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Charlie Fox on what networking means to artists.

What does the notion of networking suggest to an artist practitioner? The lifeblood of their practice or a terrifying round of speed dating, socialising and contact exchange. Undoubtedly networking has become one of the shibboleths of a successful life; for a vital career an artist like any other ‘professional’ needs and requires an effective and expanding network. Success comes with exposure: whom you know and how you present yourself are not minor preoccupations for the new professional artist.

Recently opportunities for artists to network professionally have multiplied, provided by an increasingly sophisticated number of artist networks, tempting the practitioner out, from the safety of their studio, into the world without. As Lucy Day comments: “The somewhat sanitized term ‘networks’ is used by many to describe a combination of information gathering, social enhancement and sharing of good practice that is fundamental to artistic activity. From monthly peer critiques initiated and facilitated by arts organizations, supported programmes such as a-n’s NAN initiative to self-determined projects and global networks artists have the ability to create important allies and disseminators for their work.”¹

However artists are not always comfortable operating within these situations, where ideas of professional practice rub up against their hard-won creative independence. Indeed, artists often actively resist the received notions of professionalism, taking up positions ranging from the amateur to the ‘post-professional’ practices described by Ernst Fischer in his descriptions of Living-Room Theatre. An individual artist’s practice may not fit easily into the current social, political and economic agendas. Artist Tony Charles, who went on NAN research trips to Glasgow and Liverpool, expresses these misgivings:

“The idea of a network can be off-putting to artists. I mean artists can enjoy the experience but when it turns into more of a club or clique, then you might not want to be in that.”

NAN has attempted to overcome these misgivings by offering parallel structures (artist research trips and networking events) by encouraging and supporting active collaboration across artist-led groups. There are subtle but clearly evident differences between what NAN set out to do and how a business network operates. The NAN structure is hands off (a light touch approach), nitiatives are designed and delivered by the groups involved and there is no set formula for events or trips. But artists have obviously been attracted to networking events for particular easons. Sophie Cameron co-ordinator of New Work Network² comments:

“I think that artists look for a range of things depending on what the networking opportunity/event was trying to achieve some of these things may sound contradictory – but I think that they can have different weight and therefore ‘pull’ depending on what the event is for, the reason you are going and who is inviting or who it is targeted at.”

Cameron’s list of what an event might include or attempt to achieve echoes many of NAN’s networking approaches and include a wide range of possibilities:

• inspiration
• a structure
• a party
• information
• a platform
• some nice food and drink
• a follow-up
• an opportunity to re-connect
• a clear idea of why you are there and what this is for
• a space where there is no agenda
• a space where you are not being ‘selected
• a space where you don’t have to sell
• a space to be you
• feedback
• feeding in
• creativity outside of your own practice reassurance
• redirection
• out of your comfort zone
• creating a comfort zone
• new friends
• new opportunities
• meeting with other artists
• meeting your heroes
• meeting a new ‘generation’
• a refresher
• no pressure
• a chance to talk
• a chance to show work
• a chance to test things out
• a chance to fail
• a chance to inspire and be inspired
• top tips
• insider info

Adrian Piper writing in the 1970s, another period of technological advance and shifting practice, claimed that the fundamental structures of being an artist are:

“How we therefore live, think, what we do as artists; what kind of social interactions we have (personal, political, financial); what injustices we are victim of, and which ones we must inflict on others in order to validate our work or our roles as artists; how we have learned to circumvent these, if at all, i.e. how highly developed we have had to become as political animals; what forms of manipulation we must utilize to get things done; what compromises we must make in our work or our integrity in order to reach the point where such compromises are no longer necessary; whether, given the structures of this society, there can be such a point.”³

Artists are constantly negotiating the tensions between their practice and their own, often precarious, position in society. Though many artists participating in the NAN programme are not necessarily focused on the nature of their social position or the motives behind their social interaction, they are grappling with the underlyin experiences of being an artist and sustaining an art practice within a shifting political and economic landscape; that sense of isolation, frustration and loneliness that still makes up a large part of the artists’ professional experience. As artist and co-director of Artefact Projects Ben Coode-Adams comments:

“Networking is really useful for working out what or who you are in relation to the world, especially talking with non-artists, people outside the art world.”

So, is this new model of artist networking the best method to cut across this sense of isolation? Artist Richard Layzell remarks that:

“In general I would say artists can often become isolated and despondent. Art production by its nature may become a lonely activity. As self- confidence is so pivotal it doesn’t take much for people to feel they are not going anywhere. Networking events can offer up approaches, opportunities and contacts, and a space to be.”

The NAN events programme provides artist groups with a number of different networking models and opportunities. Within all these events and trips there remains the question of how the artist operating within an artist-led network sustains and builds from these initial exchanges. Again there appears to be a contradiction between the professional and the ad hoc; is it important, and possible, to maintain a balance between the critical, consciously developed model and the more open approach that defies clear definition. Layzell reveals there is always going to be a contradiction in networking, between the expectations and the reality:

“I like to know what I might get out of it, so the more information the better, but I also like things that are open-ended. I think networking often works best when it’s least expected or predicted. I often find that I’m presenting at a networking event and I find this hugely enjoyable as it’s about setting up strategies that may create meaningful interaction.”

Feedback from the artists involved in NAN suggests that they want to find ways to extend and sustain the experiences offered by NAN. There is a desire for something more substantial, a follow-up programme that might provide more sustained support. As artist Marjolaine Ryley, who attended the Berlin and Manchester research trips, asks:

“Are those activities ongoing? If you’ve been on three trips are you going to be excluded or is there going to be a conscious effort to actually keep people involved? Because if you’re talking about building a network there’s got to be something ongoing – you’ve got to find ways to facilitate that.”

There is an acknowledgment here of the tension between the desire of an artist to make and disseminate their own work and the artist’s sense of collective, group activities. After all collaboration, exchange and dialogue bring their own set of problems that relate to the core idea of the ‘professional’ artist: a tension between the expectations and aspirations of individual artists (within and without an artist-led group).

Are networking events and trips merely a welcome break for artists struggling to position themselves in the wider world? Or are networking activities a vital and increasingly accepted part of the professional development of artists? Your network can be everything, but to put it at the front of your practice may seem far too mercenary, even promiscuous. This is the balance that is constantly negotiated in any artists’ networking programme – to be open, non-critical, inclusive and hands-off – while remaining focused on the need to provide a professional service to artists. NAN is beginning to demonstrate to artists, and others beyond the community of participants, that the artistic community, though highly diverse and often fragmented, presents a certain unified and unique set of agendas; a collective voice specific to artists and the way they work, which relate, but do not necessarily mirror the socio-political and corporate networking models.

Notes
¹ Lucy Day (2006) ‘After art school’, 2006 Degrees unedited supplement to a-n Magazine, March 2006, p3.
² New Work Network is a national artist-led support organisation bringing together people working in live art, contemporary performance and interdisciplinary practice. For more information see www.newworknetwork.org.uk
³ Adrian Piper, ‘In Support of Meta-Art’, Artforum, October 1973, pp78-81.

Charlie Fox is the artistic director of Counterproductions, a transdisciplinary art organisation, based in London. He is currently working on a practice-based PhD on The Event of Laughter. Counterproductions create a range of social sculpture, educational and live art projects. www.counterproductions.co.uk

Charlie Fox

First published: a-n Collections July 2006