Hi all

thanks for the debate thus far... I'd like to steer us slightly away 
from the questions of conservation/preservation of display equipment 
(which are important questions i know!) and back towards the knotty 
kernel of this month's topic - the issue of permanence in public space. 
I suppose at first I had been thinking of public space as outdoors 
(certainly out of the gallery) if not at least actual space (not the 
virtual space of the web, which I agree of course is public).

I think what Matt has written about the airport commission is 
fascinating, and we could unpack it further. They've created a kind of 
platform, but moreover, an infrastructure. All too often curatorial 
'platforms' are all about the front end and what it looks like and then 
finding people/artists to fill in the content in the backend, without 
considering how the two are connected or networked, which it seems like 
this project addresses.

Do people on the list know of other examples of artists creating 
permanent public systems/platforms/infrastructures for activation and 
re-use? Iliyana Nedkova has been curating for a video wall in Perth I 
do believe... and there were some instances of this at the Science 
Museum in London (Hannah?) .... but this airport project seems like a 
different beast altogether with the approach that "artists will specify 
their own front-end technology" to the network that has been patched 
together. It seems like a lot could be learned from the "re-use" 
approach the Gorbet team have taken, and the Eyebeam lab's approach in 
releasing how-to kits.

Jon described upkeeping the connection between the backend (the idea of 
the work?) and the front end (how it is installed and shown) as like 
gardening... and it seems that is the part that curators/commissioners 
have the hardest time getting their heads around (which is why using 
the variable media approach to assign behaviours to works, so that the 
front end might change but the connection to the backend isn't lost, is 
such a great idea).

I'd be interested to hear from our other list respondents as to how 
they have undertaken public art commissions using technology and if the 
challenges they encountered was in keeping these connections alive and 
even visibly on the radar of the hosts (to mix my metaphors a bit).

On another note, Ben Rubin describes his piece thus:
 >
"San Jose Semaphore" is a public artwork presented by Adobe Systems and 
the San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs.  Located atop Adobe’s Almaden 
tower in downtown San Jose, California, Semaphore consists of 4 large 
illuminated circles that continually shift and turn to form an encoded 
message. A low-power AM radio broadcast provides a soundtrack that can 
be picked up locally within a radius of two or three blocks.

The content of the Semaphore’s message is known only to the artist; 
deciphering Semaphore’s encryption technique and decoding the message 
is posed as a challenge for the public. Ben Rubin will award a cash 
prize (as well as bragging rights) to the first person or group to 
successfully crack the code. Challenge details will be posted soon at 
http://www.sanjosesemaphore.org.

Originally commissioned in 2003, Semaphore will begin its transmissions 
in August 2006.
 >

I think it is interesting that while this is a permanent work, it has a 
(presumably) time constrained component -- the time it takes someone to 
crack the code.

sarah