neoscenes: teaching: workshop prototype

The Workshop

Digital technology is now a standard production tool in the creation of artifacts. Those artifacts -- audio, video, text, and image -- are traditional forms that have been present with a more or less long history in the arts. However, the critical feature that places the computer in a fundamentally different class of tool arises when the machine is connected to a network. Globally, there are many artists activating the broad possibilities of networks and networking in direct creative action. Together these practices form a rich and productive landscape of socially conscious uses of technology. Importantly, these practices arise in situations where relevant human living leads the way and technology follows, conforming to serve that life. These practices are often founded in the dynamic of community-based situations.

Details:

Beginning with lecture / open discussions that raise general awareness about dominant and alternative models for human presence and creativity, and continuing into a detailed view of human relation, communication, and community, participants identify and establish a powerful and relevant position to proceed into a detailed examination of contemporary technological platforms as a space/means for creative action.

The workshop facilitates directed discussions that explore relevant background material from a variety of disciplines (science, engineering, technology, politics, economics, social sciences, cultural production, philosophy, esoterics) and which include an active examination of historical perspectives on media. It is especially the older case studies -- illustrating the fundamental intersections of technology and society -- which provide principled understanding of an often obscure and complex space of practice. Contemporary developments, projects, and trends in network media that affect socio-political and cultural scenarios are also covered in some detail.

Depending on the scope of the workshop time and infrastructure limitations, it may culminate in a dynamic live/online-streaming event of some duration that engages a wide range of student energies and creative abilities. Previous events range from several hours to full 24-hour globe-spanning collaborative happenings with networked partners is many other locations. (see The Event, below)

Practical knowledge of local software and hardware platforms/infrastructures is always increased. Students are encouraged to engage their own established practice-base to critically expand it in directions that are directly relevant to their creative research.

Sample technical topics, keywords, and skill-sets:
Topics and keywords include networks, technology, collaboration, remote presence, creativity, social systems, art, cultural production, media, computing ecosystems, location-based media, open-society, micro-broadcasting, HCI, CSCW, distributed representation, teleosemantic information, emergence, embedded systems, neural networks, creative sources, collaboration, energy systems, cultural production, dialogue, remote presence, community development, nomadism, Temporary Autonomous Zones, context awareness, community of practice...

Applications and relevant technical skill-sets that may be addressed include: programming, open source platforms, streaming media, puredata, keyworx (and other synchronous and ashychronous collaboration platforms), digital video, audio, image software, web presence, telecommunications systems, gps, gprs, locative, surveillance, network architectures and navigation, hardware configurations, (of course, dealing with audio, video, text, image in a digital and analog context including experimental film, radio, and mail art), and any other locally relevant issues. (see my résumé for other platform competences).

In exploring the dynamics of distributed systems, the workshop also includes and evolves its own distributed set of interactions and practical exercises that take the major step from theory to praxis. Network theory is fine, but it is the praxis of human networking and presence (as mediated by technological systems) that is the core of real learning.

Over the years of running these workshops, I have established a large and active network of former students from 40 countries that all current students are invited to join. This possibility alone offers a unique opportunity for the energy of a local and time-limited workshop to continue expanding indefinitely and extend into a global network of artists and technologists already engaged in a variety of practices.

Participant Profile:

Because of an engaged human approach and consistently relevant topics, the workshop is ideal for students working in any creative discipline; it is designed to draw in a wide range of students, from those working with more 'traditional' art materials all the way to programmers and engineers. It is also extremely useful to producers, curators, managers and others who are dealing with contemporary landscapes of technological implementation and cultural production. The material covered is highly relevant to political and social activists and others working in areas of dynamic human relation. Specific technical knowledge is NOT necessary, as many of the topics touched upon are prerequisites to empowered and critical use of any technology. However, strong and socially conscious technical knowledge-bases are welcome! A willingness to engage with others in open discussion and a sharing of skill-sets is desirable. An ability to focus attention and concentration is also very necessary.

