Hi Marialaura,
I've enjoyed reading the contributions so far...
>...your idea of interface seems to be related to your intent to bring
>in external trajectories related to discourses that are not necessarily
>part of fine art discourses and are related to the socio-cultural and
>economic environment in which we live in. An interface which acts as a
>centre of attraction (and/or dissemination) for other issues that the
>works you have presented touch upon, and here I am thinking of your
>co-commission with AND Festival of the project A Crowded Apocalypse
>by IOCOSE. I wonder if you have something to say about commissioning
>this work, presenting it, as well as the work itself in relation to
>this notion of the 'interface'?
Yes, you've got a point. The intentions behind this mental shift,
directly relate to finding ways to present a flexible context for the
work we are showing at the Furtherfield space. It is a mixture of having
a feeling about much of the art work we have been engaged with, and also
realising if we wanted to communicate to people who were not used to
visiting art galleries, or viewing art coming from the media art field;
that it was necessary to find a different way to meet people half-way.
Wowing people with how great the technology was, just seemed a bit lame.
Most of the art work we've been presenting, either had something to say
or was exploring things at deeper levels, and there were fascinating
stories to share.
A renegotiation had to take place. For a while now, we've not been
interested in showing art for technology's sake, as a singular theme or
item of interest. But, we still wanted to work with artists engaged in
using technology at various levels. And knowing this work is
'contemporary art' (whatever the mainstream art franchisers prefer to
highlight, as their 'genius' products) another approach was needed.
At one level, it's about having continual dialogue with artists who are
making these works themselves on an everyday basis, which is always
stimulating and an extremely rich resource. For us, artists are the real
source, just as much as code is source material. Whether these artists
are making work in terms of hacktivism, geeky stuff or performance; we
view their roles as explorers. They bring back to us what they have
discovered through their creative endeavours and journeys, which means
we have to find ways in representing the work on their terms, and in
ways that others can engage with. Which brings me to the concept of the
'interface' once more. We do not wish the work to be contained within a
space but at the same time it is in a space, so by allowing as much 'in'
from the outside world (physical, cultural and virtual) as possible
(respecting the context of what the work asks for); other people then,
tend to relate to it and are not even bothered whether it is art or not,
but accept it as art (because it is), and are very interested in the
ideas that these art works are exploring, discovering or communicating.
We are not telling anyone this is great art - instead, we are sharing
our discoveries of other people's journeys, whom happen to be artists.
We think it is great art, but definitely not in terms of how the
traditional art world sees art. Again, this may not be appropriate for
other curators and the artists they work with, but this works best for
us and those who come to visit the shows, events and workshops. It's
also, important to us that we are not playing the colonial game of
educating the peasants, we are the peasants, and mutual emancipation is
part of the process, we're learning about this amazing stuff together.
Regarding A Crowded Apocalypse by IOCOSE. We had already worked with
them before in Furtherfield's older space the 'HTTP@ gallery, when in
2010 we hosted the UK premiere of 'In the Long Run',
(http://www.furtherfield.org/exhibitions/long-run) produced by Aksioma -
Institute for Contemporary Art (Ljubljana) as part of the platform RE:akt!.
Nearly all of their works relate to human behaviour but with a twist. To
me, (my opinion here) they are like a collective of David Cronenberg's,
but seriously interested in networked culture at the same time. Some of
their art work features disease, mutation, anxieties and fear; and our
relationship with technology at a raw, and phenomenological level. And,
similar to Cronenberg's early themes, it touches on issues of
transformation and contamination as forces involving technologies of
power, are also closely entwined with fantasy and post-utopian
realisations. Even though IOCOSE's work exploits computer networks, it
also expresses a visceral edge.
I think what is interesting regarding IOCOSE's level of politcal
attention in their art works, is they are not proposing any particular
view point (politically) and are pulling out selected items in which
they observe as part of a larger set of themes - some of it's primordial
and wild, with questions relating to our sensory experiences and assumed
certainty, and some it connects with recognising that the structures
around us whether they be solid, networked or close family ties, these
archetypal, inter-relations are vulnerable and unnervingly transient.
It was great to be collaborating with the (excellent) AND Festvial.
Plus, we were very interested in working with IOCOSE again. A Crowded
Apocalypse (http://www.iocose.org/works/a_crowded_apocalypse) was part
of the 'Invisible Forces' exhibition
(http://www.furtherfield.org/programmes/exhibition/invisible-forces) at
the Furtherfield Gallery in Finsbury Park, North London in June 2012.
