Claire is a professional Media Producer based in the UK. Her background is in contemporary art history and she has an MA in Cultural Policy from Goldsmiths University. Claire’s specific area of interest is art, creative production and technology.
Her day job is a Media Producer at Kew, which will be online later in 2009. Claire loves cycling, cities, Caramacs, pop culture and all forms of two-wheel travel.
InterventTech started in May 2007. It describes itself as a platform for the UK’s art and technology movement, rather than a blog. It’s a place to showcase and discuss work that explores contemporary life in all its technological glory – the good, the bad and the ugly. It provides reviews, what’s on listings and opportunities for artists to promote their work.
The following interview between Claire Welbsy and Annette Wolfsberger was held on 16 January 2009 via Skype Chat.
Could you tell me a bit about the start of InterventTech? Was there a specific moment or experience that motivated you to begin?
I started www.interventtech.net about two years ago. I was winding up at loads of exhibitions/arts events and not feeling much connection to the world that I experienced on a day-to-day basis. The art I love references the world it’s part of, and provides alternative perspectives on what it means to be human – in wonderful, weird and intelligent ways.
On a practical level, InterventTech was also a fall out project, following a year at Goldsmiths. I became interested in the ecology of the contemporary art scene in the UK, and in particular how it shaped creative activity that involved technological forms, processes and ideas. Looking back, I think this area of creative action interested me so much because I was coming round to a new understanding of the world. An understanding that acknowledges how technological development and disruption has been and continues to be significant in shaping the world.
It became clear to me pretty quickly that the UK was lacking an accessible and lateral platform for art-tech. A place that embraced the range of artists exploring these territories in terms of form, creative process and subject. The kind of work being produced across media based practice like visual and media art, performance practice, sound and sonic art, animation, gaming, computer, net and AI art, for example.
It also became clear that the discursive networks attached to the UK’s art-tech scene were driven by academic networks and hidden from public view. So unless you were explicitly involved in this community, it was difficult to experience and get inspired by work of this kind, let alone to find out what was going on and where, or to meet like-minded people. I’d say this is probably still the case – but I hope that it’s less so because of InterventTech.
Your blog is quite open. At the moment it seems to be mainly you and Abs from Animate Projects blogging. Have there been more people involved on a regular basis?
No, not really – that's the project for this year. The aim is to get more people across the UK contributing to the InterventTech platform. I'm particularly keen to engage writers and reviewers based in other regions (places like Bristol, Liverpool, Nottingham, Birmingham, London, Lancaster, Brighton, Glasgow and Newcastle, for example). I'm also keen to engage new voices and specialists. Informed people with fresh perspectives on this area of creative practice. That includes artists and other people working creatively to produce stuff, but perhaps are not tied to an academic institution. I’m also keen to engage experts in different areas. Individuals with a specific knowledge, like the history of technology(ies), globalisation, net and game art, for example. These contributors may very well come from higher education and R&D (research and development) worlds (see also the Get Involved page).
That would really turn InterventTech into a platform rather than a personal blog. How much interest has there been in the past? Did people put themselves forward or is it more of an active search?
It’s actually been up and down for a couple of reasons. Interest in the project and unique views go UP when Abs and I post regularly. They’re also UP when we post reviews on stuff we’ve seen and opinion pieces about topical issues. For example, the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) posts that I wrote at the tail end of last year prompted some really positive feedback from well known/influential UK media artists (and I use that in the broadest sense). For example, Marc Garrett, Roy Ascott, Ghislaine Boddington, Fiddian Warman ... all got in touch off the back of those posts:
Original post - http://interventtech.net/2008/10/19/ekow-eschun-closes-live-and-media-arts-at-the-ica/
Comment piece - http://interventtech.net/2008/11/03/ica-gives-media-art-the-chop-under-ekow-eschun/
Establishing an active user community is probably also a long-term process?
Yeah, absolutely. It takes time and you need to be consistent. It’s about becoming a credible and familiar voice that people trust. Unique content and interesting voices are definitely King in the blogosphere.
Taking that ICA post and the increased feedback of readers as an example. How do and did people find out about your blog? I guess there are rather subtle marketing techniques that you employ? Did you post on lists?