Points to consider about the workshop:

-- easily adaptable to local variables and infrastructures, individual knowledge- and skill-bases, curricula and research agendas, and local creative needs
-- presents a highly-developed model for comprehending the complexities of human presence and creative action in the contemporary technological world
-- facilitates deep dialogue on local social/cultural issues along with other issues relevant to participants
-- establishes a broad-ranging, inspiring, and critical context for understanding the dynamic intersection of technology, media, and art and for productively engaging a wide variety of technologies
-- provides a powerful context for self-development and the development of collaborative activities by presenting and subsequently exercising fundamental skills and awareness
-- provides a comfortable discursive space to explore a wide range of historical and contemporary developments of art, technology, and science
-- maps out connections between creative processes and a daily lived praxis
-- includes practice-based exercises to develop personal creative focus
-- develops relevant creative sources for participants by helping them identify their own creative sources, inspirations, and expressions including those of the local community and distributed communities
-- facilitates self-generating project implementations by developing the immediate community-of-use of the participants along with identifying specific tools to aid in collaborative working
-- provides a supportive atmosphere for rapid collective technological knowledge-building and collaborative sharing

The Event (optional)
The event will take the form of a Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ), where participants, using streaming media, video conferencing, and other network technologies will create a local happening that will extend into the global network. Remote partner collectives are activated to join in on a distributed event. The anticipated time-frame is around 8-10 hours, though I have done events both longer (24-hours!) and shorter (minimum is 4 hours).

One core component of the event is an outgoing stream of audio and video material combined with incoming streams from other remote locations. This dynamic is built around the idea of the workshop group generating material that is relevant to their immediate situation. Part of the "tactical media" concept is that the outcome is basically a direct expression of the 'local reality' whatever that may be -- an expression that might be un-rehearsed, un-edited, 'messy,' anarchic, spontaneous, and otherwise not fit the stereotype of 'broadcast media.'

A second core component is tied to the local presence and usually includes food. Sharing food is a powerful distributed act that carries immense social 'meanings.' It is a fundamental expression of culture and requires a form of focused presence that is not readily accessible via any other social process.

Tools explored may include keyworx, a real-time collaborative audio-video-text-image remixing platform which represents a cutting edge of this type of software. Along with this are a variety of image, video, and sonic production platforms, network and communications applications,

Because broadband access is more universally available, the possibility of re-mixing incoming partner-group streams raises the intensity and the energy of the entire process.

Unlike many network-based media projects that focus on the creation of particular cultural artifacts and spectacles, I take a specifically human-centered-action approach: with the facilitation of a functioning collaborative network as the core element, I put energy into creating a sustainable human system that will be around long after the impact of a typical cultural spectacle ends. This network becomes a source of many future creative activities. I have a substantial globally distributed personal network already established which I can build upon to create a solid collaborative base.

Infrastructure

Both the workshop and event are highly flexible and adaptable to local situations. The minimal infrastructure would be a space to meet and a way to note things on a black/white board. Information technology options are not absolutely necessary, but they are useful in any form or measure. Optimal conditions include access to a stable high-speed network and streaming server and encoder (qt, mp3, ogg, and/or real), audio and video mixing equipment (analog audio mixer, cabling, analog/digital video mixer, cameras, data projectors (minimum of 2), a comfortable and re-configurable physical space (preferably with a kitchen, whiteboard, wireless or other connectivity for, say, 10 computers) that is publicly accessible for both activities.

Preliminary Budget

Budget items include transportation and housing (though that is negotiable depending on when and where the workshop is), along with an honorarium.

Equipment budgets are hard to estimate. My familiarity with local institutions in Europe and North America would suggest that most of the needs are easily met with readily available equipment, though each situation is unique.

Support Materials (personal background)
The workshop reflects 18 years of teaching and working at the broad intersection of art, creativity, and technology at many of the leading universities, academies, and independent cultural organizations around the Baltic Sea / Northern Europe region -- an exceptionally rich and complex cultural landscape. From Lapland and Finland to the Czech Republic and Switzerland and into globe-spanning social networks, there are significant instances of deep tactical deployments of IT that are changing the cultural landscape and I have a demonstrated global expertise in this type of praxis-based activity.

Beginning more than 15 years ago, I started facilitating network-based projects with my many student groups that are (physically) located in Europe and North America. In brief, these projects take the form of performative happenings where the students engage in a variety of digital art(ifact)-making tools while occupying parts of the global telecommunications network. In the process, they also connect with geographically dispersed artists who are also occupying network spaces. In the last three years, my students produced two 24-hour live/online happening, <di>fusion 1 & 2, which had direct international participation from 20 countries and audiences located in more than 30 countries. Other recent events include the box and ethernity, shorter events of 6 hours. One core component of all the events is a continuous audio/video stream that the students generated from scratch. These projects bring my students into direct productive juxtaposition with a substantial international network of artists that I have facilitated during the last 15 years. The projects explore creative uses of network technologies, wireless network deployments, streaming media, dj/vj culture, performance, and other aspects of this divergent field of action. They also directly address core issues of freedom of speech, micro-broadcasting, open society, and the especially roots of trans-cultural activism.

