Visualising Invisible Networks as Collaborative Arts Practice

This paper examines approaches to the visualisation of ‘invisible’ communications networks. It situates network visualisation as a critical design exercise, and explores how community artists might use such a practice to develop telematic art projects – works that use communications networks as their medium. The paper’s hypotheses are grounded in the Australian community media arts field, but could be applied to other collaborative contexts.

A new landscape of arts-based buildings and comparative cultural policies on the island of Ireland: the curse of Jocasta's necklace

Much current cultural policy research focuses on activity traditionally viewed as arts practice: visual arts, music, literature and dance. Architecture’s role in the discussion of cultural policy is, however, less certain and thus less frequently interrogated. The study presented here both addresses this dearth of in-depth research while also contributing to the interdisciplinary discussion of cultural policy in wider terms. In seeking to better understand how architectural culture is regulated and administered in a specific case study, it unpacks how the complicated relationships of nominal and explicit policies on both sides of the Irish/Northern Irish border contributed to the significant expansion of arts-based buildings 1995-2008. It contrasts political and cultural motivations behind these projects during a period of significant economic growth, investment and inward immigration. Data has been gathered from both official published policies as well as interviews with elite actors in the decision-making field and architects who produced the buildings of interest in both countries. With the sizeable number of arts-based buildings now completed in both Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, one must wonder if this necklace of buildings is, like Jocasta’s, a thing of both beauty and redolent with a potential future curse. It is the goal of this project to contribute to the larger applied and critical discussion of these issues and to engage with future policy design, administration and, certainly, evaluation.

A new landscape of arts-based buildings and comparative cultural policies on the island of Ireland: the curse of Jocasta's necklace

Much current cultural policy research focuses on activity traditionally viewed as arts practice: visual arts, music, literature and dance. Architecture’s role in the discussion of cultural policy is, however, less certain and thus less frequently interrogated. The study presented here both addresses this dearth of in-depth research while also contributing to the interdisciplinary discussion of cultural policy in wider terms. In seeking to better understand how architectural culture is regulated and administered in a specific case study, it unpacks how the complicated relationships of nominal and explicit policies on both sides of the Irish/Northern Irish border contributed to the significant expansion of arts-based buildings 1995-2008. It contrasts political and cultural motivations behind these projects during a period of significant economic growth, investment and inward immigration. Data has been gathered from both official published policies as well as interviews with elite actors in the decision-making field and architects who produced the buildings of interest in both countries. With the sizeable number of arts-based buildings now completed in both Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, one must wonder if this necklace of buildings is, like Jocasta’s, a thing of both beauty and redolent with a potential future curse. It is the goal of this project to contribute to the larger applied and critical discussion of these issues and to engage with future policy design, administration and, certainly, evaluation.

Co-Creating Knowledge Online: Approaches for Community Artists

Forming peer alliances to share and build knowledge is an important aspect of community arts practice, and these co-creation processes are increasingly being mediated by the internet. This paper offers guidance for practitioners who are interested in better utilising the internet to connect, share, and make new knowledge. It argues that new approaches are required to foster the organising activities that underpin online co-creation, building from the premise that people have become increasingly networked as individuals rather than in groups (Rainie and Wellman 2012: 6), and that these new ways of connecting enable new modes of peer-to-peer production and exchange. This position advocates that practitioners move beyond situating the internet as a platform for dissemination and a tool for co-creating media, to embrace its knowledge collaboration potential.

Drawing on a design experiment I developed to promote online knowledge co-creation, this paper suggests three development phases – developing connections, developing ideas, and developing agility – to ground six methods. They are: switching and routing, engaging in small trades of ideas with networked individuals; organising, co-ordinating networked individuals and their data; beta-release, offering ‘beta’ artifacts as knowledge trades; beta-testing, trialing and modifying other peoples ‘beta’ ideas; adapting, responding to technological disruption; and, reconfiguring, embracing opportunities offered by technological disruption. These approaches position knowledge co-creation as another capability of the community artist, along with co-creating art and media.

Colloquium on Sound and Music

Invited participation in a colloquium on Sound and Music at CREATIVE RESEARCH INTO SOUND ARTS PRACTICE unit of the London College of Communication.

The Architecture of Home in Cairo: Socio-Spatial Practice of the Hawari's Everyday Life

The hawari of Cairo - narrow non-straight alleyways - are the basic urban units that have formed the medieval city since its foundation back in 969 AD. Until early in the C20th, they made up the primary urban divisions of the city and were residential in nature. Contemporary hawari, by contrast, are increasingly dominated by commercial and industrial activity. This medieval urban maze of extremely short, broken, zigzag streets and dead ends are defensible territories, powerful institutions, and important social systems. While the hawari have been studied as an exemplar for urban structure of medieval Islamic urbanism, and as individual building typologies, this book is the first to examine in detail the socio-spatial practice of the architecture of home in the city. It investigates how people live, communicate and relate to each other within their houses or shared spaces of the alleys, and in doing so, to uncover several new socio-spatial dimensions and meanings in this architectural form.

