Jonnet has been commissioned by Longhouse to take part in a period of research to develop her own practice and explore new contexts of work through the Action Research programme.

Project

Unitypanda is a project which critically engages with the community-building capacity of both knitting and social media. Within the context of socially engaged practice and relational art, the artist experiments with new definitions of community as a network relationship between people, both real and virtual, in the emerging digital environment. This project examines how the inherent potential of social media affectsaesthetic experience on the cultural landscape of today in what could be termed ‘social media aesthetics’.

Project Update – September

The project has got off to a good start with a positive reaction from the Age Concern taster groups. In the following phase I will concentrate on planning the launch event with hopefully real time contact between some of the online and offline knitters.

It has become clear that the project could become significant in scope and that it’s growth potential depends equally on my initial time input and, largely beyond my control, whether the idea takes off online or ‘goes viral’. The more time I invest in networking, the greater and faster the spread of unitypanda online. Likewise, the more offline sessions I kickstart, the more offline panda production is spawned.

Therefore, I am seeking to reduce my professional work commitment in order to better realise the potential of the Unitypanda project and thus readjust my workload to reflect my priorities as an arts practitioner.

That said, however, as the project takes shape, I would like to explore avenues and means whereby Unitypanda can become increasingly self-organised, depending less on me for its expansion. I see my role moving from that of initiator to one of moderator/co-ordinator,ensuring effective panda completion and online/offline co-ordination, and also of documenter of the project.

Project update (September to November 2009)

The project has grown in stature over the past two months through significant exhibition and film opportunities and additional funding. The resulting short film and exhibition catalogue will generate a lasting legacy of both process and product. The unitypanda idea has been extremely well received in both the offline trial knitting event and among local social media theorists and practitioners.

There is, however, much of the practical groundwork still to do and the launch will take place two months later than was at first envisaged. This is partly due to the unexpected developments mentioned above and also to other commitments. I have now left full time employment and over the next three months the realisation of unitypanda is my top priority.

For this reason I am not unduly concerned about arriving at a sufficiently advanced stage by the time of the evaluation phase of the action research. I have been studying social media theory and community/activist knitting to try to understand this online/offline experiment in both theory and practice. In addition I have discussed the project with workshops of digital environment students. They identified the online/offline distinction as being potentially more divisive than inclusive. This is an interesting point and I wonder if there is a terminology for communities built of both virtual and face to face interaction, something along the lines of “interline” – between the online and the offline.

Regarding my personal development as an artist in general, the Material Actions exhibition is also highly relevant to the other areas of my practice (see futuremenders.wordpress.com) The catalogue is written by the leading exponent in sustainable textiles, Kate Flatcher, and I believe this could generate additional interest in my practice and further openings in the future.

Follow Unitypanda on :

http://unitypanda.wordpress.com
http://www.facebook.com/unitypanda
https://twitter.com/unitypanda
https://friendfeed.com/unitypanda