Feature ~ Blog

I had just finished my BFA at Ryerson University in New Media when I met my future boss, Ana Serrano, at one of Norman White's famous mill parties. I handed her one of my homemade business cards, and before long I was working for her at the Habitat New Media Lab at the Canadian Film Centre as their Production Manager.

Habitat (now known simply as the CFC Media Lab) is an incredibly stimulating educational environment. Every six months a new group of strangers would come in, form teams, and create new media prototypes that pushed the limits of what could be made with the software and hardware available at the time. The members of faculty were wonderfully inspiring, and diverse in their interests - physical computing specialists, narratologists, usability experts, leadership development gurus. My role in all this was to hold the technical infrastructure together and give the residents aesthetic, technical, and conceptual advice on possible routes their prototypes could take. Throughout all of this, I was very lucky to have Ana as my boss and ultimately, as my mentor. She and I remain in close touch and I learned a lot from her - in particular that it is is possible to really enjoy and love the people you work with, while at the same time not falling into step with them on every topic. The fact that I was not obliged to agree with her on every matter honed my debating skills and also highlighted to me that my value to an organization was to contribute to the growth of it by voicing concerns as well as kudos along the way.

The job was a unique fusion of roles as customer service professional, armchair psychologist, militant aesthete, and tea-leaf reader. Maintaining all of those roles resulted in some exhilarating moments and some low moments. Among the lowest was a time when I was sure I hadn't yet won the "hearts and minds" of a particular group of residents, and asked them each to come into my office to speak to me. One of them told me frankly that he thought I hadn't a clue what I was doing. Of course, he ended up being one that I was pals with by the end of his time there. One of the highest moments was having my folks come to one of our prototype launches at Windfields, the sweeping estate at Bayview and York Mills that the CFC occupies. They were so immensely proud that I had played a pivotal role in making the whole magical evening in this spectacular location take place.

After three years constantly learning something new under Ana's expert tutelage, I decided however that it was time to finally get my Master's degree. In my typically contrary way, I chose to attend a francophone university - the Université du Québec à Montréal - in their Visual and Media Arts Master's programme. With my high-school French and a few last-minute courses at the Alliance Française under my belt, I braved the immersive francophone environment. Most everyone was extremely patient, kind, and welcoming, despite my sometimes indecipherable French. (One professor, who I came to truly admire and respect, said to me calmly at one point: "Michelle, your ideas are clearly very good. Your French, however, is very bad.") The most interesting lesson there was that my own shyness at being inarticulate for the first time in my life was the only significant limit to my success.

As I was wrapping up my Master's, a friend forwarded me the announcement about the Programmes Director post at New Media Scotland, and I thought that it was a long shot, but that I would apply anyway. This friend, media artist and long-time collaborator Michael Alstad, believes that one should always apply for things, since at least a committee of a few people will be forced to consider you and think about your potential. I had never considered any kind of opportunity-seeking in this way before he pointed out to me that even if you lose, essentially you win, since you may be remembered for other opportunities in future. With this in the back of my mind, I had my Montréal-Edinburgh interview on webcam, dressed impeccably from the waist up, with the camera pointed towards the clean end of my apartment. The next day I received a call offering me the position, and I have been in Edinburgh ever since. My job now, as Programmes Director, consists of instigating, developing, and managing the complete roster of programmes and services offered by New Media Scotland, the national agency for art and technology. It's wonderful on so many levels, not the least of which is living in one of the most beautiful cities in the entire world. In my scant spare time, I continue to maintain side curatorial projects, and two weblogs, one that has a specific focus on curating contemporary art and one that is more broadly about art, life, and technology http://michelle.kasprzak.ca/blog.