Antisocial Notcurating

Symposium:


Session Title:
  • Curating in/as Open System(s)

Presentation Title:
  • Antisocial Notcurating

Presenter(s):


Abstract:

  • antisocial notworking (running Rui Guerra’s www_hack), project.arnolfini is an online experimental production and management system that is linked to the physical spaces and the curatorial programme of Arnolfini (an arts organization in Bristol, UK). It is currently divided into the following main sections: the dump where all digital media is collected but remains unorganized; a number of tools, such as hierarchical blogs and wikis that are available to select and organize materials; an archive that also draws upon the materials in the dump and organizes them in a systematic manner; and finally, the curated collection of online projects. The sections correspond with levels of control and degrees of user feedback using common data.

    Consistent with these principles, antisocial networking is a current project: an online repository for the submission of new and existing works that explore the pseudoagency of online social platforms. It takes a number of recent software projects as its inspiration to reflect upon the fashion for ‘participation’ with the arts sector and culture in general. The concern is how the Internet is increasingly characterized as a ‘platform’ (or collective machine) for ‘social’ uses, but to question what is meant by the terms in such descriptions. Emergent curatorial forms (using social technologies) are undoubtedly dissimilar to the ways in which social relations have been traditionally organized, but, in general, appear to reinforce existing power structures.

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