Exhibition

The art works and performances presented at the Remediating the Social conference were selected through process of peer-review, and aim to present works that address how network-based creative practice can effect and reflect upon community formation and the role of creativity in social ontologies. Submitted works were expected to engage "born digital" literary and artistic practices, including works that employ generative, interactive, network and hypermedia techniques.

Exhibition at Inspace

Performance at Inspace

Exhibition at eca

Performance at eca

Full curatorial statement:

The artworks presented at Remediating the Social were selected through a process of rigorous peer review. The committee members were Giselle Beiguelman (University of Sao Paulo), Simon Biggs (University of Edinburgh), Friedrich Block (Stiftung Brückner-Kühner, Kassel), Laura Borràs Castanyer (University of Barcelona), Mark Daniels (New Media Scotland), Yra Van Dijk (University of Amsterdam), Jerome Fletcher (University College Falmouth), Raine Koskimaa (University of Jyväskylä), Talan Memmott (Blekinge Institute of Technology), Scott Rettberg (University of Bergen) and Janez Strehovec, (University of Ljubljana).

The brief for the committee was to select works that address how network-based creative practice can effect and reflect upon community formation and the role of creativity in social ontologies. Submitted works were expected to engage "born digital" literary and artistic practices and might include works that employ generative, interactive, network and/or hypermedia techniques. From over seventy proposals sixteen were selected for commission. A number of the works exist as installation pieces, often interactive, whilst some exist as performances that employ digital and network technologies. Notably, a number exist as both installation and performance and, in some instances, blur these definitions so as to render them rather meaningless. All of these pieces were developed for Remediating the Social and will be presented here, complete, for the first time. These are all experimental works in that they are reflexive about their means and condition, as well as the condition of the people engaged with them, whether as authors, readers or the hybridised roles such works explicitly encourage and demand we consider. In this respect all the projects directly and successfully engage the core theme of Remediating the Social.

The exhibition and performance programme was supervised by Simon Biggs, Mark Daniels and Elizabeth Hodson. The ELMCIP Bergen team of Scott Rettberg and Elisabeth Nesheim supported the Edinburgh team and produced the website and other public facing aspects of the project. Some months prior to the opening of Remediating the Social a number of the performance works were presented and discussed during a seminar at the Arnolfini in Bristol, organised by Jerome Fletcher, which offered the opportunity for the works to be critically considered as process and to allow the artists to develop their projects in dialogue with the organisers. Our thanks go to Mark Daniels and his team at New Media Scotland for hosting Remediating the Social at Inspace. We would also like to thank the peer review committee, for their contribution to the formation of the event, and the many assistants that have worked with organisers, artists and presenters. Special thanks go to Elizabeth Hodson for managing the diverse aspects of the exhibition, performance programme and conference.

- Simon Biggs, Edinburgh