Web Life and its changing moods

The journey of the last couple of years has not been a gradual assumption of skills, leading to a greater absorption in digital production as a self-contained area: quite the reverse in fact. The " Utopia" project, designed to be a web-accessible and digital worldview, was made with an assumption that more web tendencies in my work were a good thing. The Gagarin project and cd, in contrast, specifically function as documentation, record, and discussion base but specifically refer to an actual event in real space and time. The commemoration of Gagarins’ flight was an opportunity to engage in an irony-lite celebration of the relation of art and science. It was also an attempt to engage the discourses around space, the world, and the nature of human bodily experience. It became an experiment in applying my sensibility to curation, with the intention of creating an enjoyable experience, and a look at the notion of futurity in the year which has been a signifier of the future for at least a century. It was also a project that worked with new media and more traditional formats, to find a modus vivendi between different schools of production. The result was a success, with good media coverage and enthusiastic participation. Artists from around the world contributed: notably it was the last appearance of work by Hans Waanders, who sadly died shortly after the project closed. For me, it was an empowering event. Some work obviously worked better than others, but the sense of team among the MSC group was palpable, and has laid groundwork for collaborations and networks in the future. Attempts to take the project further have resulted in the Gagarin Screening programme being shown at the Ferens gallery as part of their Space exhibition, and further developments are expected. The reception of the work convinced me that my interests and aptitudes lie more in the corporeal world than in the virtual.

The Ascension of the Cyborg Christ.

Gagarin: everyman, saint of the machine age, an icon who became trapped in the glory of his moment and then was made politically redundant; the fortieth anniversary of his historic flight of April 12th 1961 was an ideal opportunity to try out some ideas. I wanted to work with digital and non-digital artists, to create a day that would function both as a celebration of Gagarin but also as an investigation into the relation of art and science. The result was an event in three parts, which attempted to involve 3 different audiences – scientists, artists, and the general public-in an exploration of these themes, and to enable these three audiences to get a glimpse of each other. After discussion with artists and wide research, I began to put together a screening programme, an exhibition, and a debate. It was also an ideal opportunity to work with building blocks of modernity.