For your listening pleasure here is an excerpt of the radio transmission recorded at Concent Art gallery in Berlin during ART01 event.

Barbara Huber initiating David Dunn's role playing

ART01-Concent_Art_Gallery-Berlin - excerpt Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Event held during Transart Institute MFA students exhibition at Concent Art gallery on 25th July 2010 under (symbolical) name “ART01 – Autonomy in Art Operating Systems” inspired Barbara Huber (Au), Maria Karagianni (Gr-Nl), Marian Potocar (Sk), Pod P (USA), Pedro Zaz (Pt) and Kruno Jost (Cro) to create together a unique art project. During two days this group worked in the way that each participant introduced an idea, material, technology, etc he or she were most comfortable with. Ideas were being discussed, methods were offered and finally group created art project that was based on collaborative work, it was using new technologies, performance like structure, it looked for participation of the public and it was critical towards the system of art representation it was being part of.

ART01 at Berlin took a form of an art lab where participants were called to play a role game.

Choosing a role

First,one rolled a dice to choose one of five roles: revolutionary, monk or a nun, parent, police (wo)man or illegal immigrant. This roles were chosen by the core group’s desires to show how different, yet very generalized characters, would react or observe art exhibits.

After rolling a dice and picking your character card you would roll a dice second time. This time it would show which of the exhibits one will be taken to. for example if your card would be no. 3 you would be a policeman, and if you roll second time and get. no 7 you would go to see artwork of Ingibjorg Hauksdottir.

Floor-plan of the gallery

After observing the chosen exhibit trough the eyes of the character one had to come back to ART01 artlab and communicate its finding, emotions and understandings to ART01 core group members.

Observing the artwork

Than you roll a dice third time choosing a location: a garden, kitchen, bank, homeless shelter, etc. where artwork you observed would be utilized. This little twist in the perception, utilization of the artwork, would be a starting point of discussion with the lab workers.

Conversation transmitted over radio

Conversation was carried out with easy flow of questions putting observer in the position to negotiate artworks utility, answers why this decisions, create a story for artwork and talks on systems of its representation.

People listening radio show at the car parking

Whole conversation was transmitted over FM pirate radio that was able to be picked up by small radios laying around the exhibition space, as well as in the cars on the parking lot outside of the gallery.

Floor-plan design was also projected on the wall near the lab, where everyone could see text inputed with the artwork in question. Shortened statements were inputed real time in the projection.

Projection

This is where texts from Piratepad can be found: file:///tmp/oe4gQRtuer-latest.html
a tool used for online text exchange between core group participants. Latter, all the shortened statements from ART01 participants were inputed there too, have a look at the end.

PDES is yet another step into the research on collaborative environments, its stimulants, individuals and their mind-sets which forms a group work. PDES is an example of what are (generally) the themes created in collaborative process orientated work environments that are critical to art itself.

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PDES was organized so that participants bring their ideas and share them. This situation brings a question of confidence, skill, will to discuss and bring an idea forward, etc. It is difficult process where certain people can overshadow others, without realising it. Trebor Scholz describes in The Participatory Challenge about the practical guidelines for collaboration. I will extract only a couple:

• develop trust and mutual respect;
• define self-interest, reasons well;
• take a dose of humility;
• learn when to let go;
• get everybody involved in the process;
• give reasons behind your thinking.

Sharing ideas and plans for further meetings, funders, etc.

PDES brought this ideas on the table: if one wants to work with Pure Data, one has to retire from art world. Taking that PD is time consuming and concerning we all are taking 80 % of our time working with different bureaucratic instances to get to the point where we can actually use PD as a tool, an idea was to retire so one can use PD. For this idea Guy van Belle wrote an article that was “red” by PD patch projected on the wall. At he same time he was filmed. This material was used at the last day exhibit where few of the aspects of his talk about retiring, and what are geo-political reasons for this besides one to have time to work on PD were corresponded to other texts on this subject.

Visualization of PD patch writing text on how to retire. Get full text here and patch here

Next work went a step further. Art Pollution Kit (both hardware and software) was introduced as a toll where art pollution was documented. PD was used to analyse recorded materials and this data was visualized. PD patch for art pollution was developed by Michael Kindernay.

PD patch for analysing art pollution.

