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Fostering A Community of Innovation at the Intersection of Art + Technology / September 19, 2014 p. 1

Fostering A Community of

Innovationat the Intersection of

Art+Technologyin the Pacific

NorthwestBy Shelly D. Farnham, Jeff Brice, Genevieve Tremblay,

Carey Christie, & Ana Pinto da Silva

September 19, 2014


Table of Contents1. Abstract

2. Introduction

+ Definition & Historical Context

+ Why the Pacific Northwest

+ On Developing a Community of Practice

3. About The Workshop

+ Workshop Participants

+ Mapping the Community

4. Collective Goals

+ More Diversity

+ More Exhibition Space

+ Increased Access to Education & the Role of MakerSpaces

+ Social Impact

+ Participating on a Global Scale

+ Bridging Communities

+ Financing Technologically Based Art

+ Philosophical Substrate and Critical Voice

5. Next Steps - Community-Building Activities

+ Documenting and Sharing

+ Communication & Collaboration Channels

+ Community Building Events


The Pacific Northwest is a top region for innovators at the intersection of art and technology. This density of technology creatives – artists, programmers, technologists, designers, entrepreneurs – combined with the Northwest’s uniquely community-oriented zeitgeist has had a meaningful impact on the local arts community, placing the Northwest in a unique position to show global leadership in emerging genres of interdisciplinary, technology-mediated art. In order to help foster this growing community of artists/technologists in pushing the bounds of what is possible in their work, we organized a workshop bringing together key stakeholders in the region. The workshop was structured as a focus group including a brief questionnaire to generate feedback for how to best support this community.

IN THIS REPORT WE:

+ Map out the community, defining its special characteristics

+ Articulate and prioritize the community’s common goals

+ Propose a series of activities (e.g., knowledge sharing, events, and communication vehicles) as next steps toward fostering this community.

Abstract


In the past decade, a growing, integrative genre of art has been taking root in the Pacific Northwest. In an area dominated by a thriving technology industry – including software giants such as Microsoft, Xbox, Amazon, and Adobe, and a very active startup culture – so too has the local arts culture become increasingly infused with technology as a medium for creative expression. These works often exceed the bounds of traditional exhibition spaces and thwart gallery space business models. Due to the affordances of the medium to sense people and respond, they also tend to be interactive and participatory with special space and maintenance requirements. Given the specialized skills typically required to implement these works, some of the most inspiring pieces tend to be interdisciplinary with hybrid collaborators including scientists, technologists, designers, and more traditional artists. Their interdisciplinary nature further points to the importance of developing a welcoming community of practice, where innovators may find each other, develop trust, collaborate, and through open sharing accelerate innovation.

Although there are a number of organizations and individuals practicing at this intersection of art, design, and technology in the Pacific Northwest, we see a need for more cross-organizational awareness and communication in order to nurture a thriving community of practice that works effectively together to achieve its goals. To help foster this growing community of artists and technologists, we organized a workshop bringing together key stakeholders in the region to map out the space, discuss a collective agenda as a community, and spark next steps for actively achieving these goals.

Definition & Historical Context

“Technology (from Greek τέχνη, techne, “art, skill, cunning of hand”; and -λογία, -logia[1]) refer to the collection of tools, including machinery, modifications, arrangements and procedures used by humans.” — Wikipedia

Art and design are at the very root of technology. This report is specifically looking at the forms of art that embrace the emerging technologies that open up new domains of artistic expression. Artists, designers and hybrid creatives that explore the immanent qualities of these many new technologies disrupt accepted conventions in order to forge a new language of creativity.

1. Introduction


The exploration of modern technology for art has roots as early as the 1960’s, when a group of avant-garde artists embarked on a series of collaborations with electrical engineers at Bell Telephone Laboratories (Bell Labs), known as Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.). These performative experiments exploring emerging technologies for making art were considered the forerunners to current technological art collaborations.

“The 9 Evenings artists and engineers came from collaborative experimental subcultures with similar values and practices. These included open, egalitarian approaches to experimentation; discipline boundary-crossing and respect for diversity; concern about technology as both a tool and a sociopolitical and cultural phenomenon; and a process-based approach to creative production influenced by new ideas that included cybernetics theory of man/machine communication systems.” (Oppenheimer, 2013)

In the next wave of art/technology collaborations, technologists started actively developing creative tools in collaboration with artists. For example, Kenneth Knowlton, while at Bell Labs, wrote BEFLIX, a program developed for animation. More recently, Casey Reas and Ben Fry developed Processing, a programming language currently driving much of the computer-mediated visuals and data visualizations in the arts.

Concurrently, there was a rich precedence of art playing an important role in the technology innovation research process. Nam Jun Paik was interfering with electronics and pioneering video art and installations in the 1960’s. The Xerox Palo Alto Research Center’s Artist-in-Residence program (PAIR) was started in the early 1990’s and continues to be an on-going research effort at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. The program pairs artists and designers with research scientists and engineers who use similar media technology as a common language to push artistic and scientific innovation. More recently, the creation of the Internet provided another space for creative technological collaboration. Pioneers using the Internet include Roy Ascott’s telematic art events linking artists and engineers around the world. Western Front, Vancouver and Pittsburgh’s DAX group in the 1990s pioneered real-time global art events.

