Field Broadcast is a live broadcasting network/project/platform/contraption that enables artists to make artworks that forge a direct link between the place they are broadcasting from and their audience. The broadcasts are received live through a downloadable application allowing an event to be dispersed through the internet to a global audience.

Artists are equipped with laptops, video cameras and a dongle (mobile internet connection) to enable them to make live broadcasts from the field. These broadcasts can take the form of streaming video and audio, still images, text and virtually anything that can be sent via the internet. Live broadcast does not allow for post production or further mediation and the environment and the landscape become an agent in the work, directly influencing the outcome of the broadcast.

These broadcasts are received by an audience who have downloaded a specially built software that runs on the computer desktop. This software alerts any viewers who are online when a broadcast goes live with a loud ‘ping’ and displays the broadcast from the field in a window on the desktop.

The times of the broadcasts are not announced. This means that a viewer can encounter an artwork in quite unexpected circumstances. Any broadcast transmitted is received by any viewer who has their computer switched on and is connected to the Internet- whether it is at a kitchen table, in an office or while on the telephone. Equally if you are not online you will miss a broadcast. This ‘you have to be there’ approach develops an engagement with the artwork as an event.

 

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