Concept NULL Newsletter Wrap Up 2025
👋 Welcome
Hey you all! This is going to be our last full correspondence of the year. We decided after the busy year we had that we are going to be taking a Christmas break from writing the newsletter. We will be back with the regular Newsletter #64 on the 15th of January.
Two quick mentions, a reminder for (last of the year) Dublin TouchDesigner Meetup on the 7pm tonight in Tog Hackerspace.
We will be running a short survey over the holidays, which we will be emailing out instead of the newsletter. The survey will help us understand what the communities needs are and what we are maybe overlooking, which will inform our planning for next year. We appreciate anyone taking time to filling it out and look forward to reading your responses.
Ok, so here is our 2025!
Our 2025 (another one!)
Intro & Highlights
Some of our highlights in the year:
The multidisciplinary policy being launched and Aideen McCole (head of multidisciplinary practices) answering artists questions on the Digital Artist Ireland Discord 🗣️
Derivative instigating their first visit to Ireland with the TouchDesigner Dublin Summer Event (and enjoying pints of Guinness) 🍌
One of our organisers Cailean Finn going to Ars Electronica with a super-group of Irish artists and organisations 🔥
Running our first full-scale event in 4 years 🎉
While being one of the more difficult years to organise, with both internal pressures mounting and external (ever-growing cost of living in Ireland and therefore production expenses, venues being evicted, faltering government systems — the list sadly goes on in Ireland), through all the pain we have had one of the most rewarding and heartwarming years so far, and we have grown a lot from it.
Albeit the problems and the chaos, we saw a flourish in artists, both emerging and established, engaging in New Media art in Ireland. Interests for subjects like TouchDesigner being more popular, artists building their own tools to compliment them, collaborating with each other, taking matters into their own hands by running their own meetups and just a general diverse engagement at our events and the Discord meetups.
Events
Emergent Sound System Workshop
Concept Null 2025
TouchDesigner Event Dublin Summer 2025
TouchDesigner Fundamentals Workshop
Impact
In the 12 months, we wrote 22 newsletters containing 100 New Media related events / exhibitions / workshops happening on the island of Ireland. We added 213 open-calls eligible by Irish artists related to New Media. We planned and produced 2 workshops and ran 2 full-scale events, comprising of meetups / workshops / performances, highlighting the Irish community.
Out of the Dublin TouchDesigner Event, the pieces fell together in October for Dublin’s first regular TouchDesigner meetups in Tog. We also supported Aisling Phelan on her 11-month streak hosting monthly meetups on the Digital Artists Ireland Discord.
What’s next for us
We will be taking time over the holidays to streamline the way we organise internally. We want to get away from using Google (and other platforms involved in supporting Israel apartheid) so this will be a good chance to look at more suited ways to manage projects and collaborate with others (any advice or tips are very welcome).
Alongside this, we will be organising ways that people can donate money or time to us. Running this organisation is becoming more and more expensive (both in time and costs) so we need to start considering some form of income, without putting the newsletter or other services we offer behind blanket paywalls, or spending 6 months of our year writing lengthy “box ticking” applications. So doing this in a way that is easy, transparent and doesn’t feel like a “must” for people is the fine line we want to walk.
Following the resounding uptake and stated desire from both communities and institutions, we will be continuing our push for more TouchDesigner workshops and events into the new year.
And lastly, we will continue to make efforts to have a seat at the table and engage with institutions/government bodies and policymakers in terms of the activities of the recognition of new media arts / digital arts community in Ireland.
Here’s to you
With all that said, we honestly can’t thank everyone by name individually as we would break the word limit of an email. So we want to extend a massive hug and a thank you to everyone that supported us throughout the year! ❤️ Whether that be by attending an event, making contact with us, looking out for us, extending a helping hand, taking time to share our posts or newsletters, financially supporting us, however big/small. We are grateful for, and proud of, such a responsive and caring community 🏠🤗
That’s it for us this year, we hope you had a fantastic year too and wish you all happy holidays!
See you in the new year, Concept NULL
[conceptnullofficial@gmail.com]
Incredible work guys!!! You’re making such a tangible impact on the digital arts scene in Ireland, keep doing what you’re doing, we need you <3