Cultural production through collectives, cultural funding initiatives and free education in the 70’s and 80’s, created idealist environments for arts production. However, by the 90’s to the present day, these ideals have shifted increasingly towards institutionalised authorship. On the one hand, arts practitioners are able to operate as entrepreneurial self-producers and on the other are beholden to venues, funding strategies and organisations. Festivals have developed as a marketing force with autonomy and singular curatorial/cultural visions. Dislocations and discourse in arts production inturn become wrapped within these singular visions with their requirement to generate a balance between capital and entertainment. In-between this play on organised directions of arts production lays the independent ‘scene’ of makers and performers whose artistic endeavours are often ‘shaped’ by an array of cultural arts providers.
The focus behind SEAM2013 Symposium is to give a platform for independent artists to formulate their autonomy and direction. Opening up discussions around the cultural production of interdisciplinary performing art practice framed through the Symposium’s themes of Authorship, Audience and Curation.
Over two intensive days the combination of 50 lectures, performances, events academic papers and media art works by individuals and groups from across Australia and 12 other countries will address what the impacts of the cultural frame-works we involve ourselves in and create. A series of round-table discussions will expand on notions of collaboration, ownership, participation and spectatorship and to how inter-disciplinary practices can produce new perceptions and out-comes.
SEAM2013 builds on work produced by a national and international community of participants over the last three Symposiums in 2009/10 and 2011. Generating an ongoing platform of dialogue for art makers and theoreticians that bridge both practice and academia on the architectures and pillars of authorship, engagement and production. We see the reoccurrence of SEAM as a constructive way to open up discussions within the Australian performing arts community of artists, curators, producers and presenters to reflect on various issues, questions and themes surrounding contemporary performance making in our time.
MARGIE MEDLIN, BENEDICT ANDERSON & PAUL GAZZOLA
The SEAM13 Curators