Subscriber Meeting 24-09-2007
From NodelWiki
This NODE.London "Subscriber's meeting" was held on Monday 24 September 6.30pm - 9.30pm, venue: Methods Network at King's College. Thanks to Torsten Reimer and Lydia Horstman for hosting the session, and for providing teas and coffees.
15 people gathered, and Torsten gave a presentation of the work of the Methods Network, and in particular the Digital Arts & Humanities project with which they're involved. NODE.Londoners are encouraged to visit the MN site for info on upcoming workshops, and the DA&H site to see what it offers - including a match making network for those active in media arts.
With several first-time attenders, and many who had not attended the meeting at HTTP 2 months ago, it was not possible to use the presentations from that meet as a jumping-off point for further discussion. Instead a wide-ranging but relatively action focussed conversation occurred, which is roughly summarised as follows (attenders please add/edit according to your recollections):
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[edit] Future versions of NODE.London
Much of the talk went through how to come to a shared understanding of what NODE.London might do in the future to move itself from this cycle of discussions into a more 'active' phase. The process we hatched was as follows: - work up several different 'possible futures'; - 1 volunteer writes a detailed summary of each future on this wiki; - other members of the nodel-discuss list are invited to engage with each of these ways forward, elaborate on it or take issue with it, again all on this wiki; - after 2 weeks (approx.) we mail everyone on the main news-l list (600 email addresses approx.) and invite them, in turn, to develop each of these ideas, comment etc. on them on this wiki. - we ask the entire (news-l) community to rank these ideas so we have broad feedback from as many of the community as a whole as well as detailed feedback from individuals.
So....we brainstormed different versions of what NODE.London's future outputs might be, and then we narrowed these down to 4 broad descriptions - (a) to (d) below. These 4 suggested futures are not designed to be mutually exclusive, nor are they necessarily what those attending want to do - but it was felt useful to put them out there, and so take the temperature of what the NODE.London community might want in late 2007.
(a). The brand umbrella model By coordinating another 'festival' event, NODE.London helps provide context and coordination particularly (but not exclusively) for smaller/grass-roots based media arts groups. The festival is an umbrella for a series of independent events providing a snapshot/inventory of media arts work of all kinds and in all contexts, rather than a platform which is curated or themed in any way. We use the 'Node London' "brand" actively, tactically and effectively to support this activity.
(b). The unfunded 'supper club' model, linked with Upgrade! network We move forward without seeking funding of any kind. We maintain the mailing list and occasionally organised free meetings, which may have individual themes as decided by the community. Everyone brings something to the table for refreshments. In (very) broad terms NODE.London has a similar manifestation as the [www.theupgrade.net Upgrade!] network (or at least, what we understand it to be at this time); so we link with Upgrade! in some way, and in doing gain leverage in terms of international conversations/artist inputs.
(c). The agency model NODE.London operates as an agency that supports the development of the media arts scene in London, but it doesn't put on events. It maintains a knowledge base, it offers fundraising advice, it advocates for the sector, it brokers partnerships, offers professional development opportunities etc.
(d). The commissioning group model NODE.London becomes an organisation that raises funds and then distributes those funds to artists for projects. It produces events or Season(s) or Festival(s) and it may appoint guest curators to curate these.
Some ideas - such as a focussed approach on developing relationships among/between students and Higher Education Institutions - were considered as potential parts of 1 or more of these 4 ideas, so aren't listed seperately.
Each of these 4 ideas leads to a seperate wiki page where the idea will be elaborated by an individual volunteer. When these are all up we ask nodel-discuss to help beef up the original scaffold of the idea, and then we will ask the news-l community to join in and feedback.
Grading/voting systems: Ruth Catlow has agreed to research online voting/feedback systems so we gain a sense of the broad picture. Built into this thinking is the idea that we ask people not only what they'd like to see, but what they want to contribute.
[edit] Upgrade!? (versus) NODE.London
Discussion of the Upgrade! network, and the idea of NODE.London linking with it, had been a feature on the discussion list for a while so we took some decisions about how to move this forward.
Tim will approach Michelle Kasprzak from New Media Scotland, who maintains the Upgrade! node in Scotland, and find out her availability re. presenting at a future NODE.London meeting.
[edit] Money
Attenders at future meetings will chip in £1 each time, so as to reduce the speed at which the balance of money in the NODE.London account dwindles.
[edit] Exploring different kinds of decision making
We talked about how now might be a good time to explore different options available to NODE.London through practical workshop activity - to experiment and play with some different options before we find ourselves in the middle of a vast 'output' again, and time gets squeezed.
A thread about consensus on nodel-discuss was picked up and we talked about the difference between applying consensus processes and talking ourselves to exhaustion/home-time, which some felt had been the case in March 2006. We thought it would be a good idea to see if we could offer workshop(s) on different kinds of decision making under the NODE.London banner - to those on nodel-discuss, on news-l and to the wider community (it would serve as a means to keep NODE.London's name out there). These workshops would probably be in the same slot(s) as regular NODE.London meetings, rather than additional.
Tim will follow up on the identifying of a workshop facilitator for consensus based work. Other npodel-discussers are asked to think of and approach people who might be able to offer workshops in other decision making techniques.
[edit] Future presentations
We'll put a call out inviting people to offer presentations/activities at future meetings, on the basis that including details of topics and presenters in the email invite to the HTTP Gallery meet 2 months ago may have influenced the substantial attendance that month.
[edit] Next Subscriber Meeting
....is pencilled for Monday 29 October '07, location to be confirmed.
