Entrepreneur

Ross Miller, Decoded Collective

Academic Partner

Dr Theron Schmidt, King’s College London

Project Title

Devising development – towards a working methodology for collaboration between artists and technologists.

Project Description

Decoded Collective’s residency with King’s College London offered Ross Miller the opportunity to research, develop and document methodologies by which artists and technologists might work together in order to establish better representations of artworks online. Online representation is vital for an artist’s success, however, many find that ready-made systems such as Facebook, Tumblr and WordPress are not adequate at representing their ideas and work. Simultaneously many artists lack the technological skills needed to make bespoke sites. There is a cultural gap.

During the residency period Miller successfully developed a new hybrid methodology for collaboration. This new methodology draw on the Agile methodology framework, was influenced by a wide pool of knowledge and developed in discussion with Dr Schmidt and artists Mary Paterson and Emma Frankland. The methodology was trialled in a five day workshop where five collaborators were tasked with devising a new imagined archive of feminist performance art. Outputs of the workshop included a technical blueprint for the archive and designs for a 3D navigation tool that embodies feminist values.

The productivity of the workshop proves the viability of Miller’s methodology. Subsequently it has been used in a commercial project, the Human Hotel, a networking site developed by Decoded Collective with the Danish art collective Wooloo. The project launched in November 2015.