Avantwhatever Festival 2020

Research Background Curating online events poses both challenges and opportunities, especially around creating a sense of ‘liveness’ and connection, accessible to all, in contrast to the dominant paradigms of ‘on demand’ culture and privately controlled platforms. Following the work of Lev Manovich (2001) and Boris Groys (2008), Michael Connor (2021) proposes that ‘online exhibition involves the performance of artworks and their objecthood in a particular mise-en-scène, brought into dynamic relationship with one another and a broader network context’. Connor suggests a series of abstractions to think about how online events are staged – infrastructure, arrangement (across time, space and informatics), style and social process. Research Contribution Avantwhatever Festival 2020, consisting of an online program of streams, talks, browser-based works and workshops, addressed all four of Connor’s categories through deliberate curatorial choices focused on ethical practices and inclusion, in connection with the selected artists and works. For example, building and maintaining server infrastructure with care for indigenous sovereignty, energy use and accessibility; staging works in time with the inclusion of both ‘24 hour’ installation works and live events; designing and styling the festival site as a program that then became a ‘stage’ on the open web for the events; and providing an online ‘Festival Club’ for participants to gather and unplanned events to happen. Through these strategies the festival contributes a creative, social and political model for presenting experimental sound, art and design online. Research Significance The festival attracted over 4000 unique visitors, including audiences from across Australia, Europe, North America and Asia. It was co-presented by Triple R FM and featured in the Wire magazine's events guide. It was funded through a competitive peer-review process by the Australia Council for the Arts.