I’ve just got back from Dresden where the weatherproject forms part of the exhibit
2° WEATHER, CLIMATE, MAN at the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum until April next year.

Here are some photos of the doings (for my Mum) and some thoughts about display (for me, ‘cos one day I’m going to nail the presentation of this piece of work).

Launch event

I’d suspected it was going to be big, but first response on seeing the museum building was something along the lines of “eek”. Other adjectives that came up over the next few days included ‘imposing’ and ‘didactic’. Here’s why:

I should therefore have guessed it would have been rather more of a formal launch event than I was used to: speeches started at 7 and lasted for close to 2 hours.

After the speeches drew to a close there was a bit of a mass exodus as probably about 500 people descended back down to the main entrance hall and the bar.

Waiting staff periodically emerged bearing trays of cheesy sticks, pretzels and sandwiches etc to be swarmed around by the guests. I wish I’d got some good photos of that!

We eventually made our way to the exhibition halls which were, by now, only fairly rammed rather than being completely rammed! It’s hard to describe the feel of this place: part science museum with interactive bits and pieces; part civic museum with dimmed lights and watchful attendants; part at gallery, part… The best way to get an impression of the mood and the scale is to have a look at the photos on the German-language section of the DHMD website.

Exhibits ranged from the exploded shards of lightning-struck trees through to a small canister of top secret recipe snow-globe snow. Nice.

the weatherproject was in the third room, curated by Novina Göhlsdorf to bring together different cultural responses to the weather. My jars are temporarily hanging about with the likes of one of Her Majesty the Queen’s umbrellas and latex casts of hurricane-flattened homes.

It was quite strange to see a tiny fraction of the entire collection at once looking so small and also so big. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m glad I didn’t have to make that selection of 30 jars from over 10 times as many in the complete collection!

Display

I arrived at the museum not knowing anything about how they were intending to display the jars and record slips. This was intentional because I’ve always struggled to present this work and wanted to give them free reign to see what solutions they came up with with their resources, experience and expertise.

It was really interesting to compare their method of display with the one I used for the threshold exhibition back in 2004. My solution for threshold was to construct an 18’ long table with a folded plastic cover that arched quite snugly over the jars. (the cover is removed in most of the photos at the previous link because of the way it attracted the dust…). At the DHMD, the designers had made a similar cover out of similar materials and of a similar scale with respect to the size of the jars. All much more skilfully executed though! Rather than heating and folding a single strip of polythene/acrylic they had cut and glued individual pieces of much thicker stock to give some really nice clean corners. I’m jealous…

The DHMD installation also paired each jar with its record slip and gave each pairing quite a lot of space. At threshold I had 250 jars and was using the opportunity to get them all out on show en masse as physical objects and so they were a lot closer together. The threshold jars were all closely bunched together and the record slips available digitally at one end of the table.

The DHMD approach had a strange homogenising effect - both through intentional selection of collections made in the standard jar and with no additional labels/contents etc and through the omission of the individual ephemera such as postcards and photos that accompany most of the jars. This and the lighting/mid grey plinth colour led to quite an austere effect. Very different to what had gone before and I suppose made possible by both the exhibition and curator’s distance from the people who had made the contributions.

I can see how this was appropriate to the task in hand here, but the work did lose some of it’s quirkiness that I think is one of it’s strong points. I don’t dislike this format, however, and it may be something I experiment with more in future presentations…

I loitered a bit and watched how people interacted with the display, and have to say that I didn’t see many people do more than look at one or two of the jars. I’m not sure if this is an observation worth basing any theories on seeing as how people were having to zip around quite fast to try and see everything before closing and, well, if there’s a bank of empty jars labelled up in a different language next to an interactive display of snow-globes which one are you going to choose! I know which one I’d go for!

Actually, as it turned out, I got totally drawn in by a black and white film of rain in Amsterdam in the late 1920s. Regen by Joris Ivens and Manus Franken (here with soundtrack, although it was silent at the Dresden exhibition).

Regen, (pluie), joris ivens

Back to the jars…

Another thing I found interesting was watching how people’s engagement with the work shifted. Typically people would glance at one or two jars and then, sometimes, go and read the accompanying text describing the work. That was the hook! If they did this then 9 times out of 10 they’d go back to the jars and have a closer look - often with a smile on their face and usually grabbing whoever they were with and getting them to have a look too!

So, all in all a method of display that brought along a whole bunch of new things to consider, but also reiterated old hunches too. Hopefully we’re getting closer to the ultimate weatherproject format…

If you happen to be in Dresden over the next few months I can recommend you stop by and check out the exhibition. Take the randomness of the weatherproject and then multiply that by 4 large rooms full of stuff both curious and scientific. There’s a whole range of interesting things all brought together here and you’ll definitely find something that whets your appetite.

And finally…

After the launch had officially ended we found our way to the after-party in seminar room 8. A good time was had by all, despite the strangely prison-like surroundings and the stinky cheese!

I’m going to finish up with these two photos that I really like (party lights and top-end museum security) and, more importantly a big thanks to Family Göhlsdorf et al for making my trip a lot easier than it could have been otherwise.

• when: 14/07/2008
• where: blog
• tags: art, DHMD, Dresden, exhibition, Germany, jars, weather, weatherproject
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

Flux Concert

Friday 27th June 2008, 5pm - 9pm
Co-curated by a.a.s. and Ensemble Interakt

I really, really, really, really enjoyed this.

Just as the audience started small in number and gradually grew until there were about 40 people peering over the church gallery, the Fluxconcert started with a few simple actions and then grew through soap bubbles being blown from trumpets and naps being taken on tables to a thoroughly absorbing, multi-layered spectacle of sight and sound.

Although the architecture of the venue (St. Paul’s Church, St. Paul’s Square, Birmingham) could have meant that we as audience could have remained very detached from the main action happening below us, enough of the 40 or so scores brought the performers up into the gallery space that the two levels never felt particularly segregated.

