GENEALOGIES OF THE TECHNO-INDUSTRIAL RESIDENCY

Genealogies of the Techno-Industrial Residency a multi-year research project that has investigates the cultural histories and contemporary realities of artist-in-residence programming aligned with the tech-industry and its institutional collaborators. Grounded in analyses of archival materials, corporate records, artists’ writing and interviews, artworks, exhibition catalogues and reviews, the book offers accounts of twenty intersecting case studies, organized across six chronologically and thematically organized chapters, including: Power, Patronage and the Pre-Histories of the Techno-Industrial Residency (1350 – 1920); From the Bienal Internacional de São Paulo to the Bell Labs: Industrialization, Computation, and the Arts (1951 – 1972); The Early Histories of Computer Graphics Research in Canada (1965-80); The Screen Incorporated: The Moving Image Residency in Japan (1980 – 1995); Net.Art Goes to School: Institutionalizing the Industrial Artist Residency (1993 – 2010); and The Art of Machine Learning: On Affordance and Innovation in the Contemporary Media Arts (2010 – 2022). Each chapter pairs accounts of the aims, configuration, and execution of selected residencies with a more focused consideration of one participating artist’s experience and output. Chapters close with an analysis of how prominent themes and practices emerging across the selected residencies intersect with the histories of art, while also working to inform, shape, and critique emerging technologies.

The book and overarching project have been driven by the following three objectives: (1) Map a historical and illustrative account of the techno-industrial artist residency backwards through industrialization and forwards across the contemporary. Not only has there yet to be an expansive genealogical account of the techno-industrial residency, but mapping these cultural histories is also intended to help contextualize contemporary practice. (2) Provide a detailed description of the structural configuration of individual residencies paired alongside a grounded account of the collaborative relationships, creative works, innovation, and/or socio-cultural impact that they have spurred. (3) Analyze how prominent themes and practices emerging across these residency contexts (past and present) align with the histories of art, while also functioning to inform, shape and at times critique the innovative potentials attributed to emerging technologies.

My aim in undertaking these objectives – each of which corresponds with a contribution to the broader fields of media studies and media art histories – has been threefold: (1) To destabilize, reorient, and expand established histories of art and computation – not only are the cultural histories of techno-industrial artist residencies under-examined, but the selected case studies are also intended to broaden the scope of dominant art and tech discourse. (2) To contend with the complex tension that emerges between the presumed benefits that artists access through their participation in residency programming (e.g., access to new and emerging technologies, technical expertise, time, financial support, career development) and the corresponding instrumentalization of art and artist, often — though not always — to corporate ends. It is not my intention to reconcile this tension, but rather to lay it bare, foregrounding a series of critical questions regarding the consequences of artists’ participation in tech R&D; corporate, institutional, and governmental PR and marketing campaigns; and public and private deployments of art-washing. (3) Following the methodological aims of media archaeological research and recognizing the critical insights that artist residencies can provide (as was illustrated in the preceding discussion of the Bell Labs), I also venture to provide an account of artists’ contributions to the technical undercurrents and discursive framing of contemporary media technologies and practices of mediation.  

PUBLICATIONS

Scarlett, A. (2023) “Incidental Genealogies? Continuities, Discontinuities, and Historiographic Revisionism Across the (Pre)Histories of NFT Art,” Re:Source: The 10th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology Proceedings. Eds. Francesca Franco & Andrés Burbano. Pp. 511 - 512

Scarlett, A. (2023) “Excavating the Origins of Network Art in Canada: Leslie Mezei, Peter Milojević and Computer Art Journalism of the 1960s and 70s,” Variable Conditions: Para-computational Arts in Canada, 1965-1995. Ed. Adam Lauder. Montreal: McGill Queens University Press.

Scarlett, A. (2020) “Artist Residency Programming & the Early Histories of Computer Graphics Research in Canada,” in Computation Arts in Canada 1967 – 1974. Ed. Adam Lauder. London, ON: McIntosh Gallery. Pp. 57 – 78

Scarlett, A. (2018) “Realizing Affordance in the Techno-Industrial Residency,” Schloss-Post. No. 6, June 2018

PUBLICATIONS FORTHCOMING (ACCEPTED)

Scarlett, A. (accepted/submitted) “New Media Arts,” Digitisations, Transformations and Futures. Eds. Barry Sandywell and Martin Hand. London: Bloomsbury.

Scarlett, A. (accepted/submitted) “Algorithmic Art,” Digitisations, Transformations and Futures. Eds. Barry Sandywell and Martin Hand. London: Bloomsbury.

PRESENTATIONS

“Boondoggle! On the Failings and Future of the Techno-Industrial Artist Residency,” University Art Association of Canada Annual Meeting. Western University, Canada. October 24 – 26, 2024

“Genealogies of the Techno-Industrial Artist Residency: Rehumanizing Computer Vision at AUTODESK’S Pier 9” University Art Association of Canada Annual Meeting. Virtual. October 20 – 23, 2021

“Artist Residency Programming and the Early Histories of Computer Art in Canada,” University Art Association of Canada Annual Meeting. Waterloo, Canada. October 25 – 27, 2018

“Realizing Affordance in the Techno-Industrial Residency,” Rethinking Affordance. Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany. June 7 – 9, 2018.