Art, Lifestyle and Globalisation (Cont.)
John Jordan discussed the ways in which artists are challenging developments in globalisation with intervention and direct action. Jordan set up the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army which went on a national tour, with the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination leading up to the G8 mobilisations in 2005.
Bella Dicks was talking about the difficulties and implications of putting culture on display in a cultural-economic context that insists on interactivity and accessibility. Dicks is senior lecturer in Sociology at the Cardiff School of Social Sciences. She has published and researched in the areas of heritage, regeneration, cultural display, placed identities and digital methodologies.
Technologist Tim Kindberg showed how the city is increasingly a digital system, as well as a built environment. Thanks to wireless communication, and the phones and other small devices we carry with us, digital phenomena are no longer confined to our desks and personal players, they are becoming embedded out on the streets and in public places.
Jemima Rellie’s talk explored how digital technologies act as both a catalyst and a support for the ongoing transformation of culture and museums. Tate Online's core functions were presented, as well as how the site impacts on visitors, activities, distribution channels and the organisation's competition. Rellie is head of Digital Programmes at Tate.
Art, Lifestyle and Globalisation sought to take a pulse reading to see what the cultural climate is at this moment in time. Having witnessed a lifestyle revolution within corporate branding and a maturation of the digital arts arena, is this leading artists more towards product and service-based activities? Have the experimentations of the previous decades led to a more focused approach? And if so, towards what aims? What are the key currents running through cultural activities today and what is the role of artists within them? Art, Lifestyle and Globalisation examined contemporary culture, art and lifestyle and discussed how technology facilitates changes in production. The symposium invited artists, curators and activists to consider a number of key questions:
-Why are so many corporations re-branding themselves around lifestyle?
-How do the aesthetics of open source sit alongside corporate technological platforms (iPod etc)?
- How do arts organisations and institutions respond to open networking and ideas exchange?
- What is a node and a network in cultural terms?
- How are artists working within the globalised economy and how are they perceived by corporations?
- Are artists software and corporations hardware?
- Why has the global technological village become so fraught as McLuhan predicted?
- Where do governments sit in the global cultural mix?