dpwolf/blog

I’m presenting at the next Communications Graduate Research Conference at RMIT on Saturday the 17th. Its a chance to present what I’ve found and made over the course of my MA so far, outline how I will structure my final exegesis and get feedback from a panel of supervisors/experts in the field.

Here’s what I’ll be speaking about:

This project explores the use of real time interactivity and network awareness in screen based new media works through the production of new experimental works (Vidgets).

A common strategy used by various new media theorists is to compare new and emerging media forms with their precursors and predecessors. With this project, rather than focusing on the aesthetic and formal similarities and differences between ‘old’ and ‘new’ media in search of causality or correlation, I am examining similarities and differences in terms of the processes involved in the production and use media art works.

I am looking at ways in which aspects of real time interactivity and network awareness can be found in a range of ‘old media’ production processes, and how these may be used to inform the development of new works.

Using this approach I have found that my own real time interactive / network aware video works may share more in terms of process with sound and conceptual art than those of traditional and even experimental film making.

I plan to talk about the two main conceptual/practical shifts which have occurred over the course of my project.

1. Moving from a ‘cinema + interactivity’ starting point to an approach that sees moving images and sound as one of many possible outcomes of real time interactive, network aware processes. I found that unlike those involved in cinema, the processes used in the production of sound art and noise music were often focussed on real time interactivity through the playing of instruments and noise machines, the use of chance, and an increased awareness of the environment and the work’s relationship to it.
2. Moving from an ‘object’ based description and understanding of new media works to a more distributed ’systems’ approach.

More on this soon.