At an approximate mid-way point in our explorations of Digital Hybridity, we can attempt to offer a summary account of the progress so far. We can first note the variety of approaches taken in relation to the theme and the diverse range of content that has resulted. Carefully considered expositions, in the form of theoretical fictions, have been uploaded next to arguably less fussy, fragmentary asides on both tangential subjects and precise asides orbiting the theme. Yet, for all its fragmentary nature, the cumulative effect of these concerns being collected together in the same space, in effect sharing a single feed/interface on the Digital Hybridity homepage, suggests that the collective project – which has already evidenced more or less obvious links between projects and associated ideas – has started to take on weight that has the potential to go in innumerable new directions, opening up all manner of future possibilities.

There is still one month to go so we must pose the question as to how these related projects can be brought into even closer proximity, how interaction can be increased, or how comments or cross-pollinations can be encouraged. It's true that significant amounts of text and imagery have already been generated, resulting in an emergent and fragmentary picture of collaborative effort, yet as the projects move toward their individually designated points of conclusion, coinciding with the Digital Hybridity conference hosted by DMARC at the University of Derby on the 17th June, how can individual projects' concerns be cross-referenced in a more productive way?

Contrasting approaches can mean that projects have different expectations concerning what can be considered a final outcome. By definition (albeit to differing degrees of prominence across different projects) all the work being conducted online constitutes a form of proto-work – preliminary efforts that mark out a specific territory for themselves, establishing limits as they progress, and often forcing themselves to alter their constituent parts in order to keep mobile – yet the goals towards which projects aim may or may not be achievable in the given time. Specific projects may involve plans to have clearly defined endpoints, even physical manifestations, whereas others may only be concerned with a documentation process, remaining focused on work designated as being permanently 'in advance' or existing as a separate mode of operation. Again, this sets up points of comparison across the Digital Hybridity project in terms of potential combinations of approach and expectatiopn – perhaps uneasy alliances between work restricted to the 'prototype', to purely digital / online documentation, to translations of ideas into the physical world. How can we judge the coherence of a collective when its components are working at different speeds?

The presence of both the human 'image' and human body is also notable across many projects - although this is curiously disrupted through a surreal preoccupation with theoretical animal hybrids in The Muleskinders. The use of the human image as a hinge point, a kind of hybrid agent, has played a role in AR Gilt City – which has also concerned itself with the mechanics of image production in relation to the movement of capital and financial corruption (a concern with methods of production, reproduction and self-production that is itself echoed in the technology mashups proposed by It Pays My Way But It Corrodes My Soul) – and has formed part of an enquiry into images within Hybrid History. Speculations on changing the physical body have also been touched upon in various projects, and has been highlighted in a tentative debate revolving around a Second Life version of Stelarc enunciating the phrase "the body is obsolete", as posted in Technoetic Research in Hybrid Realities - which would seem to be validated as a purely provocative statement designed to highlight an 'aspiration' of technology when combined with inescapably human operators. Again, this concern with changing the body has been contratsed by the concern for adapting to it (as a machine), such as a explorable landscape as seen in the production notes of ANNELI.

Given that all this material has been generated, it is good to remember that the Digital Hybridity project still has a month of development to go. It is not clear where many of the projects will be taken, yet, no matter what specific outcomes are expected, it is hoped that the potential for change and adaptation, division and mutation, will be more actively encouraged and directed, both from within the collective itself and through the interventions of the external auduence that continues to visit to keep track of all new developments.

Cesário Alves & Miguel Pipa

'Emulsion Soundtrack' is an experiment of painting with light and sound. The visual material are mostly 35 mm slide reproductions of photographs of a 1930's to 50's album (a portfolio from the popular photographic studio Fotografia Adriano of Vila do Conde, Portugal), mixed with scraps of film and slide collages,

projected like paint onto a canvas by the manipulation of 3 slide projectors and black cardboard masks. The variations of light and color affects and interacts

with the soundscapes created by Miguel Pipa's bent FM radios, toys and instruments, trough analogue light sensitive cells, a webcam and some laptop programming. Is it a search for the unexpected trough improvisation, an attempt to generate new images and sounds trough intersection, blending and movement of both images and sound devices (analog and digital).

The visual part of this concert performance is based on still photographs only. We are making use of old photographs of families taken in an old studio, reproduced onto 35 mm slide film and then bleached until they acquire a vibrant blue tone and become a kind of ghost of the original. These photographs are blended with abstract graphics and colors from fragments of film strips (taken from the kind of lead strips projectionists use in the beginning of feature films to align them for projections). In this experiment, we are discovering the possibilities of interaction of light and color with sounds through analog devices like light sensitive cells and some programming (through Pure Data, Max MSP and Processing).

This collective project aims to develop original, cross-disciplinary work in response to the theme of Digital Hybridity, as well as framing and informing a multi-media conference on the same theme being co-hosted by D-MARC and the Creative Technologies Research Group (CTRG) in Derby on 17th June 2011.

The notion of Digital Hybridity can be characterised as a potentially volatile space of intersection created by the blending of digital practices, media and cultures. This online project's collective exploration of the theme will examine the effects that developing digital technologies are having on representation, modes of perception, criticism, the materiality of information, the body, etc. as well as the aesthetic, theoretical, ethical and technical implications involved in testing disciplinary boundaries.

The project brings together both emerging and internationally established contributors from a range of media, working individually and collaboratively on ten projects aligned to the common theme. Over the next two months, these participants will keep an online record of their projects as they develop, all the while allowing their progress to be interacted with and commented upon by visitors to the site. Their accounts can take any form – diary entries, blog posts, image feeds or sound / video updates, etc. – yet their main focus is the generation of active, open discussion on issues specific to each project and to the general theme of Digital Hybridity. Following the June conference, finished projects will be presented and archived on the site.

Throughout the development of projects it is hoped that public visitors will interact with the material being generated. Please sign up, make comments and engage with the contributors.

Individual projects are listed in the menu on the left hand side, as well as a overview project and a list of participants.