Uncertainties that matter : risk, response-ability, ethics and the moment of exchange in Live Art

This article examines the moment of exchange between artist, audience and culture in Live Art. Drawing on historical and contemporary examples, including examples from the Exist in 08 Live Art Event in Brisbane, Australia, in October 2008, it argues that Live Art - be it body art, activist art, site-specific performance, or other sorts of performative intervention in the public sphere - is characterised by a common set of claims about activating audiences, asking them to reflect on cultural norms challenged in the work. Live Art presents risky actions, in a context that blurs the boundaries between art and reality, to position audients as ‘witnesses’ who are personally implicated in, and responsible for, the actions unfolding before them. This article problematises assumptions about the way the uncertainties embedded in the Live Art encounter contribute to its deconstructive agenda. It uses the ethical theory of Emmanuel Levinas, Hans-Thies Lehmann and Dwight Conquergood to examine the mechanics of reductive, culturally-recuperative readings that can limit the efficacy of the Live Art encounter. It argues that, though ‘witnessing’ in Live Art depends on a relation to the real - real people, taking real risks, in real places - if it fails to foreground theatrical frame it is difficult for audients to develop the dual consciousness of the content, and their complicity in that content, that is the starting point for reflexivity, and response-ability, in the ethical encounter.

Art unions legislation in Queensland

In Queensland, the legislation governing the conduct of art unions such as bingo, raffles and lucky envelopes is the Art Unions Act 1992 (ΑAct≅). The Act is administered by the Queensland Office of Gaming Regulation (ΑQOGR≅) which is part of the Queensland Treasury portfolio. The Act and other legislation such as the Criminal Code, Vagrants Gaming and Other Offences Act, generally makes it unlawful for a person to conduct art unions unless they are authorised to do so. The Art Unions Act allows Αeligible≅ nonprofit associations such as charities, schools, sporting and community groups to raise funds for their stated objects. Art unions were legalised in the early part of this century primarily to assist charities and other approved associations to raise funds for worthwhile causes. This principle is continued in the 1992 Act. The Queensland art union industry had a turnover of over$190M in 1996/97 and our Queensland art unions continue to attract not just sales from Queensland residents but also interstate and overseas buyers. Art unions continue to be an attractive form of fundraising for many nonprofit associations.

Book review : "Artificial Hells: participatory art and the politics of spectatorship by Claire Bishop"

In the years since Nicolas Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics (1998) was published, a plethora of books (Shannon Jackson’s Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics [2011], Nato Thompson’s Living as Form: Socially Engaged Art from 1991–2011 [2011], Grant Kester’s Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art [2004], Pablo Helguera’s Education for Socially Engaged Art: A Material and Techniques Handbook [2011]), conferences and articles have surfaced creating a rich and textured discourse that has responded to, critiqued and reconfigured the proposed social utopias of Bourriaud’s aesthetics. As a touchstone for this emerging discourse, Relational Aesthetics outlines in a contemporary context the plethora of social and process-based art forms that took as their medium the ‘social’. It is, however, Clare Bishop’s book Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship (Verso), that offers a deeper art historical and theoretically considered rendering of this growing and complicated form of art, and forms a central body of work in this broad constellation of writings about participatory art, or social practice art/socially engaged art (SEA), as it is now commonly known...

Four stories about copyright law and appropriation art

This article considers copyright law and the art of appropriation in an Australian context. It tells four stories about Australian artists - Imants Tillers, Gordon Bennett, Juan Davila and Tracey Moffatt. The stories examine the postmodern critique of copyright law, indigenous copyright and self-determination, the introduction of moral rights, and copyright, photography and film. The article concludes that the work of such contemporary artists has practical implications for the reform of copyright law.

Privacy architectures in social networks’ state-of-the-art survey

The use of social networking has exploded, with millions of people using various web- and mobile-based services around the world. This increase in social networking use has led to user anxiety related to privacy and the unauthorised exposure of personal information. Large-scale sharing in virtual spaces means that researchers, designers and developers now need to re-consider the issues and challenges of maintaining privacy when using social networking services. This paper provides a comprehensive survey of the current state-of-the-art privacy in social networks for both desktop and mobile uses and devices from various architectural vantage points. The survey will assist researchers and analysts in academia and industry to move towards mitigating many of the privacy issues in social networks.

Autoethnography : critical appreciation of an emerging art

In this article, the author discusses how she applied autoethnography in a study of the design of hypermedia educational resources and shows how she addressed problematic issues related to autoethnographic legitimacy and representation. The study covered a 6-year period during which the practitioner’s perspective on the internal and external factors influencing the creation of three hypermedia CD-ROMs contributed to an emerging theory of design. The author highlights the interrelationship between perception and reality as vital to qualitative approaches and encourages researchers to investigate their reality more fully by practicing the art of autoethnography.

The lens of ludic engagement : evaluating participation in interactive art installations

Designers and artists have integrated recent advances in interactive, tangible and ubiquitous computing technologies to create new forms of interactive environments in the domains of work, recreation, culture and leisure. Many designs of technology systems begin with the workplace in mind, and with function, ease of use, and efficiency high on the list of priorities. [1] These priorities do not fit well with works designed for an interactive art environment, where the aims are many, and where the focus on utility and functionality is to support a playful, ambiguous or even experimental experience for the participants. To evaluate such works requires an integration of art-criticism techniques with more recent Human Computer Interaction (HCI) methods, and an understanding of the different nature of engagement in these environments. This paper begins a process of mapping a set of priorities for amplifying engagement in interactive art installations. I first define the concept of ludic engagement and its usefulness as a lens for both design and evaluation in these settings. I then detail two fieldwork evaluations I conducted within two exhibitions of interactive artworks, and discuss their outcomes and the future directions of this research.

Microwave International Media Art Festival

An international festival that champions a pioneer role in promoting media/digital art in Hong Kong. Apart from organising international video screenings in which the latest media art with the most recent trend and development being introduced, a series of artist-in-resident workshops, exhibitions, seminars and symposiums were also hosted with a view to enhancing culture exchange and stimulating media art creation among overseas and local artists