Taxi-to-Praxi: Notes by Maria X

Notes from the last hour of the afternoon session.

Helen SCAN

curating as practice-led research

open source: working in groups (vs. working as individual)

develop software for performance artists – system develops its signature as it works with artists

notion of ownership and creator still very alive

develop software tools

develop observations in terms of how people interface

LOTTIE CHILD – Street Training

Dean of the Open University

Lottie's practice aking people into the city of London to find out how they interact with buildings, social/physical context and structures.

Producing space by behaviour, risk-taking.

About developing techniques to customise environment, amuse oneself, and stop oneself from going mad...

Kings Cross: asking people questions – how to behave on the street to be safe / how to behave to be joyful

Need to use non-proprietary online tools, avoid branding.

Again definition of open source as collaboration, (Armin: opening up space, protocols for using public space)

PETER FROM CONSTANT, BRUSSELS

interdisciplinary collective of five

fruitful interaction between disciplines

video, collaborative work

working with open source tools from a feminist and participatory perspective

working is social contexts such as neighbourhoods

participants generate content e.g. Electronic shoes with hidden cameras

monopoly of service providers – how to subvert this

as video maker only works with open source tools to reinvent own practice and also share knowledge e.g. Workshop on cinellera
re tools: 'cinelera', 'kino' video editor, activearchives: sandbox media annotation

courses for getting women involved in open source coding: is it possible to make a feminist server and what does that mean?

CEL artist from Antwerb, Belgium, doing PhD

practice evolving from installation and gallery work to documentary work /work using documentary strategies

what does this mean in terms of collaborative ideas

setting up group of peer artists with similar interests and research on common research areas

looking at nextlayer as a tool /possibility that can be implemented in the research

this as an alternative way of 'writing a thesis' and disseminating work throughout

Questions raised: who gets the PhD, issues of authorship, who produces 'original contribution to knowledge'

ALEX MCLEAN – Live Coding

language vs. tools – Alex suggests that when people talk about making tools they're mostly talking about making languages – about adding to a system of meaning rather than making a tool to do ur own work

development time vs. user time: commercial software, developers make new versions of software, users have their own timelines. In live coding there is no distinction between these two timelines, you develop the software to use it, while it's running. Synchronous

conversation vs. design: no design process, Alex in conversation with his computer. Improvising with software.

__ Np difference between practice and research.

Performs music with friends in band called slub. People dance to software=programme creative activity.

In performance people can see the code: openness.

ISMAIL MALIK – Tower Hamlets

Working with undergraduates to create apprenticeships. He suggests following model (from Mechanics Institute, Birkbeck). Very difficult to set up an academy in the UK, too many rules and requirements. Combine models of open education, wiki universities etc. Student able to take course by implementng activity s/he interested in and gain the degree as a by-product. Issue that a major institution can crash someone's personality.