The range of artistic activity engaged with these distribution and experiential spaces transcend traditional artistic practices through the birth of new hybrid forms of technology creatives. Artist/programmer, designer/scientist, artist/filmmaker, social networker/artist, engineer/artist are hybrid creative identities that blur the boundaries between art and science and the ways in which art may be enmeshed within our culture. Mapping the community of current artistic collaborations between


art and technology would include domains as diverse as social networking, bio systems, gaming, programming, film, media, apparel, mobile media, robotics, sound design, mediated performance, information science, data visualization, education, and government. Modern distribution opportunities continue to expand the impact of these works, including screen technologies (tablets, phones, computers, televisions, digital signage) and mass-produced objects.

Although we have observed a growing presence of these technology creatives in the Pacific Northwest, the question remains; who are the people and places that are engaged in this activity? What are the commonalities of approaches that would define a unique Pacific Northwest aesthetic? How can the community be evolved in order to stimulate more activity and opportunity?

Why the Pacific Northwest

Seattle has long be heralded as “the city the future” (McGinn, 2012), and the Pacific Northwest has been at the center of the explosion of the new digital economy. Many of the technologies that drive the digital economy were developed here and have attracted technologists to the region from around the globe. Much of the drive for new technologies has been ecommerce and new media distributions such as Microsoft and Amazon. Due to this vibrant creative technology economy, in 2012 Seattle was rated #1 city for technology jobs by Forbes (Kotkin, 2012). Similarly, a report by Enterprise Seattle ranked the city as #6 in Interactive Media based on the concentration of those employed by the interactive games industry (Mefford, 2012).

“The Interactive Media industry is a high tech industry that blends art and technology for both entertainment and more serious or practical applications. The core of the industry is the development of digital content, driven by talented individuals with expertise in software and artistic development, including computer game enthusiasts.”

– Enterprise Seattle Interactive Media Industry Assessment, May 2012 (Prepared by CAI Community Attributes Inc., Commissioned by Enterprise Seattle)

As they further note, throughout their interviews, an important theme affecting growth in the Pacific Northwest is “the quality of life and amenities that align with the Interactive Media workforce demographic.” (p. 31).

Alongside the commercial and industrial evolution of the region, there is a growing integrative genre of arts, design and technology.


“Today, Seattle’s creative vitality is nearly three times the national average—among the highest in the nation. The arts not only inspire and fuel discovery – they improve our quality of life, create jobs, help attract and retain business, make our city a major destination for tourists and play an important role in the economic revitalization of our community.” – Mike McGinn Arts and Economic Prosperity Report, 2012

In June of 2012, the Americans for the Arts, a national nonprofit arts advocacy group, released the most comprehensive economic impact study of the nonprofit arts and culture industry ever conducted in the United States (Arts and Economic Prosperity Report IV, 2012). The study involved more than 180 research partners, 50,000 audience intercept surveys as well as detailed budget and attendance information from 8,000 nonprofit arts and culture organizations across the country. According to their report Seattle has seen $447.6 million in annual economic activity from the nonprofit arts and culture industry, with 10,807 full-time equivalent jobs – almost three times that of similarly sized cities. The $447.6 million total includes $272 million in spending by nonprofit arts organizations and $175.6 million in event-related spending by their audiences. As of January 2011, Seattle, WA is home to 4,571 arts-related businesses that employ 20,616 people. These arts-centric businesses play an important role in building and sustaining economic vibrancy. They employ a creative workforce, spend money locally, generate government revenue, and are a cornerstone of tourism and economic development. More importantly, the confluence of thriving arts and technology communities in the Northwest have created a fertile ground for inspiring arts/tech collaborations.

On Developing a Community of Practice with an Innovation Culture

As we discuss how to foster a thriving community of practice at the intersection of art and technology, there is a lot of past work from which we can draw inspiration (Wenger, 2000). To start, it has been well-established that conversation is the main activity of any community. While we need regulars to provide stability and historical knowledge, the conversation must be open and welcoming to all participants (Oldenburg, 1989). Members of an effective community can articulate their common goals, and the steps they are taking to accomplish them. In a thriving community people know each other and regularly interact with each other. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of helping people develop trusting relationships, where they have a feeling of identity and belonging toward the community and are willing to contribute time and energy toward these common goals. People develop these relationships not only through their collaborations, but also by having fun together. As a community of practice, it is also important to develop a shared understanding of best practices within the field, with repositories of knowledge and shared artefacts. When seeking to foster a culture


of innovation, it is important to expect and reward change, to foster an open-ness to new ideas across social hierarchies, and to collaborate across organizations and across disciplines (Bryant, 2014).

In organizing this workshop and considering our next community-building steps, we very much embraced these principles, seeking a diversity of voices, across roles and organizations in whom we invited. For example, in developing the workshop agenda and facilitating the workshop conversation, we welcomed the contributions and emerging leadership of any individual or organization in the space. We also sought to provide increased opportunities for conversation and to infuse that sense of play, by wrapping up the workshop with an art show and a Manhattan martini bar.


