Our next session will be with Off Site Projects on April 29th, 2022, from 10 – 12.
[Un]sustainable Practices and the Online Residency
Drifting between personal experiences, collectivised knowledge, and observations of the online gallery scene, this combination talk and workshop by Elliott Burns of Off Site Project, addresses the [un]sustainability of creating and maintaining a virtual residency programme.
Addressing models of digital residency, including Off Site Project’s own programme situated within Google Maps, the talk portion of this session will aim to present an assessment of the value these initiates generate by creating space for emergent practitioners, contrasted against the physical demands they make of the artists and curators. By assessing pitfalls in their structuring and design, key strategies will be raised and discussed, informing the workshop phase in which sub-groups will develop pitches for social media driven residencies that place mutual care at their centre.
The workshop will be divided into two phases:
1. identifying social media platforms with residency potential.
2. developing a residency pitch concentrated on one or more social media.
Off Site Project
Off Site Project is an online curatorial platform founded by Pita Arreola-Burns and Elliott Burns in 2017. Through a programme of online homepage exhibitions; downloadable ZIP shows; and a residency situated in Google Maps, Off Site Project has created opportunities for emerging new media talent.
Over the course of four years, Off Site Project has supported the development of solo presentations and coordinated group exhibitions addressing subjects ranging from techno-colonialism in Latin America, screen based hauntology, the transgression between IRL and URL environments, and luxury as a response to existential emergency. Frequently Off Site Project works in close collaboration with artists, partnering experience in UX design and online exhibition making with artistic intention, employing this as a model to expand an architectonical understanding of how the online gallery can connect and interact with audiences.
Through partnerships, Off Site Project has created exhibitions for Anonymous Gallery, the Austrian Cultural Forum London, Electric Artefacts, INDUSTRA and isthisit?.
On the subject of digital galleries and art communities, Off Site Project have been invited to speak and deliver workshops at Central Saint Martins, Centro de Cultura Digital, De:Formal Gallery, the Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts 2020 conference, Goldsmiths University of Arts London, Modern Art Oxford, Plymouth College of Art, the Royal College of Art, Somerset House Studios, Silicon Valet, Tate Exchange, the UCL Multimedia Anthropology Lab and the Whitworth Gallery.