Curating multimedia arts festivals: the analysis and development of site-responsive strategies
Lead Research Organisation:
Newcastle University
Department Name: Sch of Arts and Cultures
Abstract
The aim of this research is to provide a new critical framework for analysing and developing festival curatorial strategies. This is a partnership between Audio Visual Arts North East (AVANE) and Newcastle University's Fine Art Department , supported by the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies. AVANE's main objective is delivery of the biennial AV Festival of electronic arts, which takes place across the urban centres of Newcastle, Gateshead, Middlesbrough and Sunderland. Using the AV Festival as a case study, this project will critically analyse the site-responsive curatorial strategies of a large-scale electronic arts festival, with a view to conceptualising innovative curatorial strategies to influence practice in multi-media arts festivals. In so doing, it will make a unique contribution to the under-researched field of site-specific festival curatorship.
The research sits in a productive but under-researched area between contemporary arts practice, curatorship and site-responsive practice. Current research into festivals tends to focus on social or economic impact, visitor motivation and issues surrounding sustainable tourism. Even with keynote festivals such as Documenta, Skulptur Projekte Münster and the International Symposium of Electronic Arts more is written about individual artworks than the festival as an entity in its own right and its relationship to site. Festivals and competitions drawing on digital resources to creatively occupy public space (e.g. Urban Screens) likewise lack the specific critical context needed to inform innovative models and to consider the challenges posed to new media practice by contemporary, particularly urban, space. The role of curatorship in media festivals is not addressed in most postgraduate curating courses and the result is a substantial skills and knowledge gap which this project seeks to address.
The project's overall aim is to provide critical analysis of festival curatorship over a multiple-site urban terrain and inform site-responsive curatorial strategies for such festivals, particularly involving electronic media.
The specific aims are:
- To develop a new critical framework for analysing festival curation
- To propose creative curatorial strategies for multi-media arts festivals
- To enable AVANE to reflect on its festival development
It is anticipated that the student will address the following objectives:
- Provide critical case studies of AV Festivals
- Provide analysis of arts and new media festivals and their curatorial strategies
- Place AV Festivals within broader national and international context
- Identify key issues and apply them to live case study of AV12
- Theorise new festival curatorial strategies, through conducted research, particularly with a view to AV14
Underpinning this are research questions centred on festivals and curation, such as:
Festivals & Practice: How have electronic arts festivals developed? What is the difference between commissioning and curatorship within festivals? How have arts festivals centred around public space evolved, what have the patterns of curatorship been and what are the implications for electronic media? How does electronic media festival practice in the North East relate to practices of multi-media art festival curatorship in the UK and Europe (e.g. Documenta, ISEA) particularly since 2000?
Curation: What problems does multiple-site curatorship impose? What is the role of the curator in negotiating/mediating issues of space/place in relation to that of the artist? What are the potentials/problems of new media works across a multiple-site festival? What implications do multi-partner festivals pose for curatorial strategies? To what extent can the festival model itself be theorised as a public intervention?
This PhD will be important in critically contextualising and pro
The research sits in a productive but under-researched area between contemporary arts practice, curatorship and site-responsive practice. Current research into festivals tends to focus on social or economic impact, visitor motivation and issues surrounding sustainable tourism. Even with keynote festivals such as Documenta, Skulptur Projekte Münster and the International Symposium of Electronic Arts more is written about individual artworks than the festival as an entity in its own right and its relationship to site. Festivals and competitions drawing on digital resources to creatively occupy public space (e.g. Urban Screens) likewise lack the specific critical context needed to inform innovative models and to consider the challenges posed to new media practice by contemporary, particularly urban, space. The role of curatorship in media festivals is not addressed in most postgraduate curating courses and the result is a substantial skills and knowledge gap which this project seeks to address.
The project's overall aim is to provide critical analysis of festival curatorship over a multiple-site urban terrain and inform site-responsive curatorial strategies for such festivals, particularly involving electronic media.
The specific aims are:
- To develop a new critical framework for analysing festival curation
- To propose creative curatorial strategies for multi-media arts festivals
- To enable AVANE to reflect on its festival development
It is anticipated that the student will address the following objectives:
- Provide critical case studies of AV Festivals
- Provide analysis of arts and new media festivals and their curatorial strategies
- Place AV Festivals within broader national and international context
- Identify key issues and apply them to live case study of AV12
- Theorise new festival curatorial strategies, through conducted research, particularly with a view to AV14
Underpinning this are research questions centred on festivals and curation, such as:
Festivals & Practice: How have electronic arts festivals developed? What is the difference between commissioning and curatorship within festivals? How have arts festivals centred around public space evolved, what have the patterns of curatorship been and what are the implications for electronic media? How does electronic media festival practice in the North East relate to practices of multi-media art festival curatorship in the UK and Europe (e.g. Documenta, ISEA) particularly since 2000?
Curation: What problems does multiple-site curatorship impose? What is the role of the curator in negotiating/mediating issues of space/place in relation to that of the artist? What are the potentials/problems of new media works across a multiple-site festival? What implications do multi-partner festivals pose for curatorial strategies? To what extent can the festival model itself be theorised as a public intervention?
This PhD will be important in critically contextualising and pro
Planned Impact
The research will impact a range of agencies engaged in festival management and, through influencing curatorial practice and modes of engagement, impact the wider public.