There were also scores that required members of the audience to play an active part in their performance. An example of these being Ice Trick:

pass a one pound piece of ice among members of the audience while playing a recording of fire sounds or while having a real fire on stage. The piece ends when the block of ice has melted.Lee Heflin. Date Unknown

which I particularly liked for the way it allowed the audience to participate in a very low-key and intimate way that was almost 1:1 micro-performance with other audience members.

I managed to leave the house without re-charging the batteries for either my camera or my phone so my photography was limited, however, thanks to this man’s marathon ice-holding session, I was able to turn my camera off for long enough for the battery to recover enough to eventually take this image that sums up the event for me:

Even more so perhaps because he then asked me to hold the ice when he could do so no longer. Honourable mention also to David Miller who I ambushed as he first came up to the gallery and gave the ice to him before he’d even had so much as a chance to get a cup of tea and an apple. (Shame though on the entire representative staff of VIVID, none of whom would agree to taking the ice from me before that!)

Being phoneless also meant I was unable to take part in the live-documenting of the event by MMS sent to the Re:Flux Flickr account. It was really interesting to see the performers pausing during the middle of sawing up an electric guitar (for example) to snap a picture and then continue with slicing up the woodwork. I think the flood of incoming photos may have proven a bit to much for the relay to Flickr and the photostream is incomplete, but this is definitively an approach I’d like to play with more in the future.

I’d also like to see the Fluxconcert become a regular event: with permeability in the group of performers and people taking up the challenge of inventing new scores…

In the meantime, here is a slideshow of some of my photos - if you go to the pages on Flickr, the descriptions include the scores for each action shown.

• when: 28/06/2008
• where: blog
• tags: a.a.s, art, birmingham, Fluxconcert, Fluxus
• number of comments: 1 (add a comment)

Given a nudge by Pete’s link I’ve been looking at the last post and wondering what to make of it all.

My original thoughts were basically a sheet of A4 covered in lists and bullet points that I’d originally thought I might be able to write up into a decent response to these discussions on CiB. Inevitably though, I never seemed to manage to mould them into any sort of coherent argument and it never happened. [so, as to accusations of making heads hurt, I reply “you started it!”]

Yesterday I rediscovered the sheet of notes and decided there was nothing linear to try and latch onto. So I tried mapping it out to see what shape it did have.

In doing so I roughly grouped what I wanted from events listings into 3 different aspects: going to see stuff (consuming/whatever you want to call it); knowing about stuff (for general background awareness or specific research); and me showing stuff (a sort of producer role). Wow, look how point-heavy the showing stuff area of the diagram is (top right-hand corner).

I’m not going to pretend I’m constantly putting on exhibitions or organising events, but on the occasions that I have done so so far, this has been a real sticking point. Idally I suppose I need to see about a month into the future.

Anyway, leaving that particular can of worms for now…

So, I now have some sort of checklist of the sort of information and resources the three of me want to be able to tap into. I also made a quick list of the places I tend to use most to try and get these. It was clear that no one source provided everything I want… and quite possibly that’s the way it should be.

What I’ve done today is thought about 4 of the places I listed and looked at what aspects of my wish-list they provide for. I opted for a really quick, intuitive approach because it’s a bit of an apples and oranges situation and I’m not really sure how you’d start to make a rigorous comparison. What follows is probably more useful if you regard the 4 as different models rather than as specific instances. As ever this post comes with the warning that I’m just writing as things occur to me because this site is basically my sketchbook. Don’t anyone else get too bogged-down by the details either.

It seems fair to look at Created in Birmingham first:

Pretty much got the community aspect of it nailed I’d say. Pete’s posts cover a wide range of things and there’s usually some discussion on hand to add more details and/or opinions. Probably should have highlighted the “knowledge in” point there too.

I don’t really know who these people are, but I get the feeling that the people who comment are often “industry specific” if I can call it that. At this stage I don’t know how to define that industry/community (creative practitioners? bloggers? people interested in Birmingham?). Whatever. Just that it feels like a well-defined undefined community and that’s a) why it works and b) why the “normal people” point didn’t get marked up.

Great for knowing what’s happening now in a breaking news kind of way; not the sort of thing you can use to plan ahead (just ‘cos it’s simply not that sort of thing).

Next comes Midwest: the other Midlands-centric resource.

Another resource with a strong community aspect. Events calendar, articles, message board, profile pages for the members and an active programme of events in the real world. I knew a core group of regular contributors and a fair few of the people who added occasional posts. There was a time when loads of stuff was being posted to the calendar, ranging from independent events to exhibitions from larger organisations. This was the first place I’d come to if I was organizing stuff: both for the planning and the marketing stages.

Past tense not because it doesn’t exist any more (it does, at least for a few more months) but because activity on the message board and calendar has gradually dropped off to the point where it’s no longer as useful as it was. The diagram above is marked up for my perception of the Midwest site from about a year ago.

Again, I think this is another closed community type affair. Probably communities bearing in mind the nature of the Birmingham art scene(s). Bonus marks for encompassing a wide range of art people, and I don’t feel that the non-marking-up of the normal people point is a negative thing. (There’s another can of worms about whether all art activity should be directed at, or inclusive of, a non-art audience. Moving swiftly on…)

What else do I want to say about the Midwest model? Nice range of local, regional and international stuff but a nightmare to try and search for stuff not near the top of the pile. Some useful implementations of syndication feeds for a few things, but not all.

Next ArtRabbit.

Ostensibly a UK-wide listings site, but I eventually had to unsubscribe to the rss because each morning I’d have at least 20 listings for galleries in London I had no chance of getting to. There’s patchy representation for stuff in the Midlands, so I’m not sure how much use a region-specific rss feed would be right now but I did email them and request it as a feature. For me, it’s probably more use to use as a sort of magazine to browse through before a trip down to the capital.