Yeah – on a basic level I post articles on a blog, so anyone that subscribes to InterventTech via RSS is alerted to it. People also find the website via related queries on search engines because the subject matter is quite unique. There’s not a mass of competition for this kind of content online yet :-)
Other things that I do to promote the site include posting a heads up on relevant community listings like JISC, Node.L and Arts Council (say 5) when I update the site. I intend to do this more this year, as it’s a great way to improve InterventTech’s visibility among interested audiences. I publicise virally too. This mainly involves leaving InterventTech MOO cards wherever I go and encouraging readers to recommend the site to people they know.
Regarding audience activity – I guess that really depends on issues. Do you have an idea how many people follow it via stats, and where they come from? I guess they’re probably predominantly UK based?
InterventTech’s core audience is UK based. A proportion of visitors are located in continental Europe and the States. In terms of statistics, InterventTech is in an interesting place at the moment. I recently closed down what was the website (which received anything between 300-600 unique views a week) and consolidated it with the blog on Wordpress at www.interventtech.net. As a result of the time it took to bring everything together, unique visits did drop off a little as very little new content was added in this period. I think people thought I’d given up!
Thankfully, unique visit numbers are increasing again! In January 2009 for instance InterventTech received around 1,000 unique visits. This is because Abs and I are posting regularly again. It’s much easier to keep content fresh now it’s all in one place! It also makes the website stronger in terms of search engine indexing and Google reputation.
In terms of InterventTech’s role in the UK ‘scene’, I think it’s actually quite unusual. One reason is that the breadth of art and creative practice the site covers is so broad and embracing (conventional visual art practices to computer, net and game art). Another is that neither myself or Abs feel part of any established art-tech scene or network in the UK. This is partly because we are ourselves outsiders from the perspective of established communities, but also because the media art scene in the UK is so fragmented.
An interesting area of growth in terms of InterventTech’s audience is new and emerging artists and creative professionals working across digital production, interactive design, and social media, for example. These scenes (especially the latter) have picked up a real momentum in the UK in the past few years. And I think InterventTech provides a point of interest and inspiration for many people working across these fields. In that sense, InterventTech acts as a connector that sits between artists from all sorts of fields, creative producers, developers, designers, academics and other interested audiences in the UK and the wider world.
Why are you using Wordpress rather than something like Blogger?
I’m using Wordpress because it’s easy to use and the functionality it offers is better than Blogger (e.g., tag clouds, categories and in-site search). It also has a really active developer community that produces useful plug-ins to keep functionality up to date. WordPress also offers stats. Blogger doesn’t offer this in the free package anyway.
Having been in touch with quite a range of people with a cultural background in Europe, I have found it quite interesting to find out that they are very selective in which blogs they read – if they follow any at all. It seems that they rely on mailing lists more than blogs. The main argument given so far was that they regard blogs as too personally focused, therefore the content is sometimes too arbitrary.
I absolutely understand where they’re coming from – but I also think that people’s understanding of what blogs can be is limited at times. Make, Boing Boing, We Make Money Not Art, Eyebeam, Rhizome are all professional and popular blogs and offer a wealth of quality content for people interested in this area. Posts in these spaces are not always written from a personal perspective either.
In terms of why people might feel this way, I guess I have a couple of theories. The first is that there is often a lot of repetition across sites covering this area of creative practice. There are a lot of regurgitated press Rrlease posts because they are quick and easy to write. Alongside this there is a bias in focus towards work and artists emerging from the US and Asia. And at times there doesn’t seem to be enough unique editorial produced by credible, interesting and knowledgeable voices. At InterventTech we deal with this clash by separating out What’s On from personal reviews by individuals. I think this helps to present a good editorial balance – bearing in mind you can always be better and do more of this kind of stuff...
This seems to be happening not only in the UK. On many of the lists, apart from announce-lists, you find mainly regular voices. In how far would you consider them walled gardens?
Something that really interests me about the dialogue and discursive activity happening on mailing lists is that it is often very blog like in nature. People start a conversation by posting about something they’ve seen, an area of work or an issue they’re interested in, and then others bring their knowledge to the table, take part in that conversation and move it along. The only difference is that the conversations aren’t archived, they’re not searchable and they’re hidden from the wider world. This is the bit that I don’t get.