2. About the WorkshopBroadly speaking, the goal of the workshop was to bring together diverse stakeholders in the ecosystem of the arts and technology worlds to discuss how to foster a community of innovators, increasing awareness, collaboration, and collective efficacy toward common goals. More specifically, the workshop agenda was to map out the space, identify core goals of the community, and develop concrete next steps toward fostering these goals. The workshop was structured as a four hour focus group including a) a brief questionnaire to generate individual feedback for how we should best support this community, b) introductions where participants described their own activities in the space and their own goals, c) breakout brainstorming discussions around emergent themes, and d) a discussion of concrete next steps.

Figure 2. The Workshop Was Optimized For Conversation


Workshop Participants

Participants were invited through two phases. We first generated a list of potential attendees known to the organizers who would reflect a diversity of roles and organizations in the community. In the process of inviting participants we asked whom else they believed should be attending. Names frequently mentioned or identified by community leaders were then invited in the second round of invitations.

41 people attended the workshop, 23 female, 18 male. Participants were asked to categorize themselves in the questionnaires in terms of what primary roles they play in the arts/tech community. Figure 3 below illustrates the breakdown of innovators (67%), educators (52%), advocates (50%), researchers (45%), organizers (30%), writers (30%) and curators (28%).

The term “innovator” was used to encompass artists and technologists who created new works. We further asked innovators to identify themselves as being in the following categories: artist, technologist, designer, maker, hacker or entrepreneur. Figure 4 shows the breakdown of innovators. It should be noted that many of the individuals in the room wore multiple hats, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the community even at the individual level – artists who were also entrepreneurs, hackers who were educators, and community organizers who were also designers.

“We had become interested in the process we were involved in, which was the meeting, marrying, and mating of artists and scientists that was a kind of coupling, some form of, hopefully, a synergistic new wrinkle in artistic thought and scientific thought. That they would repel each other, and attract each other in some strange dance, and we would get out of that the flowering, the explosion, the evolution of something for the future.” (Steve Paxton, Open Score - 9 Evenings film by E.A.T., 1966/1997; from Oppenheimer, 2012)

52%

40% 40%44%

20%

44%

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%

Innovator Categories

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Diverse Stakeholders

Figure 3. Participants Represented a Diversity of Roles Figure 4. Attendees Included Many Types of Innovators


3. Mapping the Community

A key goal of the workshop was to map out who were the organizations and people actively engaged at the intersection of art and technology in the Pacific Northwest. Through the process of generating the participant invitation list we first developed an initial list of categories, and then populated the list with prominent exemplars in each category. At the workshop, we asked our participants to further indicate those organizations, individuals, news sources, and so forth, that they keep track of or are most representative or influential in the arts/tech community. Results are presented below.

Figure 5. Network Map of Workshop Invitees, with Their Roles (Orange), Interests (Blue), and Organizations (Green)


Educational Institutions • Cornish College of the Arts• IETI at Cornish College of the Arts• DXARTs at University of Washington• Department of Design at UW• Pratt• FCS Steam Labs• School of Art, Art History & Design, UW• Digital Futures Lab, UW Bothell• School of Interdisciplinary Arts and

Sciences, UW Bothell• iSchool, UW• Simpson Center (Digital Humanities), UW

Art Exhibit Spaces• The Henry• Frye Museum• Seattle Art Museum (SAM)• Vermillion• LxWxH; Length/Width/Height Gallery• Interstitial theater

Arts/Tech Non-profit or Social Organizations • Shunpike• Ignition Northwest• Dorkbot• Spiral Arts Robot Club (SPARC)• Canoe Social Club• Reel Grrls• Insterstitial theatre• AktionsArt• Artist Trust (new media category)• Creative Code Sea• Seattle Robotics Society• SPIN: Stem Paths Innovation Network

Local Arts/tech Engaged News Media • The Stranger• The Stranger A&P• Geekwire• City Arts

Design / Technology / Startups • Microsoft Research -- Studio 99• Adobe• Electronic Arts• Xbox• Seattle Chamber of Commerce• PBSJ• Hornall Anderson• Digital Kitchen• Olson Kundig• Siren• Art Sumo• Scribaroo• Galleries HQ• 1000 Museums• Make Fashion• Sideguide• Zooppa• Knok Studio• Mister Kite Entertainment• BRcade• Feral Motion• Houseogames• Third & Loom• Bombsheller

Local Government • City of Seattle, Arts & Cultural Affairs• King County 4Culture• City of Redmond

Maker/Co-working Spaces • Makerhaus• SoDo MakerSpace• Jigsaw Renaissance• DXArts warehouse• Metrix Create Space• ALTspace• Impact HUB Seattle• Inscape Arts (Center)

Figure 6. A (By No Means Comprehensive) List Of Organizations Actively Engaged At The Intersection Of Art And Technology In The Pacific Northwest


Across these categories, there are few organizations devoted specifically to the arts/tech space (bolded in the figure above). Rather, they tend to be partially involved or have overlapping interests with the arts/tech space. For example, while exhibition spaces like the Henry Art Museum have art shows with technology-oriented art, not all of their exhibitions are focused on this area. The exception to this is in the maker spaces, which tend to be focused specifically on supporting technology as a creative medium. We similarly did not find that participants acquired information about activities at the intersection of art and technology from any one unified source. When we asked participants to indicate how they kept up to date with information and events about the arts/tech community, they reported largely relying on social media and mailing lists. Few mentioned more traditional news sources.

