your own practice and how that developed, and then from your own perspective how you identify as a practitioner.
AMcDC:
DTT: Authorial like an author or like being an authority? Oh, ok
AMcDC:
DTT: You don’t look old at all!
160 AMcDC: ...and so I was coming from when I was doing my Masters in Art Administration. So a Masters, let alone a PhD, in Curating didn’t exist. And like you, I think of my practice as a research based practice. For quite a long time I denied the c-word in my practice. But, and actually it’s quite interesting, just over the last few weeks, through a leadership retreat that I did several years ago, I have a peer-mentor group of quite a few colleagues that I go to get feedback and advice, and there’s a small group of us who are doing peer reviews of one another’s cvs. I’ve just put up yesterday on my website, where I’ve tried to categorise bits of work that I’ve done.
DTT: Wow, that’s fantastic.
AMcDC: The list of things I’d done had become this amalgam of all kinds of nonsense. I don’t know if it works yet, but I literally just put it up yesterday after some feedback from my colleagues.
DTT: That’s exciting!
AMcDC: So I’m literally grouping the kinds of work that I do curatorially in different categories so it doesn’t look like a long list of nothing.
DTT: May I ask what categories you came up with?
AMcDC: Yes, a lot of the work that I’ve been doing recently isn’t what a lot of people would call new media art, but I believe it’s still very interactive, so the categories that I came up with were Public Art & Commissions, Gallery & Museum Exhibitions, Virtual & Online Projects, Residencies, and I think there’s a curatorial role that I apply when pulling together residencies...
DTT: so then the curating becomes a kind of action role, the way through which you realise these other aspects of your practice?
AMcDC: Um...and then there’s also a series of professional skills I list and I’ve broken them down into 3 categories: Executive/Leadership, Festivals, and Research Consultancies.
DTT: Excellent, great job!
AMcDC: and part of that I think is not specifically related to a new media art curatorial practice. Part of that I think that my CV looks like people that are 20 years younger than me will look in 20 years time. One of the words, in some instances it looks like I’ve long been part of a gig economy as the longest I’ve been in any job is 6 months…
DTT: But I think that makes you look much more interesting, to be honest.
AMcDC: Yes but people don’t know how to read that yet. They expect you to have done 3 major jobs in your life and some other stuff over there.
DTT: As a curator? Yes definitely, there is traditional...
AMcDC: I often say I’m not a museum curator.
161 DTT: Yes, in some of the stuff I’ve written about I say I’m not an institutional curator because..
AMcDC: I might one day, who knows. Never say never. I said I’d never live in America, but here I am.
DTT: Ya but you live in NY.
AMcDC: Ya, totally feel free to look at my CV and give me feedback and say that doesn’t fit there…
DTT: I will! I’m going to go and look at it after this.
AMcDC: and then I’ve got all the other traditional stuff that people have in their CVs, particularly it looks a bit more academic because of all the residencies I’ve been on and unusually for a curator, I have done a lot of residencies. A lot of artists have residencies on their CVs but not curators.
DTT: That’s pretty incredible because I’ve never done any residencies.
AMcDC: It tends to happen when you’re at a moment when you have a bit of financial stability, you need some thinking space, usually a 1-2 month residency, artists tend to do longer ones. But the longest one I did was 3 months.
DTT: And where did you do them?
AMcDC: New media initiatives, Banff, ….lists them, one where she was a researcher...and then some others that are usually less known. A couple of them have only been 10-day residencies like at Pixelate, but they have been used by artists to do maker time, but I use them to do research.
DTT: Oh that’s so cool.
AMcDC: So one of the things that happens to curators is that people ask them, oh do you make art too?
DTT: Yes, I get asked that A LOT.
AMcDC: and my answer to that is that I make situations, I don’t make art.
DTT: And that’s an amazing answer. What I generally say is I use the artists’ work to make my art, so my art is exhibitions.
AMcDC: No, I would never say that it’s my art, and I’ve had some interesting conversations and arguments, particularly with people who come from what is now known as social practice, where they say, you’re an artist because you operate in the same way as I do, instead of bringing artists and communities together. But I still deny that I make art. I make situations.
DTT: I think that mine is closer to making situations because I have a focus on audience engagement and in a way that some artists, not all, really consider the audience as much as perhaps human- computer specialists do. So people make computer hardware or software always consider the audience, or the user; so artists who make art with these things tend to consider the audience a little bit more.
