Dominic Smith
Works in Whitley Bay United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

BIO
Dominic Smith is a UK based artist and curator whose practice explores open source methods of project development through a hands-on, open approach to working with art & technology.

He has a doctorate with CRUMB at Sunderland University that examines the relationship between open source production methods and methods employed by artists and curators. His current research focuses on the connective nature of digital platforms and materialisation of transient media.

Up until April 2014 he was in post at the Tyneside Cinema as Curator of Digital Media Art, curating the Pixel Palace digital arts programme. As part of this programme he developed Basic.fm a highly regarded sound art web radio station that embraces collaboration and experimentation. He is now freelance developing a number art and technology based projects including working as Curator of Digital Memorials for the Society of Chief Librarians and works as consultant curator with Queens Hall Hexham building a creative digital media programme.
Discussions (1) Opportunities (10) Events (1) Jobs (1)
OPPORTUNITY

basic.fm & or-bits.com: 128kbps objects


Deadline:
Mon Oct 08, 2012 17:00

Location:
Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

or-bits.com is inviting artists to submit work for inclusion in the project 128kbps objects, a week-long internet radio broadcast on basic.fm that will explore the idea of objects in transformation.

basic.fm is a net radio broadcast project initiated by Pixel Palace. We are looking after it and nurturing it in the hope that one day it will grow up to be big and strong. basic.fm stands for Broadcast Art, Sound and Independent Culture. It is a slow growing project; each month we add new features and work.

The project 128kbps objects will look into contemporary notions of object-hood across a variety of artistic practices, mediums and sites, investigating the potentials of displaying objects sonically. It will take into considerations the characteristics of the web-tool employed, the internet radio, such as the erasure of visual language, the loss of direct interaction with artistic content, the relationship between speed and quality, for which, for instance, all the sonic data above quality threshold of 128 kilo bytes per second are cancelled out.

How would an object manifest itself, be thought of, described or narrated when its inherent material quality are taken away, when the viewer is not confronted with its visual appearance? How can an art object be thought of in relation to the nature of its reception and social presence within the context of an internet radio broadcast?

Many and varied are the discourses about the relationship between object-hood, medium and distribution, starting from Walter Benjamin’s observations on mechanical reproductions, and many are the trajectories these discourses have opened up: from looking at base materiality to social interaction, from the aura of the work of art to the disappearance of medium-specificity.
For Maurice Merleau-Ponty “to turn an object upside-down is to deprive it of its meaning” because it looses its spatial coordinates when confronted with the viewer, it looses its “natural position”. (in “Phenomenology of Perception”, 1945). Rosalind Krauss discusses spatiality through looking at the relationship between the object and the viewer’s field, and when writing about Robert Smithson’s mirrors in thw work “Enantiomorphic Chambers” (1964), says “it is not just the viewer’s body that cannot occupy this space, then, it is the beholder’s visual logic as well; Chambers explores what must be called a kind of “structural blindness”” (in “Formless. A User’s Guide”, 2007). Others, such as writers and critics more concerned with the status of the digital object or the so-called Post-Internet art, write about objects in connection to current “Internet-users tactics” employed by artists (Artie Vierkant in “The Image Object Post-Internet”, 2010), focusing on information dispersion, multiplicity of formats and convergence of mediums; “objects have lost exclusive singular spatial properties. They exist and manifest in fluid forms through different media. In this, there is no moral hierarchy or pure differentiation in authenticity” as Gene Gene McHugh writes in the press release of Harm van den Dorpel’s show “Rhododendron” at W139 in Amsterdam (“Endless Problem”, 2011).


or-bits.com has invited an array of artists, new and already featured on its online exhibitions, writers, curators and organisations to create a work or represent an existing one in response to the above text.

We also want to open up this project to other artists we don’t know and we are looking for contributions that will reflect and expand on these themes, or question them.

We look forward to receiving your contributions,
or-bits.com and basic.fm

Submission Guidelines:

Submission can be in the form of a sound work, music, a reading, a performance or an interview. They can be proposed to be broadcasted as a one-off or as a series to be presented at different times during the week of broadcast. This is an unpaid opportunity.

If you are submitting/describing potential playlists, or excerpts of other artists’ works, you will have to include a full list detailing name of artist, title of work, year and copyright holder, i.e. Distributor/record label (basic.fm holds PLL/PRS licences).

Sound files should be in mp3 128kbps format.

Deadline for submissions: 8 October 2012
Dates of broadcast: 22-28 October 2012

Submissions should be made via the basic.fm website: http://www.basic.fm/?page_id=1291


OPPORTUNITY

basic.fm - Reuse Aloud


Deadline:
Mon Nov 12, 2012 17:10

Location:
Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

On 01/03/2013 we will take over the radio. For one month we will broadcast across the airwaves. There is no agenda; there is no pre-defined outcome. This is an inclusive action initiated by Will Strong and Rosanna Skett, hosted on basic.fm. Reuse Aloud poses questions about originality in the digital age.