Facebook/Facebook Groups (9), group/organizational mailing list (8), Twitter (7), Wired(3), Internet(2), Rhizome(2), LinkedIn (1), email (1), ars

electronica (1), NYTimes (1), Geekwire (1), The Verge(1), FastCompany(1), Skype (1), ITP (1), Omnivours (1), Leonardo(1), Word of Mouth (1),

Stranger(1), Makerhaus(1), Zero1 (1), Blogs(1), Gizmodo(1), Engadget(1), Create Digital Music(1), Meetup(1).

FIGURE 1. HOW PEOPLE KEEP UP-TO-DATE WITH INFORMATION AND EVENTS

We asked the innovators a few questions to test our assumptions about the nature of their work. When we asked how they used technology as a creative medium, there were a wide variety of responses, with programming, physical computing, design, and rich media being the most prominent categories.

Programming (10), Microcontrollers/Arduino(3), electronics(3), graphic design(3), fabrication (2), dance(2), Kinect(1), computer science (1), 3D imaging, digital mapping (1), response technology (1), math(1), logic(1),

code(1), sensors(1), cameras(1), rapid prototyping tools(1), film(2), choreography(1) lighting(1), sound/music (1), Photo/video editing(1),

metal work(1), word working(1), processing(1), openFrameworks(1), social media(1), CAD digital fabrication(1), visualization(1), web/app(1),

Robotics(1)

FIGURE 8. USES OF TECHNOLOGY AS A CREATIVE MEDIUM

We observed a dichotomy in how the innovators employed technology in their art. Many perceived their use of technology simply as a tool or means to an end.

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“I use technology full stop. It is the set of tools I use to do what I do, it is the means not the end.”

“I use digital tech in my artwork whenever I need it to achieve my goals, for interactivity…also use those tools in creation of animation”

“The tools and techniques I employ for all of the work I make require tech, from CAD/Digital fabrication/electrical design/etc.”

Whereas for others, technology was an important theme integrated into their work.

“I use technology to enhance the way humans sense the world and to explore the intersection of the physical and digital worlds”

“[technology is] “Instrinsic to the platform of the art”

“I use it as a tip-off to philosophically investigate what it means to be human”

As expected, the majority (56%) of innovators reported all of their projects were collaborative, with another 38% reporting they had both solitary and collaborative projects. Only one person reported that her creative projects were only solitary. Collaborative projects ranged in size from 2 to 50 collaborators, with most being in the 3-5 person range. We also found that when people reported their projects were collaborative, they often sought out people with different skills as collaborators. Many of these cross-disciplinary collaborations combined technological skills such as programming or CAD fabrication, with more traditional artistic skills such as dance or design.

Given the importance of collaboration to this genre of work, we were also interested in the communication tools used to collaboration. We found email and Google Docs were the most used, followed by Dropbox and Facebook.

Google Docs (9), Email (9), Facebook (7), Dropbox(7), Twitter (3),

Asana(2), Skype (1), SMS(1), Chat(1), phone(1), G+(1), Internets(1), OneDrive(1)

FIGURE 9. ONLINE TOOLS USED FOR COLLABORATION


In terms of work spaces, people reported using a mix of their own studios, maker spaces, work sites, and online spaces.

“living room, backyard, café, bars, labs, maker spaces, Cornish residency”

When seeking to learn skills, people reported a mix of a) finding information online, through search, Wikipedia, Youtube tutorials, and technology forums, b) through schools such as Cornish and the UW, c) through the maker spaces, and d) by seeking people in their personal networks who have the desired knowledge and skill.

As illustrated by these survey responses, the innovators in this community actively used technology as a creative medium, sought out cross-disciplinary collaborators as a part of their work, worked together through a mix of personal and shared spaces, and engaged with ongoing learning around specialized skills through online resources, educational resources, and their personal networks.


4. Collective GoalsPerhaps the most important agenda for the workshop was to articulate the shared collective goals of this community of people at the intersection of art and technology. As organizers we had developed a preliminary list to inspire discussion, but also asked participants to describe their own agenda in coming to the workshop and what they hoped we might achieve. To start the conversation, we asked participants in our survey “as we consider where to devote time and energy towards fostering the arts/tech community, how important do you think are the following [goals]”?

As can be seen from Figure 10, most of the goals were rated fairly highly, with more diversity in perspectives, across gender, race, and socio-economic status, being rated the most highly. Following this, the desire for more exhibition spaces, increased educational opportunities, an improved sense of community and social support, fundraising opportunities, access to collaboration spaces, access to specialized tools and machinery, and better promotion of arts/tech related activities were all rated as equally important. Less important were networking events, an online directory of artists, or better collaboration tools.

