Hello List!

I'm Lauren Wright, another member of the Furtherfield crew and a long-time
lurker on this list. I'd just like to add a bit to some of the things Ruth
mentioned in her mail about our DIWO project:

> I can even imagine arguing that lurkers are also
> contributors. 

I think I'll go ahead and do that.. Thanks Ruth!  I certainly think lurkers
were contributors to this project if not quite as "much" as the active
participants (if one can evaluate "much" in a context like this.. I don't
really think so) than at least in an important way, the precise value of
which is difficult to evaluate because, of course, they're not making it
obvious to us! However, I think it's important in a context like this to be
careful about evaluating the level of engagement on the part of audience
members in terms of their "visible" contribution (though I appreciate how
this point is arguable), simply because lurkers like participants stand to
gain and indeed contribute quite a lot, though in different ways. For
instance, at the (u)pv on Thursday, I spoke to several lurkers or
semi-lurkers who may not have contributed at all, or contributed maybe one
small thing, but were completely aware and "engaged" with what had taken
place on the list so far. And indeed, they had shared it with others through
other "media" (good ol' word-of-mouth), getting a conversation going that we
may not be privy to, but which I personally (and I think other
Furtherfielders are likely to agree) value quite a lot. Which leads me to
another thing Ruth mentioned...

> Of course lots of people are not interested in all these
> different parts of the process. Many contributors prefer to leave the
> issues surrounding the display and dissemination of their artwork to
> others.

This for me was one of the most interesting aspects of the project,
especially from a curatorial perspective. There were many participants
(90ish in all) who sent work along, some in quite large quantities, but
there were fewer who participated in the open curatorial event than we
expected. This probably has a certain degree to do with the fact that it was
a Sunday, etc., but also I think it does reflect a hesitation on the part of
participants to contribute to the way the work was displayed. We were a bit
surprised by this, but on reflection, it's actually not so surprising. A few
weeks ago I went to a panel discussion about " and curation, and there was
some discussion of the more open-ended or participative approaches to
curation that such media enable. In a discussion afterward, someone
commented that while these reorientations of the roles of artist, audience,
and curator can have very interesting results, mightn't they risk putting
curators out of a job? I didn't see the big problem with that (I don't think
it's really that likely, for better or worse!), but actually this project
has shown me that the roles aren't quite as interchangeable as some of us
might think. We had some debate chez FF about whether people who hadn't
participated in the project thus far should be encouraged to participate in
the curation. I thought definitely yes, precisely for the reason that just
as not all artists want to be curators, not all curators want to be artists.
To my knowledge, there weren't tons of "curators" contributing stuff to the
list, just as there weren't tons of "artists" participating in the curating
(though the perspective of those who did certainly added an invaluable
perspective). Perhaps it's not that surprising, and maybe it even shows us
what makes organisations like Furtherfield and others run by artists unique
and valuable. 

But as Ruth raised, what difference does it make to the audience? Without
getting off the plot with too much theory, I'd like to mention in closing
something I read today while PhD'ing... Been reading Walter Benjamin on
Brecht... And he writes in "What is Epic Theatre?" of how Brecht's art form
encourages the "false and deceptive totality called 'audience'" to
disintegrate and for audience members to realign themselves according to
their interests in reality. I think that's what we're seeing here...
Brecht's theatre encourages a kind of participation on the part of the
audience where the relations between performers and audience are
reconfigured.. Certainly that's what this project (like so many other
genuinely participative practices) encourages, and the result is that the
unmoored audience establishes multiple kinds of new relations between
themselves and the "performance" or the collaborative project, in our case.
So while we would have perhaps hoped for more active participation and
"genuine" collaboration between audience/producers, we should also find the
unexpected ways they did and didn't respond just as interesting, I think.

