Tuesday 24th May, The Harris Museum & Art Gallery and follyPublic debate on collecting digital art to be held at UCLAN

The Harris Museum & Art Gallery and folly's Current: an experiment in collecting digital art project will culminate with a debate at the University of Central Lancashire on Tuesday 24th May 2011 from 9.30am - 2pm. The event will provide a platform to share the findings of the experiment with the wider public and sector professionals.

The day will start at the Harris Museum with breakfast and a private view of the exhibition, then participants will head over to the Mitchell & Kenyon cinema at the University of Central Lancashire for the debate. Chaired by Beryl Graham, Professor of New Media Art at University of Sunderland and co-editor of CRUMB, speakers will include Alex Walker, Head of Arts & Heritage, Preston City Council; Taylor Nuttall, CEO of folly, Lancaster; and artist Alison Craighead. Staff who worked on the project will outline the methodology used and present their findings – including the selection process, conservation issues and initial feedback before opening the debate to delegates. Lunch is included in the ticket price of £10 which provides an opportunity for networking and further informal discussion.

An optional session entitled ‘ Where do we go from here?’ will also be held from 2.15 – 4.30pm aimed mainly at sector professionals. Breakout groups will debate issues such as how we can strengthen the perceptions of digital art within the wider visual arts sector, and with the public, and the role both museums and the education sector will play in this.

Those interested in PURCHASING A TICKET for this event should contact Steph Fletcher in the first instance steph.fletcher@folly.co.uk.


The Current project is the first of its kind in the UK - a pioneering practical case study in the collection of digital art which will encourage debate from visitors, artists and sector professionals about the process of integrating digital artworks into existing permanent collections.

On display until 4 June, the free exhibition at the Harris features the acquired artwork by Thomson & Craighead plus new and recent work by boredomresearch, Michael Szpakowski, James Coupe, and Harwood, Wright, Yokokoji. Each of the artists embraces technology in very different ways, from live networked installations through to moving image and sound. They have all exhibited internationally and are well respected within this field of work.

The project has been supported by the Friends of the Harris Museum, folly, Arts Council England & Renaissance Northwest.

Further information can be found at www.current-experiment.org.uk.

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Editor's notes including artist biographies

1. The Harris Museum & Art Gallery is a magnificent Neo-classical Grade I listed building which opened to the public in 1893 in Preston city centre, and houses the largest galleries in Lancashire - including stunning contemporary gallery spaces. The museum holds strong collections of fine and decorative art and local history, including work by Lucian Freud, JMW Turner and video artist Robert Cahen.

2. folly (www.folly.co.uk) is a leading digital arts agency, based in Lancaster and working across England’s North West. folly aims to lead, promote, maintain, improve and advance the field of cultural activities that embrace the creative interaction between arts and technology, by presenting an artistic programme that provides collaboration between artists and the wider public.

3. The project has been supported by the Friends of the Harris Museum, folly, Arts Council England & Renaissance Northwest.

• Short-listed artists will each receive an exhibition fee of £1000
• Final artwork will be acquired for an acquisition fee of £10,000

4. Artist Biographies

Collaborating as boredomresearch, Southampton based artists Vicky Isley and Paul Smith make artworks inspired by the diversity that exists in nature. boredomresearch use computational technology to explore this diversity often using techniques similar to those used by scientists. They simulate natural patterns and behaviours, creating new intricate forms and compositions of intrigue and beauty. boredomresearch is internationally renowned for creating software driven art, highly aesthetic both visually and acoustically of which include interactive artworks, public artworks, online environments, prints and generative objects. Their artwork has been awarded an honorary mention in Transmediale.05, Berlin (2005) and VIDA 7.0 Art & Artificial Life International Competition, Madrid (2004). boredomresearchs’ artwork has been widely exhibited internationally their recent exhibitions include [DAM]Cologne (2011); Today Art Museum,Beijing (2010); Laboral, Gijon (2010); MAXXI, Rome (2010); iMal, Brussels (2008) and Instituto Itaú Cultural, São Paulo (2008).The artists are represented by [DAM]Berlin/Cologne and are ArtSway Associates, and you can find their artwork in many collections including the British Council’s. Further info: www.boredomresearch.net http://dam-berlin.de

Michael Szpakowski is an artist, composer, writer & educator. His music has been performed all over the UK, in Russia & the USA. He has exhibited work in galleries in the UK, mainland Europe, Australia & the USA. His short films have been shown throughout the world. He is composer & video artist for Tell Tale Hearts Theatre Company & a joint editor of the online video resource DVblog.