The front page does some filtering based on date and popularity. There’s commenting and favouriting going on which is useful, but I’m too distanced to properly regard this as a community because I’m not part of it. There’s quite a few gaps in the showing stuff area of the diagram, but I accept this is probably in part due to my own ignorance.

Searching looks good on the diagram, but I actually find this aspect of the site quite frustrating. Doesn’t quite work for me and that’s a problem because I need to filter stuff to find what’s relevant to me.

How would this model work if it was region specific outside of London. Would there be enough events and community to support it? Would this strengthen the community that used it?

Last, but by no means least Tokyo Art Beat.

I love this site but it’s on the wrong damn continent.

Here’s how they introduce themselves:

TAB is Tokyo’s bilingual art & design events guide.

Offering event listings, reviews and creative jobs, the site is updated daily and lists more than 350 current & upcoming art events, at any moment.

Easy to use for all type of users, neophytes, casual art-goers or art professionals.
Smart data organisation with events sorted by media, schedules, and location, as well as event lists like Closing soon, Most popular, Open late, and Free.
Available via any PC or mobile phone.
User-generated reviews and recommendations and much more

If I was charged with having to build a listings site, this is the model I’d look at first. So far I’ve only scratched the surface of what it can offer, but look how many of my wish-list points it’s hitting.

I’d love to go into lots more detail, but if you’ve read this far I’ll assume you’re interested enough to have a poke around and have a look for yourself.

Some general points to take away though…

Look at the staff list. There must be some sort of revenue being generated here - there’s no Arts Council in Japan.

Kansai Art Beat has appeared at some stage over the last year. Someone else must think this model works and now they’re applying it to the Kansai region.

The only gripe I have so far with TAB is that I sometimes find the classification for art forms a bit limiting. Maybe that’s just because the sort of stuff I’m into isn’t very mainstream in Japan though. I’m not sure if a sculptor would come up with the same problem. Maybe a tagging system for keywords would help?

On the other hand, look at the range of syndication feeds you can choose from. Perhaps pigeonhole-ing has its benefits.

A nice blend of functional listings, community and hugely customizable so I can tailor it to my own needs. You can also easily hop from one listing to others that are related by medium or location and it goes without saying that each entry is fully linked-up to the relevant websites and maps. Priceless.

Posting an event seems to involve first emailing the organisers. I don’t know if there are hoops to jump through after that or what percentage of submissions are accepted. Does some sort of relationship develop between venues and TAB over time? Can you set up an account or something so you can be responsible for your own listings later? Is moderation a good thing or are there hidden agendas at work? Who knows - maybe I’ll find out for myself one day.

So, there you go. 4 different approaches and and introduction to what aspects of them work for me.

What can we learn from this?

update: In the absence of comments here, Pete’s offered a space for discussion over on CiB.

• when: 02/10/2007
• where: blog
• tags: art, birmingham, event listings, giving unpolished thoughts a shape
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

What I want:

What I have:

(in no particular order)

• Word of Mouth
• Midwest
• Created in Birmingham
• Contents May Vary
• Tokyo Art Beat
• Art Rabbit
• Google
• Assorted (e)mailing lists
• What’s On magazine
• mac listings leaflets

• when: 30/09/2007
• where: blog
• tags: art, birmingham, exhibition, giving unpolished thoughts a shape
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

Tunnel Vision (Luke Jerram and Dan Jones as part of Architecture Week) had it’s strong and weak points for me.

I like the fact that it happened at all enormously, but I felt that it was really two separate things. I’d have liked to have seen either no sculptural stuff or a whole lot more that spilled out and around the different niches in the walls.

Guess there’d have been a Health and Safety officer with something to say about that…

I felt the end section where we were walking down the darkened tunnel with the sound and light was the most powerful element. Givien the choice I wouldn’t have shared the experience with 30 other people at the same time, although it did make for an interesting snippet of video (here slowed down to half speed)

• when: 29/06/2007
• where: blog
• tags: art, birmingham, exhibition, sound, spaces, tunnel
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

The second of the Self Service Pub Conversations has been uploaded, giving me a good opportunity to try out the podcasting doobry for this website.

Since I missed the event itself ‘cos I was in Japan, I suppose I could also listen to it too!

Miles Thurlow is an artist based in Gateshead and co-director of Workplace Gallery (with Paul Moss). Recent exhibitions include Legacies of Dissolution, Colony, Birmingham, Formal Dining, Hales Gallery, London, Blue Star Red Wedge, Glasgow International 2006 and You Shall Know Our Velocity, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.

His guest, Carmen Cebreros Urzaiz (Mexico City, 1977) graduated in Visual Arts at the National School of Fine Arts-UNAM (Mexico), and the MA in Curating at Goldsmiths College. She has curated the exhibitions The Taming Power of the Small’ (Mexico City, 2003), Stages and Transfers (Mexico City, 2005), and recently an Audioguide for Sir John Soane’s Museum (London, 2006) constituted by the commentaries of international sound, performance and visual artists, architects, historians, and philosophers.

Pub Conversations is an ongoing series of events. If you want to subscribe directly to the Pub Conversations feed, paste the link below into your feed reeder (eg Bloglines or iTunes)

• when: 14/12/2006
• where: blog
• tags: art, Pub Conversations, Self Service
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

As the Winter nights draw in, Birmingham’s artists seem to keep finding reasons to hold events down the pub.

Pub Conversations with James Hyde and the latest in the 100 Verses for 3 Estates project.

Or is it just Gavin masterminding the whole thing?

• when: 10/12/2006
• where: blog
• tags: art, Pub Conversations, renga
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

Last weekend I was invited to the awards ceremony for the 42nd Kanagawa Prefecture Exhibition of Fine Art.

A lot of people, a lot of art and a lot of speeches…

Congratulations to those who received awards.

