Keith Armstrong

Over the years, Keith Armstrong has had more knock-backs than grants. You shouldn't rely on Australia Council funding, he says, but don't give up either.

'You know before you open the envelope whether you've got the grant or not,' says Brisbane-based new media artist Keith Armstrong. 'A fair bit of paperwork goes with a grant so if you've got it, it's a fairly big envelope. If it's a small envelope you haven't.'

Keith has had a fair few small envelopes over the years. He has worked on several Australia Council-funded collaborative projects, but when applying as an individual in his own right, he has had more knock-backs than grants. When he applied to the New Media Arts Board (NMAB) for a New Work grant at the end of 2000, he had only received funding once from five applications since 1994. But he was successful in 2000 and again in 2002.

'Having a grant application rejected is disappointing but you just keep going and try not to lose faith in yourself,' he says. 'I was a Queensland peer on the New Media Arts Board panel one year and it was very informative. You realise [not getting a grant] is not personal, that it's incredibly competitive.'

'It was very clear that the money you get from the Australia Council is not something you would want to think of as ongoing wages. You can't think of it on its own. But it is tough. I have had some part-time casual teaching, which meant I could survive. And through that connection I've been able to bring on-board substantial in-kind support for projects. The whole new media area is a challenging one. The work has to be new. Anything that is last year's model is out of date, so you've got to keep on the wave and to do that takes a lot of work.'

Keith specialises in collaborative, hybrid works with an emphasis on performance and site-specific installation. During 2001 with a New Work seeding grant from the NMAB and support from Arts Queensland, he led a team of eight artists, scientists and designers on a project called Transact to design a network of interdependent performance installations connected by the Internet. The period of research and development allowed the team to get to know each other's work practices, refine their ideas into a clear set of aims and objectives, and develop innovative approaches to established models for media space design.

'It was great not to feel pressured to have to come up with a fully realised project,' he says. Instead, they mounted a major work-in-progress, which was shown at the Tasmanian Art Gallery in Hobart. 'It demonstrated what we were talking about and gave us fabulous images.'

With the outcomes of Transact, Keith was able to gather support from the Queensland University of Technology and sponsors. He also involved people like programmers who already had salaries from institutions but who were keen to be involved.

'It's not possible to work at the technical level we have chosen unless you have institutional friends because it is impossible to afford to keep on top of all the new hardware and software that you need.'

In late 2002, Keith successfully applied for a New Work project grant from the NMAB to develop Transact into Intimate transactions, a series of three physical interactive installation works in different locations inspired by the principles of philosophical ecology and networked via the Internet.

'It's a new form of collaboration,' says Keith. 'At its simplest it's a series of theories about interconnectedness and relationships, so electronic networks offer interesting possibilities for modelling or working with those ideas.'

Unveiled in Australia in 2003, Intimate transactions has major showings planned worldwide in 2004.

'To my knowledge no-one else in Brisbane is doing anything of this scale, so it is a unique opportunity and the Australia Council assistance was crucial,' says Keith. 'And obviously there's a certain degree of credibility that comes from having some kind of national recognition. I don't think you can underestimate that. To get these grants after 10 years of arts practice really makes you feel that something is happening.'