Concerning Particular Methodologies

Dialogues, Networks, and Collaboration — Much of my creative practice, research, and indeed, presence is built on the activation of robust and sustained dialogues with a wide range of Others both remote and local. These dialogues form a network. The most powerful situation I can imagine for creative research and production is an open human network. I am keen to engage on the ground with the Australian, Sydney-based, and UTS creative community. I am familiar with the milieu, having been in Sydney for six weeks in 2006 as a visiting artist at COFA, and I very much look forward to being there again. I have an extensive personal/professional network of Antipodal creatives which dates back to the early 1990s that I will be pleased to activate on a more face-to-face basis.

Distributed Performance — My own applied international research in distributed performance and tactical media over the last fifteen years is centered around synchronous live network-based social activities. Engaging a wide range of technical solutions, my work is a direct utilization of amplified digital networks as the locus for creative action. These areas of research experience include a variety of performance-based activities in theater, dance, sonic, and other expressive arts occurring in or augmented by collaborative networked situations. As a self-proclaimed networker, an area of core awareness in my research is the concept of presence — and how that human presence is directly and indirectly affected by any/all technologies that filter and attenuate that presence: how human expression across a network system is precisely formed and informed by the impression of the technologies used.

Fabrication of Objects — Exploring the model of amplification suggests a material (electro-mechanical) fabrication practice which is something I did many years ago under the influence of my father, an engineer who was involved with, among other things, the development of radar at MIT during WWII. As an artist, though, I have developed a tentative relationship with the materialized art object over the last twenty years, a relationship which seeks to transcend the materiality through performative, ad hoc, and spontaneous actions, activities, and thus, practices. I have a substantial record of creating visual-sonic manifestations and happenings which will persists in various forms. Somewhere between these two impulses is where I would like to place part of my research.

Exploring and Establishing a Self-Reflexive Praxis — With the goal of establishing a sustainable framework for a critically-aware practice-based action, I prefer to focus my attentions on establishing a suite of relevant lived practices rather than generating products or even processes. As a methodology this requires an immersion in the way-of-going. Much of my sustained practice to date is about distributed connection, remote presence, and collaborative action which will form the armature of my research activities.

Basic Research — This will include, as noted previously, a trans-disciplinary examination of as many different systems for amplification both from a social as well as technical point-of-view. This will involve substantial reading and subsequent collation of precursor ideas and trends. As this has already been a research interest of mine, the ground-work is in place, and I simply need regular access to a library and the time and guidance to tie things together in a more formal and coherent way. I anticipate fundamental background research/exploration in computer science, circuit design; electronic, electric, and electrical systems, communications and network theory, bio-engineering, and other subjects as suggested above.

I very much would like to spend time at least some time (re)learning to write. Although I am an efficient and skilled copy-editor in English, and have extensive experience in putting words together in a variety of mediums, I feel that I could benefit from critical input into that process in relation to my total creative output.

Relations to UTS Research Contexts

Ongoing workshops and collaborative projects, well-established from my existing network, will enhance the international application of my research results as well as the integration of my research into existing UTS contexts. Without an insider’s knowledge of precise research tracks, following I reflect on possible overlaps in my existing experience base and current UTS possibilities. I am in direct contact with Prof. Norie Neumark who originally encouraged me to apply to the program and who would be my principal advisor. I know several CMAI associates and other UTS faculty already for some years. I look forward to the potential for energized dialogues on the ground should I undertake my research at UTS.

Transforming Cultures (TfC) / Centre for Media Arts Innovation

The opportunity of working with Prof. Norie Neumark and Prof. John Dale within the framework of the Centre for Media Arts Innovation is confirmed. I know several of the other researchers in CMAI personally which will open up potential cross-correlations of research.

Cultural transformation and innovation relies on the motivation to and capacity for change which is, in turn governed by how the techno-social system is structured to distribute and utilize energy (in the service of signal amplification among other needs). I believe the research goals that I have outlined here integrate well with several existing research projects.

Cosmopolitan Civil Societies (CCS)

Prior communication with Prof. Andrew Jakubowicz confirmed his interest in possible co-supervision (across CCS and CMAI) based on specific shared areas of interest within the CCS Research Center and my research at the intersection of techno-social systems and individual autonomy. I share a deep and critical interest in a number of themes that are core to the CCS program: those of integration, learning, and education, the facilitation of a sustainable civil society, the problematics of socio-cultural dislocation and change, and the impositional architecture of technological power structures.

For example, the project “Migrating Realities” (described below) explores many of the same questions of cultural participation and identity in our rapidly changing social milieu that are being examined in the “Information and Cultural Exchange” project. As a long-time ‘networker,’ I have a deep interest in establishing a creative practice that critically and from a socially active point of view engages contemporary technological implementation and explores its affects on daily life.

Timeline

Year 1 — Fundamental research and framing of the space of inquiry, ‘reverse engineering’ my ideas and connecting them to a wider field of existing ideas and concepts; conceptually framing potential creative activities, actions, or events.

Year 2 — Critically testing the resulting broad framework of ideas and actions in actual performative situations: application of ideas in the context of distributed sonic collaboration

Year 3 — Refining the performative ideas and presenting them in a culminating situation — a workshop or series of workshops.

Year 4 — Collation of results, and, to paraphrase Rilke, “Writing, writing, writing, through the day, through the night, through the day, writing, writing.”