• when: 06/10/2006
• where: Japan06
• tags: art, japan
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

As a follow-up to the contemporary art galleries in the industrial unit, yesterday Ami took me to several art galleries in Ginza.

My favourite was Ono Garou. One of the artists told us this is the oldest building in Ginza – an area associated with expensive shopping – and I can well believe it.

Formerly an apartment building, it is fairly crumbly inside and now inhabited by artists. Most of the rooms (typically about 2.5m square) are individual gallery spaces, even the old bath room!

We spent most time in the two basement spaces.

TYPE-TRACE, part of divvydual teased out ideas about language, authorship and production: three sets of laptops, chairs and projectors where visitors were invited to type their thoughts whilst having the process of their typing logged. The document was then played back in real time with letterforms having differing sizing depending on how long it took before the corresponding key had been pressed.

http://spinn-aker.co.jp/kobo/t-guide.htm
www.inexhale.net
www.phonethica.net
 www.tokyoartbeat.com

Next to the room bathed in the cold light from the monitors and projectors was the work of Saito Juichi. Dressed formally in suit, tie and white cotton gloves, the artist welcomed visitors at an equally formally dressed table outside his space. With soft voice and great solemnity we were then shown into what is essentially the cupboard under the stairs.

Only being able to stand upright immediately inside the door, we then had to stoop and shuffle over the rabbit pelts to view the sculpture at the far end that also provided the only lighting in the space.

Marvellous.

Once outside and back at the table again, we were ushered through the process of signing our names (with a fountain pen, naturally) on visitors cards that were then put away in a lidded box.

Shortly afterwards we returned and, with Ami’s help with translation, Saito-san became the first person in Japan invited to participate in the Peer-to-Peer Sketchbooks project.

• when: 24/09/2006
• where: Japan06
• tags: art, gallery, japan, Ono Garou, Tokyo
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

After going to Kiyosumishirakawa we went to Spiral in/near Omotesando. I was really keen to see Spiral having already come across their Independent Creators Festival via Ami’s work.

Music shop, coffee shop, gift shop and Lumps and Bumps by lang/bauman in the atrium:

• when:
• where: Japan06
• tags: art, gallery, japan, Tokyo
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

A few days ago a friend took me to see some galleries in the Kiyosumishirakawa area of downtown Tokyo.

Tucked in between a cement factory and a taxi ranch, is a building that houses a dispatch warehouse, a lighting manufacturer and, oh, 3 floors of commercial galleries!

After finding your way past the palettes to the industrially sized lift, you come out in a slightly different world of pristine white cubes! (ie the type of place you’re blatantly not going to be allowed to take any photos…)

There was a real mix of contemporary artists being represented: Japanese, international, emerging and more established. We even came across a Damien Hurst in one of the galleries!

Other than the complete serendipity of walking out of the lift, I think the nicest touch for me was the little reception desk just inside the entrance that just sort of pulled the whole thing together.

www.tomiokoyamagallery.com
www.shugoarts.com
www.zenshi.com
www.takaishiigallery.com
 www.hiromiyoshii.com

• when:
• where: Japan06
• tags: art, gallery, japan, Tokyo
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

Because she is

this week I have mostly been smearing my friend with Vaseline and flicking stuff at her:

• when: 15/09/2006
• where: Japan06
• tags: art, japan, Joshibi
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

Yesterday I went to the festival of Tokyo University of Music and Arts (Geidai) in Ueno.
http://www.geidai.ac.jp/english/index.html

Part open day:

…part exhibition:

… part car boot sale:

…and part barbeque and music festival:

a good time was had by all!

The students kept asking me how it compared to festivals in the UK, and I had to say that I’d never seen anything like this in the UK. But then maybe my experiences in Bournville aren’t particularly representative.

I tried asking them what the festival was for and who came etc etc. It seems that many students from all the other Tokyo art universities come to these things, as well as families of Geidai students. In addition to showing and selling some of their work, each department has its own batch of beer and food stalls as well as two or three student bands playing throughout the evening. After which, apparently it is traditional for the students to decide to go for a swim in the pond of the nearby park.

Now that part at least sounds familiar!

• when: 11/09/2006
• where: Japan06
• tags: art, geidai, japan, Tokyo, university, YouTube
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

An idea arrives completely out of the blue; you spend weeks thinking that it’s arrived completely out of the blue; and then one morning whilst in the shower suddenly you can point back to loads of influences that produced the idea…

ISP draw our network workshop:

Degree show thinking network diagrams:

http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/index.cfm

Open planning:

We are the artists:

http://www.wearetheartists.net/

Conversations about conversations and inviting along someone you want to have a conversation with.

• when: 11/07/2006
• where: blog
• tags: art, ISP, P2P
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

Following on from this, I’m very much interested in the process of remote selection: the idea that once I send off a piece of work to this fax machine I have no further control over it. Particularly that work may or may not get selected for display (by whatever means) at all.

I’ve devised a series of computer-controlled processes that I will use to exagerate this process of arbitrary selection and rejection. I will submit works to it and then these will get filtered in a fairly random manner before being faxed off to Manchester.

The automated aspect of this needs some computing resources I don’t have with this particular set-up so things are stalled at the moment whilst I try and get those sorted. Let’s hope the un-announced close date for the show is a little way off yet…

• when: 03/07/2006
• where: blog
• tags: art
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

I’ve been trying to chart the processes involved in the forthcoming [insertspace] show, Open.

It’s hellishly difficult/complicated:

Participation in the project basically involves submitting artwork by fax to the MILL-WORKERS space in Manchester. From here your work is completely in the hands of the MILL-WORKERS tenants…

Whether it gets displayed/whether is gets destroyed/how it gets displayed/when it gets displayed etc etc.