4.87

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Better online collaboration and knowledge sharing tools

An online directory for artists/technologists

More networking events and conferences

Better promotion of arts/tech related activities

Increased access to specialized tools and machinery

Increased access to collaborative spaces

More funding, fund-raising, grants

An improved sense of community and social support

Increased access to educational opportunities

More exhibitions and exhibition spaces

More diversity in perspectives, across gender, race or SES

Community Goals, Ordered by Importance

FIGURE 10. Average Ratings of Community Goals


In the second phase of the the workshop, we reviewed people’s introductions and their stated interests, and then we broke apart into four discussion groups around the four most prominent themes in the discussion: diversity, education, bridging communities, and the underlying philosophical perspective of technology as a medium of art. Further discussion of these and other emergent themes are below.

More Diversity

Given the specialized skills, educational resources, and funds required for works using technology as a creative medium, the population of those active in this space trends toward those higher in socio-economic status. Furthermore, given the gender discrepancy of those in the technology industry, it also trends towards being more male. For those at the workshop, this was a great cause for concern. One element of low diversity is the perception in disadvantaged groups that this genre of art may not be for them, and a key issue is how to increase individual agency to leverage the resources available. In the discussion, attendees suggest a number of approaches to increasing the community’s diversity, including a) mentorship programs between novices and experts, b) a sharing platform for sharing resources, c) educational programs such as ArtsCare and ReelGrrls, and d) increasing the prominence of role models in news and social media.

More Exhibition Space

“Consistent exhibition opportunities that are healthy in traffic online and in real time”.

Although the Northwest has a thriving technology industry, there are no dedicated places for exhibition of works at the intersection of art and technology. Participants agreed there is a potentially vast, virtually untapped market of patrons and buyers for interdisciplinary tech and art that needs to be engaged if we hope to finance growth in this field. Finding a way into the hearts (and pockets) of that community will improve access to resources that could help spaces like COCA, 911, The Lawrimore Project, Open Satellite, and Western Bridge (exhibition spaces that were friendly to tech art but are no longer operating) survive and flourish. The biggest issue with those spaces seemed to be a lack of sustainability. It is a major cost to our city if creative entrepreneurs spend years and thousands if not millions of dollars on under-supported ventures. So, as we look to encourage local artists we must also look to those space makers to learn from their experiences and improve access to financial supporters, community resources, and possibly more adaptive business models.

Workshop artists also expressed that they wanted accessible space that comes well-promoted to an


audience who will show up and interact with the work, plus a robust online platform to share the work beyond our local market. One unique aspect of the tech art space is that it must extend gracefully into the ether. As such, ideal spaces need to be available, connected, and relevant to a wider audience.

Increased Access to Education and the Role of Makerspaces

“Education, diversity, and access are the biggest holes. Most of this has to do with affordability, and perhaps cultural exclusivity.”

“Education: more context for teaching/mentoring youth by art/tech professionals.”

Access to life-long educational opportunities emerged as important due to the ongoing need to maintain and learn new skills as new technologies evolve. There are many educational opportunities in the Pacific Northwest that include traditional educational institutions, online tutorials and courses, Meetups, conferences and events, as well other networking opportunities. Groups such as Dorkbot and the Seattle Robotics Society are largely structured around providing peer learning opportunities. That said, in the past decade makerspaces or hackerspaces have emerged as important community centers, with tools for turning data into 2D and 3D objects. They provide valuable resources for artists, designers, engineers and educators, including lifelong learning opportunities. Educational institutions that do not have adequate funding or resources can use these types of public technology spaces to enhance and facilitate technology-focused art programs. Students can develop concepts and final designs in a classroom setting and cost effectively outsource the production. This coordination between institutional education and non-institutional production is becoming a model of technology education in the future.

Access to free or inexpensive education is also important due to the role differences in access to education plays in the low diversity of the community. Although we are increasingly in a world where people may learn many new skills online – particularly skills around technology -- many are not aware of said opportunities or do not feel empowered to seek them out. The success of maker spaces further illustrate the limitations of online learning, given the importance of hands-on access to specialized machinery and related skills training. Independent artists and designers often cobble together various combinations of resources to produce their projects. It can take a lot of time and energy to track down these needed resources. Complex projects may involve several types of expertise from quite different disciplines, and embedding projects in shared makerspaces provides serendipitous access to such cross-disciplinary knowledge.


Social Impact

An important emergent theme of the workshop was how should we use art as a tool for social impact – that is, not just as a vehicle for aesthetics and communication, but also for helping the world be a better place. To the extent that art can be perceived as shaping the nature of cultural conversations, how can it be used to impact culture, particularly given the affordances of technology-mediated art to reach broader audiences. This issue is related to that of diversity, in that if technology is being used as a means for artists to have a voice in shaping cultural change, it is important that a diversity of voices be participating in that conversation.

Participating on the Global Scale

“I think it is important to place art made here in a national or international context, for it to comfortably sit alongside the level of inquiry happening in the Seattle tech industry.”

“I’d like us to be more global and not only within Seattle”.

