Latest News from Belfast including GDPR
Preparing for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), 12 steps to take now.
As you may already know, the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect on May 25, 2018. This legislation will protect how personal data is collected, stored and used in the EU. It updates rights for a networked world. As a result I need permission to store contact details and send out art related material. According to the regulation, “Consent must be freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous. There must be a positive opt-in – consent cannot be inferred from silence, pre- ticked boxes or inactivity.”
GDPR & the ethics of social media use by visual artists My recently completed PhD thesis examined visual artists’ increasing reliance on social media, both as a professional practice networking tool and as outputting vehicle for examples of their process and finished work. I focused on the online behaviour of ‘networked individuals’ and the ‘data self’ (Capurro, R. 2014), (Horning, R. 2012) and the development of ‘persona empires’ (McHugh, G. 2011:37) Post Internet, Notes on the Internet and Art 12.29.09 > 09.05.10. I concluded by discussing the ethics of big data and information security, touching on the issue of informed consent, privacy and the right to be forgotten, which are addressed by this new legislation. So I welcome the GDPR as a way for artists to develop a nuanced, mature and authentic approach to what they share on social media in the future, to mitigate its more negative aspects on their practice. For more information on the topic I recommend Shannon Vallor's excellent summary of “Social Networking and Ethics” on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy website. Matt Burgess has produced a comprehensive need-to-know GDPR guide explaining what the changes mean for individuals in “What is GDPR? The summary guide to GDPR compliance in the UK”. Finally the Information Commissioner’s Office website has a Guide to the GDPR and a number of tools to help organisations prepare, including the "12 steps to take now" shown above.
OPENING THIS EVENING
News & Projects Program Your Retroactive Wish, Catalyst Arts Gallery, 5 College Ct, Belfast BT1 6BS 2-5 May One of my new constructed photographs will be exhibited at Catalyst Arts Gallery, Belfast, opening this evening from 6-9 pm. I hope to see you there. "Regret is a way of relating to objects and actions of the past, connecting our desires and wills to what we do and what we make. This show takes the idea of regret – the retroactive wish – as a potentially compelling way of seeing what we’ve made and of bringing an element of looking-back into the present. Clément Rosset summarises Schopenhauer, saying that regret has no meaning; to do something different would have been to want something different. Even without meaning, a retroactive wish might carry something – the ghost of an intention, a persistent illusion."
#Interface neo:gallery23, The Market Place, Bolton BL1 2AL 31 March-20 May 2018 There is also still time to see three of my constructed photographs in #Interface at neo:gallery23, The Market Place, Bolton BL1 2AL 31 March-20 May 2018. This exhibition is organised and curated by Lucie Wilson, Sandra Bouguerch and Sume Leyden to explore the impact of technology on our daily physical and social environment and on visual culture in general. Summer in the the Studio I plan to spend my summer at Creative Exchange Artist Studio, East Belfast, reviewing my ideas and processes. This includes attending a Documentary Photography course at Belfast Exposed, getting to know my new Nikon D750, and playing with paints and drawing materials provided with generous support from ACNI and The National Lottery. Have a good summer!