Posted by:
Aurélie Delater
3 months, 4 weeks ago
(0 comments)
**“Tech as Art: Supporting Artists Who Use Technology as a Creative Medium.”**
Based on a field scan by the National Endowment for the Arts in collaboration with the Knight Foundation and the Ford Foundation.
This report, Tech as Art: Supporting Artists Who Use Technology as a Creative Medium, presents
findings from a field scan commissioned in 2019 by the National Endowment for the Arts in
partnership with the Ford Foundation and the Knight Foundation. The purpose of the scan was to
more fully understand how artists are incorporating digital technologies in their creative work and
to learn more about the current and prospective sources of support for these artistic practices.
Funders reading the report then can make smarter decisions on how to enhance support for this
field. The research is grounded in literature reviews, interviews, and group discussions with artists
and practitioners across the United States.
The report shares detailed findings; identifies challenges; and ends with recommendations for
different stakeholder groups, including funders, arts practitioners, policymakers, and educators.
There are five main findings:
y Code, computation, data, and tool-building are fundamental to technology-centered (“techcentered”) artistic practice.
Code, computation, and data can facilitate artists’ creative collaborations by enabling
artists to create works across artistic forms and contexts.
Tool-building is both an artistic pursuit and a vital practice for this field. It expands access
to software and computational thinking, and it supports the creativity of other artists
through an open-source ethos.
y Because the field is so diverse and dynamic, it has eluded easy labels. As a result, more traditional
arts organizations and funders often have trouble finding entry points to engage with it.
Tech-centered artists work fluidly across disciplines and formats, creating genre-defying
artworks and spanning discipline-based curatorial and academic specialties.
Artists create projects within and between virtual and physical spaces, requiring distinct
approaches to presentation, public engagement, accessibility, and archiving.
Arts organizations and funders face numerous challenges engaging with tech-centered
artistic practices. These challenges include limited staff expertise, limited infrastructure, and difficulties in understanding how to evaluate artistic projects in this field.
y Tech-centered artists have managed successfully to establish peer organizations, regional
hubs, exhibition spaces, festivals, information networks, and academic departments across
the United States.
Physical hubs, in-person gathering spaces, and festivals provide opportunities for core
community-building, learning, debate about contemporary trends, public engagement,
training, exhibition, and specialized programs such as residencies and incubators.
Online resources and communities provide training and networking opportunities that often
are free to the public. They enable participation beyond physical hubs and are particularly
important for artists outside urban centers.
Colleges and universities are prominent employers, incubators, and resource providers for
tech-centered artists.
While there are interconnected networks supporting tech-centered artistic practices, there
are also significant resource gaps in the U.S.-based arts infrastructure, such as access to
technical facilities, training, and exhibition opportunities, which can inhibit the growth of
opportunities for artistic and professional development.
y Career pathways for tech-centered artists are highly varied, though as a group these workers
encounter many of the same obstacles as artists in general.
Despite formal educational attainment, tech-centered artists described themselves as
largely self-taught and reliant on artist-founded organizations, community hubs, and online
resources for artistic and professional growth.
Artists cultivate multiple income streams to make a living—balancing freelance and
creative gigs, employers, grants and awards, donations, and other income sources.Though
corporate and commercial work are prominent income streams, these artists as workers
share the same income instability and time constraints as artists in other disciplines.
Many of the artists observed in the field scan are entrepreneurial, collaborating across
industry sectors, contributing to their local arts and cultural communities, and establishing
businesses that draw on creative and digital skills.
y Tech-centered artists are admirably poised to grapple with larger societal and sectoral
challenges—whether engaging with audiences during the COVID-19 pandemic or responding
to calls for greater equity and inclusion in the arts and technology. They can be invaluable
partners for policymakers, educators, and practitioners in arts and non-arts sectors alike.
These artists bring specialized expertise in using digital technology to connect with
audiences across physical and virtual spaces.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are common themes in this growing field of practice,
and they can contribute to accelerated action in addressing racial inequities and social
injustices across the arts and technology and other sectors.
Many of the artists discussed in this report seek to engage local communities, address
social issues, and bridge digital divides through their tech-centered arts projects. Boundless
opportunities exist for the arts and cultural sector to build beneficial partnerships with techcentered artists and collaboratively imagine directions for future creative programming.
Find the link for the full report on the resources page of starts.eu
Share on Facebook
Comments
There are currently no comments
New Comment