Gemma San Cornelio

‘The fruits of my own labor’: A case study on clashing models of co-creativity in the new media landscape

This article deals with the engagement of new media users in specific forms of participatory content production, focusing on productive and labour aspects in co-creative endeavours. We present a case analysis of a community-based filmmaking software, Moviestorm, focused on a specific set of practices – modding – and following the controversy that took place when a shift in the company’s business model altered the rules that tacitly constituted modders’ practices, particularly the notion of control over their own labour. We pay attention to motivations and expected rewards expressed by both modders and the company as a part of a negotiation process around the ownership and the affective and economic value of user-generated content. Our central argument is that through the analysis of practices, particularly in moments of conflict and change, we can acquire a more subtle understanding of an economy of affections in co-creative processes as well as observing the clashing models of co-creativity, with different approaches to peer production and hierarchy.

Practices of place-making through locative media artworks

Abstract In recent years, the vast increase in information flows has made it possible to instantly connect location-dependent information with physical spaces. These technologies have provided new forms of the representation of space as much as new forms of perception through tools and techniques used in land surveying, remote sensing, etc. From a critical point of view, pervasive computing, location-based applications, or, in other words, “locative media” provide an interesting framework to understand how these technologies relate to our understanding of space and place. Concretely, we want to examine how the uses of locative media in social-oriented artworks interact with peoples sense of place. This article therefore discusses contemporary theories on space related to media and technology with a specific focus on the conceptualization of the notion of place. It also relates these theories to the study of different locative media artworks: Canal Accessible (2006), Bio Mapping (2004), Disappearing Places (2007), and Coffee Deposits (2010). We contend that locative media artworks act upon distinctive ways to understand the mediation of technology in current place-making practices.

Reading Songs, Experiencing Music: Co-creation, Materiality and Expertise in Beck’s Song Reader

This chapter presents a detailed case study of the Song Reader project by Beck Hansen as a significant exponent of the changing relationship between musicians and their publics, in the framework of the continual attempts to reinvent the music industry. Song Reader was released in late 2012 in book format, containing music sheets of 20 new unrecorded songs, illustrations and some introductory notes inviting fans to perform and adapt them freely. Consequently, a wide range of creative outcomes of Song Reader appeared, from live performances to video material, graphic art or even recorded albums. Indeed, although it was not planned, different Beck-curated versions have been performed and released, thus constituting a valuable source for a cultural analysis in terms of participation, materiality, affection, authority and expertise.

Objects and traces in space: connecting locative media with contemporary art

New media technologies related with location (GPS, wireless networks, etc.) are becoming an interesting interface to explore the relationship between objects and space. Emerging art practices coined with the term ‘locative media’ engage precisely with such technologies and bring to light some debate on the conception of materiality and space, thus fostering new ways of space exploration and experience. This paper aims to contribute to the theorisation of locative media through bridging different humanistic perspectives that include: new media, contemporary art, and social science theories. The main subjects of discussion are, on the one hand, the notions of objectuality and materiality, and on the other, the notions of space and place. I will relate such theories with locative media art projects, ending with the case studies of Canal Accessible (2006) and Bio Mapping (2004), and suggesting that locative media could aid in the social transformation of space.