audit your organisation...

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Jake Harries

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Jun 8, 2011, 6:21:54 PM6/8/11
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Hi
Following the links...

http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/our-work/reshaping/

http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/media/uploads/digital.pdf

http://toolkit.getambition.com/

http://toolkit.getambition.com/category/ambition-methodology/audit-your-organisation/


A digital native is anyone who has “grown-up digital”: they will be under the age of 28, and have a completely different understanding of IT and digital to anyone over that age. Over that age, you may have staff members who are technology early adopters, or digital enthusiasts. These staff are not to become your new IT/digital tsars: that’s not their job; but their enthusiasm, understanding and energy around digital may well help support your digital development journey.”



--


Hmmmm..
Jake
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Jake Harries, Digital Arts Programme Manager,
ACCESS SPACE, 3-7  Sidney St, Sheffield, S1 4RG, UK
t: +44 (0) 114 249 5522   w: www.access-space.org
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Simon Biggs

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Jun 9, 2011, 3:06:06 AM6/9/11
to acedigi...@googlegroups.com
Unbelievable.

I'm 54 and started using computers before I was 10 (my dad was a first
generation computer scientist). I built my own graphics dedicated computer
when I was 17 (they were simpler then) and was using the internet (via an
acoustic coupler and a standard phone-line) in the 1970's. My son is now 11.
He has had his own computers since he was very little. He has elementary
programming skills (in Scratch and Processing) and uses the internet
everyday via 50 MB broadband. A few of his friends at school (which is near
to the Informatics Department of a large University - some of them are the
children of computer scientists) are also at this level but most are not,
with no experience of programming. What they do have a lot of experience of
is computer games, Facebook and texting.

Who is the digital native here? How do "they" define this? I would argue
that digital literacy involves having a fundamental knowledge of computer
theory and the engineering behind it. Being able to programme is a basic
requirement. Describing somebody as a digital native because they have used
computers from an early age is meaningless. If we took this approach to
automobiles then engineers would know nothing about how they work.

I would not want a non-technical person running my IT programme, although I
wouldn't want a techie running it either. The advice from ACE is a
simplistic and stupid mis-reading of Kath Hales. Anybody following it is
risking their organisation. ACE should be ashamed. Who advised them to put
out this junk?

Best

Simon


On 08/06/2011 23:21, "Jake Harries" <jakeh...@gmail.com> wrote:

> *³A digital native is anyone who has ³grown-up digital²: they will be under


> the age of 28, and have a completely different understanding of IT and
> digital to anyone over that age. Over that age, you may have staff members
> who are technology early adopters, or digital enthusiasts. These staff are
> not to become your new IT/digital tsars: that¹s not their job; but their
> enthusiasm, understanding and energy around digital may well help support

> your digital development journey.²*
>


Simon Biggs
si...@littlepig.org.uk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk/

s.b...@eca.ac.uk
http://www.elmcip.net/
http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/


DanceDigital

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Jun 9, 2011, 4:20:43 PM6/9/11
to acedigitaluncut
writings on digital natives/digital immigrants:
http://www.marcprensky.com/
> On 08/06/2011 23:21, "Jake Harries" <jakeharr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Hi
> > Following the links...
>
> >http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/our-work/reshaping/
>
> >http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/media/uploads/digital.pdf
>
> >http://toolkit.getambition.com/
>
> >http://toolkit.getambition.com/category/ambition-methodology/audit-yo...
> > sation/
>
> >  *³A digital native is anyone who has ³grown-up digital²: they will be under
> > the age of 28, and have a completely different understanding of IT and
> > digital to anyone over that age. Over that age, you may have staff members
> > who are technology early adopters, or digital enthusiasts. These staff are
> > not to become your new IT/digital tsars: that¹s not their job; but their
> > enthusiasm, understanding and energy around digital may well help support
> > your digital development journey.²*
>
> Simon Biggs
> si...@littlepig.org.ukhttp://www.littlepig.org.uk/
>
> s.bi...@eca.ac.ukhttp://www.elmcip.net/http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/

Simon Biggs

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Jun 11, 2011, 6:04:43 AM6/11/11
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A perfect exemplar of Lenoir's Military Entertainment Complex. Chilling.
Perhaps ACE's next collaborative partner, after NESTA, will be the MOD?

Best

Simon

James Wallbank

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Jun 14, 2011, 9:01:47 AM6/14/11
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Hi Simon,

I recognise your experience. As it happens, I was in the VERY FIRST year of Computer Science education at my school. We sat down to "Lesson One: Programming in BASIC". By the end of the first lesson we'd  learned about variables, loops, incrementing and commenting your code.