Since the boom of the Internet in the mid 1990’s, culture has been revolutionised by the ready availability of ideas and inspiration on a global scale instantly. While appropriation within the arts existed previously, open source culture has accelerated the attainment and re-distribution of material. Data can easily be obtained from the online cache, re-appropriated and re-dispersed as new. We are part of the remix generation.

“A remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. Sometimes this term is also used for alterations of media or recreation other than song. Remixing is the adoption, alteration, and recombination of pre-
existing cultural texts to create something new.”

Definition: ‘Remix’, Wikipedia


Chopped and changed, re-arranged and re-branded, collected and disseminated; the very essence of originality is being tested. Within this borderless exchange of data and ideas, artists choose to practice; gathering original sources and sowing the seed ‘remixed’. There is the potential to reach a wide audience quickly and work can be made cheaply or for free. Reuse Aloud questions; is work derived from a pre-existing, original source able to be unique on its own terms? Furthermore, when re-appropriating and publishing, can the titles ‘author’ and ‘owner’ apply?

Using the platform of basic.fm, Reuse Aloud is calling for work that considers and embodies these questions, they will then be built into a program for broadcast. The basis of this call for submissions is Creative Commons, and more specifically the CC BY licence, (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) the license that gives anyone free reign to mix, manipulate, re-work and share any material that is branded with it as long as you attribute the original creator, along with the new work. We invite people to engage with this theme by using pre-existing, CC BY licensed sources as a starting point.

The transmission will be installed in the gallery setting, making the radio physical and the broadcast interactive. We will host opening and closing events, the latter being a live broadcast marathon. We are looking for resolved or existing work as well as proposals for new pieces. We welcome multi-disciplinary practice engaging these concerns, but crucially all submissions must generate an audio output.

basic.fm is a net radio broadcast project initiated by Pixel Palace. We are looking after it and nurturing it in the hope that one day it will grow up to be big and strong. basic.fm stands for Broadcast Art, Sound and Independent Culture. It is a slow growing project; each month we add new features and work. We will continue to commission new work for basic.fm that will sit in the background and play between timetabled & regular shows.

Submission Criteria

Submissions to Reuse Aloud can take the form of pre-existing work, a proposal for new work or proposition for a live program.

Length: There is no limit to the length of work submitted or proposed pieces.

Language: The main spoken language of Reuse Aloud will be English. We will however accept audio work in all languages.

Deadline: The deadline for submissions will be Monday 12th November 2012.

Artists will be notified via email regarding the outcome of their submitted or proposed work(s).
This is an unpaid opportunity but all selected contributions will be fully credited and linked appropriately to relevant websites and/or sources. This call is open to all, regardless of nationality, age, or career stage.

Submissions should be made via the basic.fm website: http://www.basic.fm/?page_id=1218


OPPORTUNITY

Call for Work on basic.fm


Deadline:
Mon Jun 11, 2012 17:00

Location:
Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Basic.fm is an online radio station that forms part of Pixel Palace, an exciting programme of digital arts and new media at Tyneside Cinema. Basic.fm (Broadcast Art, Sound & Independent Culture) is an online space that can be inhabited by artists, curators, thinkers and interesting people with something to share.

Since launching in November 2011, basic.fm has commissioned an exciting number of leading artists, including Mark Vernon, The Noize Choir, Ed Carter, Sarah Boothroyd and Vicki Bennett (People Like Us).

In August, Pixel Palace is exhibiting a new commission, Mariner 9 by Kelly Richardson – an epic video art installation at Whitley Bay’s historic Spanish City Dome this August. This exhibition will coincide with the landing of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory aka “Curiosity”, on the planet Mars.

In a 12 metre-long panoramic installation, the work is a human-scale version of Mars a century or two from now, and a battlefield of real and imagined spacecraft in the centre of a dust storm. Taking NASA’s own imagery and technical data of the Martian landscape, Kelly has created an uber-realistic red planet, minutely replicating its distinctive geology, weather patterns and soundscape.
For more on Mariner 9 visit: http://www.thepixelpalace.org/events/mariner9
What we are looking for

We are seeking participation from artists, curators, collectors and archivists on the themes surrounding Mariner 9 e.g. space, mars, the environment and sci-fi. Contributions will be scheduled to play on basic.fm from 1st August 2012. Submissions can include new or existing work, collections, archival material, sound art, spoken word, curated programmes and interviews.

The deadline for submissions is Monday 11th June 2012 at 5pm (GMT)

Artists will be notified via email regarding the outcome of their submitted or proposed work(s).

This is an unpaid opportunity but all selected contributions will be fully credited and linked appropriately to relevant websites and/or sources. This call is open to all, regardless of nationality, age, or career stage.

To submit, please visit: http://www.basic.fm/?page_id=136


OPPORTUNITY

Pixel Palace & The Factory: Artist in Residence 2012


Deadline:
Mon May 07, 2012 17:00

Location:
Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Tyneside Cinema is excited to announce that we are now accepting applications for the Pixel Palace Artist in Residence programme 2012 in collaboration with The Factory.

