Troubadour: Creative Assemblages Thematically Grouped Case Studies Of Creative Practice

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Troubadour Creative AssemblagesThematically
Grouped Case Studies Of Creative Practice

• Drew Hemment, FutureEverything/Lancaster
  University
• Gabriella Giannachi, Exeter University
• Bill Gaver, Goldsmiths, University of London
• RAs
• Alex Wilkie, Goldsmiths
• Vanessa Bartlett, FutureEverything

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ImaginationLancaster, Lancaster University

• A new interdisciplinary research lab at Lancaster
  University
• Environment 2.0 is the culmination of 3 years of
  activities in Manchester, Lancaster, Singapore
  and Berlin
• "A populace so knowing and capable that all
  problems get noticed and addressed, quickly, by
  a billion eyes."
• David Brin
• Led by ImaginationLancaster and FutureEverything

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FutureEverything / Futuresonic

• Est. 1995, Futuresonic is the UK's leading
  festival for digital culture, based in
  Manchester. Last year the festival attracted an
  audience of in excess of 50,000 people and its
  acclaimed conference, the Social Technologies
  Summit, attracted 900 people over three days.
• Futuresonic was a part of Lancaster University's
  successful RAE return in Art Design (4th in
  UK), shortlisted for the prestigious 2009 Lever
  Prize, and awarded RFO status by Arts Council
  England and Pillar Status by Manchester City
  Council.

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The idea

• We conducted a survey of interdisciplinary
  projects involving creative practitioners to
  better understand how they were organised and the
  types of outcomes and impacts they made, in the
  hope of questioning assumptions about the
  benefits that might properly be expected from
  this style of research.
• The study involved a thematically organised set
  of case studies which were generated from a
  survey of 100 projects, a Research Note
  summarising key findings, and a web resource
  (forthcoming) documenting circa 50 case studies.

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The focus

• Using a subject theme - the environment - to
  limit example numbers without constraining space
  of activity.
• 01.Home and Products
• 02.Sustainability and Energy
• 03.Cities and Transport
• 04.Weather

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Value for Creator

• Project aims
• reveal multiple models of practise amongst
  creative, technical, commercial and public-sector
  partners,
• expose multiple forms of knowledge transfer
  depending on the nature and output of
  collaboration,
• inform long-term research agendas through the
  elucidation of multiple and potentially
  contrasting factors for successful collaboration,
  and
• through the breadth of possibilities exposed by
  this study, inspire new collaborations between
  the creative industry and academic partners.

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Bottom-up investigation
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Bottom-up case studies

• Open tags
• One off, multiyear, ongoing
• Industry, Art, Design, Academic
• Local, National, International
• Collaborative, Non-collaborative
• Community, Participatory, Public
• Utility, Provocation, Advocacy
• Can be modified by users (Modifiable),
  Interactive, finished
• Accessible, Specialist

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Bottom-up case studies

• Orienting questions
• Creative contribution What was the significant
  innovation in approach or thinking behind the
  project? How can this be recognisably attributed
  to the involvement of creative practice?
• Collaboration What were the disciplinary
  contributors to the project? What model of
  research / development was followed? What were
  factors leading to success / problems?
• Values What were the outcomes of the project?
  How were these disseminated to outside
  stakeholders? What models of value are implied
  by these outputs?

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Diversity

• Sites of engagement
• contemporary art
• consumer products
• industrial trade shows
• policy intervention
• community events

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Diversity

• Outcomes
• journal articles
• prototypes
• domestic appliances
• participatory workshops
• artworks
• press coverage
• postgraduate researchers
• PhD theses
• a research community

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Diversity

• Various groupings of
• university departments
• large corporate organisations
• small corporate organisations
• funding agencies
• government departments and agencies
• galleries
• museums
• homes
• independent artists/designers

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Creative Assemblages

• 1) Compact and closed assemblages
• 2) Compact and open assemblages
• 3) Loose and open assemblages

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Wattson

• A consumer product that allows people to monitor
  their domestic electricity consumption.
• Designed and is marketed by the London based
  product design studio DIY KYOTO.
• It involved relatively few authors and
  stakeholders
• Output was restricted to a commercial product
  (as opposed to, for instance, descriptions of
  process)
• Prospective users were conceived as
  environmentally concerned consumers rather than,
  for example, collaborators or discussants

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ERARAT (Environmental Risk Assessment Rover)

• An artwork created in 2008 by two artists,
  working under the name EcoArtTech.
• It is an apparatus that uses its own GPS
  coordinates to gather local risk and
  environmental data (for example air quality,
  local road traffic accident reports and current
  US terrorist warning levels) for video projection
  onto nearby surfaces.
• Involves a limited number of contributors
• Encourages discussion among an open-ended public

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STATIC!

• Investigates and promotes awareness of energy use
  through the discipline of interaction design.
• By the Swedish Interaction Institute between 2004
  and 2005
• Disciplinary contributors were diverse, and there
  were multiple stakeholders including academic,
  government and commercial agencies.
• Outputs domestic product prototypes,
  postgraduate theses, symposiums, workshops and
  seminars, and publications.

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Creative Assemblages

• 1) Compact and closed assemblages
• 2) Compact and open assemblages
• 3) Loose and open assemblages

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Creative Assemblages

• Creativity is integral to how the project
  functions as an assemblage.
• We observed a correlation between looseness and
  openness.
• Relatively compact assemblages in the survey
  tended to produce outputs that are relatively
  closed and constrained, amenable to intellectual
  property protection.
• Rather than producing a linear transfer of
  intellectual property for commercial gain,
  projects that are loose and open arguably create
  the conditions in which intellectual property can
  be developed by a wide variety of people in a
  broad range of settings.

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Environment 2.0 - One Billion Eyes

• "A populace so knowing and capable that all
  problems get noticed and addressed, quickly, by a
  billion eyes."
• - David Brin
• Environment 2.0 is the culmination of 3 years of
  activities in Manchester, Lancaster, Singapore
  and Berlin

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Environment 2.0 - One Billion Eyes

• Outputs
• Conference event at Futuresonic 2007
• Workshop at Lancaster University
• Workshop at ISEA2008
• Conference event at Transmediale08
• A themed call of international journal Leonardo
• Exhibition featuring 30 international artists at
  Futuresonic 2009
• Two large scale participatory mass observation
  projects
• An unconference at Social Technologies Summit 09
• Academic papers
• A large EPSRC funding bid

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Environment 2.0 - One Billion Eyes

• Participants
• Futuresonic/FutureEverything
• Natural History Museum
• OPAL (Open Air Laboratories Network)
• Lancaster Environment Centre
• ImaginationLancaster
• CESAGen
• Lancaster University
• Christian Nold
• Alfie Dennon
• Yara El-Sherbini
• FoAM
• Creative Concern
• Tyndall Centre Manchester
• Friends of the Earth
• Ministry of Transport

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Environment 2.0 - One Billion Eyes

• Environment 2.0
• A FutureEverything project conceived as Creative
  Assemblage
• My role is as curator, or strange connector,
  making unexpected connections, and working
  collaboratively with a broad constellation of
  participants to create something coherent and
  meaningful, with numerous heterogeneous outcomes.