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OZeCulture Conference Presented by Dr Terry Cutler
Let me begin with a warning and two apologies : now, there's a good film title - "A Warning and Two Apologies". When I found my slot at this conference was the dinner speech, my heart sank. I have done just too many dinner speeches recently, and let me tell you there is nothing worse than a speaker coming between an audience and food. So imagine my horror when I discovered I not only had the dinner gig, but it was to be at A GREEK RESTAURANT. I have had visions of Anthony Quinn memorial improvisations and crashing plates. So warning: no smashing of plates. I have organised for Ian Watt and John Rimmer to have pens poised. Names will be taken. One warning: two apologies. Apology one is that dinner speeches are supposed to be witty and entertaining. I will fail this test, because in my first gig as the Chair of the New Media Arts Boards I actually thought I should try to make a few serious points about the key issues as I see them. Apology two: in attempting to be serious, I shall probably lapse into incoherence. Now before you conclude I had had a few too many pre dinner drinks let me explain that my mouth is currently suffering from an extreme case of dentist brutality and sadism. So I ask your tolerance. Now, Australia has had a short cultural history, even shorter if we deduct the early years of an imported colonial culture. The 19th century was an era of print, the penny post, the piano, and performance. The archetypical venue was the performance stage, and multimedia innovation was the world of music theatre and opera. It was the century of imperialism and the Industrial Revolution. The 20th century was the era of genuinely -and some would say horribly - mass market, technology driven culture: the past century has revolved around the profound impact of film, radio and television. Over the course of the century the archetypical venue shifted from the local movie house to the privatisation of entertainment into the home around the radio, the TV set and the record player. It was the century of de-colonisation, of nationalism, and of search for national identity, It is instructive to note that more people around the world own a television than a telephone. A Federated Australia grew up with these new, radical media. Ironically, these core screen based artforms of the 20th century are not represented within the Australia Council's portfolio of funding Boards. This is despite the fact that the artforms under the Council's jurisdiction are key inputs to screen based works, and screen product is now a major market outlet for a lot of literary and performance artists. At the outset of the 21st century one doesn't have to be particularly prescient to predict that this will be known as the era of digital media and electronic arts. The computer, software programming, broadband telecommunications, the digital camera and the ubiquitous digital screen will be defining technologies for new media and all media. As with all innovation, cultural or otherwise, these technologies will reinvigorate, transform and inspire older art forms. It will be the century of globalisation, the Information Economy, bio-technology and of borderless communities and multiple citizenships. The PC - or hopefully its more friendly successor - is becoming our window into this world. Cyberspace is an online virtual venue: venue is the appropriate metaphor because the digital, online world is experiential and participative (unlike the world of analogue film which, to coin a phrase of Peter Sellar's, is still essentially about the representation of "found objects"). There will be huge challenges and threats in this new digital territory, this electronic frontier, as well as opportunities. 1. The question of whether we will have Australian - not Microsoft - windows into an Australian digital landscape, and Australia portals to cross over into new borderless communities. (Or will it be like Alice through the looking glass, and entry into a topsy-turvy, rather crazy and foreign world). An era of electronic arts raises particular challenges about local content, and local voices. What does it mean to be distinctively Australian, digitally? Will the art historians of the 22nd century look back in wonder at a distinctive Australian school of digital art? The legitimacy and importance of digital arts is still far from established in mainstream arts and cultural policy and practice. In fact, I detect quite a bit of push-back in many quarters. This is something that needs to be addressed. We all need to do quite a lot to promote the value of the digital arts. 2. The question of access and audiences. Digital arts have the potential to engage new audiences, particularly among the young, and re-engage older audiences. But the meaning of audiences will change, in ways that are not clear. Digital arts, and new forms of presentation and collaboration between producer and user have the potential to enrich creative experiences and processes. This will be a rich area for exploration and experimentation. The flipside is digital literacy and the digital divide. The risk is that many artists and citizens will lack the socio-economic means or proficiencies to explore electronic media. 3. The third challenge is the special role of digital arts in wider community innovation, especially science and technology. Information Society = f(creativity + knowledge) The role of creativity in the innovation process is not well appreciated locally, unlike the US or Europe where groups like the MIT Media Lab have shown the benefits of interdisciplinary research, and Blair's cultural policy emphasises the importance of community creativity. One of the important initiatives of the New Media Arts Board has been the promotion of arts: science collaborations. One of these collaborations, at Lake technologies in Sydney, has directly generated 6 patents. There is huge potential in creative collaborations. One key area will be around digital aesthetics and design. As Gelertner reminds us, (in his book The Aesthetics of Computing) software should be beautiful and elegant, yet everyday we are brutalised by the ugliness of Microsoft code. 4. The fourth challenge is the impact of electronic arts on traditional artforms and the tyranny of disciplinary "categories" and conventions, and the ways in which digital arts can reinvigorate and unleash new creative inspiration and its expression in many different forms. Digital arts should inform the whole field, not be quarantined as "new media" and as a distinct and new category of work. To coin a phrase from a recent Canadian report, digital arts should be transdisciplinary. My basic point is that digital arts, our e-culture, should be technology enabled, not technologically defined. Cultural literacy and attainment in the 21st century will require serious attention to new infrastructure, to the building blocks and platforms for e-culture. These are critical issues for the pursuit of artistic excellence, for creativity in an information society, as well as fundamental imperatives for commerce and trade in digital content. In 1994 I coined the phrase in a report - Commerce in Content - of "creative infrastructure", and I believe we still need to look closely at the state of our creative infrastructure in a digital era. Infrastructure is both "hard" and "soft". In general usage it has connotations of a public good: that is, capabilities which cannot be wholly appropriated for private gain. I believe we can identify at least seven generic areas of creative infrastructure for innovation and R&D in the Arts that will be important in establishing a robust Australian e-culture. My working checklist is as follows:
Promoting collaborations, linkages, and networks - also known as cluster or creative precincts. So, a creative, robust e-culture will require attention to our Australian creative infrastructure. In closing, let me reiterate the point about the danger I see in defining new media in terms of technology, because of the risk that, in so doing, we may become territorial and may exclude the unfamiliar or threatening. We are all profoundly moulded by our disciplinary training and our aesthetic experience and comfort zones. An alternative approach to understanding new media is to approach its definition by way of function: as Innovation, R&D and Experimental works. This focus reminds us that the new implies technical risk, practitioner risk, and market (ie, audience) risk : it is about 'The shock of the new'. We are unlikely to develop a robust OZeCulture unless there is a healthy environment for risk-taking . I see it as a core function of the Australia Council to promote such an environment. The challenge for all of you here tonight is to make OZeCulture happen. And take some risks, even if it involves dropping a plate or two. |