New Criticals

Dr Charlotte Frost is an academic focusing on art’s relationship with technology. Producing reviews and discussion on digital/new media art for more than ten years, she has worked online and off with a variety of key organisations including the Guardian, Arts Council England, Furtherfield, where she is Associate Context Editor, Rhizome and a-n, where she wrote the regular column: Digital Practices. A presenter on the radio show Furtherfield.org on Resonance FM, she also recently co-produced and presented a set of videos on social media for creatives, and contributed to the Guardian video on Jill Magid’s Tate Modern show. She is founder and editor of the research project and academic book series, Arts Future Book, which looks at how digital creativity challenges the form and content of the art history/criticism/theory book. A member of the CAA Committee on Intellectual Property, she is also the founder and director of PhD2Published, a web resource offering publishing advice to early-career academics. Her own first book, Art History Online, comes out in 2013.  She has taught at Writtle School of Design, the University of Westminster, completed a short-term Post Doctoral Fellowship at the prestigious HUMlab in Sweden, and is the 2011-2012 International Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Center for 21^st Century Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Here are Charlotte's first five...

"Mmmmm, link-bait! [drools on keyboard]"

"You'll forgive me if this one is a category with an example? For over 15 years I have worked in fashion retail as sales assistant, buyer, visual merchandiser, manager and marketer. Women's wear and jewellery are never far from my thoughts, actions and online wanderings in the form of fashion and jewellery blogs, online fashion or jewelry retailers and all manner of design sites. If I had to pick somewhere I HAVE to go for inspiration on a regular basis, it'd be Etsy. Oh the things people make when they're not constrained by high street homogenization!"

"I write collaboratively on a regular basis with Jesse Stommel and run projects like AcWriMo using group Google Docs – it’s a bit like my virtual office (complete with water cooler banter courtesy of the chat box)!"

"In 2010 I set up the first open access website dedicated to helping early-career academics get published. At first, I was entirely responsible for day-to-day operations of this site/community. Since landing my own book contract I have offered the site to ‘managing editors’ to run in their own way, but I stay in constant contact to help and support them. Managing editors gain valuable visibility in an over-crowded job market; regularly interact with academic publishers - both networking with prospective editors and developing their knowledge of writing and the publishing industry; and get quick and honest answers about how best to broadcast their own research. On top of this, by running a blog and regularly writing for social media sites like Facebook and Twitter – and possibly even video blogging – site editors get hands-on experience of how to communicate across a range of platforms. Having been involved with arts organizations such as Furtherfield and Rhizome, written about email-based art discussion lists, and critiqued art in a number of non-traditional locations already, I am only too aware of how important it is to be able to communicate across a range of media. I am convinced this type of holistic and hands-on learning helps provide a faster and more in-depth knowledge of academic communication standards. So every day I check in on PhD2Published (front and back-end) and it's twitter feed and Facebook page and make sure that Anna, the current managing editor, has everything she needs."

"My constant muse"