Field Broadcast

Co-exhibitors:

Bram Thomas Arnold, Ed Atkins, Dave Ball and Oliver Walker, Christopher Bassford and Jonathan Ryall, Richard Bevan, Sara Bjarland, Martin John Callanan, Susan Collins, Dan Coopey, Alexander Costello, David Cotterrell, Michael Cousin, Juan Cruz, Sean Edwards, Simon Faithfull, Florencia Guillen, Hamilton, Southern and St Armand, Toby Huddlestone and Sarah Jane Parton, Fritha Jenkins, David Kefford, Olivier Leger, Pernille Leggat Ramfelt, Neil Luck, Revati Mann, Elizabeth McTernan, Alex Pearl, Eric Rosoman, Jennie Savage, Rob Smith, Dan Walwin, Ian Whittlesea, Luke Williams, Laura Wilson.

Field Broadcast was a live broadcasting network/ project/ platform/ contraption that enabled artists to make artworks that forge a direct link between the place they were broadcasting from and their audience. The broadcasts were received live through a downloadable application allowing an event to be dispersed through the internet to a global audience.

Artists were equipped with laptops, video cameras and a dongle (mobile internet connection) to enable them to make live broadcasts from the field. These broadcasts could take the form of streaming video and audio, still images, text and virtually anything that could be sent via the internet. Live broadcast did not allow for post production or further mediation and the environment and the landscape become an agent in the work, directly influencing the outcome of the broadcast.

These broadcasts were received by an audience who had downloaded specially built software that ran on the computer desktop. This software alerted any viewers who were online when a broadcast went live with a loud ‘ping’ and displayed the broadcast from the field in a window on the desktop.

The times of the broadcasts were not announced. This meant that a viewer could encounter an artwork in quite unexpected circumstances. Any broadcast transmitted was received by any viewer who has their computer switched on and connected to the Internet- whether it was at a kitchen table, in an office or while on the telephone. Equally if you were not online you would miss a broadcast. This ‘you have to be there’ approach develops an engagement with the artwork as an event.