The Northwest’s position in the global ecosystem also emerged as an important theme in the workshop. Given the prominence of the local technology industry in the global economy, so too should the arts/tech community be on the global map. A more prominent position in the international arena would help the Pacific Northwest not only attract world class artists to the Northwest as their home, but also other members of the technology industry.

We discussed artist exchange programs with other major cities to help gain wider recognition for our own talent and increase our participation in the international dialogue surrounding this kind of work. By hosting talented technology and interdisciplinary artists from other places, we can build interest in the field and inspire our own artists. We also had the idea of somehow pairing local and visiting artists - convincing curators to “match up” someone local with someone whose work holds up on a national or international scale.

Bridging Communities

“Better bridging/defining of what is art to tech community”

As illustrated by the number of groups and individuals engaged in this space, in one sense the Pacific Northwest already has a thriving arts and technology community. That said, there is no clear name for the community, no clear home or hub online, no one central place for people to convene,


and no one communication channel for them to subscribe to. Because the community is inherently interdisciplinary, there will always remain the need for different organizations and individuals to support the specialized concerns of their constituents. For example, the Seattle Robotics Society, Makerhaus, and DXARTS at the University of Washington, while having some overlap in their missions and their people, also serve very distinct purposes. Consequently, an important theme that emerged from the workshop is the need to adopt more of a coalition model as we consider how to foster a growing community – that is, we should work to build bridges across diverse communities around the common interest of innovating at the intersection of art and technology, rather than trying to merge them. One such coalition approach, for example, might be to work together to host an event specifically designed to connect people from different disciplines or groups. Similarly, we might work together to more effectively help people find collaborators through online tools.

“Art and technology hackathon, w/peer mentoring, matching artists with engineer/designer”.

“An easier way to discover compatible individuals and new projects/technologies”.

Financing Technology-based Art

“We have an Arts Incubation series for helping to generate new ideas but are very limited in terms of our digital technologies resources. So the best would be funding access to technology for artists to experiment.”

“A critical understanding of how to develop, market, and <??> commerce relate to art based on technology”.

Traditional business models for gallery art do not easily apply to technology-based art. That is, consumers of such art are rarely in the position to purchase it for personal display at home, either because it would be too expensive considering the cost of actually implementing it, the art is too large, it is too ephemeral, or it is not sufficiently tangible. Given the high wage to be earned in the technology industry by those with specialized technology skills, few technology artists actually make a living from their art, but rather use their work wages to personally fund their art. Thus, when asking our workshop participants what resources they needed to reach their full potential in their creative projects “more time” was frequently mentioned.


Philosophical Substrate and Critical Voice

“Dedicated art/tech critic in the city”.

“The role of art as a form of research/interrogation as it relates to envisioning technology and how we understand our lives, and the ways in which we (as a community) can work together to intensify and externalize the A/T conversation, helping it feel relevant and accessible to no-traditional/non-“art” audiences.”

Whether technology is perceived as simply a tool for creative expression, or as an object of the conversation itself, the issue of how this community stands relative to other genres of art is an important one. It is only through a shared understanding of technology-based art as a genre that we may also develop a critical voice for identifying and promoting standards of excellence in the domain. However, while the term “technology-based art” brings to mind specific creative tools and artefacts such as programming languages, digital media, and electronics – the word technology itself is somewhat conflated with the meaning of word art. As noted by participants in the workshop, the meaning of the word technology is rooted in the greek word, tekhnologia merging art and skill.

“Technology, like art, is a soaring exercise of the human imagination. Art is the aesthetic ordering of experience to express meanings in symbolic terms, and the reordering of nature—the qualities of space and time—in new perceptual and material form. Art is an end in itself; its values are intrinsic. Technology is the instrumental ordering of human experience within a logic of efficient means, and the direction of nature to use its powers for material gain. But art and technology are not separate realms walled off from each other. Art employs techne, but for its own ends. Techne, too, is a form of art that bridges culture and social structure, and in the process reshapes both.”

— Daniel Bell, “Technology, Nature, and Society,” The Winding Passage, Abt Books (1980).

How then, do we best argue (and should we) that technology is a medium of art, a category in its own right equivalent to “visual art”, “theatre”, or “dance”, or “music”, which as a discipline should evolve its own best practices, and develop its own critical voice for excellence? Moreover, how can we blur the lines between technological envisioning and art (which relies heavily on design and other activities leveraging creative voice), in order to illuminate alternative, generative pathways for the creation of the technologies that will shape our lives in the future. Essentially, how can we embed artists into the technology process as an important means of discovery and innovation.


5. Next Steps: Community Building Activities

Having mapped the space and community goals, the next step for the workshop was to discuss concrete next steps toward achieving these goals, which fell into three main categories: documentation, communication, and events. It should be noted, in line with the “coalition model”, we expect different people and organizations will take leadership for these activities, since community organizing can take a lot of time and no one person or organization can take on the whole list of activities.

Documentation and Sharing

How do we develop a central repository for documenting who’s who (organizations, projects, and people), best practices, knowledge sharing, digital assets, and so forth? The obvious solution to this is some form of website and/or social graph, but who should host this web site, and who would fund it? These questions require further conversation, however in the short term, we decided to create this summary report from the workshop to share with the community, to leverage what we have learned in their own efforts, and to host the information on the Cornish Institute of Emergent Technology and Intermedia (iEIT+I) web site.

