Meetups

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MEETUPS

Concept Null intermittently run meetups across the island of Ireland, bringing together practitioners, researchers and enthusiasts of new media and digital art. The idea of hosting a meetup was somewhat of an experiment and since, has led to one of the most important aspects of what we do. To be able to meet all the wonderful people engaging with art and technology has brought such a profound sense of responsibility and motivation to our mission. The meetups highlight further the need for these types of activities to be supported across the island of Ireland and only scratch the very surface in addressing the many issues we face as practitioners in this country.

They provide a platform to be seen and acknowledged within the community. The audience can become aware of who is currently practicing in the country and what level they are at. In turn, this also provides an essential context of our own practices on this island. It’s really important that there are third spaces in Ireland to be able to share, learn, connect and create together. Engaging in healthy discourse is vital to the lifeblood of growing as a community and it really helps us, as a collective, foster the shape of this community. Our meetups engage with high levels of critique while also being as welcoming as possible.

All levels of practice are encouraged to present and attend these events. Sharing feels in many ways like a dissolution of capitalistic chains that we operate within, to make the choice not to gatekeep but instead to show others, what you work on, how you do it, why you do it and what you’ve learned from that is a beautiful act of self.

Due to limited resources and our current funding situation we can only run these every few months. For anyone that cannot make it in person there is an option to watch and/or present your work to us online during the meetup.

The next meetup will be …..

MEETUP_01 Date: 26th August 2023 Location: Spacecraft Studios, Limerick City, Ireland.

We decided to try and run a meetup to see how exactly it would turn out and what would happen. We felt it was really important for Concept Null to have our inaugural meetup in Limerick City. It’s a place where each of us in the collective have come to begin and/or develop our art and tech practices and where most of us would have met.

The following people presented their work: Diarmuid Farrell Manuel McCarthy Jose Luis Berna Moya Mícheál Ó Catháin

Huge thanks must go to everyone who really made the effort to come along and to all the people, organisations, institutions and collectives that supported us.

Thank you in particular to the director of Spacecraft Studios, Carey Long for the space and to the staff of The University of Limerick and Dance Limerick for their support.

MEETUP_02 Date: 05th November, 2023 Location: Beta Festival, The Digital Hub, Dublin, Ireland.

We got to host our second meetup in our capital city after an offer to host an event at Beta Festival from its director and founder, Aisling Murray. This was a really packed out room with so many talented artists and researchers that presented. We used up the full 4 hours and there weres still many people who wanted to show work or offer something to the room.

There was a theme for this meetup which was ‘Untitled, Unfinished’ where people can present a project that was never completed and share the difficulties and downfalls that surrounded it as well as why they felt the project was worth pursuing in the first place.

The people who presented were: Evie (Glass Crush) Sorcha Hassett Tewson Seeoun Assim Kalouaz Mícheál Ó Catháin Louise Nolan Mac Andre Arboleda

The diversity of participants in the space really gave an insight into how vast the diversity of artists there are operating across this space and we left with our cup very full.

MEETUP_03

Date: 24th February, 2024 Location: Digital Art Studios, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

At Beta Festival we got to meet Richard Davis of Digital Art Studios. This led to us hosting a meetup in Belfast which, in regard to new media art, is another one of these forgotten counties on the island of Ireland. Making attempts to bridge connections to such places is at the top of our list. This was the first meetup that we also streamed live. We were pretty blown away by the presenters and were once again reminded of just how important physical interaction is within our community.

The presenters were: Aiden Brady Cameron Clarke Kharis Beggs John Dam Crothers Caileann Finn

MEETUP_04 Date: 18th May, 2024 Location: The Guesthouse, Cork, Ireland.

We hosted our fourth meetup at The Guesthouse in the heart of Cork City thanks to one of their core members Billy Kemp who helps develop the event and residency programs there. This was the first event that we took virtual presenters and the response was so positive that we’ll now do this for each meetup going forward. Those two presenters were: Crash Stop Mother Woolf

The in-person presenters were: Armen Gulesserian Mark Horgan Daniel