Pertinent Ongoing Contexts

neoscenes — As a site for both documentation and creative output, I have updated and expanded the neoscenes site continuously since first deploying it in 1994. Many of the collaborative network projects that I either initiated or participated in are documented on the site. In support of this application is the page http://neoscenes.net/info/doc_proposal/app-suppport.php. (see http://neoscenes.net)

Migrating Realities / Migrating Academies — A collaborative project I am working on presently with Lithuanian, German, and French colleagues, dealing with the socio-cultural contingencies of identity/migration and creative action within the evolving and highly fragmented regime of emigration and immigration. I would like very much to explore this further in the Australian context, perhaps bringing some of the activities of our collaboration into the UTS scene. We had a conference, exhibition, and series of performances in Berlin in April 2008, a Lithuanian-German-English webzine, and a hard-copy book (ISBN 978-9955-834-01-4) which I co-edited. A part of this project is a collaboration “Migrating Academies” which just received significant EU funding — this November I will be facilitating part of a workshop with a group of students from the Vilnius Academy of Art, the Media Academy of Cologne, and the Ecole European de l’Image on the subject of identity, dislocation, creative action, collaboration, and networks. (see http://www.migrating-reality.com/blog/)

aporee maps — A sonic/located-media project with a colleague, Udo Noll, an artist and programmer in Berlin. It is a flexible development platform for deployable located media and performance possibilities which I will be continuing work with. (see http://aporee.org/maps/)

Transmediale — as a participant in several distributed network events at prior Transmediale Festivals (’08 and ’07) in Berlin, and with an established working relationship with the production team, I have been invited to facilitate the online portion of the Festival in ’09. This is an ideal context for deploying a future project arising from my UTS research.

share.dj — as the ‘nomadic’ share.nomad node of this network of new media artists, I participate in a variety of projects that are both live and/or online. As a loose collective, we have run very successful live/online projects at numerous local and international venues including The Kitchen (NYC) and Transmediale (07), and are in the process of organizing a major event for Ars Electronica Culture Capitals next summer, pending the outcome of finalists jury. (see http://share.dj/)

NewForms ’09 — I have been invited to run the only workshop/happening at this major media festival in Vancouver in September where I will be deploying the amplification concept for the first time in a full workshop/event form.

Writing — I have several existing writing projects going on, the primary is an evolving book “Energy of Being :: Dialogue of Creativity” which is an idiosyncratic and creative examination of an alternative worldview. I have two chapters completed. One of them, “Regime of Amplification :: A Primer” is a speculative essay which covers the core ideas of the research I wish to pursue at UTS. (see http://www.neoscenes.net/hyper-text/text/energy_of_being/regime.html)

Blogging — Online documentation of the research process will be maintained within the context of the “neoscenes travelog” blog — a 13-year-long process of visual-textual-sonic reflection on my practice: where I am, who I am with, and what I am doing. This public resource will continue to include a wide range of speculative expressions of process, subjective observations, autonomous manifestos, textual references, external resources, and suggestions for practices all in an accessible format. I have a sustained readership with hit-counts around 2000-3000/day and growing (see http://neoscenes.net/travelog/)

Teaching — As an experienced and innovative university educator positioned at the intersection of art and technology, I do hope to find opportunities for engaging the student population of UTS. I have an excellent network of personal/professional contacts around Australia as well as New Zealand and the Pacific Rim within higher education and the culture/new media sector which I will activate whenever possible for workshops, seminars, and collaborative projects. In a typical year (during the last 15 of them, at least), I run workshops or seminars at between ten and twenty cultural/educational research institutions, an activity that I will continue to promote. These dynamic practice-oriented events deeply explore aspects of techno-social systems that are positioned somewhere between technology and creative action. I will of course include the results of my UTS research in this context. (Given the global economic and energy situation, perhaps more in a Pacific Rim vs Euro-centric context, however!)

Having said that, I will certainly continue research and collaborative activities with my existing global network of collaborators and contacts. This includes ongoing textual dialogues within several online community networks on the topics of education, distributed systems (esp. educational and creative/collaborative), technology, and creativity (see resources below).

Pertinent Resources

Personal/Professional Network

As an integral part of my long-term creative praxis, I have established a substantial trans-disciplinary network of individuals that cuts across many social and cultural borders. As both a source of and a destination for my creative energies, I draw this network into all aspects of my praxis.

Bibliography

I have accumulated a wide-ranging bibliography which informs my research during the last decade, and, as a resource, I will of course continue to refine and expand it. All references in this text refer to that bibliography. (see http://www.neoscenes.net/hyper-text/text/biblio.html)

Online communities / mailing lists / resources

I am a frequent poster on a number of mailing lists which explore the critical contexts of digital practices and the social consequences. Along with the lists, I am an active node in a number of distributed creative communities including:

bricolabs — as a participant in this global network of open-source social activists, I contribute regularly to discussions around sustainable new media practices.

Howard Rheingold’s brainstorms community — postings center around the use of technology in education and on techniques for developing distributed learning systems.

share.dj – a distributed network of more than 20 global urban nodes of community-based visual-sonic artists.

microsound – an active sonic arts community built up around common explorations of a wide variety of sound from field recording through granular synthesis.

OTiS/SiTO – a long-standing (and still vital!) visual-arts collective established online in 1993.

neoscenes travelog – this is a documentary and creative resource, a scratch-pad, musing-table, notebook with a regular global audience.

neoscenes projects (including a sustained network of former students) form a substantial resource base for distributed performance.

Other lists which I maintain a long-term presence include nettime, fibrecult, xchange, empyre, iDC, NICE, and ixi.