An early lesson (this was 1980, I think) was the class contacting an Australian weather station by acoustic coupler. I think it worked at about 300 baud. (These devices were later known as "modems".) Our acoustic coupler was made of WOOD - and had two rubber suckers to stick onto the phone handset.

That year I coded my first artistic programme (which generated random, pronounceable words - it was very funny!) on my Dad's Apple 2. We upgraded it to 64 kilobytes of RAM. Two years later the computer science lessons were "reformed" so that students started, and finished, by learning how to use graphical applications programmes.

Looking at ICT education nowadays I suggest that the level of meaningful, empowering digital education in the UK is actually REDUCING. Facility with using an application is NOT the same as understanding what's happening in the digital realm. In recent writing I have distinguished between "how it works" (what I was taught, and grasp for) and "how to work it" (what kids are taught nowadays). The key difference, it seems to me, is that if you know the former, you can work out the latter - but not vice-versa. Does the term "digital natives", in this context suggest "people who know how to work it, but don't question how it works"?

There's a very important hierarchical issue at stake - is art able to stand back from the digital realm - to analyse it, engage with it, be critical of it? (Is "digital" a file in the "culture" directory?) Or does art practice just make uncritical use of the digital? In that case art practice will simply have been subsumed by the digital realm. All art practice will simply be "content". "Culture" will be a file in the "digital" directory (and "digital" is, of course a file in the "commerce" directory).

I'm not content for my practice to be "content" - it is engagement, with transformative potential. Art practice which uses the digital without questioning, generating, disrupting, rebuilding, hybridising, innovating (dare I use the word "hacking" * ?) is simply a manifestation of the media-industrial complex.

Best Regards,

James

[*] If this panics you read RFC 1392.
=====

Taylor Nuttall

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Jun 14, 2011, 10:07:19 AM6/14/11
to acedigi...@googlegroups.com, acedigi...@googlegroups.com
Liking your file structure analogy Jim.

Art put in it's place, yes scary, and no I too do not subscribe to that reduction.

But very probably digital without question, or as I heard at the National Digital conference in London - "Digital by Default" is where those that plan are already at.

Cheers

Taylor

Taylor Nuttall (private e-mail)
digit...@gmail.com
@digitaylor

Mob. 07932692336

See also:
@ThorneyHow

Thorney How
Grasmere
Ambleside
Cumbria
LA22 9QW
Tel. 01539435597

also work contact:
CEO
Folly
@follydigitalart

Simon Biggs

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Jun 14, 2011, 11:23:32 AM6/14/11
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Wooden modems. LOL. My first personal computer (1978) was wooden too - well,
mostly. It consisted of a slab of wood with an S-100 motherboard screwed
into it with the CPU, memory, graphics and ALU cards vertically inserted
into the motherboard and held rigid by a strip of wood with slots cut in it
across the top. Looked weird but ran very cool.

Best

Simon

Jake Harries

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Jun 15, 2011, 7:44:15 AM6/15/11
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Furtherfield have just posted this news on thier list

http://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-professional-media-practice/programming-for-artists/

Jake
--


Cheers,

kwatson

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Jun 17, 2011, 5:21:02 AM6/17/11
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I don't know if you all get Arts professional. But there was an interesting article rounding up some of the latest news on general budget cuts in the Arts, which you may be interested in and makes shocking news.

"Arts spending by local authorities in England and Wales fell by an average of 16% in 2010/11, and now stands at less than two-thirds of 2008 levels, according to the Local Authority Budget Settlement Review 2011 conducted in March this year by Arts Development UK (formerly nalgao). The average arts budget across all authorities is now just over £380,000 and many arts services are facing further reductions: this year, 41% have a standstill budget without inflation; 44% describe themselves as facing severe service reductions; and almost 10% are under threat of closure. 31% reported that their arts service is now being staffed by a single officer. The latest casualties of the cuts are Northampton Borough Council and Borough of Wellingborough Council, which have closed their arts services and made arts officers redundant, and leisure in Hyndburn Trust no longer has a dedicated arts officer. 

