DA2 presents Momentum
A three day forum on digital arts practice
19, 20, 21 April 2001

The Momentum forum is a brainstorming event. It is three days of round table discussions that ask how change effects new media practice. How the shifting roles of cultural producers, the artistic and technological demands of changing technologies, and a culture of rapid and impatient innovation impacts on us. It’s about the velocity of change in the art world.

As practitioners, both artists and organisers, we may come from a wide range of backgrounds and operate on different trajectories but often we are dealing with the same issues about defining and understanding arts practice. We find it increasingly important to work with, and reference, each other, often across perceived boundaries. And as such we develop a critical mass. Momentum aims to explore the collective knowledge that emerges from this mass.

The Momentum forum is not a conference or seminar. It is intended as an opportunity for a small group of peers to pool experience and knowledge. We want to speed the cross-fertilisation of ideas and practices, and empower the networks that exist. Each day is structured around a key question and a set of premises: challenging or amending them will be a key element of the group’s activity. We will not be delivering formal papers but looking at case studies so that the maximum number of attendees can put their knowledge on the line.

A tangible outcome of Momentum will be a publication which will draw on key issues of the forum and look at the context in which work generated by digital media organisations, like DA2, has operated over the past few years.

Are there distinctly new forms of arts management that are being necessitated and demonstrated by new media practice?

Organisations and artists are developing ways of working which seek to be more appropriate to the contexts and opportunities of new technology.

Sometimes this means moving away from conventional model of exhibition/performance and presentation towards a process based, or even research-structured activity.

The behaviour of organisations and the reference points applied to management roles are changing, e.g. organisations increasingly operating as agencies and team co-ordinators; the traditional role of the curator is declining in relevance and a role as ‘creative producer’ or ‘facilitator’ is increasing.

New strategies may be devised to bring work to audiences, and to enable them to access to the process of development and experimentation, but there is not always adequate appraisal or evaluation to monitor their effectiveness.

Artists may operate as technical facilitators and catalysts and well as creative content providers, but they may also require complex collaborative teams to work with them; and providing for their needs gives a new set of challenges to organisers.

Metapod
Swansong for TV (Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie)
TEST
DA2

What conditions are created by high-end innovation?

New issues arise with projects where the use of the technology is experimental - particularly, but not exclusively, with high-end technologies; this can also include interface design, software and programming.

In experimental work the nature of the cultural innovation might not be measured in terms of artistic content but in terms of the development of ‘form’ or through revealing the possibility of the technology.

Collaborative projects may have complex multiple objectives, and the innovations intended by artists and technologists may be compatible but not necessarily mutual, and may involve different risks, challenges and definitions of completion.

The management of the tension between artistic and technological imperatives can be a unique challenge of the sector.

FLIRT mobile technology research projects (RCA)
Blast Theory and Univ of Nottingham
Code Zebra (Sara Diamond with Performance Arts Research Centre)
text messaging projects (TEST)
Interactive TV & VRML project (Plymouth Univ and DA2)
online film (Tom Flemming)

How do we recognise and define emergence?

The rapid rate of technological advancement has special appeal for artists and new media practice is often contextualised by looking forward to future technological possibilities and new opportunities to explore content ie the context of ‘emergence’ and ‘innovation’.

This leads to cultural and philosophical expectations about speed and change. >> However, a collective acknowledgement of what is new and emergent may seem to come more about from gut instinct and trend than by a defined analysis.

This may itself be a necessary condition of work in this area but there may be conditions we are applying on ‘emergence’.

b.tv
Afterworld (Simon Poulter with Watershed and DA2)
Sci-art projects including The search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (CAiiA/ STAR)

[ Case study selection is be open to amendment and suggestion from participants ]

Participants fee:
£40 per day but subsidy for low income organisations/individuals is available

Contact:
If you are interested in participating or for more information email Peter Ride, Director of DA2