Communication and Collaboration Channels

As discussed earlier, a primary requirement of any thriving community is an ongoing communication channel. To facilitate ongoing conversation and community updates, we created a mailing list “[email protected]” and invited our workshop participants to it. To help us more easily find each other on Twitter, we decided upon the“#ArtsTechNW” hashtag and created a related @artstechnw account. Given the importance of Facebook as a tool for communication and collaboration, we similarly expect to create a Facebook page. Finally,AktionsArt.org is hosting an arts-tech calendar at http://www.aktionsart.org/arts-tech-calendar.

Community Building Events

Events undoubtedly have a substantial impact in fostering a thriving community. The best mix includes a large number of intimate opportunities for individuals with specific commonalities to convene with


a few larger shows and parties to bring together the wider communities. In addition to producing our own events, however, it is most important to suffuse larger culture-building events with the thinkers and artists who represent the community and to assist in the promotion and attendance of those instances.

Along those lines, the workshop group agreed there needs to be an event along the lines of SxSW for the city of Seattle, and was not confident existing music festivals such as Bumbershoot and Decibel Festival can or would like to scale in that manner, although Decibel Festival is pushing the envelope somewhat in this arena. One project we considered undertaking as a community would be to increase the technology/interdisciplinary art presence at relevant local festivals and as programming at a range of venues.

A consortium of art/technology organizations could coordinate speakers and shows featuring local innovators and visiting luminaries by noticing opportunities that already exist in our market. For example, we might build an art/technology showcase or Pecha Kucha event to present as part of Bumbershoot for 2015 or as part of the Seattle International Film Festival or the Seattle Interactive Conference. This kind of integration helps us build bridges into the larger cultural landscape while providing a new audience and potential resource pool to our members.

The workshop organizers plan to present a large community-building event at the Cornish Playhouse on December 13, 2014, modeled after The Stranger’s Genius Award showcases, where an expert interviewer will lead a conversation with three prominent local artists and examine their work. We also plan to present another Pecha Kucha evening that will be relevant to this community. The group is generally quite positive about both events, and willing to both help suggest artists to feature and promote the events to their various constituent groups.

Concurrently, Julia Fryett and James Coupe are organizing an ongoing ArtsTech meetup in the DXArts space in Ballard. See http://www.meetup.com/ArtsTechSeattle/. This group is a platform for investigating collaboration and experimentation in the arts, technology and design. They will be organizing educational programs and social/networking events for individuals working at the intersection of art and tech to share ideas, strategies, successes, challenges and failures. They seek people interested in critiquing, creating, designing, exploring, or understanding technology.

We also discussed instituting regular meetings for members of the “coalition”, partnering around speaker series, organizing more topical working groups to address specific issues, and so forth.


Coalition

Seattle has a strong creative community. However, in order to truly maximize the individual contributions of institutions, organizations, creative professionals, makerspaces, non-profits and individual agents-provocateurs, and take their work to the next level, the need for an Art/Technology coalition arises. Members of the coalition could meet at regular intervals (perhaps bi-annually) to share their work, calendar, methodologies and visions, with the ultimate goal of creating cross-institutional, cross-community work that leverages and expands on current assets towards the creation of a truly vibrant, globally relevant, creative culture.


6. SynthesisIn organizing the workshop, our goal was to bring people together to map out the community, clarify common goals, and initiate concrete next steps toward achieving these goals. Coming out of the workshop, we found our goals had broadened considerably relative to going in. Given the excitement of the people in the room and the expressed need for this community to grow, we believe we should elevate the conversation in how we define innovation and take global leadership in community building and risk taking. As suggested by one of our participants, Ana Pinto da Silva, we decided to embrace “Let’s be dangerous thinkers” as the motto for any consortium we build out of workshop.

FIGURE 1. THE CREW CELEBRATING THE WORKSHOP WITH ART AND MANHATTAN MARTINIS


7. AcknowledgmentsSpecial thanks to all our workshop participants and their invaluable feedback, and to Cornish College for the Arts for hosting the workshop.

8. References1. Americans for the Arts. 2012. “Arts and Economic Prosperity IV: In the City of Seattle, WA.”

A Report of Americans for the Arts. http://www.seattle.gov/arts/_downloads/research/WA_CityOfSeattle_AEP4_FinalReport-Local.pdf

2. Bryant, Adam. 2014. Quick and Nimble. Times Books.

3. Farnham, Shelly, and Tremblay, Genevieve. 2009. Questionnaire Study of Technology Creatives in the Pacific Northwest.

4. Kotkin, Joel. 2012. “The Best Cities for Tech Jobs”. Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2012/05/17/the-best-cities-for-tech-jobs/

5. McGinn, Mike. 2012. “Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn: We Are The City of the Future.” Presentation at Ignite Seattle, 2012. http://www.geekwire.com/2012/mayor-mike-mcginn-ignite-talk/

6. Mefford, Chris, Couch, Dawn, and Forsyth, Michael. 2010. “Interactive Media Competitiveness Study.” A Washington Interactive Network and Enterprise Seattle report, prepared by Community Attributes, Inc. http://www.seakingwdc.org/pdf/other-reports/IMCompetivinessStudyJan2010_Final%20(2).pdf

7. Mefford, Chris. 2012. “Interactive Media Industry Assessment.” An Enterprise Seattle report, prepared by Community Attributes, Inc. http://edc-seaking.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/IM-Industry-Assessment-2012-Final.pdf

8. Oldenberg, Ray. 1989. The Great Good Place. New York: Paragon Books.

9. Oppenheimer, Robin. 2012. Dissertation: The Strange Dance: 9 Evenings: Theater & Engineering As Creative Collaboration.