Beneficiaries will include: festival producers (eg Future Everything, Manchester; ANDFestival, across the North West of England), curators (eg Arts Catalyst), artists and artists groups (both established and emerging), regeneration agencies and public bodies (eg Culture 10), UK arts organisations engaged in public art (eg Arts Council England, Creative Scotland, Public Art Research and Resource Scotland, Art and Architecture, Gingko Projects and IXIA: the public art think tank). In its focus on the under-researched field of festival curatorship, the research will provide valuable core data and analysis that can feed into the activities of these agencies as well as signalling, through critical consideration of multi-site commissioning strategies, potential means of collaborative working. The research will be disseminated through academic articles alongside a wide range of adapted media platforms adopting social networking, open source and creative commons approaches. Core and associated team members will seek out opportunities to present materials in public fora and debates, and at relevant new media festivals.
The research will impact outside the UK with organisations such as Culture Action Europe (a member organisation promoting good practice across Europe and lobbying EU and government agencies), the Asia Europe Forum (which operates similarly, at the international level), International Federation of Arts Councils and Cultural Agencies, and international festivals such as Ars Electronica (Linz) and ISEA. Fine Art at Newcastle has strong links with leading European curators, such as Florian Matzner, and by disseminating the research to them and the above-named organisations, this project has the potential to exert real influence on the ground and therefore to the public. It will inform working practices for other festivals; this is noteworthy, given the extent to which festivals are increasingly offering key framework for linking art and development/tourist strategies. Consequently, by researching site-responsive curatorial practice and conducting comprehensive case studies, the research has the potential to influence arts development and tourism strategies, particularly in core festival locations such as Munster.
All of the organisations listed actively promote the concept of public art as an interactive, socially engaged practice within the fields of commissioning, curating, audience access/participation, sense of place/identity, interaction with non-cultural agendas (eg regeneration). The research will impact on their work in this regard by: creating material for use in advocating good commissioning practice; building capacity in professional networks for future; proposing new working methods with both digital media and proposing new relationships between 'audience/participant' and artist/artwork - particularly in respect of 'audience' as a dispersed set of individuals. The challenge of creating participatory public debate on emerging arts practice, informed but not intimidated by specialist artist and curatorial discourse, will be explicitly addressed by the project and the AV Festival's unique network of collaborators and volunteers.
The short term effects of the research will be: impact on current interdisciplinary debates and practice; new knowledge of working methods, community engagement and capacity building; new knowledge of partnership and multiple stakeholder events. In the medium term, the research is likely to impact policy within the diverse partnerships that develop and organise festivals: eg artists, producers, curators, local authorities, arts agencies, stakeholders etc. In the longer term, the research will feed into arts and
Beneficiaries will include: festival producers (eg Future Everything, Manchester; ANDFestival, across the North West of England), curators (eg Arts Catalyst), artists and artists groups (both established and emerging), regeneration agencies and public bodies (eg Culture 10), UK arts organisations engaged in public art (eg Arts Council England, Creative Scotland, Public Art Research and Resource Scotland, Art and Architecture, Gingko Projects and IXIA: the public art think tank). In its focus on the under-researched field of festival curatorship, the research will provide valuable core data and analysis that can feed into the activities of these agencies as well as signalling, through critical consideration of multi-site commissioning strategies, potential means of collaborative working. The research will be disseminated through academic articles alongside a wide range of adapted media platforms adopting social networking, open source and creative commons approaches. Core and associated team members will seek out opportunities to present materials in public fora and debates, and at relevant new media festivals.
The research will impact outside the UK with organisations such as Culture Action Europe (a member organisation promoting good practice across Europe and lobbying EU and government agencies), the Asia Europe Forum (which operates similarly, at the international level), International Federation of Arts Councils and Cultural Agencies, and international festivals such as Ars Electronica (Linz) and ISEA. Fine Art at Newcastle has strong links with leading European curators, such as Florian Matzner, and by disseminating the research to them and the above-named organisations, this project has the potential to exert real influence on the ground and therefore to the public. It will inform working practices for other festivals; this is noteworthy, given the extent to which festivals are increasingly offering key framework for linking art and development/tourist strategies. Consequently, by researching site-responsive curatorial practice and conducting comprehensive case studies, the research has the potential to influence arts development and tourism strategies, particularly in core festival locations such as Munster.
All of the organisations listed actively promote the concept of public art as an interactive, socially engaged practice within the fields of commissioning, curating, audience access/participation, sense of place/identity, interaction with non-cultural agendas (eg regeneration). The research will impact on their work in this regard by: creating material for use in advocating good commissioning practice; building capacity in professional networks for future; proposing new working methods with both digital media and proposing new relationships between 'audience/participant' and artist/artwork - particularly in respect of 'audience' as a dispersed set of individuals. The challenge of creating participatory public debate on emerging arts practice, informed but not intimidated by specialist artist and curatorial discourse, will be explicitly addressed by the project and the AV Festival's unique network of collaborators and volunteers.
The short term effects of the research will be: impact on current interdisciplinary debates and practice; new knowledge of working methods, community engagement and capacity building; new knowledge of partnership and multiple stakeholder events. In the medium term, the research is likely to impact policy within the diverse partnerships that develop and organise festivals: eg artists, producers, curators, local authorities, arts agencies, stakeholders etc. In the longer term, the research will feed into arts and
