Introduction

Abstract

In the context of a rapidly changing domain of contemporary electronic art practice- where the speed of technological innovation and the topicality of art 'process as research' methods are both under constant revision- the process of collaboration between art, computer science and engineering is an important addition to existing 'R&D'. Scholarly as well as practical exploration of artistic methods, viewed in relation to the field of new technology, can be seen to enable and foster innovation in both the conceptualisation and practice of the electronic arts. At the same time, citing new media art in the context of technological innovation brings a mix of scientific and engineering issues to the fore and thereby demands an extended functionality that may lead to R&D, as technology attempts to take account of aesthetic and social considerations in its re-development. This new field of new media or electronic art R&D is different from research and development aimed at practical applications of new technologies as we see them in everyday life. A next step for Research and Development in Art (aRt&D) is a formalisation of the associated work methods, as an essential ingredient for interdisciplinary collaboration.

This study investigates how electronic art patches together processes and methods from the arts, engineering and computer science environments. It provides a framework describing the electronic art methods to improve collaboration by informing others about one’s artistic research and development approach. This investigation is positioned in the electronic art laboratory where new alliances with other disciplines are established. It provides information about the practical and theoretical aspects of the research and development processes of artists.

The investigation addresses fundamental questions about the ‘research and development methods’ (discussed and defined at length in these pages), of artists who are involved in interdisciplinary collaborations amongst and between the fields of Art, Computer Science, and Engineering. The breadth of the fields studied necessarily forced a tight focus on specific issues in the literature, addressed herein through a series of focused case studies which demonstrate the points of synergy and divergence between the fields of artistic research and development, in a wider art&D' context. The artistic methods proposed in this research include references from a broad set of fields (e.g. Technology, Media Arts, Theatre and Performance, Systems Theories, the Humanities, and Design Practice) relevant to and intrinsically intertwined with this project and its placement in an interdisciplinary knowledge domain.

The aRt&D Matrix provides a complete overview of the observed research and development methods in electronic arts, including references to related disciplines and methods from other fields.

The new Matrix developed and offered in this thesis also provides an instrument for analysing the interdisciplinary collaboration process that exclusively reflects the information we need for the overview of the team constellation. The tool is used to inform the collaborators about the backgrounds of the other participants and thus about the expected methods and approaches. It provides a map of the bodies of knowledge and expertise represented in any given cross-disciplinary team, and thus aims to lay the groundwork for a future aRt&D framework of use to future scholars and practitioners alike.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for all the support and patience of my supervisors in London, SMARTlab Centre, Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, University of the Arts London: Professor Lizbeth Goodman and James Swinson. I am very grateful for the feedback and dedication of my external supervisor in Amsterdam: Professor Lynda Hardman, part-time full professor in multimedia and internet computing at the Technical University of Eindhoven[1] and head of the Semantic Media Interfaces group at the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI)[2], in the Netherlands. This thesis would not have been possible without this support.

I would also like to thank all artists with whom I have worked and/or exchanged ideas. Special thanks go to the artists and researchers who participated in one or more case studies, or contributed to the critical context upon which this work is built: Kristina Andersen, Matthew Fuller, Eléonore Hellio, Susan Kozel, Joachim Montessuis, Angelika Oei, Thecla Schiphorst, Rene Verouden and their teams. Also special thanks to all participants of the discussed seminars and workshops, especially to: Guy Van Belle, Stefano Bocconi, Sheelagh Carpendale, Márton Fernezelyi, Amy Franceschini, Joost Geurts, Margarete Jahrmann, Laurent Mignonneau, Marko Peljhan, Michael Punt, Bradley Rhodes, Ben Schouten, Phoebe Sengers, Arnold Smeulders, Christa Sommerer, Zoltán Szegedy-Maszák, Julie Tolmie, Sha Xin Wei and to all critical voices in the field.

The major importance of practice as input for this study illustrates that this work would not have been possible without the constant exchange and collaboration with my V2_Lab team and colleagues at V2_, Institute for the Unstable Media, in the Netherlands. For this I am especially grateful to: Alex Adriaansens, Gabrielle Anceaux, Artm Baguinski, Simon de Bakker, Marjolein Berger, Joke Brouwer, Jasper Op de Coul, Michel van Dartel, Sandra Fauconnier, Rens Frommé, Erik Kemperman, Siuli Ko-Pullan, Stephen Kovats, Brigit Lichtenegger, Hein Morel van Mourik, Arjen Mulder, Frank Nack, Eliane Roest, Stock, Antoine van de Ven, Nadine Walaardt, Pascal Woudenberg.

Special thanks also go to the contributors of the aRt&D book, and to my peer researchers: Sher Doruff and Sara Diamond, and to Daniela Plewe for her critical feedback and Angela Plohman for assistance with text editing and grammar checking the final version of this thesis (as English is not my first language), and Madi Kolpa and Lenno Verhoog for advice on text lay-out.

Last, but not least, I am grateful to my friends and loved ones - especially Aletta Kliphuis - for their patience and involvement throughout this study.

Table of contents

Preface

During my professional career, my work has slowly changed from practising media art towards an art and technology management practice via a combined profession of media art, management and technical facilitation. This slight detour provided me with the required knowledge for today’s media, or electronic, art practice. A media art laboratory manager is a mediator, someone who needs to be able to communicate with collaborators and professional partners with very different backgrounds, intentions, objectives and work methods. Although this can sometimes be a tedious process, it is rewarding if one is able to establish enriching and unforeseen connections. This paradigm in the interactive and electronic arts offers opportunities to critique, develop and connect with other movements and developments in society.

At first, this PhD research was considered as a practice-based research in the most common way: one part would be the artwork and the other part theory. This was problematic for me, since I felt that it would be ethically incorrect to appropriate the artistic, technical and scientific work of others and label this as my ‘artwork’. However, my daily practice consists of working together with artists. Therefore, my study interprets ‘practice-based research’ as a full theoretical research informed through my daily practice. The positive outcome of this is this dissertation: a detailed study where one can find connections to improve one’s practice. I offer this PhD as a resource and possible future publication to share the experience of this research with the scholarly and practical media art communities, in the hope that it may help to foster new methods in future team working amongst artists, technicians and (computer) scientists.

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