I gave up on the data flow diagram too:

Obviously the only sensible way to respond is by making the process even more convoluted…

• when: 29/06/2006
• where: blog
• tags: art, communication
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

From the glossary of Relational Aesthetics, Nicolas Bourriaud:

Art

1. General term describing a set of objects presented as part of a narrative known as art history. This narrative draws up the critical genealogy and discusses the issues raised by these objects, by way of three sub-sets: painting, sculpture and architecture.
2. Nowadays, the word ‘art’ seems to be no more than a semantic leftover of this narrative, whose more accurate definition would read as follows: Art is an activity consisting in producing relationships with the world with the help of signs, forms, actions and objects.

The first of these definitions is utterly pragmatic; the second screams towards the target, hits the bulls-eye and quivers for a few moments whilst the repercussions reverberate out into the surroundings…

• when: 17/04/2006
• where: blog
• tags: art, quotation, strive to achieve modest connections
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

(Follows on from this post.)

Through Popular Expression
at: International Project Space, Bournville
curated by: vitamin creative space

• when: 30/03/2006
• where: blog
• tags: art, exhibition
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

Welcome to the inside of an artist’s mind — a 5,000 square-foot digitally animated depiction of what happens during epiphany.

I’ve yet to hunt out more information, but this looks like it’s an animation for one of those dome-shaped 3D immersive environment things.

update: Yes. It is.

update on the update: more info including some background on the residency.

• when: 26/03/2006
• where: blog
• tags: art
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

update: I haven’t seen it with any audience, but this might be a contender…

I’ve been thinking about 2 different shows I saw last weekend.

Different shows; different settings; and completely different ways that people were engaging with the work.

I went to the preview of The 18th Storey: 10 artists installed on the 18th floor of a soon-to-be-demolished tower block.

I really liked the idea (‘though I wonder how it compared to similar enterprises) and I loved the poster-sized, blue-print styled exhibition info, but somehow it was really difficult to engage with the work.

I think part of the problem was that the large, poster-sized, blue-print styled exhibition info was a bit to unweildy to refer to at the time so I didn’t really get much of a feel for what the work was supposed to be about (there was little or no information accompanying the work itself).

It was cold, it was busy, we just sort of scooted ‘round.

By way of a contrast, the next day I was envigilating VASULKA LAB 1969 - 2005 at Vivid.

Also a cold space but…

…people we coming in (often for a second time, to finish up on what they missed at the preview), plugging themselves into the headphones and standing in front of the video screens for about 45-90 minutes at a time.

Wow. That’s some level of engagement for video peices in a gallery setting.

• when:
• where: blog
• tags: art, exhibition, gallery
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

Artquest is hosting a one-day conference to discuss collaboration between designers, applied and fine artists and professionals from other disciplines. The event is designed to appeal to established practitioners who want to hear first-hand from their peers about the critical, conceptual and practical challenges that arise when working as collaborators in a variety of settings.

 http://www.artquest.org.uk/intersection/

I went to this and generally it was a good event - the first I have been to where the nature of collaborative practice was actually analysed. We need more of this!

Some collated thoughts follow…

• What is a collaboration?
• Why collaborate?
•  Terminology
• Authorship and the moment of birth
• Conversations
• Creative communities or Organisations make you irrational
• Bad things can happen, and the importance of small print
• Conclusion

What is a collaboration?

Collaboration is when you can’t create/ can’t complete the project without the other person

A definition of collaboration was first given in this form by Rebecca Early, but it was repeatedly picked up and echoed by following speakers and in questions/comments from the audience throughout the rest of the event.

We needed a way of distinguishing between collaborators and people you just work with. Interdependency was a key feature in identifying collaborative relationships as opposed to working for, or working with, people. It was this idea that that when collaborators come together there is the creation of what was termed a “third space”; the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Collaboration is not about one person servicing another: it is more than simply facilitation.

Why collaborate?

So, what is the value of collaborative working and why should we work this way?

Nipa Doshi acknowledged that her skills were severely lacking in certain areas (for example visualisation in 3 dimensions – something her design partner Jonathan Levien finds very easy). She and Early both seemed to view a benefit of collaborative working to be in its ability to allow you to build a custom team. For whatever project you are working on you can create your own chain of experts to allow you to go on and achieve your vision.

Doshi said that “you can’t always imagine all the things that you can do”. In addition to feeding creativity and invigorating individuals, working collaboratively can expand your awareness of what is possible.

For people working with few or no resources, it is simple: you need to collaborate to be able to produce.

A question from the audience went on to challenge exactly how you can prove that collaborative outputs are more valuable…

It was suggested that it is the thing that the collaboration produces, rather than the collaboration itself, that should be valued. I think the question has two aspects: value to the creative individuals and value to a wider community outside of the collaboration.

Terminology

Several people indicated that they found current terminology problematic and frequently inhibitive.

Dualistic concepts such as supply/demand, user/producer and professional/amateur were found to be particularly problematic.

The general feeling was that to view audiences as clients/users/consumers no longer adequately captures the relationship. Audiences no longer always want only to be audiences: people increasingly want to comment and contribute and this has implications for the priesthood of the knowledge hierarchy. The role of the professional won’t go away, but it will have to exist in a more complicated universe.

Is there a need for a new language?

Authorship and the moment of birth

The issue of authorship was one that the event specifically identified as one they wanted to address.

Leadbeater talked about how we traditionally associate creativity with a single moment of authorship: one second the idea is there but the previous second it was not. He contrasted this with the cumulative process of creativity within collaborations, suggesting that the role of collaborations was more architectural: the skill being in seeing how ideas that have been developed over a long period of time fit together.

Conversations

This is incorporated into the cumulative nature of collaborations, but was emphasised so often that I have given it its own section.

Conversations are critical to creativity.

again:

Conversations are critical to creativity.

Speakers indicated a need to just keep on talking. All the time.

Establish a policy for communication right from the outset.