For a deeper understanding of my dynamic network praxis, I invite you to read the article 1+1=3 that I wrote for acoustic.space issue 2003 out of Riga, Latvia. I cannot over-emphasize the effect of these workshops and events as being life-changing, eye-opening shifts in perspective for the participants. This effect is not easily re-presented after the fact in documentation, and, indeed, as a specific strategy built around the concept of "tactical media," I avoid typical PR, instead falling back on the phrase "You had to be there." I believe there is a great potential benefit for the local and network community to benefit from a situated event such as this.

In terms of my own creative work, aside from the deep facilitation of these TAZ events, my praxis takes form in live audio/video mixes from my extensive analog and digital archive. A recent performance, Son(net) Subterfuge, occurred during my NIFCA MediaAir residency in Helsinki and was a collaboration with Josephine Dorado of the anatomix collective based at de Waag (The Society for Old and New Media) in Amsterdam. It involved me sending a live audio/video stream into the Teatrum Anatomicum in Amsterdam where there was a choreographed dance event. There was a group of artists and dancers in New York who also sent a live stream into the space as an integral part of the performance.

Another performance took place from my living room last fall (when I was teaching in Colorado and had a high-speed T-2 ethernet connection) where I sent a high-resolution stream of live-mixed sonic content to the main public space, the PostPlatz, in Dresden, Germany in cooperation with the artist collaborative mechlabor on August 20, 2003. The content was streamed out into the PostPlatz through an ambient speaker set-up deployed throughout the space. My broadcast, part of the project, radiostadt 1 (radio city one) was subsequently covered by DeutschlandsFunk (German National Public Radio) in its reporting of the project. This followed a performance where a similar stream sent to a collaborative seminar session at the Dutch Electronic Art Festival (DEAF) in Amsterdam on March 2nd, 2003. I worked with a group of international artists, radiotopia, who were located both at the festival and other distributed global locations in the collaborative generation of an ambient audio installation at the festival. The resulting audio was also broadcast on the Austrian FM station Radio FRO.

These performances follow a string of other live performances at different venues in Dresden, Germany; Barcelona, Spain; Riga, Latvia; Winnipeg, Canada; Strasbourg, France; Kiel, Germany; Aarhus, Denmark; Linz, Austria (twice at the Ars Electronica Festival), and Vienna, Austria. Some of these events were for network participation only (for both artist and audience), although most of them included a situated live component so that the performances had significant virtual and real audiences.

Support Materials (URL's)
background article "1+1=3"

Recent Student Projects:
<di>fusion 1
<di>fusion 2
ethernity
the box

Personal webspace
https://neoscenes.net/

CV
https://neoscenes.net/info/cv/index.php

Bio:
As an active networker with wide-ranging international experience in engineering, hard science, and the arts, Hopkins practices a nomadic form of teaching that spans many countries and situations. Formal teaching engagements -- more than 100 workshop, lectures, and seminars in the last ten years -- have taken place in Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Netherlands, England, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Austria, Sweden, Russia, and the USA. Through an extensive personal network of dialectic human connections and sheer spontaneous presence, he is never far away from some kind of dialogue. Informal collaborative teaching/learning takes place anywhere and anytime. During the past year, he streamed live network-based media performances to/from Boulder, Colorado;, San Francisco and Sydney, Australia; Helsinki, Finland; Berlin, Dresden, Potsdam, and Kiel, Germany; Winnipeg, Canada; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Strasbourg, France; New York City, and Riga, Latvia among other places. Current activities focus more on facilitation of distributed network congregations rather that the production of cultural spectacle and artifact. With a web-presence that dates back to a few months after the appearance of the W3 and a dynamic network practice going back almost two decades, the neoscenes webspace re-presents many previous creative activities like so much dead meat. Take a tour of the slaughterhouse. https://neoscenes.net.

A native of Anchorage, Alaska, Hopkins has experienced over 14 minutes of Totality under the darkened skies of Solar Eclipse. Recently, artist-in-residence at the Sibelius Academy's Center for Music and Technology in Helsinki, Finland, he is developing a comprehensive model under the title: "Energy in Digital Networks: an Approach to Analyzing the Dynamics of Technologically-Mediated Human Relation." Please refer to his CV (at https://neoscenes.net/info/cv/index.php) for a more comprehensive look at his activities.