Natalie Bookchin is active in net.art and activism, and is based at CalArts, California. She is currently participating in a residency at MECAD, Barcelona. She was interviewed by email, by Beryl Graham, January 2001.

(This web page features edited excerpts from the interviews. To download a longer 6000-word pdf text file, click here).

Beryl Graham: Do you think that there are any particular features of new media, which really make a difference to the way you work or what you're able to do?

Brendan Jackson: … it makes you work faster, and the work is more impressive and 'flash'. New media does open up more opportunities for us because the end product can be more public - its an opportunity to share it more - it can be more visible …

I think that in terms of the web then it has this incredible potential for distribution … but how do you publicise it and how does anyone get to know about it? The community arts movement has probably been pretty bad at actually documenting the work, and consequently you are always finding people who are reinventing the wheel.

I think that the emergence of all these networks and different communication technologies means that the kind of community based work that we do, doesn't need to be confined to a specific place or location … Sandwell is an interesting case because it has no real town centre, it grew up as a set of six small manufacturing villages … You're from Cradley and you're a foreigner in Wednesbury. So it's an interesting place to be using the Internet, because people are more likely to relate to someone from Helsinki than they are to somebody three miles down the road.

Also, in the process of project work, access to the web has been very useful for us on a number of levels. We did a project about asthma called Ease the Wheeze which started as a CD-ROM and ended up as a strangely shaped information kiosk. It featured a little journey with landmarks like the local factory, but … the most useful factual information came from the web rather than what we got out of any local doctors or the health authority. The important thing though, is what you do with the information once you have got it, especially in terms of the context, site, situation and your local community.

 


Certainly digital media mean you can actually push people's aspirations in terms of quality because so often people think "Well, community art, it's a bit naff isn't it really - terribly worthy but you get a crappy sub-standard product." Whereas most people want things to be as good as anything they see out there in the market place. I think you can get that with using digital media but also there is a danger of it being shallow and superficial and glossy. People's expectations are much higher. I think digital media might be more interesting possibly than the old kind of photo workshops or silkscreen workshops, in that digital media is much more in the high streets, much more in your face. It has been shipped into your homes, workplaces and schools at a tremendous rate - it was quite interesting to see the Sony Go Create campaign which is all about people making their own little videos and life stories - it's been pitched at creating material for your own little niche market - your immediate friends and family.
         


BG: You've had experience both in the USA and Europe. Would you say there are national differences in approach?

BJ: One big difference is the curse and blessing of funding. In the UK … it allows for certain longevity of arts projects but I think that doesn't always encourage risk taking. People like the LAPD (Los Angeles Poverty Department), Gran Fury or Appalshop, they just did what they really wanted to do, not because there was a funding opportunity - that came later. … I've always had the impression in the States though, that it is very focused on The Artist. There are artists like Cherie Gaulke or Kim Abeles whose work does involve people in various ways, but they are more likely to get funding for a project based on their personal artistic reputation rather than its value as a community based project, which I think is an interesting difference.



BG: Many community darkrooms set up in the 70s/80s closed when funding fashions changed. Is there a danger of the same thing happening to new media workshops?

BJ: Yes, it probably will happen - it may be no bad thing … if your whole practice is just based around the fact that you have a digital media suite you will go out of fashion. Again, it's about content really.
 
The real paradox at the moment is that a lot of communication is now mediated by technology and is something quite hidden. Most people, like me, don't fully understand these technologies, so access to them and to be able to do something with them rather than just consume them is important - half the people in Sandwell don't own a car let alone a computer. We did a three-year project with Roz Hall and the University of Central England, which looked at the production and consumption of digital imagery by young people. Working class youth around here are consumer fodder - they go out and buy the Playstation games but do not necessarily make stuff or have opportunities to get involved in the making of it, so a lot of our work is around that issue.



BG: Mainstream art galleries and museums sometimes engage with 'community' art - have you experienced any particularly good (or bad) examples?

BJ: The cynic's view is that a lot of mainstream art galleries will engage with the community because they want to access funding - because it's their criteria or their accountability. In our experience it certainly can be an uneasy dynamic between a curator, an education officer or a 'new audiences development officer' (pick a job title). There is a certain pecking order or prestige attached … Years ago our exhibition called Bickle, made with Afro-Caribbean elders, … got quoted in libraries and museums reports as a model project … but it never appeared in the hallowed art galleries.
 
The New Art Gallery in Walsall has built up some quite good relationships with other groups in the borough like Walsall Youth Arts or the Wallsall Community Arts Team and it certainly seems there is a kind of willingness to realise that a partnership is a two-way street. It's not a 'top down' bringing the goods down from the high table to the people at the low table, it's a recognition that you will all bring skills and ideas and experience to the table.
 
We did a project with the Ikon … called Art on your Doorstep … The Ikon curators, education staff etc. did sit down and evaluate it and (no surprise to a community artist) you can engage people, they are interested and you can do some positive and interesting work …



BG: What three bits of advice would you give to arts workers and curators engaging with new media community art?

BJ:

1. Be prepared to take risks, do something challenging rather than always repeating something tried and tested. I think funders need to recognise that sometimes they need to be prepared to fund risks.

2. Network and share - there is usually someone else out there doing what you do or want to do - find them. They may not necessarily be other artists.

3. Be persistent. If you stick around long enough, you'll get subsumed into the structure, but that doesn't mean you need to be institutionalised and neutralised. Yes, it's important to run an organisation in a fair and equitable way, but if you spend more time working with consultants on a Human Resources Plan than with people out there, on the street, and if you spend more time talking about the art rather than actually doing the art, then you're going nowhere fast.



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