Curating multimedia arts festivals: the analysis and development of site-responsive strategies

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The aim of this research is to provide a new critical framework for analysing and developing festival curatorial strategies. This is a partnership between Audio Visual Arts North East (AVANE) and Newcastle University's Fine Art Department , supported by the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies. AVANE's main objective is delivery of the biennial AV Festival of electronic arts, which takes place across the urban centres of Newcastle, Gateshead, Middlesbrough and Sunderland. Using the AV Festival as a case study, this project will critically analyse the site-responsive curatorial strategies of a large-scale electronic arts festival, with a view to conceptualising innovative curatorial strategies to influence practice in multi-media arts festivals. In so doing, it will make a unique contribution to the under-researched field of site-specific festival curatorship.The research sits in a productive but under-researched area between contemporary arts practice, curatorship and site-responsive practice. Current research into festivals tends to focus on social or economic impact, visitor motivation and issues surrounding sustainable tourism. Even with keynote festivals such as Documenta, Skulptur Projekte Münster and the International Symposium of Electronic Arts more is written about individual artworks than the festival as an entity in its own right and its relationship to site. Festivals and competitions drawing on digital resources to creatively occupy public space (e.g. Urban Screens) likewise lack the specific critical context needed to inform innovative models and to consider the challenges posed to new media practice by contemporary, particularly urban, space. The role of curatorship in media festivals is not addressed in most postgraduate curating courses and the result is a substantial skills and knowledge gap which this project seeks to address. The project's overall aim is to provide critical analysis of festival curatorship over a multiple-site urban terrain and inform site-responsive curatorial strategies for such festivals, particularly involving electronic media. The specific aims are:- To develop a new critical framework for analysing festival curation- To propose creative curatorial strategies for multi-media arts festivals- To enable AVANE to reflect on its festival developmentIt is anticipated that the student will address the following objectives:- Provide critical case studies of AV Festivals- Provide analysis of arts and new media festivals and their curatorial strategies- Place AV Festivals within broader national and international context- Identify key issues and apply them to live case study of AV12- Theorise new festival curatorial strategies, through conducted research, particularly with a view to AV14Underpinning this are research questions centred on festivals and curation, such as:Festivals & Practice: How have electronic arts festivals developed? What is the difference between commissioning and curatorship within festivals? How have arts festivals centred around public space evolved, what have the patterns of curatorship been and what are the implications for electronic media? How does electronic media festival practice in the North East relate to practices of multi-media art festival curatorship in the UK and Europe (e.g. Documenta, ISEA) particularly since 2000?Curation: What problems does multiple-site curatorship impose? What is the role of the curator in negotiating/mediating issues of space/place in relation to that of the artist? What are the potentials/problems of new media works across a multiple-site festival? What implications do multi-partner festivals pose for curatorial strategies? To what extent can the festival model itself be theorised as a public intervention?This PhD will be important in critically contextualising and pro