Gold Factory - in relation to the revised project question.

Because my project has drawn largely on a curatorial perspective and interest, I was also pointed out to Gold Factory, a contemporary art organisation based in Nottingham, apparently based in the Hyson Green area. My supervisor has also been involved with the organisation, so he knew the people personally and kindly indulged to send my details to them via e-mail. The outcome of this correspondence has yet to be seen by extending my contact to them, but if all goes well then it might open some further opportunities and academic milestones for my project. The research space in particular could help to answer parts of my revised project question. 

E-Flux - Save Dot Art

I was pointed out to this last Thursday (during my tutorial and presentation feedback), which I thought pretty relevant to the underlying themes of digital and interactive art in my project. What was especially interesting was its embrace and defense of digitised or "net art" from the devaluing aspects of commercialisation in the open letter ICANN, mainly because I am of the opinion that commercialisation of the arts has a danger of taking away its intrinsic value.

Rephrasing the Project Question

So, today I've had a tutorial with a supervisor for feedback on the presentation I did a few weeks ago, which summarised my project development. Fair points were made about the focus and context of my project being a bit cloudy and weak, which I don't find disagreeable at all. It's true that I've been feeling a bit lost with it and where to go next, especially in terms of organising a 'grand design' of the project realisation. So, the question of the project itself has been revised and addressed.

I was previously working with this question, which was discovered to be the weakness of my project from day 1, mainly because of its ambiguity:

How do you provide intrinsic clues for the audience and facilitate accordingly in order to improve the engagement with interactive art, and overall the quality of a seamless experience in a gallery or museum space as opposed to traditional settings?

This is now my current question:

How do you facilitate for an effective and engaging experience for the audience at a multi-disciplinary exhibition, which includes both interactive and traditional art forms in the gallery space?

I've broken this new question down to bullet points in my Learning Agreement:

• Facilitate – this involves the variety of technical tasks, logistic set up and health & safety. Of course, I need the idea for such an experience first, in order to apply the necessary steps and organisation to accommodate for it. Facilitation and idea go hand in hand. 
• Effective and engaging experience – this point boils down to presentation, I think. When organising an exhibition or other such creative events, once the logistics are in place, there is presentation to consider. I was largely focused on interactive art for this point as well as the first, but have recently found first-hand that this also extends to non-digital mediums and depends more on how it applies to the gallery space. 
• Multi-disciplinary exhibition, which includes both interactive and traditional art forms – whilst emphasising the inclusive nature of this type of event, this raises a curatorial perspective on the presentation of both interactive and traditional artwork in the same room. It may sound easy in writing, but having a certain art form compliment another medium that is completely different from it relies on the previous points as well as the last, beyond their individual aesthetics. 
• Gallery space – I use this these words loosely, because it does not necessarily have to be a gallery per se, but could be an industrial or studio space. It is, nonetheless, an important point to make, because of the influence it can have on the facilitative, organisational and curatorial aspects of experiencing an interactive, visual communication. 

It was agreed in this tutorial that the revised question is more solid and focused, and comes back round to link my interests in digital and interactive art as well as address the significance of understanding the audience of the art world.

Now, apart from revising every other part like the rationales and objectives that surround this question, it occurs to me that I have not yet branded the project. So, now to contemplate a catchy title.

Interactive LED Floor

Here's an idea that I'd quite like to dissect: interactive LED floors. I may have posted about this particular 6mm LED floor earlier during my time here - maybe even last year - but I thought it was worth raising again as a concept for an immersed, interactive space.

The floor here was done by a company called mediatec. I also found a product sheet for the LED floor, but it didn't give much information on how it was designed and built, apart from mentioning the inclusion of UVA Person Tracking and MSAFluid Library in the video. Evidently, this is a hardware medium that you can apply Processing to as well, like so:

If it's not working, click on the 'MSAFluid..' text beneath the embedded screen.

Kinetica Art Fair

So now I'm pretty interested in trying my luck with the lot who put this on annually. 

One might say that it's overly ambitious, but I'm pretty sure that one of the points of MA projects are to punch above your station, anyway. Even though I am essentially looking to curate my own space of interactivity and immersion, this could be a good learning curve in developing ambitious, interactive pieces and transferring them to the relevant art spheres of London. And submissions are open right now...

Bohunk Institute open exhibition, and a potentially new MacBook Pro.

I've just found out about this nice little opportunity at the Bohunk Institute, and even though I snorted at the £5 submission requirement, I reckon that it would be worth trying to submit the Coniglio Trials 2 (Atrium Experiment). I've had a bit of trouble securing the empty slot at Surface for an interactive exhibition, so I'm trying some luck with Bohunk as well. 

That's also brought up the issue of borrowing equipment for longer... or buying my own, most likely more powerful laptop. I've looked on the Apple website and found there is one at a slightly reasonable price of £859 (student discount). I'm considering whether to finance it appropriately by splitting the cost through monthly payments. 

The reason why I want a new and up-to-date laptop is precisely that: being more up-to-date. I use macs very often for my creative avenues, and from my regular usage of Isadora, Photoshop and other in-depth programs, it'll be worth the investment. I've learned enough about Macs and how to take care of them properly.

Not too shabby a price from Apple, I would say. But then I also have a job which pays me quite a bit whilst I continue to study my MA at Trent, so I'm not typically the impoverished student I was a couple of months back. 

Surface Gallery - exhibition gap

As I'm involved with this gallery, I have a lot more insight into their activities. But there is, at this current moment, a gap of 40 days between submissions. I've already suggested to them via e-mail an interactive art show of sorts, which would be a call for submissions from media artists specialising in that kind of field. The problem I already perceive from that is the seeming lack of such artists in the area, or finding them in time to fill the gap, which is in August/September.

The overall reception is that, yes, this is an apparent organisational problem, but it's worth pursuing and organising for a later time. Probably not in the summer, as students have gone home.

Saying that, though, I was e-mailed a past event that largely consisted of film, and was held in April 2012. The call out blurb read as followed:

Surface Shorts – Call for Submissions
Surface Gallery are now seeking artists, filmmakers and creativities to submit short videos for an exhibition of moving image taking place in late April. Surface’s large gallery floor will be transformed into a screening space for a two-week exhibition exploring emerging talents in contemporary film, video art and animation.
The theme of the exhibition is open as we prepare to curate a diverse screening programme that explores the spectrum of the moving image medium. The only specification for submission is that films are no longer than 30minutes in length and are suitable to be shown on a large screen projection.
There is no fee to submit entries, however if your artwork is selected Surface Gallery will charge a £20 fee (10% discount for students) to take part in the exhibition. Selected pieces will be given dedicated slots within the daily screening programme.

Deadline for submissions is Monday 4th April 6pm
For further information and to download an application form please visit our website: www.surfacegallery.org

Or contact us here: surfacegallery@googlemail.com

This event received over 58 submissions, 9 of which were selected. Apparently, it was quite successful. So, it's been suggested that we should hold something like this again, but with an inclusion of multimedia and interactive niche.