162 AMcDC: In actual fact over the last few years since I left Eyebeam, I made a few exhibitions in more conventional exhibition spaces, but I’ve also started working in spaces that are currently considered social practice (human interaction and social discourse) rather than new media. The fact is there isn’t always media or technology involved.
DTT: Ok, so what is your definition of social practice, because that’s the first time I’ve heard it.
AMcDC: Ok, maybe it’s a very American way of describing things. In the 70s, people called it community art, and Nicholas Bourriaud, we called it whatever we called it when Nicolas Bourriaud...
DTT: Alright, I think we have community art here in australia and it’s very closely linked to public art.
AMcDC: Yes.
DTT: Ok, community art, I understand that. Social practice sounds great though.
AMcDC: y’know community art started to get a bad wrap when everything to do with community art was another fucking mural that was made with communities, and that’s not to say I don’t like murals, i’ve commissioned murals…
DTT: Oh I know, I know...but it doesn’t have to be everything…
AMcDC: I think community art did become analogous with just another mural, where social practice is the word that tends to get used in America a lot. Google it up and you’ll find what that means. Nearly all the artists I know in social practice have this crossover in art and technology; so people I can identify with immediately as being a part of social practice are Chloe Bass or Mary Maddingly, both of whom I also worked with at Eyebeam. Not all of their tech was high tech; with Mary we worked with solar power, and with environmental engineers...so it’s not interactive art in that Ars Electronica sense, but it is in terms of engagement with communities, but there are technologies that help us think about our futures.
DTT: Oh definitely. Cool, that’s awesome. SO I was just going to move onto the 2nd question.
AMcDC: Can I just finish your first question? At the moment being an independent curator, I use curator/cultural worker; and cultural worker came out of working with people like Critical Art Ensemble, Mark O’Pechan, people like who modify their practice depending on the practice in which their working. But we are workers, this is labour.
DTT: I think this is an important point, because way too often, we do stuff for free. Way too often.
AMcDC: Yea, let’s not even go down that road.
DTT: So who are some of your mentors?
AMcDC: So most of the people who I will name would be like, Oh my god, I’m so not her mentor; but peer mentorship is incredibly important to me. The first person off the cab rank there would probably be Sarah Miller because she taught me all sorts of things to think about in terms of performance and participation and engagement and interdisciplinary practices in ways that have always affected my thinking about contemporary art. The 2nd two people off the rank would be people like Honor Harger and Hannah Harris, both of whom were women who were my protégées who I now describe as my mentors
163 me not to be ridiculous, but there are times when I turn to both of them. Honor as you may know was my … at ANAT…
DTT: Honor came through and spoke at UNSW a few times with Lizzie Muller, so yea we’ve met her.
AMcDC: Yes, she’s a fucking powerhouse and can get a whole lot of things done in strategic and visionary ways in terms of our roles as cultural producers. And she and I used to have some really interesting arguments about the role of an artist and the role of the curator; and we can get into that more when we talk about platforms; you already used that word earlier. So some people with whom I’ve worked I now got to for advice instead of giving them advice. Now Hannah was my producer for ISEA at Helsinki and now at the Finnish Architecture Institute...or something, so she is definitely someone that I have mentored that I would now go to for advice. In the new media field, definitely Sarah Cook, in particular. Christiana Paul...both outstanding women who think and work inside of academia in interesting ways too, and think about curatorial practice as an academic practice too, so that’s the idea of practice-based research. And Sarah’s all over it in terms of how she conducted her PhD and post-doc work and a fellow at Eyebeam when I was there. So again the mentorship role is a reciprocal role in which we function for each other. Christiana is again is someone I turn to to for advice about things I’m thinking about, particularly in an academic setting. Someone like Steve
DTT: I think that age range is really important in that you’re not only talking to people having the same life and professional experience as you, but to understand that it’s happening across a spectrum.
AMcDC: It’s good to have people
DTT: Yes.
AMcDC: The younger ones have got it completely different, so peer mentorship is really important, as are people who think critically and outside the box about what a curatorial practice might be. The only person who I mentioned in that list who’s a museum curator is Christiana and Christiana has
164 one the craziest curatorial adjunct museological roles in what she does at the Whitney. The only other person who comes kind of close in a gallery institute and … Svana, with what she does too.
