The following verbiage below was taken from a new blog post that I published today on my site over on the CUNY Academic Commons. As per the commons’s about page, it defines itself this way: “The Academic Commons of The City University of New York is designed to support faculty initiatives and build community through the use(s) of technology in teaching and learning. The free exchange of knowledge among colleagues across the university is central to better educating the student body and expanding professional development opportunities for faculty research and teaching.”
To say the least, the commons is a super cool digital public space! I have been teaching Studio Art & Graphic / Web Design courses here in the City University of NY for 12 years. I teach simultaneously in NYC between York College and Queensborough Community College. My friend and teaching colleague Michael Branson Smith turned me onto the commons a few years ago. I joined and observed from afar taking in how members were contributing, but this year I took action and built my own site on the network. I saw an opportunity for collaborative art making. My intention was to share my digital art but not limited to that obviously. I knew I would meet new people, especially like minded CUNY professors, energetic graduate students, and community members who were also sharing content, research and other related “such-ness” (I love that word)! I decided to create a site that put an emphasis on the animated GIFs that I create along with digital Internet Art. I began to build a body of work in the format of a “daily creation” publication. Once the site was populated with enough colorful and stimulating examples, I would then begin to publish tutorials and techniques on how to create the works in the genre and then create and develop an open call exhibition from the commons members…. Thats where I am today, as of 5/26/17. So, I pitched the exhibition proposal to the commons via my commons site and twitter. I tagged a few of the Commons directors and the reaction was positive so far! Notice that I used the interface of the commons website to give an example of how that can simulate.
I so much enjoy creating transparency. Sharing use value is where the learning expands! When we are in the mindset of creating daily, creating the actual way we want to bring attention to something also becomes a part of the creative process, and a bit of unconventional twist goes a long way too.
Along with the GIF you see directly above, this is what I pitched below:
“The CUNY academic commons has been Net Art’ed..sadly the GIF animation directly above is only a preview of the entire internet art work due to a limitation with embedding iframe codes here on the commons. I understand, security, potential wonky code, protection… (dot dot dot) not to worry though, you can view this piece in all of its glory as a full page in its entirety here –> https://newhive.com/ryanseslow/net-art-ing-the-commons <— (here on my personal site I can embed it via an iframe, so I am below 🙂 Did you notice the new page edition in the navigation menu? “Net Art” – wouldn’t it be fun to see a Net Art exhibition here on the commons consisting of an open call of submissions from our CUNY community members? Well, this is my official public submission to the commons requesting an opportunity to make this happen. I know, its not a traditional method for such an endeavor, or is it? Perhaps this is precisely how we can continue to build community, new teaching methods, cross CUNY collaboration and present opportunities that can in fact become multidisciplinary?
I would be happy to present this in person.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
What are the potentials of Internet Art making? Check out this body of work I created over the last year here, navigate from the arrows on each side of the screen.
