Day 1, Stream 4

Topic

Creation, Collaboration and Consumption

Chair

Zita Joyce

Panelists

Su Ballard: Art History, Visual and Media Art, University of Wollongong, Australia

Zita Joyce: Media and Communication, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Vicki Smith: The ADA Network – Aotearoa Digital Arts, New Zealand

ABSTRACT

Following the earthquake of February 2011, the central city of Christchurch, New Zealand has been largely dismantled. Huge tracts of open ground spread out where buildings once stood, and much of the centre is still closed off to residents. Navigating around hurricane fences, demolition sites, and the street-gouges of caterpillar tracks has forced a renegotiation of the format of the city and its built and deconstructed spaces. At the same time, the command and control process ‘recovery’ adopted by central government, against international best practice, explicitly reduces scope for community consultation in the reconstruction of the city. In a city that is exhausted and bewildered by natural disaster and its response, resistance feels fundamentally futile; and yet, in this place, it has never been so important. In the shadow of the demolitions, or rather the open spaces in their wake, artists are regenerating empty lots, blank walls, and social connections in what appear to be resistant creative acts. However the officially-designated rebuild-in-progress ‘transitional city’ relies on this creative endeavour, vesting artists and others with the responsibility of rendering the blank city more appealing to visitors and residents. Aotearoa Digital Arts’ Mesh Cities project explores the potential role of media art in transitional and future Christchurch. At this early stage in the project, this panel asks how productive media art can actually be for reimagining, remembering, reinvigorating, reconnecting with, or indeed resisting, urban and social space.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Su Ballard is Senior Lecturer in Art History, Visual and Media Art at the University of Wollongong, Australia. Her current research weaves the histories of art into contemporary practice with a focus on speculation, futures, accidents, noise, systems and machines in the art gallery. She co-edited The Fibreculture Journal 20 “Networked Utopias and Speculative Futures” in 2012 and The Aotearoa Digital Arts Reader published by Clouds in 2008. She is currently working on AMONG THE MACHINES, a major exhibition for the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, New Zealand, opening in July 2013.

Vicki Smith is a visual media artist and edu­ca­tor from a remote region of Aotearoa/NZ. She works to link com­mu­ni­ties of prac­tice, devel­oped the dis­tance edu­ca­tion school West­Net and is espe­cially inter­ested in how con­nect­ed­ness can aid devel­op­ment through assid­u­ous use of art, sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy, espe­cially for youth. Vicki is one of the orig­i­nal mem­bers of Avatar Body Col­li­sion, who insti­gated the cyber­for­mance venue UpStage through which she cre­ates, teaches and co-curates the annual fes­ti­vals. In her vir­tual as well as her real life she is explor­ing new tech­nol­ogy to observe con­nec­tions to the old and is on a cre­ative explo­ration of sail­ing, celes­tial nav­i­ga­tion and the paths of early voy­agers to these lands. Vicki is vol­un­teer on the West Coast Kete com­mu­nity story project, and trustee for Sail­ing for Sus­tain­abil­ity and the Aotearoa Dig­i­tal Arts Network.

Zita Joyce is Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Her research is inevitably shaped by the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. Her current research focus explores the role of independent radio stations in Christchurch during and since the earthquakes, and how they have survived and adapted to the loss of studio and office space. She also works on radio transmission projects, including ‘Radio Wormhole’ connecting the Pallet Pavilion in Christchurch and the Audio Foundation Gallery, Auckland, in March 2013. She is editing a special issue of the New Zealand Journal of Media Studies on Media and the Earthquakes, and co-edited The Fibreculture Journal 20 “Networked Utopias and Speculative Futures” in 2012.