1. Introduction

Tech_nicks was an intensive series of workshops and presentations that took place over 6 weeks during June and July, 2000.

Tech_nicks was managed by Media Art Projects, a new company founded by Lisa Haskel, in collaboration with Lina Dzuverovic-Russell. £31.533 pounds in subsidy was awarded to the project from the Arts Council of England National Touring Programme through ACE Visual Arts Department, in its first round of funding. Oven Digital supported the project by covering two days per week of Lina D. Russell's time in April and May, and allowing her unpaid leave for June and July.

The project toured five venues in four different locations:

June 10 - 26	The Lux, London
June 28 to July 3	Site Gallery, Sheffield and Redundant Technology Initiative, Access Space
July 7 - 16	Time Base, Hull Time Based Arts, Hull
July 23 - 31	PVA Media Lab, Bridport, Dorset

The programme was divided into eleven, three to five day sections that dealt with different themes or areas of practice related to the use of new media and communication technologies for artistic and cultural purposes. Our emphasis was on opening up the means to a do-it-yourself approach to media and technology against a background of attention to the social and cultural values embedded in the tools and processes being used. The programme was international in scope and aimed to encourage production by turning our venues "inside-out" - bringing their production resources into their exhibition spaces. In so doing, we tried to challenge the division between creative producers and a consuming audience that is conventional for art exhibition. The workshop formats tended to blur clear boundaries between invited artists and "audience" in ways we felt were consistent with the networked, new media practice which we set out to promote and reflect.

The key collaborators in this project were our venues. As our hosts, they integrated us into their programme, provided us with space, equipment, marketing and technical support, and often got involved with the workshops themselves. The host organisations were chosen by the organisers on the basis that they combine production and exhibition facilities, had internet connectivity of ISDN or better, and wish to encourage, support and exhibit new media practice. At least one of the organisers had had a prior working relationship with each of the venues, and each venue was visited at least once by the organisers during the early part of the year in preparation for the programme. The activities at each venue were mostly designed in collaboration with them, and aimed to address specific interests or areas that they particularly wished to develop; for example: video production at Site Gallery, streaming media at Hull Time Based Arts, environmental issues at PVA.

The programme was concentrated and intensive for all of those who took part. Tech_nicks was in many ways an experiment and a concentrated testing ground, for different formats, collaborations and ways of working across sectors and constituencies. Like any large project it was a mixture of highs and lows, successes and failiures. Many lessons were learned both by us by many of our collaborators.

Particularly given the time, effort and ideas contributed by many people to Tech_nicks, we are keen to share these lessons with our friends and colleagues, for use in the future, both together and independently. Therefore this report is detailed and lengthy, but we hope not unnecessarily so. The next section briefly summarises the implemention and reach of the project. Part 3 gives a background to the project in terms of other international media festivals and temporary media lab projects over the past few years. Part 4 goes through the programme itself, evaluating and commenting on each of its parts. Part 5 offers some general conclusions and remarks. I have tried to include as many website addresses as possible in the hope that this report can be a useful resource beyond its role as an evaluation document for Tech_nicks, and most importantly, so that it reflects the network of people and places that contributed to it.

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