PANEL: CURATING IN/AS OPEN SYSTEM(S)
ISEA 2008, 29 July, 2-4pm, Singapore Management University, SMU Auditorium

CONTRIBUTORS: Geoff Cox, Beryl Graham, Joasia Krysa (chair), Vicente Matallana, Yukiko Shikata

Panel organised by KURATOR

The panel responds to the wider critical concern and understanding of the dynamics of socio-technological systems and their relevance for curating. The emphasis is on the notion of open systems, in so far as this relates to the openness of technological systems and the practice of curating.

The suggestion is that curating not only increasingly involves open socio-technological systems (such as networks, online platforms and social software tools) but itself can be considered in terms of an open system. This implies a state in which the curatorial system is opened up to the communicative processes of producers/users and to the divergent exchanges that take place that disrupt established social relations of production and distribution. In this scenario the software opens up curating to dynamic possibilities and transformations beyond the usual institutional model (analogous to the model of production associated with the industrial factory) into the context of networks (and what is referred to nowadays as the (social factory).

This tendency - that emerged from the shared perception of the Web and the Internet as an increasingly independent and open platform for the production and presentation of art - is well instantiated in a number of historical and more current projects such as Eva Grubinger’s C@C - Computer-Aided Curating (1993-1995), Alexei Shulgin’s Desktop Is (1997), Runme (2003), Source Code (Luis Silva, 2005), TAGallery (2007), undeaf (2007), Hack-able Curator (2007), Robert Lisek’s FACE (2007), Pall Thayer’s CodeChat (2007) and kurator software (2005/2008). The panel reflects upon new curatorial forms and an expanded description of curating enabled by social technologies and an open systems approach.

Notes on panelists

Geoff Cox is Associate Curator of Online Projects at Arnolfini, Bristol (UK) and lecturer/ researcher in Art and Technology at the University of Plymouth (UK). http://www.anti-thesis.net/

Beryl Graham is Professor of New Media Art at the School of Art, Design and Media, University of Sunderland (UK) and co-editor of CRUMB, resource for new media art curators. http://www.crumbweb.org

Joasia Krysa is a curator, founder of KURATOR, as well as lecturer/researcher at AZTEC (Art Science Technology Consortium at the University of Plymouth (UK). http://www.kurator.org/wiki/main/read/About

Vicente Matallana is a director and founder of LaAgencia, an independent new
media art production company created in 1998 in Madrid (ES). http://laagencia.org/

Yukiko Shikata is a media art curator & critic based in Tokyo, working as a senior curator of NTT InterCommunication Center ICC?, specially-assigned professor at Tokyo Zokei University, guest professor at Tama Art University.