It was recognised that a period of absorption is required before finalising the brief to be worked on.

Early described the process for one of the projects she worked on:

All the designers were given an initial brief and then went away to research this independently. They would then gather together for a period of brain-storming in the morning and then practical experimentation in the afternoon. This process was repeated for a period of 6 months before the final briefs were settled upon.

Doshi approached what I believe is the same issue, but from a slightly different angle. She stated that her best projects came from when you know what you want, rather than saying “Hey, let’s collaborate” and seeing what happens. Within a new collaboration you need this time to identify common aims and to find out about the mechanics of the working relationship.

As she went on to say later, “You need to spend time together. You can’t tell if the chemistry is there just from looking at their work”.

For collaborations no longer in the initial stages, regular scheduling of conversations can act to ease tensions because it provides a forum for airing grievances.

Leadbeater indicated that conversations take place in particular types of spaces and at particular types of times. I think there is more to this than policy-makers simply providing a “special place for special people to meet”. Probably something that needs to be worked out on a case-by-case basis.

Creative communities or Organisations make you irrational

Charles Leadbeater’s keynote speech was a great introduction to the nature of collaborations. He pointed out that organisations - these things that are supposed to epitomise the concept of collaboration - often make it difficult to work in partnership with others. His idea is that the competitive nature of working within an organisation generates a fear of sharing and kills off collaboration.

He points instead to examples of user-led collaboration: gamers generating extra items for The Sims; the collaboratively written wikipedia; and the development of the mountainbike by cycling enthusiasts. How can the huge power of user-led collaborations be harnessed? What would be the implications for Education or the Health Service if content was developed by the public?

Key features of creative communities were identified as being:

• Organised without having an organisation
• Distribution of cheap tools
• Easy entry into the community
• Strong element of peer review
• Guiding laws
• A critical kernel established by someone (kernels may be modular)

Two important issues that came out of this line of thinking were: just how big a threat this is to established corporations; and, wondering if societies who have not yet industrialised (for example, developing countries that function around villages and communities in the physical world) will be better at producing these creative communities.

Bad things can happen, and the importance of small print

Although collaborative relationships were generally presented in a positive manner, some references were made to the negative aspects and contractual side of things.

I don’t want anyone in my community to find fault with this book…

Does the need for the collaboration to be taken seriously from both sides force difficult compromises?

How do you split things such as power balance and workload? What happens when this doesn’t work out as agreed? Should both partners be accredited equally?

Most people said that contracts were a necessity and they should be agreed on right form the start. This is in part to ensure that collaboration does not turn into exploitation.

It was recommended that, at the beginning, both partners write statements of intent detailing what they want to achieve from the collaboration. Agree on the deal and know what you’re getting into.

This raises questions concerning how much you should define at the start, and how much you should leave open for development during the process of collaboration itself.

Conclusion

Although some of the presentations missed the target, others were spot-on! It was great to hear other people’s experiences (good and bad) of working collaboratively and several of the issues underlined trains of thought I’d already had in relation to the ISP residency. I guess I should address these directly in a follow-up post. Watch this space (but not for a day or two yet, eh?!)

• when: 17/02/2006
• where: blog
• tags: art, collaboration, conference
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

Jeroen Offerman is a Dutch artist working and living in London, UK and Berlin, Germany. Works are conceptual and often of a performative nature. Materials and media used range from living plants, to flies and birds, video, music, dubplates, sculpture, computers and installations.

Offerman spent three months learning to sing Stairway to Heaven backwards and recorded his performance on the steps of St. Paul’s for confused spectators.

via eightface

• when: 28/01/2006
• where: blog
• tags: art, link
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

(unaccredited and taken out of context)

| If my work’s in there too, it’s a different agenda. The whole thing changes. They don’t trust you | encourage people to sit in the space and, you know, just use it | call and return | you’ll be amazed: you’ll learn lots, it’s fun | it’s always been touch or go | it just seems to work | you lower your principles. You lower the standard. It’s just not good. | collaborating is the key to everything | you need to be a name in people’s heads…with work attached to it | the danger of becoming formulaic | very bad translations: doing a very literal translation has a poetic of its own | gamble | my feeling is they are my guests | my influences are not so much other artists but literature; what I hear on the radio; and very bad science fiction | using your imagination to articulate things you don’t quite understand, with the materials you have to hand | terrifiying | make yourself visible | is there such a thing as wilderness? | a shift in cognition | humour is a fantastic tool to draw yourself in | effecting a change with a tiny piece of graphite | loaded spaces | If you go to one of these things, don’t go with any expectations. NONE. | the pressure to have a body of work, but to keep developing | the choreography of the room | if there’s a needle going in at the same time as you’re being amused, then that’s ok | own up to the fact that I don’t have a studio | everything is a choice | promote stuff by using it to create space. Make architecture with it | found, appropriated and put out of context | prove something happens here | I’m based in Birmingham, but my practice isn’t | a very odd person…he’s nice though | look useful | meet a new network | what audience is your work going to reach? | what’s the point in making something unless you know where it’s going to go? |

• when: 25/01/2006
• where: blog
• tags: art, quotation
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

A part of the degree course I’m doing, I have to give a short presentation on presentation methods - we’ve been analysing different exhibitions and the strategies they use to present artists’ work.

When I say a short presentation, I mean a short presentation: 5 minutes.

This is going to have to be focused!

Over the past few months I’ve been reading the articles over at Presentation Zen. I came across this site through my webdesign work and I’ve continued to read it because it’s very relevant to my webdesign work. How do you guide your audience along a path that transfers to them the information you want them to acquire?

I am starting to write this post on Saturday morning. The presentation is on Tuesday morning.

I’m also going to have to be focussed to get this prepared on time! Sitting here now with the task ahead of me, I have mapped out my plan of attack:

1. Quick survey of visual resources.
2. Identify the main points I want to convey.
3. Structure these points.
4. Decide how to distribute these points between the presentation and the accompanying handout.
5. Build the powerpoint presentation.
6. Build the handout.
7. Practice.
8. Present.