DTT: Alright that’s awesome, thank you.
AMcDC: And that might also answer your question 3 about the way they shape the way I work.
DTT: Yes, I think you’ve, yes that’s included Q3. So what would you say that in terms of your own practice, would you say you bring to practice-based research area of curating? I’m asking everybody what their contribution is. And I’m asking this because I’m not very good at saying what my contribution is, I tend to say that New Media Curation is my contribution, my practice is my contribution to the dialogue, and all the exhibitions I’ve done are case studies, but they seem to want more detail
AMcDC: I don’t know. I go back and forth about this. As an independent curator one ends up with all sorts of things that contribute to the field in general.
DTT: I mean in a way, it’s a bit of a silly question anyways isn’t it, because I’m sitting here listening to you and you’ve already answered that question, because here you are an Australian woman living in NY, you’ve run Eyebeam, here you’ve run ANAT, all your contributions to the field are clearly delineated in where you’ve worked and how you’ve worked and who you’ve worked with. And how you work is actually really important because I’m hearing a lot of collaboration and I’m hearing a lot of change, even through the way you describe change. And you’ve changed in your practice and you’re changing the world around you and you’re changing the people that come into contact with you.
AMcDC: And you’re changing circumstance, and sometimes you’re being reactive to something that’s kind of thrown you a curveball. Some of the things I’ve particularly contributed to the field are not something just to do with a new media practice but to think about residency programs and how you make situations for artists to be in contact where they are sometimes outside of their comfort zone, or you understand that they are each making a contribution to one another. So the first thing that I did away with at Eyebeam when I got there was the resident exhibition that all of the artists did at the end of their time there; because 1. An exhibition called Curatorial Eyebeam, is just not very interesting, and 2. What it meant was that when people came into that residency program, they came in focused on the work that they were going to exhibit at the end of that residency. If you removed that obstacle, then the artists are ready to experiment a lot more. I did the same thing out at the … where I started to mess up the lines between the programming and the residency programming to try and get audiences to understand that the building was a site of production and not just the presentation of work. There was one time when at Eyebeam we were about to lose the back wall of the building...I am NOT exaggerating...and so we just moved all of the equipment into the main exhibition space and called it Ex-Lab. Which was an exh…
DTT: How could they take your wall?
AMcDC: It was a NY law where when there was a common wall with the building behind us, and they had the right to remove our wall
165 at a moment in the production of their work when...I mean I said to you before that you shouldn’t think of the curatorial work that you do as case studies, but there is a moment with artists actually do want time where an audience can come and help them get to the next level. And that’s where the work is. And this is because so much of the work we do in the interactive field is iterative, but it’s never received the same way twice. The same thing happened when I worked at the Adelaide Festival at Converge where art and science meet...the website unfortunately isn’t up yet, I just need to work with some colleagues to see if I can get that back up again because we don’t know what server it’s all sitting at..neither ANAT nor the AG of South Australia have taken any care of their archives. We can have another conversation about archives entirely...but for that exhibition, that was really hilarious, because Ron Radford who was the director of the AG of SA was very very clear that as a museum that never showed work that didn’t exist already, well everything that you and I curate is iterative
DTT: That’s incredible, and I think it’s really important work, like we always LIzzie is one of my mentors and she often says to me, what we do isn’t that cool, but it will have an impact, so it’s not always the coolest thing, but it will have an impact. And in my experience the people that tend to show up are the most passionate and remarkable people. I think we have someone in common because I think Thomas Marcusson came and did an Eyebeam residency, with the melting heart, the ice heart?
AMcDC: Oh, it must have been after my time. It wasn’t with me.
DTT: Too bad, he’s pretty cool.
AMcDC: It’s years since I’ve worked there.
DTT: I think it’s probably missing you.
AMcDC:
DTT: Yes, that’s right. It’s nice to be able to pass things on and see them grow
166 AMcDC: Oh, someone was trying to call me…
DTT: Oh ok, you can take it if you like
AMcDC: I’m staring at my computer screen, and staring at your question and thinking about it too…
DTT: That’s ok, take your time.
