Innovating electrofringe: a distributed curatorial platform for electronic art

Abstract

This thesis proposes that distributed curating is a form of cultural innovation that offers benefits to community-led arts organisations. Given the uncertainty of public funding for the arts, leaders in the creative industries take personal and financial risks in uncharted, entrepreneurial territory. In response, curators and creative practitioners are utilising new technologies for production, presentation, and engagement. It is necessary to generate, test, and evaluate new models of cultural production to develop sustainable initiatives. This practice-based research project examines the Sydney arts organisation Electrofringe to investigate current issues in the organisational infrastructures of community platforms for electronic and new media arts. Through two years of professional practice in my executive position as artistic director from 2016 to 2018, I examined the curatorial process and organisational infrastructure of Electrofringe through the application of reflective curatorial practice and design thinking. Furthermore, this thesis proposes and analyses a new curatorial model based on innovating (the organisation), distributing (the labour), and networking (the community) for future use by subsequent Electrofringe personnel. The analysis is based on observation, action, and reflection across four key Electrofringe events. This research generates applied knowledge regarding how to distribute curatorial practice by developing new means of sharing agency with others and identifying methods of using proprietary and open-source tools for supporting distributed curation. The outcomes of the research provide a comprehensive guideline with theoretical groundings and practical realisations, which contributes evidence to the emerging research field of contemporary curatorial practice and offers a sustainable model for community-led arts organisations.