I have other, longer, presentations to do later in the year, (and it will almost certainly form a part of what I have to do as a fully-fledged artist) so I thought I would document the whole process here so I can refer back to it and progress.

1. Quick survey of visual resources.

It’s been a few months since I saw the exhibition so this step will serve to refresh my memory as well as give me an awarenss of what I can use for my visuals later.

My main sources will be the book that accomapanies the show; my own notes and photographs; and various webpages.

I’ll list the webpages here for future reference:

• Artangel page
• NPG press release
• pdf article
• Channel 4 inc movie of Night Watch
• article

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6

• when: 21/01/2006
• where: blog
• tags: art, exhibition, university
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

After this, I spent some time trying to figure out how I could follow it up once I was back in the UK. Main problems (seemingly) being sourcing raw materials and lack of the specialised equipment.

I had a bit of a eureka moment down the pub and thought I could use beermats as my source of pulp. I also thought I could utilise the whole collection process to give any resulting sculptural objects some back-story. I thought I could make a simple sculptural form that used the beermats collected over a set amount of time as a form of documentary tool.

Well, I did a few experiments but I decided that my vague ideas did not have enough weight to justfiy time spent on them at this stage.

Project status: shelved.

Meanwhile…

I had asked my local pub to collect their used beermats for me. This meant that, besides the smells and the stains, several of them had some biro doodles on them.

Project status: interesting tangent that I might come back to later but with a few samples put here for your viewing pleasure in the meantime:

• when: 14/01/2006
• where: blog
• tags: art, Joshibi
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

No, not another Japanese post, just some nicely pitched ninja animation.

I was immediately taken by the combination of ‘analogue’ background with simple computer graphics over the top. No, wait a minute, those computer graphics look quite analogue too…

Here are some skillls sorry, stills from the fuggy fuggy movie

Simple concept (different aspects of a young ninja’s training); simple style; simple colour pallette; all off set by a nice gentle sense of humour.

Anyway, in posting these stills I was wondering how to approach the whole copyright/credits thing, but then I remembered the fuggyfuggy home page:

After watching the movie I can get some desktop art, download to my mobile and then signup for the newsletter…

Maybe the intention with a site like this is to play off the whole viral marketing thing. I mean, that’s how I came across the thing in the first place, right?

I’m not being cynical, I just think it’s a neat little package and done well: something to bear in mind for the future perhaps?

Anyway, I ended up at the creators’ website www.brothersmcleod.co.uk/ and if I wan’t supposed to be doing other stuff right now I’d probably have a good ol’ dig around…

• when: 11/01/2006
• where: blog
• tags: art, communication, internet, link
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

I’m sat here writing a paper about interdisciplinary practice. As part of this I’ve been quite critical of ‘adjuncts’ between artists and scientists promoting themselves as ‘collaborations’ between artists and scientists.

For what I mean by ‘adjunct’, you need to read MACDONALD CROWLEY, AMANDA (2003), Creative Encounters: The Art/Science of Collaboration to see what she means by it. (.pdf file)

So, here I am working as artist in residence as part of the Interdisciplinary Support Program. Am I adjuncting, or am I collaborating?

At this stage I suspect it’s the former.

note to self: probably not an Interdisciplinary Artist, but maybe an Artist Working on the Subject of Interdisciplinary Practice. For now. Let’s see what happens…

• when: 05/01/2006
• where: blog
• tags: art, collaboration, interdisciplinary
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

Work in progress…

• when:
• where: blog
• tags: art, photography
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

Last time was the turn of that juggling thing. Now I’m looking at that bunako thing. Still thinking about this thing.

The Set Up:

I was placed with the wood group in the sculpture department of Joshibi.

I was there for half-a-dozen or so afternoons.

I was shown a few techniques for working with bunako and just sort of left to get on with it.

The Results:

I grappled with it for a bit and started by making a couple of basic bowl shapes. …so, then I had a couple of basic bowls. hmmmm.

I spent ages just staring at them trying to figure out where they could go.

Eventually I focused in on all the holes that had been generated where I hadn’t managed to keep enough tension as I added new strips of wood. That’s right: I had two fairly shoddily made basic bowls!

I decided that I would try and make something of a virtue out of these things that would otherwise be seen as flaws. I started by highlighting each of the holes first with a penciled cross, and then later with drawing pins.

In an effort to try and produce something more sculptural, I then drilled out the holes and made some metal darts to basically point at the holes and shout “MISTAKE HERE!”.

For the second of the bowls, I made bigger darts out of cold-forged steel.

… and that was pretty much all I had time for.

I played around a bit with darts-pointing-in and darts-pointing-out and looked at how that changed the feel of things. My next challenge was trying to get it all back to the UK in one piece.

Back in Blighty I ignored it all for a bit, but then picked it up again and started to think about how I could try and move it forward. Again. This time I realised there were more imperfections that I could highlight. I worked a mixture of graphite and beeswax into the ridges left by my lacklustre sanding so that I was left with intermittent concentric rings around the surface.

[mental note to self: next time don’t use graphite for this - it doesn’t stay put and everything turns a murky grey colour.]

Did It Work?

Yes and no.

The problem is they still look like bowls. They’re bowl-shaped, and they’re bowl-sized. Too domestic and not sculptural enough. I think it has to do with the materials as well.

I talked with people about maybe using synthetic materials for the darts. Brightly-coloured plastic or something. Trying to get away from the strong craft-related association of the wood and the forged steel. Trying to get away from the novelty fruit bowl effect.

In the end I decided that it was the bowlness - the shape - that I wanted to destroy. The (as yet unrealised) solution that I might try one day is to cast some super-large darts: darts so large that they almost completely consume the wooden fabric of the bowl. Darts so large that by the time you have mode the holes large enough to accommodate them, there is hardly any wood left.

