An interview with Connor Turansky to hear about his vision and inspiration for the county’s first ever Tech Art Festival!
Tech Art Fest is a brand-new festival bringing together artists, creative technologists, and performers to exhibit artwork, host talks, and run workshops with a programme of free events from Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd February at Unit 10, Basildon, Essex. Supported by the Essex County Council Arts and Cultural Fund, we caught up with Connor for a short interview.
How would you describe ‘Tech Arts’ and why are they important?
It’s a combination of those two things. It’s looking at technology and its relationship to the arts world. One of my favourite artists, Nam June Paik used to strap magnets onto the front of a big CRT Televisions to look at what they were doing (Magnet TV, 1965, was one of Nam June Paik’s earliest works that was exhibited at his first solo exhibition in New York, showcasing the alteration of a television image or its physical casing with industrial-sized magnet rests). It’s certainly not a new thing. I think now tech is having a boom in Essex, such as the film studios we have – I’d like to see where artists can use technology to expand and modify their work and view it in different ways.
What is the inspiration behind the festival, and could you tell us more about the key themes across the festival programme?
My background is in technology and trying to embed technology in my art practice. The festival has a few different streams. It has talks, workshops, live performances and an exhibition. My hope is that each of these elements is going to appeal or interact with a different kind of demographic. The workshops are more hands on for younger people to play with tech that they haven’t used before, whilst the algorithm music event is going to be a late-night musical performance and a celebration of people from Essex. The festival came from the fact that I was getting a growing awareness of Essex’s relationship to London, the fact that a lot of our arts and talent inside of Essex does unfortunately get exported to London. I wanted to bring something to Essex that was going to celebrate Essex and bring external people here.
How has the Arts and Culture fund helped the festival and what has it supported?
The Essex County Council Arts and Culture Fund is important as it supports such a wide variety of cultural events. In the world of tech, things change quickly and sometimes opportunities go faster than funding bodies do, so it’s a nice fund to have available. The people behind it have been very helpful in terms of just helping to shape and sculpt it and of advocate for it, which has been important.
What impact do you hope the festival will have had on the local community/Basildon?
The festival is going to be sited in Basildon High Street utilising a unit which is currently empty. It’s nice to bring arts and community to a High Street because they are a topic of debate in terms of change and purpose – particularly in bringing together communities of people who may not engage in this format of art and technology. Hopefully there’s going to be a lot of people attend who wouldn’t have chosen or wouldn’t have gone out their way to see this kind of thing before. Although this is a one-off festival, I want to see it have further iterations across Essex. Ultimately for me, it’s about letting people realise that they’re not the only person in their areas who are interested in tech arts and encourage people to start to build a network.
How important is creating accessible spaces and designs in the arts and how does the Tech Art Fest reflect this?
As a neurodivergent artist, I think that’s something that’s really close to me. I’ve often faced barriers or had to find alternative methods in accessing various formats. Accessibility is something that’s always baked into my own practise, and especially with tech, art and immersive interactive art.
There are many more considerations to make in terms of how people experience your work with tech arts
In contrast to a photo on the wall, which only has a few parameters. If you’re asking people to move their bodies, push buttons, listen to things – there’s a lot more sensory interaction points. So, it’s important to me that the work is giving voice to people with a variety of different lived experiences.
Is there anything specific you do hope to leave behind after the Tech Art Festival?
I think community is the main thing and proving a point that there is an appetite for Tech Art in Essex. There are people who live here and want to make art and then also don’t live here and want to come down to view Art. It’s proving it. It’s making something memorable. There are other Tech Art festivals but to have one in Essex that has its own identity, which aligns with what I would feel was my Essex identity.
Find out more about the Tech Art Fest.