You’re also right in respect to the issue of voices. The conversation that takes place via announce-lists is often led and shaped by the same group of individuals. That’s not to say that these voices aren’t valuable, because they are. But I think it’s probably quite difficult for new voices to get involved and to get heard. The language and discourse of these hidden networks is also quite inaccessible in terms of broader public engagement. This may be a non-issue for the purpose and needs of these kinds of communities, but unfortunately broader efforts to engage public audiences with this kind of work and strike a dialogue around issues are also minimal. This is a missed opportunity I think.
One question that I find really interesting, given your plans for expansion: What is your take on why mailing lists feel so closed – and how would you prevent your blog from becoming as closed?
I think the reason mailing lists are closed is because they’re mailing lists :-). The interesting question is why the communities that drive these networks choose to keep it that way. One reason for this may be legacy – ‘this is how we’ve always done it’. Another might be related to what people are comfortable and familiar with. The relationship between the way a community is designed and how it is used is an important one. When a network of people get used to a particular kind of space (i.e. a hidden network supporting close-knit peer dialogue driven by email alerts), it’s difficult to change the format because the individuals involved are comfortable with the discursive architecture and rules of engagement. More open and transparent systems (like blogs) can sometimes feel scary to those that aren’t familiar with them. The values that underpin blogs include openness, transparency and accessibility.
I guess it is also an issue of language/terminology and the choice of subjects?
Yes. Accessible language and vocabulary is important when engaging wider audiences, as is an understanding of the kind of ‘hooks’, issues and topics that interest people. In the UK, I’d say opportunities to get art-tech work platformed in established and popular art spaces is also an issue. As is the opportunity to make impactful public art projects happen.
In order for an artist to grow, get noticed and make a living from what they do, for example, they need opportunities to platform and show their work. This means that, at certain and regular points in an artist’s career, they need to be legitimised by the establishment in different ways. This happens by being included in a programme at a well-known public art venue, being talked about by critics and getting on the radar of commercial agents who then help promote and sell your work to collectors, curators and programme producers across the world. In the UK at least, I know it’s quite hard for many artists working in the art-tech area to get their foot in the door in this way. Established art venues and exhibition spaces (public and commercial) are rarely designed to show off work of this kind. This goes for the design of the physical space, the equipment and facilities available and the interest of curators and programmers.
The other side of this coin relates to public art projects. Because technology is wholly embedded in the world we live and move around in, it’s important that audience engagement with art that deals with this terrain occurs in context, in real world and networked spaces. Some examples of interesting work produced for public spaces include:
Another aspect I am interested in is the one of economics: When you started in 2007 there was no funding involved. Has that changed? Or is there any other source of income (apart from your ‘regular’ job) that helps you finance what you do?
The current situation is that there is still no funding – but saying that, I haven’t tried. I am aiming to take a few days off the day job this spring to produce and submit a grant application to the Arts Council England. InterventTech certainly isn’t going to become any more full-time for me, but I would like to be in a position to pay expert contributors to post articles and reviews about their area of interest. I would also like to devise a programme to encourage new and interesting voices to share their work, passions and interests via the InterventTech platform.
That would also increase sustainability quite a bit, and would add an inclusion aspect of supporting emerging voices/writers?
Yeah. It would also help to keep topics and discussion fresh. Plus challenge the core establishment a bit if you like. Mix things up a little :-)
Are there other blogs or platforms in the UK that you are aware of that have managed to get funding in the UK? Or would you be the first one?
Ummmm ... Run Riot, which is a performance and music driven what’s on service. And Article19, a platform for dance artists. Though I’m not sure either of these are funded per se...
Regarding the content of InterventTech, how do you decide what to cover or not? Is it mainly based on what you find interesting (or ‘good, bad and ugly’). How far do you base it on what you think your audience is interested in?
I like to cover anything I see (good-bad-ugly) and I always try to be fair about my experience of it. If the idea behind a piece of work is good but the articulation less so, then I always ask why. I think we do need to be fair to artists working across this area as many are self-taught and rarely have the opportunity to collaborate with and/or learn from people with the right skills at the right time. It is also difficult to get funding for work of this kind in the UK because it doesn’t always fit neatly into the criteria of the public funding system. As a result the work does end up getting made is often produced on breadcrumb budgets.
Concerning the economic model of your blog, you’ll be aiming for some public funding. What is your attitude towards private sector support, i.e. would you allow bannering etc. on your site to generate income?
