MS BURNETT:
I just want to say to start with you'll probably find some of this quite twee compared to things you've been looking at in the last few days, but I don't apologise for that. Digitarts isn't about pushing the boundaries of technology or cultural practice or arts practice, it's about pushing the boundaries for the participants who are involved in the project.

I want to start off with a basic background of where I've come from, because I've been through a process which has been about access and opportunity, and a lot of accident which has led me to be at the point I am now and in the position I am. I'll skip all the birth stuff, just the important things.

4 years ago I completed my BA in visual arts at QT in Queensland and while I was doing that I picked up some theatre design electives because I wanted to do something other than just sitting in my studio and work with some other people. During that time I did a practical training with what was then called Contact Youth Theatre and Michael Doneman will talk a bit more about that tomorrow - what the background of Contact is and where they're going now.

When I left uni I continued with that work, working as a freelance designer. Basically my bread and butter was sewing costumes and creating sets. I worked on and off for Contact for a good 5 years, just as a freelance worker on projects they were doing - community cultural development projects, a lot of them. Then a few years ago the partner I was with decided he wanted to buy a computer and he wanted a really fast computer for writing on. I couldn't quite understand that and he didn't have the cash, but I said, "Yeah, okay, I'll pay for it."

It really quickly turned into a games machine and I started messing around with some desktop publishing software, just seeing, "Oh, what is this? What does it do?" and started doing some fliers and posters just for projects I was working on. Then early 95 Contact, who were starting to move into information technology, as a way of working with young people sort of I guess picked me up and said, "Okay, you've been doing some work on computers, how about this?" They'd just got a grant from the Australia Council for doing a project called Perfect Strangers, which was Australian Youth Arts and Culture site. I was given the job of designer as a training opportunity basically. I'd never created an image on a computer. I'd never saved anything as a GIF or a JPEG before and that's pretty important when you're creating on-line stuff. It was all completely new to me and this was only about a year and a half ago.

So I worked on Perfect Strangers. At the time they were also giving opportunities to other young people to develop coding skills in HTML which is what you - you need to know how to create a Web page. Increasingly you don't need to know that but at the time you did. A lot of you probably don't know what HTML is. I'll just give you a bit of a show of what that is. What's coming up is the HTML for the page you're looking at, so it's the code that makes this page look how it does. It's quite an empowering process to learn this and to be able to create something that not many people have the power to create, but increasingly it is becoming something really simple and you don't need to know the code at all.

You can see most of it's quite simple English: head, title, centre, body, table. It's all stuff like that which really helped in learning a different language - a computer language. I taught myself HTML from a brochure that was supplied to the other young people on the project by a tutor, who was teaching them HTML in Ipswich, which is a regional area outside of Brisbane.

Some of the young people from that group then became involved in the Perfect Stranger project helping me to create the site, put that together. One of those young people is still with us, Jason - he's pretty excellent and I'm sure Michael will mention something about Jason tomorrow.

I also really quickly learned how to use image editing software, again teaching myself. Most people I know are self-taught. I don't think I know anyone who has been to uni or TAFE and learned how to use imaging stuff. Everyone just sits and plays. At the same time Contact was also moving into a space in Fortitude Valley called Grunt. Grunt has eight on-line machines which are public access - young people. Not free, $2 an hour, but that's pretty bloody cheap. I moved into the space - well, I moved my computer into the space. It quickly became my computer. I split up with my partner and kept the computer.

In the middle of last year I applied for a grant from CCDB of the Australia Council to set up the Digitarts project - and it happened, amazingly enough - but with a lot of support from the people at Contact. So I now have an office space in Grunt and Digitarts runs from there in the space.

Okay, we started this year with workshops at the end of February. The orientation session - I was hoping for about 10 Digitarts and I ended up with 25, which was difficult to accommodate. It meant I had to run two or three times as many classes as I had planned to do, but I just couldn't say no. Those classes were fairly informally taught workshops, generally on a Sunday afternoon because that's when everybody could make it - in learning how to create Web pages, how to do HTML, how to do some really basic image editing because the machines we have aren't capable of doing fabo stuff.

I've just bought a second machine which means we now have two that are capable of doing some decent image editing things, and yeah, it went from there. A group of the Digitarts decided they didn't want to just be learning HTML and creating their own pages, and we've set up a zine group - a zine being a self-published magazine. I was the editor of that last semester - I guess you'd call it - but that's becoming an autonomous group now and they're starting to do their own editorial and taking control of that process.