Somerset County Council will be closing its arts services in 2011/12, a loss of £170,000, and Darlington Borough Council is currently reviewing its arts and cultural services with a view to closure. In total, 45 authorities have closed their arts services or made arts officers redundant in the past 9 years – almost 13% of all authorities in England and Wales. It is a situation that is predicted to get worse. Ninety-three per cent of those surveyed forecasted a decrease in funding for arts services in their authority in 2012/13. These gloomy findings chime with figures published in ‘Council Budgets, Spending and Saving Survey 2011’, conducted by the Local Government Association among local authority finance directors in March this year. 16% of respondents indicated that libraries, cultural services and community learning will be targeted for proportionally larger savings than other services they provide, and only 2% indicated that they would be trying to protect these services proportionally more than others.

While the immediate priorities of arts services vary, depending primarily on their current funding status, many still view retaining and supporting local projects and organisations as being the key focus of their activities this year. However the overall financial value of this support is diminishing: although average spend per authority on small project grants and direct spend on service delivery increased marginally, the average value of direct grants to regularly funded organisations fell to £282,000, a decrease of around 25% on the previous year. As a result of the squeeze on cash, income generation activites, seeking external funding and partnership working are also now high priorities for many arts services, potentially putting them into competition with the communities that they serve. Offsetting some of the impact of funding cuts has led to partnership working in local arts delivery, with arts services often now supporting health, crime prevention, education, social care, regeneration and children’s services. Two-thirds of arts services report that they have been or will soon be subject to restructuring, often to merge with other departments, and many see this as making them less vulnerable to cuts. External partnerships, particularly those with other public sector bodies such as the NHS and the police, are also generating a contribution towards arts spend. For every pound spent by local authorities on the arts, it is estimated that £6.32 of finance and support is now levered from other sources, including grants awarded, partnership funding and sponsorship / donations"



Regards
Keith Watson
+44 (0) 7802 74 84 84
skype: kw1330








Gary Thomas

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Jun 17, 2011, 5:47:04 AM6/17/11
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It is certainly shocking, but with ACE NPO, 'cuts' in general doesn't account for the decisions. Particularly in London. Because there are new organisations, and substantial uplifts to others.

Serpentine gets an increase from 11/12 to 12/13 of £302,000. 
Whitechapel goes up £329,000.
 
South London Gallery goes up £300,000.
Camden Arts Centre goes up £162,000.
Artangel goes up £202,000.

That's just their increase. Picture This' total RFO funding this year is 47k, Vivid gets 123k, PVA 63k, and Animate Projects is getting 118k through grants for the arts. Just the increase that Serpentine is getting would more than cover quite a few of us. It's not the same outside London. Whilst Metal goes up £245000 to £540,000, Ikon, Baltic and others don't more substantially benefit.  

Animate Projects made a complaint about the NPO decision -  http://animateprojects.blogspot.com/2011/06/arts-council-england-says-animation-and.html  They told us that things like reference to our audience figure (we gave them unique visitor numbers) as 'hits' was not material to the decision. And they confirmed what they'd already said about LUX, Film and Video Umbrella and Film London supporting animation. I may not be an expert..oh hang on..yes I am.. 


For the sake of mental well being (no wisecracks, thank you!) I have to stop obsessing about it, but still..

marc garrett

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Jun 17, 2011, 7:43:25 AM6/17/11
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FOR WANT OF A NAIL (IN PRAISE OF ARTSWAY).

�For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was
lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the
battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for
the want of a horseshoe nail.�

This post is a bit different from the usual, but it�s still about the
British art scene because I�m going to write today about the damage
recently and needlessly inflicted on that scene by the egregious
short-sightedness of whichever numpties at the Arts Council of England
had the final say on cutting relatively trifling but vital sums from
numerous crucial community-centred or artist-led organisations while
gaily tipping ever increasing millions of obscene pounds into the gaping
haute bourgeois money pits of places like the Royal Opera House.

The British art scene- at the best of times exceedingly small and
fragile- relies upon an even more minute core of vital people and places
to do the nuts-and-bolts, pragmatic stuff that every other profession
does automatically but most of the art world can�t seem to get their
heads wrapped around: chief among these functions is bridging the gap
between being an inexperienced, ambitious kid and a working professional
with a sustainable career. Another thing these organisations do is
provide safe and supportive environments for art and artists that can�t
yet or simply shouldn�t ever be subjected to market forces.

I know there are some people who think that everything and everyone,
including art and artists, should be subjected to the full and
unmitigated brunt of market forces. It�s also a commonly encountered
argument that art should always be subjected to some kind of public
popularity competition, community approval or public benefit yardstick.
These people are just plain wrong, and with every purchase of just plain
wrong I�ll add this free pack of you�re a fucking idiot.

Much more...
http://careersuicideblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/for-want-of-a-nail-in-praise-of-artsway/

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