Of course, now you lose the 1:1 relationship of darts to mistakes…

On the plus side, I liked the idea that it all came from: find a characteristic of the process and run with it.

• when: 23/12/2005
• where: blog
• tags: art, japan, Joshibi
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

… thinking about the stuff I did at Joshibi, looking at what I think I achieved in light of this earlier post.

Remember, I was looking at the way I work and trying to apply that to the situation at Joshibi.

The Set Up:

The group had been asked to use the paper pulp in a more experimental way. At least I think that’s what they had been asked to do: certainly the pre-amble had included references to conceptual art.

I missed the first session because I was being taught a traditional technique by one of the other tutors. So, that left me one afternoon to get experimental in.

I made myself some small balls of soggy paper pulp and three simple rules:

1. I can juggle with the balls, but I am not allowed to move my feet.
2. If I drop a ball, then it stays where it lands.
3. See what evolves.

I moved outside to give myself plenty of space and worked on a tarpaulin so that the paper pulp could be used again - I planned to use a lot of pulp, but not to keep any of it beyond the experiment.

The Results:

Phase 1: Juggling by myself
I was stood in the middle of the tarpaulin and a ring was just starting to develop around my feet when I acquired an audience…

Phase 2: Teaching someone else to juggle
A difficult enough task as it is, but made more interesting through trying to communicate across languages…

Phase 3: Another participant
This time throwing the balls to each other across the tarpaulin. Two more zones start to develop.

Phase 4: Bedlam
By request, the rest of the group joined in. I couldn’t really formulate a strategy for this, so we just let people get on with it ‘till we ran out of pulp.

Did It Work?

As a piece of work it doesn’t really stand as much more than a tentative experiment. Ideally I’d do away with that nasty blue plastic and use an obscene amount of paper pulp. I’d like to see it splatted all over and into the place where the event takes place and at least knee high. So much so that you’d really have to climb out of and over the stuff when you decided it was time to call it a day.

I hadn’t really bargained for the extent to which other people would want to get involved. Bringing in extra people raised interesting points about communication etc etc, but diluted the splat-pattern(s) starting to emerge. If this were to become a piece of work then I think it might be best to stick to one person in one location.

As for the way I was working, I really liked the set-up of defining the rules of the system and then leaving things to work themselves out. Emergent systems? Something to think about later. This methodology harks back to earlier work I have done and I think it could well be an interesting line of enquiry to follow up on.

Proposal

So, how would this become a piece of work?

Well, we’re gonna need one hell of a lot of paper pulp. [does it need to be paper?]

This will either need to be prepared in advance, or prepared in situ as the event unfolds. [ok, so I seem to be thinking of this in terms of a performance piece with the resulting splat-mountain acting as some sort of documentation.] If the balls are prepared in advance, how does this affect their splattability? If the balls are prepared in situ, we’re going to have to think about a support team and facilities. Hmmm, not necessarily a bad thing - might add to the spectacle!

Who would do the juggling? Surely more effective if the person doing the juggling can’t actually juggle?

In a public place, you could recruit someone who wants to learn to juggle: they are furnished with the pulp balls and the same rules as before:

1. They are not allowed to move their feet (except perhaps for toilet breaks).
2. If they drop a ball, then it stays where it lands.
3. See what evolves. It finishes once they have learned to juggle.

The splats become a record of their learning a new skill.

So, the recruit has learned their new skill and the splats have been splatted. What happens next? Are they left where they are [environmental implications?] or can the whole thing be dried out, picked up, and transported elsewhere?

It might be quite nice to have the event taking place near steps or something. Then, when the mass is lifted away, you are left with the negative space of the steps. Ha! A new way of casting!

• when: 15/12/2005
• where: blog
• tags: art, japan, Joshibi
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

So, I decided I needed to put the lid on, shake things up good and proper and then see what came out: I needed to scare myself a bit.

I went to Japan; I studied at Joshibi; I learned loads; had a great time and was not ready to come back home. It may not have turned out to have been that scary, but now I’ve had some distance, I’m starting to realise exactly how much it’s turned things upside down.

To borrow somebody else’s words, “watashi no sekai ga hirogaru”. My world has spread. And that’s probably a good thing.

I’ve been looking at things differently:

• Wandering around with a camera, wondering how to explain car boot sales.
• Actually appreciating [some of] the architecture of Birmingham.
• Oh yeah, and myself.

I’d been questioning the way I worked for a few months prior to going to Joshibi. I’d been doing the Professional Development sculpture course at Dudley, learning stone-carving, wood-carving, more welding, more ceramics and more casting - but not being quite sure how that was going to manifest itself in my work.

Then I had a bit of an early-hours-of-the-morning-eureka-moment. My best work wasn’t to do with what media I worked in, it was to do with the way I worked. Joshibi was a chance to try out a few hypotheses.

Rule #1: A clean canvas

Don’t take any materials/plans with me. Don’t resume any existing projects.

Rule #2: Learn new things

Well, it would be stupid not to.

Rule #3: It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it.

OK Pugh, think defining the rules of the system and then leaving the rest to chance. Think putting yourself in a situation and then documenting the results. Think that compulsively collecting random things is entirely justifiable behaviour.

Rule #4: Relish being illiterate.

‘Cos it’ll be different next time I’m here.

I’m going to leave it there for now and have a think about what the results were…

• when: 12/12/2005
• where: blog
• tags: add to a culture of learning and experimentation, art, japan, Joshibi, make exchanges with spaces, meet a new network
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)

Discovered the website of Mai Yamashita + Naoto Kobayashi and, surfing on from there, Shiro Masuyama. Liked them both a lot.

• when: 07/12/2005
• where: blog
• tags: art, japan, link
• number of comments: no comments yet (add a comment)