James Coupe is an artist who works with systems, autonomy and networks. His controversial recent work with surveillance systems, in installation projects such as (re)collector and Surveillance Suite, use computer vision software to extract demographic and behavioural information from live video footage. The footage is then automatically reorganized and recontextualized into narratives. This has also extended into online explorations of surveillance and the phenomenon of self-surveillance, with the Facebook application Today, too, I experienced something I hope to understand in a few days.

His work has been exhibited throughout the world, including Camden Arts Centre (London), The Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art (Sunderland), Artsadmin (London), Stills Gallery (Edinburgh), Lee Center for the Arts (Seattle), The Junction (Cambridge), Lanternhouse (Ulverston) and Cornerhouse (Manchester). He has received numerous commissions that include New Contemporaries, Metapod, Low-Fi, SCAN, Lancaster City Council, Enter_, and Abandon Normal Devices. His work has received all levels of national and international awards including an AHRB Innovation Award, Creative Capital and the Mellon Foundation.

http://jamescoupe.com

Graham Harwood, Richard Wright and Matsuko Yokokoji collaborated together from 2004 to 2009, firstly as part of ‘Mongrel’ - an internationally recognised artists collective. Previous projects involving the group include the first online commission from the Tate Gallery, London, a BAFTA award nomination and work in the permanent collections of the Pompidou Centre Paris and the Centre for Media Arts in Karlsruhe (ZKM). Mongrel (1997-2008) was founded by Richard Pierre-Davis, Graham Harwood and Matsuko Yokokoji in 1997 and joined later by Mervin Jarman and Richard Wright. Their work involved helping people to do things for themselves by creating social software and digital arts based projects that they then promoted to a state of high visibility through their international network of arts connections. In December 2005, Harwood, Wright, Yokokoji set up the MediaShed after a visit from Sheffield based Access Space with their project Grow Your Own Media Lab. Composed of artists, filmmakers, computer geeks and audiophiles living and working in Southend, the MediaShed was the first “free-media” space in the east of England. In November 2007 the artists made a decision to stop working together as Mongrel and credited their group projects as Harwood, Wright, Yokokoji. Graham Harwood and Matsuko Yokokoji are now working together as Yoha: www.yoha.co.uk. Richard Wright’s current projects can be found at: www.futurenatural.net

Jon Thomson (b. London) and Alison Craighead (b. Aberdeen) are fascinated how trends of globalisation and networked global communications have been re-shaping the way we all perceive and understand the world around us. They live and work in London and Kingussie in the highlands of Scotland making artworks for galleries, online and sometimes outdoors. In the last two years they completed their second 'desktop' documentary artwork ‘A short film about war’, a global timezone clock, ‘Horizon', a youtube underwater video triptich, 'Several Interruptions', a massive fly-poster installation for the 2010 Museum of London re-launch ‘London Wall’, and the painstaking modification of a feature-length movie, ‘The Time Machine in alphabetical order’. Recent exhibitions include; Highland Institute of Contemporary Art, Scotland; Artists Space, New York; Tang Contemporary, Beijing; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; and Dundee Contemporary Arts. Jon lectures at The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, while Alison is Reader in contemporary art and visual culture at University of Westminster and lectures in fine art practice at Goldsmiths University, London. For information on forthcoming, current and previous work, you can follow their blog at http://thomson-craighead.blogspot.com and explore their archive website at http://www.thomson-craighead.net


Further information, images or interviews:

Marge Ainsley 07816 296218/marge@margeainsley.co.uk