5. Conclusions

As discussed in the introduction of this report, Tech_nicks set out to reconfigure the relationship between audiences and artists, to provide a space in which knowledge, skills and networks could be expanded and shared in both formal and informal ways.

It was important to us to regard all of our participants as producers or potential producers, and to actively support people's ability to participate in cultural networks rather than simply to create a "public" interface for a normally hidden net-culture. We felt that unstructured time was required and appropriate for existing networks to meet to find new and enhanced areas of common interest, but set out to complement this with a structured programme would provide a navigable entrance point for people outside of the existing networks. We wished to both reflect the depth and range of knowledge that people working with independent communications are engaged with internationally, and also to provide the possibility of one-to-one contact with those people. We wanted to acknowledge and build upon a peer-group culture in a way that we felt is often missing in larger-scale festival events.

The temporary partnership made between artist groups, Tech_nicks organisers and host venues aimed to create a series of temporary spaces and places - focal points for activity which does not, and arguably cannot, exist on a permanent basis within currently funded culture institutions. Drawing from the experience of the Luxsquat in July 1999, we employed a strategy in which all sides could benefit from the space and equipment of institutions, while also stretching and testing their limits. Our experience did indeed show that this kind of programme brings heavy, and often unfamiliar, needs to its hosts. A continual and unpredictable unfolding of new tasks, new people, new projects and shifting technical requirements make for continuous demands on the physical and social patterns of access to a space and its resources.

Between these practical pressures, the expectations and requirements of our various hosts' artistic programmes, approaches, and differences between their organisational cultures and those of the invited independent artists and groups, some zones of conflict and discord did arise. These were often played out around issues of access to space and equipment, though were as likely to represent differences in approach to production and participation. Mostly these were dealt with in a discursive and constructive way by all parties, and through this process, the project surveyed and clarified many issues related to our methodologies and objectives, also perhaps clarifying a sense of the limits and parameters of this model of working.

Though organisationally taxing, the "touring" model adopted by Tech_nicks was undoubtedly a positive and rewarding way of working: reaching new constituencies, enabling knowledge sharing with sympathetic institutions and strengthening the existing network of artists. The difficult and exhausting dimensions of being on the road were mostly accepted graciously by all concerned, and with the particular intensity of travelling and living temporarily together contributing much to peoples sense of involvement. It was particularly gratifying when people who had participated in one venue showed up at another and through this our venues did become better connected and networked with each other. In the future, more could be made of this way of working: with better preparation of groups to be worked with, and also perhaps a stronger sense of the potentially powerful status of being a temporary visitor.

The independent management and funding of the project played out well, enabling quick and flexible response to the needs of the programme and its participants, and enabling an empowering relationship between the programme, its participants and the host venues through which some difficult questions could be asked and demands could be made. Though this led to tensions at times, we think that it contributed much to the depth of constructive dialogue that was achieved.

Tech_nicks was most successful when its programme was in contact with people who were already active in similar or related areas of production. The format did allow dialogue with such individuals, enabling increased awareness of each others work on both sides, and did provide some people with the means to persue ambitions in their own work that they had not been able to before. The demands for the practical workshops seem to indicate a need for this. We would like to think that a ripple-effect was generated that will be visible only over time, and which will also spread into a wider field of cultural production than the domain of art. We believe that this is a significant achievement, although one that is not visible either immediately or within a single sector.

For invited guests of the project, tech_nicks provided a meeting point and through shared tasks it strengthened and renewed some peoples sense of purpose, direction and affinity, and pointed towards new collaborations and projects for the future. This felt most significant when the collaboration was across sectors and when it brought in technical experts, particularly around very specific tasks. This strength in the programme definitely indicates a need and strategy for future projects.

Tech_nicks was not aimed at attracting big numbers of people choosing instead to emphasise depth and continuity. Nevertheless numbers at the more discursive events tended to be low, and question often arose: who are we talking to and why?

We feel that the programme, in both its greatest strengths and greatest weaknesses, powerfully illustrated the depth of knowledge required to fully engage with the cultural and artistic issues around new technologies. This is a knowledge which is as much, or more, about the cultures of use of new technologies as it is about the technologies themselves. This raises key questions for future projects that seek to address the "public", or some kind of general notion of audience for art and culture.

Even only three or four years ago there was an identifiable body of interested people, mainly from the intersection between art and media practice and cultural theory who were involved in the new cultures generating and being generated by new communication technologies. This constituency would look to cultural institutions for information and discussion, and electronic artists were a prime focus where valuable knowledge could be found combined with sympathy for the cultural perspective. More recently there is a much, much bigger and more diverse base of people with knowledge and skills, who participate in electronic culture in much more diverse ways and for whom their objectives in using technology intersects in a huge number of different ways with their everyday interests. While this may be the "new audience" for electronic culture, the visibility of mischevious, radical, reflexive and inventive fringes of practice is minimal, far off the cultural map of people who might find some mutual interest and support there. Tech_nicks was only able to reach such a constituency at rare moments and through few individuals. However, some of its activities and strategies pointed clearly towards workable strategies, and some pointers emerged towards criteria that would make greater breadth achievable. Such strategies are far away from a normal "marketing" strategy based on printed and electronic publicity. They must be more engaging on an individual basis, and much more curious and supportive about other peoples practice than traditional gallery education or outreach work, and on this basis there has to be physical movement between the host institution and other spaces. To achieve this, all parties need to devote time and resources, but most of all must have the will to be challenged, to explore and expand their own ability to be open.

All that said, an extraordinary amount of work was done by many people over this 6 week period, and much was achieved. Thanks to individuals would be too numerous to mention in this report, so I conclude simply by re-iterating an acknowledgment of the wide and deep participation the project by many people, and our appreciation of the hard work and welcome afforded us by our hosts. As organisers we felt most rewarded when other people - guests, host venues or participants - took responsibility and generated involvement for parts of the programme on their own account, contributing their own ideas, interests and networks: finding something in the space that had been created for themselves and something useful in the experience as a whole. These were moments when we felt the programme was most effective. For us, the project as endlessly interesting and rewarding. We feel that a contribution was made towards greater networking and greater levels of knowledge among practitioners, both inside and outside of institutions and existing networks. We are happy with our achievements and wish to discuss and learn from our weaknesses. We are pleased with all these outcomes, all being necessary for a lively electronic culture of knowledgeable, networked individuals that retain and spread a sense of possibility, and can remain intellectually and practically critical, suspicious and resistent of the commercialising trajectory and culturally homogenising tendency of old and new medias.

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