[spectre] Live Feed

[Garrett Lynch]

Announcing the release of documentation online of the Livefeed 
performances, a live and wireless video weekend residency.  All videos 
by:

Charlotte Bernstein
Dominique Rivoal
Garrett Lynch
Helen Pritchard
Jes Benstock
Laura Malacart
Lucy Panesar
Melissa Bliss
Mike Padmore
Neil C. Smith
Ron Hagell
Tahera Aziz

Website / texts and other documentation by:

Garrett Lynch

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Live Feed
http://www.asquare.org/project/livefeed/

Live Feed was a three day weekend artists residence held at Kench Hill, 
a beautiful 18th century Georgian house in the Kentish Weald between 
Tenterden and Appledore, England from the 20th to 22nd of May 2005.

Its aim was to pull together artists from various backgrounds such as 
liveart, performance, improvised performance, collaborative 
performance, performance journalism, dance, choreography, sound, 
qigong, behind the camera, video, net.art, new media art, digital art, 
filmmaking, photography, installation, coordinating performance events, 
lecturing, curating, criticism etc. to create a laboratory of practical 
collaborative experimentation with video components such as tapeless, 
wireless and digital cameras, radio links, remote control devices, 
video mixers, projectors, monitors and mobile phones. Participants were 
encouraged to foster an openhearted sharing approach to experimenting 
and working with equipment through on the spot collaborations. No video 
post-production equipment was used in performances or their 
documentation.

Throughout the three day residency artists worked in groups to 
experiment with equipment and techniques around multiple themes and 
ideas; live feeds in performances, one to one, one to many and many to 
one methods of interaction and control, networks, explorations of the 
invisible world of transmissions, surveillance, remote control, remote 
links between different locations, the space between artworks, artist 
and audience, technology and the body, storytelling, improvisation, 
self-generating artworks etc. As themes and ideas were explored, groups 
continually changed in size and members with each participant deciding 
where they wanted to be and when. This continually created hubs of 
experimentation, which rapidly reached a critical mass and refined, 
evolved or diverged from the initial starting point ensuring the groups 
developed without detriment to individual artists concerns.

Video was employed both as integral to and a means of documenting 
performances, often as both simultaneously. It became something that 
could be truly explored and treated irreverently as cost of equipment, 
length of footage to record on, size, weight and invasiveness of the 
camera etc. were less of an issue. Instead, signal interference, range, 
resolution, orientation and placement of the camera etc. emerged as 
issues which created both new constraints and possibilities more akin 
to wireless networks than video. This necessitated thinking about the 
use of technology and bodies, media and performers as nodes in a 
network.

The Livefeed website is documentation of the performances which 
occurred during the three days.  While it acknowledges that none would 
have occurred without the participation of everybody mentioned and the 
wealth of diversity they each brought to the performances, all 
information on the site is presented within the context of the artist 
Garrett Lynch's work concerned with networks.  This is not a net.art 
work but a work of network art exploring firstly the usually technical 
interpret of networks in new media, except here short distance, often 
line of sight transmission, moving image and audio in nature alongside 
secondly networks created by people pulling together ideas, references 
and skills under common themes.

Live Feed was organised as part of DIY, an initiative of the Live Art 
Advisory Network - Artsadmin, the Live Art Development Agency and New 
Work Network DIY 3:2005 and was financially supported by the Live Art 
Development Agency, Artsadmin and Arts Council England, South East.

a+
gar
__________________
Garrett at asquare.org
http://www.asquare.org/