Update

Skint Stream is now maintained by MediaShed where you can leave comments and suggest how to take the project further.

Introduction

Today, in many fields of art, as in society at large, the understanding of the individual and community, of public and private, is in a process of far reaching change. For many the so-called society of the spectacle has become difficult to support, creating numerous different kinds of separation. The potential of the art object has to a large extent been absorbed, reified by the market or neutralized by political pressures related to the preservation of value and cultural authority. For the audience, as for citizens, the expectation in traditional institutional frameworks is still for passive consumption, as the possibilities for acting effectively together become increasingly small. However, the question of the audience is critical to any understanding of culture. The relation of the audience to the work, to institutions, and to each other, remembering that the audience is also ourselves, brings with it questions of social awareness and of democracy.

Skint Stream is a network which will connect audiences and cultural spaces previously separated by economic, geographic and political factors. The use of streaming technology over existing infrastructure allows us to start a conversation between spaces separated by different types of distance. Passing the mic around will allow us to reflect on the cultural space each sound is coming from? And will ask questions like: is geographic isolation a factor in cultural expression? what does it mean to be culturally remote in an electronically networked world? can we still think of ourselves as being in margins or centres when digital technologies allow us to bridge distances and make our own connections? can live, technologically mediated experience ever substitute for face-to-face communication?

Skint Stream consists of:

• Container Project - Clarendon (Jamaica)
• Sound Kitchen Studio/MMC - Johannesburg (South Africa)
• Nostalgie Ya Mboka - London (UK)
• Cue Music at Southend YMCA - Southend (UK)
• Regent Park Focus - Toronto (Canada)

The pilot stream went out live on 8 June 2005 between 6pm-11pm GMT. An edited version of the pilot Skint Stream session will be available on this site from 15 July 2005. A CD of the first Skint Stream session will also be available from September 2005.

A streaming workshop was held at the Sound Kitchen Studio in Alexandra, Johannesburg on 7 June 2005 in preparation for the pilot broadcast on 8 June. The participants in the workshop were: Maropeng Malatji, Rodger Moshapo, Tebogo Ramabulana, Aviyo Ngwenya, Ishmael Malepe, Siphiwe Ngwenya, 1st born (Ntsikelelo Ntshingila), Sista Fabo, Tom Mulcaire, Harwood and Judah.

Skint Stream is an ICA Cape Town, Mongrel and r a d i o q u a l i a project