The piece sat well with the Invisible Forces theme "Our social, economic
and cultural institutions are being dismantled. Control over the
provision of social care, urban and rural development, and education is
being ceded to the market facilitated by unseen technological and
bureaucratic systems. Undeterred, the artists in this exhibition meet
the challenges that ensue with clear eyes, spontaneity, experimentation
and a sense of adventure. This selection of installations, digital
video, net art, painting and drawings deal with conspiracy, money,
politics and hidden signals."
The art works added the real 'context' and 'meaning' to the show. Of
course, we chose the theme, but the artists were asking similar
questions in their work. Invisible Forces also featured the works of
Kimathi Donkor, Laura Oldfield Ford, Dave Miller, Edward Picot, and YoHa
with additional game events, talks and workshops with Class Wargames,
The Hexists, Olga P Massanet and Thomas Cade Aston.
When working with IOCOSE, not only were we all interested in trying to
find the best way to present the work, we were also continually
discussing the ideas behind the work. This was important, because
knowing it's intentions, reasonings, non-reasonings helped us understand
the deepr nuances and how we could create an engagement with the public,
so it was appreciated on IOCOSE's terms but also not obscured by it's
complexities. Not easy, but it worked. At the same time AND Festvial,
asked me to interview IOCOSE for their web site. I had already
interviewed them in 2010 on Resonance FM, Furtherfield's (then) weekly
arts broadcast
(http://www.furtherfield.org/radio/07112010-iocose-and-owen-bowden).
The AND Festival interview 'Crowdsourcing a conspiracy'
(http://www.andfestival.org.uk/blog/iocose-garrett-interview-furtherfield/),
was another opportunity to find out more about the ideas behind 'A
Crowded Apocalypse'.
In respect of showing works on-line and off-line. We present both, which
works well. In the end it's up the art itself to stand up for itself to
initiate dialogue and interest, whatever the medium.
Thanks for your time & wishing you well.
marc
> Thank you Anna, Marc and Mark for describing your projects in such an
in-depht manner. Mark feel free to talk more about your remixthebook and
Reihard about the disadvantages of presenting web-based art, as I am
sure their will bring into the discussion more food for thoughts!
>
> Marc, I think you brought up something very interesting for this
discussion. Something the I have been thinking about for a while in
relation to how to overcome the often still existing
conceptual/ontological distinction between online and offline
exhibitions - which probably the topic of this month might seem to
reinforce since it stresses the need to analyse the workings of
curatorial work online, but this stress is my starting point to look at
the relationship and similarities between these two modes of
curatorial/artistic work.
>
> So, you talk about 'transversal experiences' - which is something
that also Anna stresses in the presentation of her work with/at Radio
MACBA -, 'outer dialogues which are connected' to a work, its
presentation, which are now more present to the way we experience
exhibitions. And I think this is something you achieve very well with
your shows at Furtherfield, opening them up to discourses that 'operate
outside of the fine arts tradition' - to use Mark's description when
talking about his own practice. So here we are with your definition of
exhibition as 'interface', 'a representation of current thought and
experiments which communicate or relate beyond the object itself. We
witness the continuation of an artist's or an art group's journey,
displaying their discoveries and where they are at various moments. This
has much to do with technology never standing still.' I am not really
making a point here - as I don't have one yet - but the way you define
this interface resonates with me because I know it is related to a
practice - yours - which does not understand interface as bringing
together multi-selsorial exhibitions in order to parallel our online
experiences - as for example the speakers in the Guardian video that
Bronac proposed to us seems to suggest - Rather, your idea of interface
seems to be related to your intent to bring in external trajectories
related to discourses that are not necessarily part of fine art
discourses and are related to the socio-cultural and economic
environment in which we live in. An interface which acts as a centre of
attraction (and/or dissemination) for other issues that the works you
have presented touch upon, and here I am thinking of your co-commission
with AND Festival of the project A Crowded Apocalypse by IOCOSE. I
wonder if you have something to say about commissioning this work,
presenting it, as well as the work itself in relation to this notion of
the 'interface'?
>
> On another note, I wonder if Lindsay might want to talk about her
project dump.fm/IRL which to me seems to directly link to this idea of
exhibition as interface with a focus on experimenting with the
relationship between the online/offline?
>
> To end this series of thoughts, I would like to quote what Vito
Campanelli wrote in his book Web Aesthetics in which he discusses the
relationship between form and content in relation to web aesthetics and
says that in order to answer to the question 'what does form mean in
relation to the web?' it is necessary to introduce the concept of
interface; "the interface is a fiction, a form that pretends that data
can be held steady [...] the interface given to the subject's senses is
nothing but a contingent, momentary form, a form that in that very
moment seems to fix a more or less well-defined set of data [...] data
that in actuality are always flowing".
>
> Thank you,
> Marialaura
>
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