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hey ada,

i was talking yesterday to a semi-famous Austrian net/code artist, about New Zealand artists. i realised a know a lot of artists (in the traditional sense - painting and sculpture and whatnot) but that their work is practically invisible to the rest of the world because most of them don't have any kind of web presence. ...

On Sun, 2008-09-21 at 21:21 +0200, Damian Stewart wrote:

hi...ada-m replying ;)

While I won't debate the other points I do agree with Damian regarding the visibility issue of NZ artists, net artists, creatives, whatever label you'd like. As a former Online curator searching for new content to show, finding local content was extremely difficult. Searching Google with terms was daunting - TradeMe results, PDFs, and governmental notes would come up before anything of relevance. I learned to find artist sites instead by obscure links from other artist pages. ...

..on Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 10:33:07PM +0200, adam hyde wrote:

..on Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 09:36:12AM +1200, Luke Munn wrote:

but don't you think this really comes down to the fault of the artists? if they can't successfully promote themselves, or their work just isn't interesting to people, then there's little more to be said! promotion, if at all important to an artist, is just another skill (as you mentioned later in your post). ...

there are quite a lot of sites out there that act as digital hubs for nz artists, from the big idea to pages of links such as zeroland or the @url arts links pages which have been around for more than 10 years now; & there are a whole lot of other discipline specific sites as well, such as our own ADA site, non-digital arts sites like playmarket & danz that link to artists' sites, online visual art galleries like TART, specific project sites such as SCANZ, etc. most of these sites are pretty findable. sure, search enginge optimisation can be improved - but so can the skills of those doing the searching ; ) ...

Julian Oliver wrote:

i'm going to have to call you on this one, J. i think you considerably understate the importance of self-promotion. over the last year and a half here in Europe i feel i have made enormous headway, and have been very successful in making the kinds of contacts and relationships that are necessary to actually pull off a career as an artist. but for the most part this hasn't happened through the strength of my work, but rather through my willingness to live a kind of crazy, stressful, confusing, disorientating life, and put myself into situations where these kinds of meetings have been possible; as you put it to me once, to get on a plane to another city with 100 euros in my pocket and not have a clue what's going to happen next. i haven't lived continuously in one city for more than 2 months, nor slept in a bed i could reasonably call 'mine', since June 2007. ...

As a matter of fact, the Government announced a multi-million dollar national arts site before the 2005 election: ...

..on Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 01:27:31PM +0200, Damian Stewart wrote:

as i said later in the post it's not that i think promotion isn't important, far from it. what you've been doing however - described above

• isn't promotion so much as networking, which certainly counts for far more than indiscrete and unsolicited attempts to promote your work online or elsewhere. i'd say you'll get more gigs because other artists and curators actually like you and your ideas and because they've enjoyed working with you (which i've seen first hand in your case)..

as you point out even having an opportunity to network is particularly hard for Kiwis based in New Zealand, which is why i think that cultural funding would be /better/ spent on airfares and accomodation abroad, cultural exchanges and residencies than promotion online. ...

Hello All,

Catching up on the conversation and a few things to add ---

I can relate to Damian's original post -- as while living overseas
you see this gaping hole of knowledge about practitioners based in
NZ. I think that ADA has done alot to alter this for digital media
art, and the other sites mentioned have made some improvements.
Though nzlive.com seems to be largely an event promotion site. ...

..on Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 11:34:56AM +1200, trudy lane wrote:

one reason i'm not especially /confident/ about investment in sites that promote "New Zealand Media Art" is that based on my experience very few people in the media-art scene care at all where a person is from in the context of discovering and engaging with a work. if anything the "where are you from?" question is either a personal aside or is asked to determine whether they can afford to fly you to their gig.. ...

Hi Julian ---

I think you are misinterpreting what I was trying to say there --

One of the main goals of SCANZ as a residency, is to provide a
networking space for practitioners - NZ and international - to get to
know each other and each other's work. This is more about putting
together interesting people and ideas than anything else. It is not
done on from a nationalistic point of view - though it may
periodically explore concepts that might relate to that. Generally
though it is just a short-lived but hopefully effective way to
simulate what happens regularly all the time when in Europe -- Zagreb
included -- where various artists and curators from all over are
often popping through and that networking can occur with less
augmentation. In terms of context and strength -- it just means that
the NZ artists are not having to be the ones living in a suitcase, etc. ...

hi,

Just wanted to pip in and say I think SCANZ is an amazing model for networking NZ artists and curators etc with each other and people from other countries... ...

hey adam ----

Well as you know as Ian and I are sort of pottering away with
developing what is essentially an online networking and shared
research space. It has changed a bit since we last spoke about it and
has become more specifically and literally about the exchange of
thoughts, questions, and ideas that emerge out of individual's
practices. We are at the moment working with a small group of writers
to tinker with how this might be done, but it is looking like the
development of smaller and more plentiful nodes of thought, rather
than the larger 'units' that we were initially thinking of, may be a
more feasible and useful approach. In time though it is hoped that
this would form one layer of a more complex space. ...

..on Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 07:23:55PM +1200, trudy lane wrote: > >

Predominantly arts organisers and / or curators who have specific affiliations with national funding agencies, government bodies or support mechanisms tied to national identity (Goethe Institute, Mondriaan Foundation, Pro Helvetia, etc). Given that a similarly expansive body doesn't exist for New Zealanders, the curators seeking funding for the Aotearoan Biomorphological Sculpture show in Tajikistan will be sorely disappointed ...

..on Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 01:14:05PM +0200, Honor Harger wrote:

hehe. indeedy. ...