At some point in the not too distant future, I'd really like to work on a business plan that considers a range of options when it comes to revenue, such as: commercial advertising; public funding for projects that otherwise wouldn’t happen; commissions for events and public spaces and crowd sourcing, for example – micro donations that add up to fund a particular project. This is not as easy as it sounds though, not least because it’s untried and untested. It would also require a lot of chats with clever people and thinking time.
Currently you seem to do more reporting/commenting than interviews? Plus you have an agenda. How do you source that (are people actively asking you to announce events)?
InterventTech currently offers reviews of work that Abs and I have seen and comment pieces on issues related to the sector. This is combined with information about what’s on in the UK and listings of opportunities for artists. As well as getting more authors on board, the plan for the future is to do more comment pieces and interviews with interesting people, making stuff happen.
I find it really amazing that something like that does not exist within the UK...
I know! Crazy.
…but a great opportunity as well!
Great opportunity! The challenge is finding the right people to ask for the cash (nicely of course) and the right people to contribute to the platform.
Regarding your focus, I guess you're concentrating on the UK because there is a lack of centralised information. Would you otherwise be interested in expanding to a wider territory?
That’s a good question. My feeling is that I concentrate on the UK for a number of reasons.
Because artists working in this area in the UK struggle to get a platform elsewhere.
Although networked technologies are in concept global (so they enable us to connect across geographical boundaries), nuances of technology integration, uptake and use are shaped and guided by the local, (e.g. history, invention, laws, people, environment and place). This gets interesting when you start to think about what technological experience in the UK looks like, and why.
The UK is where I’m based so it’s where the work I can access and experience (other than net art) is located.
If InterventTech goes down this route, it makes it easier to apply for public funding in the future.
In terms of my own personal interest, I’m also fascinated by the impact of technological disruption over time. This involves looking back to the invention of the wheel, the industrial revolution, warfare and arms races, inventions like electricity and the computer and interactions with day-to-day hardware like mobile phones, traffic lights and telecom poles. In other words, the old, the new, the now and the next – not just the networked.
On your point about expanding InterventTech to a wider territory… gosh! I’d love to think something like that could be possible. It would be great to see InterventTechs popping up around the world, providing a platform for local art-tech activity and then linking up as an international force.
Generally, how would you describe the role of blogging in the cultural sector (or new media arts sector)...? That’s to say, what’s the reason for doing it (for you) - is it complementary, alternative voices/values, alternative ways of reporting/writing?
I think blogging is important if you’ve got something new to say that isn’t being said. Otherwise your voice can get lost. I think that well-designed blogs offer a great way to establish a collective voice for an otherwise fragmented scene (e.g., the whole ICA blog on InterventTech gave me confidence in that). I also think they offer a platform for new and ‘other’ voices to get heard, grow in confidence and gain an audience.
Saying that, being creative and making stuff is also really important. Blogs can reflect what’s going on out there and help that work reach more people. But artists and creative action have to be at the core.
Are there any (culture related) blogs you would recommend?
There are a small number of blogs attached to media arts (Eyebeam; WMMNA; Rhizome)... but as I said earlier, they often talk about the same work, artists and projects, and have a tendency to be focused on the US and Asia.
Some blogs I would recommend include Boing Boing, Make, Ars Technica, and Wired.
I would add Digg, and Current – these last two are more recommendation sites.
Anything else you’d like to add?
One other question you might want to ask is, if you could change one thing that you've come up against that doesn’t work, what would it be?
In the case of InterventTech, setting up a website and blog in parallel was a mistake. This has been addressed now. I always feel that I do some stuff pretty badly, but the main guilt trip is wanting to do more than I can realistically achieve.
I guess not being paid for your time and resources must make it more difficult? So that blogging in a way remains a kind of hobby?
Yeah. I mean in terms of the true definition of the word, InterventTech is exactly that – a hobby. It’s an unpaid activity that Abs and I contribute to in our spare time. Something I find funny about me is that I’m reasonably happy to make my contributions for free, but not at all comfortable with asking others to do the same. Regarding paying people, this is basically attached to my principle that, if you want good people to bring something to the table and get involved, you should absolutely pay for that. So over all I think it’s a good principle to have in the long run.
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