Incubation Conference

The term broadcasting may soon be outdated as the public is able to organise the way they receive information, via different delivery methods - PC, Interactive Television and mobile technology. Media organisations will need to assist those engaging with content by providing presenters who perform new roles. Historically presenters, continuity announcers and newsreaders organised material in a linear stream; in effect, performing the role of editor. In an interactive, mixed media environment this will no longer be effective enough.

This year, the BBC will begin to hire and train a small number of interactive presenters (iPresenters) for BBCi. Elsewhere in the BBC networks such as Cbeebies and programmes such as 'Top of the Pops' are also interested in this new role. These new presenters will encourage interactivity, assist audiences to navigate across mixed-media content and perhaps act as 'recommendation engines', suggesting other supporting content to extend the 'broadcast' experience.

Lizzie Jackson manages the team who run the BBC Community, and ensures all the BBC Message Boards, Live Chats and Chatrooms are well run and of good quality.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/communicate

Talan Memmott

"A Theory of . [?] "

What has become of writing?
Over the past couple of years I have been asked many times if I see myself as a writer, a visual artist, a theoretician, a poet. At times I may play at any of these positions within my work - sometimes individually, sometimes in combination. So, to be perfectly honest, I am no longer certain I am any of these. I am sure that I am not the only net.art, web.art, hypertext, hypermedia, creative, critical practitioner who experiences this, or sees their work as being all and none of the above.

It is also clear that we have come to a point in the development of the media/um in which practice and technology have outpaced theory. The objects of critique have seemingly detached themselves from any particular set of rules and conditions. In fact, we find both theories and objects arising out of divergent, sometimes incompatible histories. I would go so far as to say this problem sometimes occurs within a single project.

The [enter term of choice here] object is slippery, and when we try to give terms to any particular form we produce divisions and groupings in the overall media/um that are largely fiction. One man's hypertext is another woman's net.art. The names, the terms for the media/um are fluid categories, conveniences that cluster the molecular practices of individual authors and artists for the sake of discussion - giving them a theoretical, and historical angle that may or may not apply.

I think that the creative practice of this media/um itself spins theories and approaches that are as individual and numerous as the practitioners of the form. And, as writing exchanges traditional literary ties for electrate flux the differentiation between artist/author and theoretician is increasingly blurred.

Perhaps, a better question than what has become of writing is why is it happening. Of course, that question opens another can of worms.

Talan Memmott is a hypermedia artist/writer from San Francisco, California. He is the Creative Director and Editor of the online hypermedia literary journal BeeHive as well as BeeHive's new ebook project - Microtitles. His own hypermedia work has appeared widely on the Internet. In 2001 he was awarded the trAce/Alt-X New Media Writing Award for his work "Lexia to Perplexia", which also received honorable mention for the Electronic Literature Organization's award in fiction. He is a tutor for the trAce Online Writing School, and has been a speaker, panelist, reader and performer at various Conferences and Universities.

Talan Memmott: http://memmott.org/talan
BeeHive Hypertext Hypermedia Literary Journal: http://beehive.temporalimage.com
Microtitles: http://microtitles.com

Robin Rimbaud (Scanner), sound artist

Remembering How to Forget: An Artist's Exploration of Sound through the Cityscape and the Voice

This talk will explore the place of memory, the cityscape and the relationship between the public and the private within the processes of contemporary sound art. Within the ever-changing digital landscape Scanner will talk through his performance works, public art commissions and experiments with process in creating his 'Sound Polaroids'.

Scanner is an assembler of the electronic past in our digital future, whose scavenging of the electronic communications highways provides the raw materials for his aural collages of electronic music and 'found' conversations.

http://www.scannerdot.com/