AMcDC: Yea, I mean I suppose one of the things that I grapple with often, and I’m not sure how...I’m just thinking about content...and at the moment, yea I grapple with how to bring audiences in to understand the work in useful ways. And actually one of the really fun exhibitions that we did at Eyebeam was the one that was curated by Sarah Cook. And Sarah had never really worked with an exhibition designer in the way that I liked to work with an exhibition designer, she installs work with the artist...and what was fun in that show was that not all interactive art is highly interactive
DTT: yes, it’s hard.
AMcDC: the Time’s Up piece I had in the Austrian Forum, we ended up flying the artist back at some stage because we just couldn’t get the piece to work in the end. SO it’s always complicated when you’re working with technology that’s always interactive. There’s always this kind of what you’re grappling with is works that operate in the space between Fine Arts and Popular Culture, between interaction design and fine art and thinking about how an audience might engage with that so you can think of the works as cultural objects. And the other side of it is, with SWAIL, a 140-ft barge, where we’re hanging out on the river and some people come on board and don’t understand it as an artwork at all, they just see plants on a barge. But through, really it’s about bringing communities to your project, and on this project we worked with teams who then become our evangelists and help people understand that they aren’t just standing on a barge full of plants. All of the plants are edible and it doesn’t look like a garden or a farm, so it is a permaculture kind of thing, and we do have an awesome environmental engineer who designed our filtration system and a specialist who designed our solar power...and why do you need solar power on a barge, well because we’re still doing all these kinds of things with it. So in that sense, in bringing people together that then become the evangelists for you, and you need a community, you can’t do it on your own. I mean it’s interesting when you do it on your own and put work in a gallery without context, but you don’t have docents and evangelists or people to interactive with it, so that’s one of my concerns: how do you exhibit work where it’s not just an audience blind-engaging with particular pieces.
And if we go back to what we were doing on that Adelaide Festival project with Converge, that one of the criticisms of the show was that the signage wasn’t didactic enough, we didn’t look like a gallery. But we were really unclear as to why art would need that kind of signage, not in that exhibit.
167
DTT: I think that’s something that’s really common in Festivals. And I think that you’ve answered #7: Are you compelled by any particular aspect of your practice? So the last question is what do you think about the gallery or Festival as a proving ground and you spoken of the Adelaide Festival quite a few times and you’ve worked with ISEA and I’ve done that as well, all of my case studies for the PhD have been in festival settings because they’re the most experimental and accepting that I could find of bringing a piece that may or may not work, and kind of stealing their audience to see if it works; because they’re coming for these other things, but I’m like hey, here’s another thing over here, can you just tell me what you think about it. So I find the festival as a proving ground a really interesting platform, and I was wondering what you think about that.
AMcDC: Huh
DTT: I find with the festivals...well ISEA is a bit different because it’s quite academic...when we did the ISEA in Vancouver there was loads of public art that was associated with it and there were these big happenings and we did 5 pop-ups over 5 venues in 5 days...and people who weren’t in the symposium came along and saw it, especially the Vancouver Art Gallery one, and I think too, when we’re doing a VIVID Music festival, people show up who normally wouldn’t just because it’s VIVID. So I agree with you that that it’s not just art audiences that I want to hear from. I think it’s more useful when you hear from non-art audiences. But yea, ok, cool. It is more than just festivals.
AMcDC: Also if you think about the SONAR festival, when you’re at a big music event, people are open to new experiences in a festival. But I still kind of like the non-festival non-art environment where you quietly...like the Laundromat project where they do pop ups, for those audiences that are unlikely to ever go to a festival or an art gallery and taking the art where people hang out, like in a Laundromat.
DTT: Well, that’s all my questions, did you have anything you wanted to add. I notice that we’re only 5 minutes away from the end of your time.
AMcDC: oh no that’s ok
DTT: If there’s anything you’d like to add I would love to hear it, but you have given me loads, so don’t feel pressure.