In an attempt to re-establish the link between architecture past and present, and to understand the changing social needs of communities, this book uncovers the notion of home as central to understand architecture in such a city with long history as Cairo. It firstly describes the historical development of the domestic spaces (indoor and outdoor), and provides an inclusive analysis of spaces of everyday activities in the hawari of old Cairo. It then broadens its analysis to other parts of the city, highlighting different customs and representations of home in the city at large. Cairo, in the context of this book, is represented as the most sophisticated urban centre in the Middle East with different and sometimes contrasting approaches to the architecture of home, as a practice and spatial system.

In order to analyse the complexity and interconnectedness of the components and elements of the hawari as a 'collective home', it layers its narratives of architectural and social developments as a domestic environment over the past two hundred years, and in doing so, explores the in-depth social meaning and performance of spaces, both private and public.

Design and Practice in Architectural Theory Education

Benefiting from design in theory learning is not common in architecture schools. The general practice is to design in studio and to theorise in lectures. In the undergraduate module History and Theory in Architecture II at Queen’s University Belfast, students attend interactive lectures, participate in reading group discussions, design TextObjects, and write essays. TextObjects contain textual, audio and/or graphic representations that highlight a single concept or a complex set of issues derived from readings. Students experiment with diverse media, such as filmmaking, photography, and graphic design, some of which they experience for the first time. Lectures and readings revolve around theories of architectural representation, media and communication, which are practiced through TextObjects. This is a new way to link theory and practice in architectural education. Through action research, this study analyses this innovative teaching method called TextObject, which brings design and practice into architectural theory education to stimulate students towards critical thinking. The pedagogical research of architectural theoretician Necdet Teymur (1992, 1996, 2002) underlies the study.

Cast Offs (Touchstones in Practice)

The working process of an architect is not often shown publicly, as the finished buildings, more particularly images and publications on them tend to dominate how architecture is communicated. In this there is something lost. The experience of the building, which is its most valuable aspect, is only possible by being there physically. Photography and other means of representation of architecture can tend to an overly perfected and artificial read of both the building and how the design was produced. In truth the design process for a building is a complex one, full of chance discoveries, multiple abandoned ideas, and refinement which is lateral as well as rational.

When we were asked to exhibit it struck us that we should address this deficit in some small way. These are models made as part of the design process for four projects (an arts centre, a womens refuge, a villa and four artists studios). An important part of our work method is to try to explore the material qualities of the buildings we are working on. To advance this we commonly make models to allow us to make discoveries and to advance the project so that the finished building is imbued with material and spatial character. These models are not made to show the final design of the building but to highlight an aspect that we are interested in exploring, in some cases this is about a space, in others about texture and its relationship to form. We chose these four models as all in some way allowed us to make discoveries about the project being explored. This discovery, once made, is what we value. The model itself serves only to produce this, and once made we can cast off the model and move on. We show them, not as architecture, but as touchstones for ideas out of which architecture may come.

Agency or Dependency?: The Mixed Peppers Theatre Arts Training Project for young people with disabilities

This article provides a reflection on my past practice as Creative Director of The Mixed Peppers Theatre Arts Training Programme. Drawing upon discourses of Disability Studies it considers how this ostensibly emancipatory project that sought to provide access to theatre activity for young people with physical disabilities living in Northern Ireland was flawed, and was eventually disbanded, partly due to a failure on the part of its non-disabled leadership to address imbalances of power in its relationship with its young disabled constituency. The article is framed within a survey of recent debates that focus upon the historical lack of a sustained, indigenous, disability-led theatre activity in Northern Ireland and the recent efforts by non-disabled professional arts practitioners to establish such activity in the region. It offers, as an exemplar to current discussion, an analysis of how the choice and agency of the young members of The Mixed Peppers were compromised by the well-meaning but potentially oppressive practices of its leadership. It questions whether the project was unduly influenced by parental desire to see their disabled children `normalized' in a high-profile theatrical production. Finally, it considers how The Mixed Peppers' institutional situation, as a project controlled and administered by a disability charity, was implicated in the premature demise of the initiative.

A Case Study in Policy Delivery:Examining Social Inclusion through Interpretation and Practice

The current body of literature regarding social inclusion and the arts tends to focus
on two areas: the lack of clear or common understanding of the terminology involved
(GLLAM, 2000) and the difficulty in measuring impact (Newman 2001). Further, much
of the literature traces the historical evolution of social inclusion policy within the arts
from a political and social perspective (Belfiore & Bennett, 2007), whilst others
examine the situation in the context of the museum as an institution more generally
(Sandell, 2002b). Such studies are essential; however they only touch on the
importance of understanding the context of social inclusion programmes. As each
individual’s experience of exclusion (or inclusion) is argued to be different (Newman
et al., 2005) and any experience is also process-based (SEU 2001), there is a need
for more thorough examination of the processes underpinning project delivery
(Butterfoss, 2006), particularly within a field that has its own issues of exclusion, such
as the arts (Bourdieu & Darbel, 1991). This paper presents case study findings of a
programme of contemporary arts participation for adults with learning difficulties
based at an arts centre in Liverpool. By focusing on practice, the paper applies
Wenger’s (1998) social theory of learning in order to assert that rather than search
for measurable impacts, examining the delivery of programmes within their individual
contexts will provide the basis for a more reflective practice and thus more effective
policy making.