Artistic activity
3.1 Intended start and finish dates for project
 

Start date/s
End date/s
a) Research/commission
(If part of this application)
 

b) Preparation/rehearsal
(If part of this application)
May 2001
July 2001
c) The tour

August 2001
September 2001

3.2 Please describe the project you plan to tour, in no more than 1,000 words. You do not need to repeat information requested elsewhere in the form

Tech_2 is a month-long touring programme of new media workshops, presentations, screenings, discussions and networked public events such as internet meetings and broadcasts for Summer 2001.

The programme is for venues that are involved in supporting both production and Exhibition of new media work.  The programme will be targeted towards local audiences but will involve some of the most innovative and inventive new media artists active nationally and internationally.

Tech_2 is predicated on the following:

• That the physical presence of people is the best way to introduce, mediate and expand cultural networks, even those that operate primarily through new technologies.
  
• That encouraging production is essential to fostering a diverse, critical and creative appreciation of new media possibilities, practices and artistic products.
  
• That arts venues and organisations have a key role in providing an alternative approach to the growing corporatisation and privatisation of media production, and in keeping technical information, artistic concepts and critical debate about media culture in the public domain.
  
• That artists are key individuals in this process: filtering and sharing information, expanding networks of production and participation, and keeping a sense of possibility and critical debate alive in today's increasingly technological visual and communications culture.
  

Tech_2 planned activity:

During late summer 2001, 3 venues in 3 different cities will host the programme one week. A shorter, 4-day workshop will be undertaken in an additional as part of the developmental process.  For each venue, a different topic, theme or task has been identified which is relevant to that organisations user-base. All activities will be open to the public, though the practical workshops will be strongly targeted towards specific groups.

Workshop 1:    4 days in May/June 2001
Host organisation/Venue: Vivid, Birmingham's Centre for Media Arts
Theme:     Webcasting
Target group:   Vivid's user base/membership of media arts producers
Objectives:  To provide access to relevant technical skills for producing streaming audio and visual media, introduced in the context of artistic projects and artists networks that use this technology.  Following this introductory workshop, the user-base should be equipped to begin its own streaming media projects. Additionally this short workshop will provide a planning meeting for the summer programme.
Format: 2 presentations: of artistic projects and a technical introduction, followed by a 2 day practical workshop in which a "web-TV" station will be built and run collaboratively by the participants and visiting artists.

Workshop 2:1 week in  August 2001
Host organisation/Venue: Cube Microplex, Bristol.
The Cube is a volunteer run cinema. It has an active organisational group and is used by local media producers in Bristol across a broad spectrum.
Theme:  Open and collaborative publishing systems for text, image, audio and video.
Target group:  Cube membership/user base, local media producers.
Objectives:  To provide a meeting point, information sharing and discussion forum among national, international and local people who are experimenting with the ability of new media, in particular new accessible and relatively easy-to-use web-based and database programming languages such as PHP and SQL to create new forms of open, on-line publishing.
Format:  Three evening and one weekend/daytime sessions that will introduce different projects and the technologies being used.  In between, informal working meetings will be facilitated between national, international and local artists and media producers.

Workshop 3: 1 week in September 2001
Host organisation/Venue: Lighthouse, Brighton.  Exact location TBC - a temporary media lab using the Lighthouse facilities (unused in September by their student base).
Theme:  De-mystifying Open Source
Objectives: Open source is a powerful way of opening up technological developments and enabling people to build bespoke tools, for artistic and social purposes, but the processes are still highly technical and tend to be misunderstood.  This workshop attempts to bridge some of the gaps between experts and  others with a stake in developments as possible users, and to focus on creating useful tools for real cultural and social projects.
Target group: Local and national old and new media practitioners in and around Brighton with whom Lighthouse already has contacts. Including: secondary school groups, colleges, IT training centres, community radio groups and community publishers, SCIP - a community media resource developing (among other projects) an on-line magazine with Big Issue sellers, artists in residence working with a community of severely physically disabled people.
Format: A temporary media lab which will host a daily series of presentations hands-on workshops and specially arranged visits by groups, and provide an informal meeting point.

Workshop 4: 1 week  in  September 2001
Host organisation/Venue:  Pavilion , Archway Media Centre
Theme: Distribution from the local to the global
Objectives: To work with a group of young people (16 - 25 year olds) with ongoing access to a media production facility to explore the potential of new distribution systems for their own cultural production, and to discuss the results of this work and ideas behind it.
Target Audience:  Workshops: users of Archway Centre, a housing support centre with a media training suite used by Pavilion for courses, and for the "Switched-On" initiative to encourage 16 - 25 year olds to become involved in media production.  Public presentations will be targeted at the local media arts and community media practitioners.
Format:  A week long workshop with the target group, and at least 2 public presentations at a local venue, e.g. Hyde Park Cinema (TBC). Additional public events will be devised with the target group, and which draws upon their interests.  For example:  DJ/VJ events, possibly a paper publication, a group website, an on-line music archive, a streaming media project.

How the venues will be linked and the activities distributed:

All activities will be documented using a further development of the "Catreader" documentation tool, and made available on-line and in dedicated terminals at each of the venues.

A "tech_2" newspaper will be produced in July 2001.  This will be a combined marketing tool, reader and publication in its own right.

An archive of books, magazines and other source materials will be available in each venue.

People will be encouraged  and facilitated  to participate at more than one venue.