AMcDC: I think one of the things to think about in a curatorial practice is that it’s always moveable. That we are context providers, and as I say, for my practice at the moment, I’ve got this funny tiny photographic exhibition in a friend’s tiny print shop because he’s actually one of the best, a master, printer in NY and he’s opened up a storefront. And y’know, they’re doing lots of funny little...they are doing prints on metal, and they are nice, and he really is a very good printmaker so, at the moment as far as we understand archive and sounds in a way that no one else does...but a lot of people are coming in and getting photos of their dogs and cats; but I chose for that show, an artist
168 who is a sculptor, not a photographer, but is using the photographic plates in his sculpture. So in a sense, it’s a funny little storefront, it’s not a white wall gallery space, and I have a lovely little show in there. I’m also doing a lot of work in the Bronx, which is like banging my head against a brick wall sometimes, but part of the reason for that is that there’s some really exceptional work happening in the Bronx that doesn’t get recognised in other spaces, and they’re a really close community; so artists get a lot more opportunity there when they think outside the box, and I’m encouraging them to be much more community engaged, what does it look like off the wall. Food is increasingly important to everything that I do, you would never have an event without food, it’s unsociable…
DTT: Oh yea, I was a curator at the PHM for 2 years, but I found after doing my own thing for like 8 years, and then working at an institution, I just found it very no-ish. I wanted to do all of these things and I just couldn’t. There were so many constraints in the museum. And the things I wanted to collect, because they had been created as art, even though they had design and technology aspects to them, I wasn’t allowed because we weren’t an art museum. And I just got a bit bored after that. Which was silly, because I had just worked for 10 or 15 years to become an institutional curator, and in a way I had hit paydirt, I had a very nice lifestyle, but I was bored. I missed it, I missed being experimental, I missed doing research around something that wasn’t a thing we took out of someone else’s basement and put it in our basement. And I found the focus on objects, for the first time in my career, to be really odd. I wanted to focus to really be on the audience and what we could learn from that.
AMcDC: Well all that stuff I said about the docents who become our evangelists, we had about 30 docents working in the Bronx this year and last year we had 8. And we changed all 8. We employed them through the NYC summer youth employment program, now most of the kids who get employed by these will work in retail or in an office. Our young people worked on a barge on a river, who had on the job training from environmental engineers, curators, designers, artists all of our specialists and completely opened their minds to all sorts of things that might be possible futures for them, rather than being paid minimum wage to ‘work a job.’
DTT: That’s wonderful.
AMcDC: So that’s my audience, as well as the people who were engaged with the project...and there was one young 8 year old, who’s brother brought her down fairly regularly to the barge, and everytime she came on board she would ask for a daylily. Now I didn’t know until last year that day lilies are an edible flower in the same way that zucchini flowers are an edible flower and to have an 8-yr old in the Bronx, where it’s got the highest un-healthy rate of
169 you’re doing this? And she would say she was an artist because she was writing her own code. Or when Mongrel, Graham Harwood, another mentor of mine, were writing software LInker and then Nine, where they were basically writing code because you couldn’t easily make your own work using multimedia, you had to be a software coder. So they wrote a code where people could put their own stories in. Basically their software was a bunch of code, that was completely boring until the audience put their content into it. Even MacroLab is a structure, it’s a built thing; pretty as an object, but more interesting when artists, scientists and other researchers come in and do their own research. That kind of platform building where your audience actually starts to generate content.
DTT: Yes, definitely. That’s fantastic.
AMcDC: And it’s a different curatorial role to a museum curatorial role and I’m assuming that use Beryl and Sarah’s book that you go back and back to…
DTT: Yes they’re going to get a whole section in my foundational chapter, so I’ve met them on several occasions. They came to ISEA and took over a whole gallery and Beryl’s new book launched and it was fantastic.
AMcDC: And this is part of their practice, and part of the conversation and you see right? I teach a class to undergrads and there’s a part on New Media Curating…
DTT: Even the way they deal with language and they way they talk about curating...I feel like I’ve found my tribe.
AMcDC: Back in my Adelaide Festival days I went to a curatorial conference called Media City Soul 2000, and there was a curatorial conference that happened with it. And I can tell you that every single visual arts curator there was like, oh yes I use advisors, but the final decision has to be mine. At the Adelaide Festival we worked very collaboratively, in a team of 10; but that collaborative practice where everyone’s voice matters, that was one of the things I take away through my CV. There’s some shows that I’ve curated, but there’s so many more that I’ve collaborated on, or in conversations with people, or so closely with the artist, that it’s the artists’ project, but the way the work happens within that is always in conversation.
DTT: Wow, it’s been so nice meeting you and talking to you.
AMcDC: Yea, nice to chat to you too.
DTT: Thank you for agreeing, I really appreciate your time.
AMcDC: No problem, and if you have any follow up questions, just shoot me through an email.
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