connectivity

by Ben Spencer, 27 Mar 2009

Talking about writing for the PAR+RS web site, it’s been pointed that I am not really writing a blog, so I’m going to attempt to comment more in the spirit of the medium. And I’ll probably stray off message as, in the spirit of blogging, it seems more appropriate to reflect on what I’ve been doing rather than directly address a particular issue arising from the projects under consideration. More of that another time …

The prompt to write this blog was a particularly busy and varied fortnight which I was reminded of over dinner at the weekend. A friend was espousing a hierarchy of communication to be worked through starting, from the top, with a face-to-face meeting. If that is not possible, a ‘phone call is preferable to email which is favoured over text messaging etc. Social networking and Twitter also entered the fray. While our other guests may have had some sympathy for the views about the merits, courtesy and effectiveness of each means of communication, the adherence to this hierarchy was shouted down… We argued the medium needs to be appropriate to the message or to the person – there are some people I can only reach by text, including in a work context. Or economic factors may determine how we contact people – the cost of communication determines an alternative hierarchy…

Why do I raise this? I suppose I want to reflect on working practices and how we connect with people and what makes that interaction successful, or not. For instance, that fortnight, I attended a number of face-to-face ‘events’. Even these varied … some of the face-to-face contact was on a one-to-one basis – what I might term discursive, information finding exercises. Or work development – meetings with a focus on how to progress a particular piece of work. A number of these events were group meetings – dialogue and information sharing exercises, or participating in policy discussions over Creative Scotland and the National Campaign for the Arts. And I also participated in a consultation exercise on the Visual Arts Blueprint produced by Creative and Cultural Skills. All face-to-face, but very different and I suppose their success depended on knowing what the purpose of the meeting was and if both / all parties were approaching the dialogue from the same perspective.

And then, in one of those strange circular coincidences of life, I attended a talk organised by Culture and Sport Glasgow when Gordon Torr referred to my ‘blog’ on this site which cited his provocation at the Creative Clusters Conference. Are we all just turning into digital ‘ground hogs’? Other talks in the snapshot series were presented by Philip Schlesinger, Director of the Centre for Cultural Policy Research at Glasgow University; John Holden of Demos; and Andrew Pearmain, Research Fellow in History at the University of East Anglia.

And of course thinking back to that fortnight, I will have received newsletters, alerts, postings by email including, perhaps: " publicartonline, art rabbit, Voluntary Arts Scotland, e-Flux, artsJournal, Scottish Arts Council various departments but particularly the Visual Arts News and Opportunities, Arts Council England, RSA Arts and Ecology, a-n Artists Information Company, Holyrood Listserver, artshub, Scottish Artists Union, NESTA. And the journals dropping through my letterbox… And all the ’phone calls…

I suppose my point is that, as in communication, a successful project relies on a whole panoply of contacts, meetings, reports, events and happenings. And different types and sources of information to stimulate thinking and debate about a project. There is no one way to determine how to take a project forward. Occasionally something completely serendipitous will happen to move things on, just as sometimes completely bizarre things land in my inbox – I refer to one such distraction for your enjoyment!

Ben Spencer
March 2009