About NEoN
NEoN Digital Arts (SCIO) is a charitable organisation whose aims are to advance the understanding and accessibility of digital and technology-driven art forms and encourage high quality within this medium's production. NEoN utilises many platforms to deliver these aims, including festivals, exhibitions, workshops, talks, conferences, live performances, and public discussions. NEoN commissions new and nurtures the development of ongoing work. NEoN believes that contemporary culture is linked to digital technology in profound ways, and through its collaborative programme, a greater critical understanding of and accessibility to digital art can be fostered. NEoN aims to nurture and present a collaborative programme of digital art that fosters a greater critical understanding of contemporary culture within the context of today’s technology-driven society through an exploratory and accessible programme.
New Approaches
NEoN is changing from a festival-based organisation to an organisation capable of taking up the continuous demands of caring for audiences and workers of the current technological, environmental, economic and social conditions. We live in a neoliberal world that requires high productivity in a short period of time, which has the effect of isolating employees and creating work conditions so unrealistic and stressful that burnout is commonplace. This often adversely affects audiences too. For high-quality, fruitful creative experiences, you need time: time for engaging, innovating, experimenting, organising, evaluating, and inspiring. NEoN is developing a feminist ethics of care approach that challenges these working conditions and provides a feminist digital infrastructure. We aim to develop and implement new strategies that emphasise collaborative, collective, and communal approaches. By slowing down and claiming time for collective action informed by feminist theory, we are exploring alternatives to neoliberal models that are fast-paced and metric-oriented. In order to achieve a balanced art creation and leadership system within the arts, NEoN acknowledges the urgent need to address historical power imbalances. In particular, we will support artists and practitioners experiencing systemic oppression and discrimination, those who sit at the intersections of several minority identities, and those from economically marginalised communities. Going Forward Reflecting the diversity and complexity of the digital and technology-driven art scene is a core value of NEoN. We believe the arts can be a powerful platform for social change, and we strive to include a multitude of voices and perspectives in the planning and implementation of our artistic work and operations. Bringing together like-minded emerging artists and well-established artists, we aim to influence and reshape the genre with an organisation founded on feminist values. NEoN creates opportunities for collaboration and spontaneity and will always push beyond expectations. Our program of international and regional artistic exchanges aims to nurture diverse grass-roots art of the region whilst drawing in the art world's most outstanding talent. We commission and program artists to present contemporary work of the highest quality. International artists can see NEoN as a place to create their best work, and emerging artists are enriched by their connection with the programme and other participants in it. Going forward, we will continue to foster a greater critical understanding of the contemporary culture within the context of today’s technology-driven, diversely complex society.
*NEoN acknowledges that this growth is a process and that this document is a living one and subject to the process of change as we continue to learn.