I'll tell you - I think a bit about the Digitarts is kind of important: who they are, where they come from, why they're there. We have 30 to 40 enrolled members but that doesn't mean they're all active members. Some of them only come once and go, "No, this isn't for me" - which is fine, they just need to have that choice to decide if it's for them or not. They're between the ages of 14 and 50 - which we've had to be pretty flexible about our definition of "young". It kind of evolved to mean young in their experience of technology. But most of them are about 19 or 20 years old.

None of them are financially independent. None of them have full-time jobs. They're either unemployed, underemployed, students, part-time, full-time - but, yeah, nobody with any cash and only one of them owns a computer and she's by far the most engaged in the process. She's become the leader of the zine group, but it's really that access that has been really important to the rest of the group. The other ones who have access to machines at home - their partners have machines or their parents have machines - but most of them the only access they get is when they come to Grunt.

Most of them are involved in some sort of cultural practice already. A lot of them are artists or writers or activists in some way or another and they've come to the project because they can self-publish this way. What we've got on-line at the moment is the results of the first 6 months of Digitarts, which has just had a spring clean, which I did last Saturday before I came down. It's had three looks this year. I've started to get into scanning images in a big way, especially food. Those who know me know that it's pretty apt.

All of these ones here are individual pages, so just completely their own work. Perils of Pauline - Pauline doesn't have an arts practice or cultural practice but she's pretty active in her community. She's the one who has her own computer and I didn't have to teach her. She'd come every week and say, "Oh, I just read about tables. Show me tables." She keeps me going pretty well. Lovely Pauline.

There are a number of photographers who are just interested in creating a gallery for themselves to promote what they do. Which is a good one? Personal Miracles is a nice one, but again, I mean, they're not amazing Web pages. You don't go, "Wow, what excellent technology." It's just about who they are and getting themselves on-line.

You can have a look at this a bit later, it's very cute. There is Zoe, who is a sort of traveling photographer, dream job would be to work for National Geographic. Yeah, she spends all her time saving money to go overseas to take photos. Kym has done Angel of the House. She's a visual artist. This was her first experience working with computers, but she has quite developed ideas and was just sort of messing around with images really. She's currently working on a lino catalogue, because she collects lino.

She photographed all the aprons, which she has a collection of as well, with a digital camera and then set about cutting them out and putting text over the top of them. It was very simple. There are a few pages that are, you know, just "this is who I am" especially the younger participants have trouble with content, I guess.

This is our youngest one, Tara. She is really, really dedicated and excellent at her HTML stuff and helps the other younger Digitarts who have joined the project, mostly because of her and a friendship association. But she's done some cute - very naive and very basic shareware graphics program drawings, but she has a really nice design sense.

And to Grrrowl which we're currently working on the spring edition of and will come out in the middle of October. We did Grrrowl in a paper version as well as an on-line version. The paper version was a mini-version of the on-line one so we could distribute it locally and try and involve other young women in the project by them going, "Oh, wow, that's really interesting, yeah, I might go along and have a look."

We had an artist in residence on Grrrowl. She was actually engaged as a writer but she was just starting up an arts practice and this actually suited her a lot better than the writing process because the Digitarts involved in the zine were quite confident in their writing skills.

So, yeah, it's just like a magazine. It has an index of different articles that you can read about if you want to and a gallery of Rebecca Edwards' work. One of the other Digitarts' tutors was Amanda King who - you saw the feline in the show reel, that's her work. There's quite a lot of strong support for what Digitarts is doing from the other females in Brisbane who are working in this area.

The Digitarts have come to the project all for their own reasons. As I said, for some of them it was just to find out what this Web Net thing was that they'd been hearing about and decide if it was for them or wasn't. There are a number of them who have come along going, "Mm, no, it doesn't really interest me" which is fine. But they should be allowed to have that choice.

Yeah, for most of them they don't have the kind of access to computers or on-line services that they'd like to have, and that's what - basically that's what they get in coming to Grunt. They don't want to miss out. They're sick of hearing about all this stuff and not being part of it, and becoming a creator and not just a consumer of the culture that they're seeing.

It's been really successful to get participants I think for a number of reasons. One of them was the girls' own space for the computer learning. A number of the Digitarts have said to me, "I wouldn't come if it was a mixed group." So that's been really - a really important strategy for engaging them in this process. Also the workshops are free. Also, again, I said none of them are financially independent and, being free, that's the only reason they would come. If it was 50 bucks most of them couldn't afford it, except for the ones with parents who still live at home.