Ok that's enough verbosity from me.. Though I will say the project's still
going, so if any of you want to get involved, please do! Just subscribe to
the NetBehaviour list and go from there.. Will be interesting to see what
happens over the next month after this bit of "reflection" around the
installation and opening of the show. I look forward to hearing others'
opinions/reflections/impressions (oops.. I've just seen Patrick's email..
Not sure I've got too much more intelligence left in me, but I'm sure others
will :))

All best 
law




On 4/3/07 01:22, "Ruth Catlow" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>>>> 
> In the meantime, perhaps someone from http can tell us how the
> opening of Do It With Others (Open Curation) went last night? I am
> curious about this model of exhibition making - where subscribers
> have a say (a bit like fans being asked to program the next All
> Tomorrow's Parties festival?) - does collaborative filtering create
> interesting results?
>>> 
> Hi Sarah,
> 
> Thanks for your interest in our Do It With Others (DIWO) E-Mail-Art
> project at HTTP.
> 
> re:  subscribers having their say
> I will have a shot at addressing your question. Obviously we have
> thought a lot about these things, but we are certainly also working
> things out as we go; ) so...
> 
> I guess the thing to note in this context is that we initiated the
> (DIWO) E-Mail-Art project so that "subscribers" to the NetBehaviour
> email list and the technologies they deploy are ALL artistic
> contributors to the project. Not sure I've identified ANY "fans" as
> yet; ))) The idea deliberately draws on the tradition of earlier Mail
> Art exhibitions in that the project started with an open-call and
> every post to the list, between 1st February and 1st April, is
> considered a work - or part of a larger, collaboratively created
> artwork. I can even imagine arguing that lurkers are also
> contributors. It's certainly true that the contributor:lurker ratio
> on the list has gone up from approx 1:25 (through January) to 1:4
> (through February).
> 
> Historically Mail Art has a difficult relation to the old question
> about whether it belongs in a gallery (obvious eg Ray Johnson's "Dear
> Whitney Museum I hate you" mail art). What we try to explore and give
> room to in this approach to curating is a more dynamic and maleable
> context for the work. At HTTP we are in the fortunate position to be
> able to give space to this approach because of our relative
> informality, autonomy and independence, a decent-enough technical
> resource and our small but enthusiastic and broadly-skilled team of
> artist/producers and (for the time-being) curious and engaged
> visitors. Of course lots of people are not interested in all these
> different parts of the process. Many contributors prefer to leave the
> issues surrounding the display and dissemination of their artwork to
> others. But one of the reasons we chose to focus on the Mail Art
> theme was because of its reflexive nature. It considers all aspects
> of the artwork's passage through existing communication channels
> (through time and space) to the recipient(s) as contributing to the
> raison d'etre of the work. This is interesting to us as artists.
> 
> One danger that I can see of this approach of focusing on the
> curation and protocols of selection (especially with the current
> hoopla surrounding the so called democratisation of culture laid at
> the feet of networked tech) is that other aspects of the work can
> begin to be overshadowed. I'm not sure that many of the visitors to
> our (un)private view on Thursday evening were so interested in these
> issues or even in the particular technologies used. What seemed to
> grab people was the dynamic transformation and repositioning of
> materials and ideas as they flowed between approx 90 contributors.
> 
> The exhibition consists of "Threads"  (series that directly involved
> mixing and dialogue, action and response) and "Streams" (of images,
> texts, movies instructions etc by single contributors) in print,
> sound, html, movie and text . Also a couple of installation works
> devised especially for the space. This was all argued and bashed out
> during our Sunday afternoon open-curating event. All submissions were
> sorted and categorised and displayed within a mailbox that was
> available for visitors to explore and redistribute (by clicking
> 'Forward Mail' ; )
> 
> Here are some pics (lots more to the website soon).
> 
> Installation shot from early in the evening- Showing some printed
> "Threads" and "Streams" http://www.netbehaviour.org/pipermail/
> netbehaviour/attachments/20070302/c6b0110f/DIWO2.jpg http://
> www.netbehaviour.org/pipermail/netbehaviour/attachments/20070302/
> c6e6284c/DIWO8.jpg
> 
> Sim Gishel's 'Will Work For Food' - Vehicle drawing over an image of
> Marx's Grave in London http://www.netbehaviour.org/pipermail/
> netbehaviour/attachments/20070302/c6b0110f/DIWO1.jpg
> 
> Projection of 'The Wreckers' a drawing produced within Dave Miller's
> online collaborative drawing software- being viewed by a visitor via
> the DIWO mailbox http://www.netbehaviour.org/pipermail/netbehaviour/
> attachments/20070302/c6e6284c/DIWO9.jpg
> 
>  From my perspective as a subscriber to NetBehaviour email list I
> find the process fascinating, informative, amusing and constantly
> surprising.
> 
> cheers!
> Ruth
> 
> http://http.uk.net
> http://furtherfield.org

*****************************************************

Lauren A Wright
56 Roseberry Gardens
London N4 1JJ
UK

+44(0) 79 8129 2734
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