Raven Smith: Digi-Curator of the Here and Now
By Something CuratedRaven Smith | Nowness commissioning director
Raven Smith is a force to watch in the digital media world. Though relatively young, Smith brings a clarity of vision and understanding for the link-up between creative production and digital dissemination – and where, exactly, an awareness of pop culture aesthetic fits the bill. As commissioning director of the art and culture tuned video platform NOWNESS, Smith has called the attention of the digital media industry as well as those involved in fashion, arts, and culture that is more mainstay.
Having graduated from the London College of Communications in 2008, Smith went on to work as editor at Black Dog publishing – a speciality publishing house based in King’s Cross that focuses on nonfiction and visually-oriented texts that explore topics and issues within contemporary culture. In 2010, Smith became commissioning art editor at Nowness: a global video channel that commissions and releases a new video work every day – think a much more curated, self-respecting YouTube. While Smith left in 2012 for a gig at entertainment channel MTV as art director.
In 2013, Smith returned to Nowness, where he continues to edit but his involvement has grown into a more strategic and public role, with a brand/content management orientation. Though his time at MTV was short, it enabled Smith to refine his razor-sharp awareness of pop-culture’s place in digital media and internet aesthetics. Rather than dismissing pop culture as anti-culture, Smith – like more and more critics and curators of contemporary culture, from artists to academics – puts it directly into the limelight. He is fascinated and obsessed by its rapid expiration and making sense of unique nodes whilst they stick around. Smith spots trends and patterns and embraces them (and, for the record, his meme game is fierce: look no further than his personal Instagram.)
“You have to nurture new talent and court old school directors. You need to be able to manage big, branded projects alongside someone’s genius iPhone footage from their vacation”
Previous personal projects that embody the kind of unique vision Raven Smith brings to the world of digi-curating, social media and contemporary culture is his Hillary Clinton project, unfolding in the peak of the 2016 election campaign via his Instagram account, where Smith explores Hillary Clinton’s “addiction to pantsuits.”
There is something powerful and insinuative about presenting a series of curated imagery that is defined by social taboos or saturated with contemporary (and surely, fleeting) political meaning, with little to no (con)text. The narrative almost creates itself. Under the guise of meme-dom, or simply floating low-key in the current of social media – which itself is generally perceived as irrelevant, harmless, ever-forgetting and changing and apolitical – profound ideas and conversations about politics, economy, and society can occur, arising out of little more than a desire to share (or shout) one’s opinion.
Another project of Smith’s is “I haven’t got a tumblr to wear,” which is a Tumblr-based image-only project that investigates the future of sex through images alone. It’s as much about representations of sex and sexuality as it is a sort of a living visual timeline of the ways these topics (perhaps too taboo still for everyday, real-world conversation) shift and mutate meaning over the years.
“My attraction to her isn’t political, per se. But I’m very, very interested in powerful women and their representation. The idea of a ‘first lady’ is archaic – Michelle Obama is a lawyer – and I’m intrigued as Hillary continues to mutate the first lady ideal. Her image is a massive part of that.” – Raven Smith unpacks the nuanced ideas behind his #Hillary2016 obsession.
NOWNESS curates already existing content and sends more of it out into the world through commissions from creatives of all fields who are introducing something new in their thoughts, their style and their work. Whilst the site remains dominated by moving images and video stills/work, their Instagram and Facebook satellites contort to the predominant nature of these platforms, instead opting for still images. Here, the curation of prior content predominates.
“Online video is seeking you out now, not the other way round…. The storytelling doesn’t live up to the headline and the content values clicks over quality. At Nowness, we’re hyper aware of the importance of using data to commission and increase reach but we’re informed by it rather than led.”
Wherever Smith’s career takes him next, it’s clear that he is a crucial voice in the future direction of video art as well as digital curation, online cultures and storytelling. As his work for Nowness and his personal projects both attest, Smith has a sharp understanding of the here and now and a clear vision of how to highlight and share it with the rest of the world, balancing out the immediacy and fast-pace of digital journalism with inspiring and inventive content, narratives, and a type of storytelling that has no expiration date.