We're currently in our second semester of Digitarts. As I said, a new issue of the zine, which is being controlled by the group themselves - and a lot of benefits are starting to come out of that first semester, just concentrating on getting a solid base for the project. A couple of local groups have approached us about training - one of them is another zine called Lucibelle that wants to get on-line and also artists run a space called the ... space, and again it's women coming to us and saying, "Look, I'm interested" and they're most interested in getting training from other Digitarts who have been trained by us. They don't want to me, they want to talk to the other guys.

We're also currently in the process of setting up what we're calling Space Girls, which will be an index of Australian women on-line which - currently there's nothing really like that. But we'll be able to facilitate the kind of networking that we'd really like to see come out of Digitarts, but at present me being the only worker, the administrator, the promoter, the workshop facilitator, makes it really hard to get around and get the sort of involvement we'd like to have with people in other parts of Australia.

There have been - there is some interest. There's a Digitart in New Zealand, a Digitart in Melbourne - both of them were from Brisbane and shifted there and still want to keep up the connection, so they'll be working in other parts to work on that one.

Also another woman in Melbourne who teaches at a school is wanting to learn HTML and is trying to get girls involved into her projects there. She's been in contact with me and I've been helping her in that process. Also a Digitart in Wollongong has sent us her zine to put on-line, which is something we're working on - but they're the kind of connections that we'd really like to be starting to make; that's what interests a lot of the Digitarts a lot - is this connecting with other young women around Australia, particularly to do work together, but it's not easy to make all those connections. That's why things like this are really important.

Also the base that we've set down is allowing us to start up other projects. At the moment we're just beginning a project called Art for the Masses, which is a real and virtual space poster project and that's funded by our local city council. That one, the major focus of that is the content development. Those Digitarts won't be learning how to make HTML but they'll be working on the content and putting that on-line.

One of the other ways I think Digitarts has been really successful is that it has managed to hook into already existing networks in Brisbane that have come out of other projects. One project that has been really successful was - Backbone Youth Arts ran a group called the Hereford Sisters which is a young women's physical performance group, and the network that is created from that particular group is incredible. Hooking into that network just - sending fliers through them has been amazing, and the word of mouth that.

So I mean each of the Digitarts gets around through that network is pretty incredible too. - there is some of the Digitarts from the Hereford Sisters and each of them bring their own networks into the project. There's a couple of them who work for Triple Z, the community radio station that came out of one of the universities and that's been a really valuable way to connect with their networks.

I haven't really spoken about community cultural development as a concept but it hasn't been a really difficult process for Digitarts; it's something that's just happened out of what we've done. I just, you know, did practical stuff, the promotion, the admin, the workshop facilitator and it just seems to happen by itself. You see the participants becoming empowered through the demystification of what HTML is, what the Web stuff is - that's a process I've been through myself - and the networks that have been developing by - just inside the workshop groups, because we've got emerging artists, we've got established artists, we've got really young women, we've got uni students, and just inside the groups the conversation that goes on and the networks are created through that - it's okay, yeah, I'll be right.

Yeah, it never works when you want it to. One thing you learn. Also them creating content - other young women to engage women everywhere to go, "Oh, maybe the Web isn't just a boys' space. There is something there for me." That's something that happened to me quite early in the process when I was first learning how to create Web pages. I saw Geek Girl and before that I was just going, "Oh, I don't know about this." But there was finally some content for me.

The other thing that has been really nice is just watching the informal processes that go on. Like, at our zine launches they bring all their friends along and show them what they've been doing and through that process more of them become involved in the project. I think that's about all I want to say. Really it was a practical - this is what we've been doing and this is how it's happened, and this is why it has been successful, because it has been really successful.

There was one thing I wanted to say about empowerment. Open up your computer one day, if you haven't ever done it before, it's quite an amazing thing. It's very simple. There's lots of air inside it.

My first experience of that was my floppy drive broke when I really needed it to work, and so I just went "Oh, bugger this" and opened it up and went "Oh." It just plugs and screws in. I pulled it out and went took it down to the local hardware supplier and said, "Can I have another one of these?" They just looked at me horrified - "You took that out yourself?" "Yeah, it's like unplugging an electric kettle." So yeah, do it one day, you know, have a look in there. Every now and again I open it up when something doesn't work and unplug a few things and plug them back in and sure enough it works again.

Also, while I have got the floor, a point on the pornography issue you were talking about yesterday: I have never accidentally come across pornography on line; I have only found it when I have looked for it. I see it more accidentally when I walk into a newsagent. That's it. I don't think I have a session planned - scheduled for any of the afternoons, so you will just have to grab me later if you want to talk to me.