| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Nicky Bird

This version was saved 12 years, 6 months ago View current version     Page history
Saved by Nicky Bird
on September 14, 2011 at 10:27:03 am
 

For the production of my paper I want to discuss the differences between encounter and access, and although masked by a ‘neo-liberalism’ (Beech, Proctor, Stallabrass), there lies an arguably feminist impulse (hooks, Pollock et al) at the heart of ‘broadening access’ to the arts. I will draw on two recent experiences as an artist working in the field, where stories of collaborators prompted during a digital art process, then become part of public exhibition. The role of the artefact will also be considered, particularly how the digital artefact allows a certain generosity both in terms of encounter, access and then its circulation in the wider world.  I will include skeptical and dissenting voices that not only question the terms on which participation and collaboration operate within contemporary art, and how this maintains the status quo (Bishop et al), but also draw upon emerging critical photographic discourses on what current web technology enables. In particular, how social networking and the circulation of the digital photograph shifts away from ‘close’ encounter with artefacts - and institutions - to more porous activity, consumption and appropriation found in virtual spaces (Bate, Lister, Rubinstein & Sluis).

 

Biography

Nicky Bird is an artist whose work investigates the contemporary relevance of found photographs, the hidden histories of archives and specific sites. She is interested in a key question: what is our relationship to the past, and what is the value we ascribe to it? Since her practice-led PhD at Leeds University (1994-99) she has explored this through photography, bookworks, the Internet and New Media. In varying ways, she is interested in creating artworks that make visible the process of collaboration. These collaborations are with people who have significant connections to materials originally found in archives

 

In 2008 Nicky received a major Stills photographic commission for the project Beneath the surface / Hidden Place, which toured across Scotland last year. Residencies, such as the home of Julia Margaret Cameron (2000), have been pivotal to earlier works such as the publication Tracing Echoes (2001). Solo shows include Question for Seller (Belfast Exposed, 2006), to which eBay and found photographs were central. The bookwork Question for Seller was selected for Alt-W’s 2008 survey show at the CCA, exhibited alongside another bookwork Gay Interest Beefcake (2008) now in the collection of the International Center of Photography, New York. Alongside residencies, exhibitions, and contributions to arts journalism, Nicky is currently a part-time PhD Co-Coordinator at Glasgow School of Art. 

 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.