10. Wegner, Etienne. 2000. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge University Press.


About The Authors / OrganizersThe workshop evolved from a conversation among active participants in the local arts and technology communities, questioning why this emerging genre of art was not featured more prominently in the news media, given its increasingly important presence in the Pacific Northwest. In exploring the question of how to best document the artists and organizations active in this space, they came to the shared understanding that the group would benefit from more coordinated community efforts. Shelly D. Farnham, Ph.D. Researcher, FUSE Labs, Microsoft ResearchShelly is a community organizer and artist by night, and a technology research scientist by day. She has played a lead organizational role in numerous arts/tech groups, fundraising events, and exhibitions. Microsoft Research is a world class organization with 1,100 scientists and engineers pushing the boundaries of computing. Through a recent initiative called Studio 99, they have been exploring the role art may play in pushing technology innovation. http://ShellyDianeFarnham.com + http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/shellyfa/.

Jeff Brice, Chair, Design Department, Cornish College of the ArtsJeff Brice is Chair of Design at Cornish College of the Arts. Jeff received his BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and his MA from the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT). After co-developing the first digital illustration studio in New York City, Jeff worked in the research and development lab, Computer Graphics Laboratory (CGL) at NYIT. His interests in art and technology led to experiments in global telematic art events in the 1980s and 90s, working with art groups around the world. Jeff continues his artistic practice as a digital illustrator, administrator and educator, developing and facilitating hybrid forms of art and design engagement. Cornish College of the Arts is a premier accredited arts college with faculty who are also working artists and designers in the Pacific North West creative community. The mission statement of Cornish is to develop artists, citizens and innovators.http://www.cornish.edu/design/ + http://www.jeffbrice.com/

Genevieve Tremblay, Cultural Entrepreneur, Independent Public Scholar, Adjunct Faculty, Design Department, Cornish College of the ArtsGenevieve Tremblay is a community catalyst with an ability to conceptualize, design and facilitate pioneering and entrepreneurial initiatives at the convergence of art, education and technology. Since 2000, she has created collaborations with innovators across disciplines that ignite new thinking


and apply emerging technologies to civic and community challenges. Her professional practice has included award-winning brand/identity, print/broadcast advertising, digital and interactive media design, educational program development, teaching, as well as her generative work as an artist and independent curator. In her regional leadership capacity, as Port of Seattle Commission Arts Advisor and Bellevue Arts Commissioner, she provides vision and strategy to many regional public art and urban planning efforts. Her initiatives have been funded by 4Culture, Bellevue Schools Foundation, SAPPI: Ideas that Matter, AIGA, The National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller, Benton and Ford Foundations. Genevieve received her MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University. http://www.culturalentrepreneurs.org/ + http://www.brinc.wordpress.com

Carey Christie, Producer, Stranger Genius Awards & Cultural Entrepreneur, Steal This EventCarey Christie produces The Stranger’s Genius Awards and associated programs as a community-building consultant in the Seattle area. She has produced hundreds of events, shows, and guerilla marketing projects as Director of Events and Promotions at The Stranger and for a diverse group of clients such as Boeing, City Arts, IOActive, and Youngstown Cultural Arts Center. Carey is also a working artist, focusing on interactive installations and performances and film and video collaborations. You can see her newest work at the Lo-Fi Festival at Smoke Farm September 6-7. The Stranger Genius Awards and associated publication (Arts & Performance) demonstrate The Stranger’s ongoing commitment to innovative arts culture as a generative force within the city.www.thecareychristie.com

Ana Pinta da Silva, Senior UX Designer/Design Lead, Strategic Prototyping, Microsoft; Founder Pecha Kucha SeattleAna Pinto da Silva leads design for Microsoft’s Strategic Prototyping and Advanced Strategies Group (StratPro). Her work synthesizes her interests in design, storytelling, architecture and emerging technologies with her deep passion for creative collaboration. Ana’s previous experience includes game development, architecture, and interactive media. She deeply committed to serving the creative community. She is the founder of the Seattle Pecha Kucha speaker series, one of the longest running PK city series in the world. She currently serves on the board of directors for 4Culture, as board Vice-President for Design In Public, and most recently has been an adviser to the Seattle Waterfront Design Oversight Committee. Ana received her B.A. in Architecture from U.C. Berkeley and her MDesS from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. She is a graduate of Seattle’s Leadership Tomorrow’s serving as class valedictorian in 2009.http://www.pechakucha.org/cities/seattle

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