The Factory is an informal drop in space for young people from 14 to 19 years old to make and learn about digital art, film and technology in their own time. The group meet every Monday from 5pm till 7pm at the Tyneside Cinema. With professional equipment and experts on hand, The Factory is a peer-led environment with the opportunity to learn about everything from film and animation to motion graphics and anything in between.

The residency offer is to artists of international calibre working in new technologies and moving image with a focus on participatory practice that compliments and informs the current Pixel Palace programme. The residency will be an active period of time for an artist to develop exploratory / inquiry based work in collaboration with The Factory group. It is integral that skills and knowledge between the artist and the young people are shared through the atelier process, accommodating varying stages of development and interests within the group.

In addition, the artist will also have access to a residency space which will be shared with other artists and is based in the social environment of the cinema, creating opportunities to produce live events and develop formal and informal discussions. Support is provided to develop new work via a well resourced studio, editing suite and access to high end AV equipment. Opportunities will be available to engage with the working cinema and its surroundings.

About Tyneside Cinema

Tyneside Cinema’s mission is to bring as many people as possible together in our venue to experience, enjoy and engage with the past, present and future of cinema.

About Pixel Palace

The Pixel Palace programme extends the cinema’s mission by working with new media artists and curators working in digital arts to not only reflect upon cinema’s past, but to engage new audiences in its expanded present and pervasive future.

Pixel Palace is delighted to be supported by Arts Council England through the National Portfolio funding programme.

The selected artist is offered:

- Studio space for 2 months at the Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle
- A development fee of £2800
- Travel expenses (one return journey from place of origin to Newcastle and back)
- 2 months accommodation
- Materials/production costs (negotiable)
- Access to the Tyneside cinemas resources including Sony V1s, an editing suite including Avid and Final Cut as well as a suite of standard AV software.

Start date: Monday 2 July 2012

End date: Friday 31 August 2012

Where: Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

How to apply:

- A brief (200 words maximum) description of your proposed work in collaboration with The Factory
- A link to 5 online examples of work in form of images, audio and/or video format demonstrating participatory practice and evidence of working with young people.
- CV

Please add the reference ‘AIRFactory’ to your application documents

Selection is based on the following criteria:

- The quality of the artist’s work
- Evidence of past engagement with artists at mixed stages of development
- The artistic merit of the proposed work
- The benefit to be gained by the artist
- The benefit to be gained by Pixel Palace
- Evidence of the ability to work independently

Submission deadline: Monday 7th May 2012, 5pm

Send to: info@thepixelpalace.org

Find out more about the Factory here: http://www.thepixelpalace.org/the-factory


OPPORTUNITY

Pixel Palace: Artist in Residence 2012


Deadline:
Mon May 07, 2012 17:00

Location:
Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Tyneside Cinema is excited to announce that we are now accepting applications for the Pixel Palace Artist in Residence programme 2012

The residency offer is to artists of international calibre working in new technologies and moving image. Support is provided to develop new work via a well resourced studio, editing suite and access to high end AV equipment. Opportunities will be available to engage with the working cinema and its surroundings. The selected artist will also exchange skills and knowledge with artists and young people (including Tyneside Cinema’s Factory group) with varying stages of development through participation in the atelier process.

The residency will be an active period of time for an artist to develop exploratory/inquiry based work that compliments and informs the current Pixel Palace programme. The residency space will be shared with other artists and is based in the social environment of the cinema, creating opportunities to produce live events and develop formal and informal discussions.

About Tyneside Cinema

Tyneside Cinema’s mission is to bring as many people as possible together in our venue to experience, enjoy and engage with the past, present and future of cinema.

About Pixel Palace

The Pixel Palace programme extends the cinema’s mission by working with new media artists and curators working in digital arts to not only reflect upon cinema’s past, but to engage new audiences in its expanded present and pervasive future.

Pixel Palace is delighted to be supported by Arts Council England through the National Portfolio funding programme.

The selected artist is offered:

- Studio space for 2 months at the Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle
- A development fee of £2800
- Travel expenses (one return journey from place of origin to Newcastle and back
- 2 months accommodation
- Material/production costs (negotiable)
- Access to the Tyneside cinemas resources including Sony V1s, an editing suite including Avid and Final Cut as well as a suite of standard AV software.

Start date: Monday 2 July 2012

End date: Friday 31 August 2012

Where: Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

How to apply:

- A brief (200 words maximum) description of your proposed work
- A link to 5 online examples of work in form of images, audio and/or video format
- CV

Please add the reference ‘AIR2012’ to your application documents

Selection is based on the following criteria:

- The quality of the artist’s work
- Evidence of past engagement with artists at mixed stages of development
- The artistic merit of the proposed work
- The benefit to be gained by the artist
- The benefit to be gained by Pixel Palace
- Evidence of the ability to work independently

Submission deadline: Monday 7th May 2012, 5pm

Send to: info@thepixelpalace.org