Lenka Dolenova introduced a notion of un-pure data, where documentation of process of all the projects done during PDES by Kruno Jošt was used as starting point to change it and develop parallel perspective by simple analogue way of connections drawing, similar to Pure Datas way of connecting command objects in the software itself.

Visitor enjoying Lenka Dolenova un-pure data wall work.

What PDES brought to surface trough discussed ideas while the programs was undertaken is that people beside being open and creative in thinking, for many different reasons can create blocks of energy flow. Evoking the same experience from last year’s EEII festival in ?akovec when at one point of the day all appeared as it will come down and that collaboration did not work. People started to go away from the group into their own individual corners. Next is a diagram of blocks that appeared at PDES.

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It is hard to get back on track when something like this happens, especially if people start working individually to the point where they cannot let go of the development of the project as they spent so much time in it. So one has to be aware to always moderate and police the timing of when group meeting is in order.

Good point of PDES are seen in next diagram. Usually complex software will turn down non-geeks and non-techy creative people. That is why other ways of participating, involving and collaborations have to be envisioned. Sharing has to go in deeper level: sharing time together, so in-between coffees and city walks are also good to exchange ideas. At the end of the day, or in the end of the project, non rigid representation that looks more like fluxus event than exhibition is welcomed, so is the flow of the new comers that are coming into the game.

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To be skilful administrator is something funding and project orientated artist has to learn during production periods. More funders means bigger amount of time spent on administration, but can also mean bigger autonomy and chance to hack. Also it can mean bigger autonomy on artist idea, where one funder, especially if it is a big company, will easily create certain systems and boundaries, if not rules where art process should go.

ART01 in Berlin was depending a lot on Ministry of Culture Croatia co-funding. But as situation with global crisis is wide spread excuse this days, and with national debt similar to Greece, political elite got a good idea how to take measures to stop crisis: give less money to culture. So, from original sum, a 10% was donated to ART01 project. This sum is not enough to even bring one participant to Berlin. This situation calls for administrative funding actions on all fields. Run for cash has started! Instead of looking for one bigger source ART01 will look for more smaller ones. Problems arising from this tactics is that all funding bodies are giving money for similar costs: travel and accommodation. As one has to prove with bills all the cost, some hacking and art-ministration will be required to get funds for other expenses such as costs for other participants, production, per-diems, etc.

Following two diagrams show what are good value vs. bad value funders, and what is stressed when writing applications with what funder. Another diagram shows how applications will be written but cash will flow to other costs.

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Forgotten foods from hungary

Food Crisis is third part of the series of Crisis Mania project with events happening in Check, Hungary and Slovakia. First two were observing housing and travelling crisis in modern society. It is project made possible by involvement of many organizations working in the field of art, technology, urban culture and self-sustainability. Event was originally thought of as meeting point for exchange of knowledge and artistic questioning of routines, norms and patterns of today’s society. People were encouraged to think of plants and seeds that are mainly forgotten in today’s industrial food production (like nettle). Collective food preparing was introduced and food sharing was organized where each participant brought their food with them. Other part of the event was making the sound by cooking and mixing of this two disciplines. Prague non for profit venues and organizations were involved, like art magazine A2 and venue Školska.

Collaborative food preparing and eating

Cooking and making music at the same time

Again, to prepare such an event with international participants and without firm commercial plan this kind of collective and participatory event had to be thought of on different fields and had to serve as a vehicle for more than just stage for evening performances and day workshops. Further actions were discussed and plans made. Somewhere a common feeling of lack of structure that brings messy event time-line is something participants are looking forward or fearing. Some yearn for more structure, some like its organic development. Overall, and event that follows more or less conscious group interaction that brings experimental art out of realm of individual and singular signature work.

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One has to take in consideration low budget when thinking about self organized event. ART01 strives to bring core group of mediators from different countries that requires more hacking concerning funding. For ART01 a complex system of events that can co-fund ART01 is strategically organized. Sets of different approaches are considered for creating a TAZ from resources already available. One has to keep in mind that non of this resources (funders) had TAZ in mind.

This is the general idea of what might be interesting to have as open processes during ART01 in Berlin:

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To organize such an event people from Berlin and other countries are invited to help. It is a loose network created by trust and mutual trust from people who collaborated in this or that way.

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To create funding for core people to be part of ART01 this is envisioned time-line and events that are creating opportunities to share knowledge in the context of art events and gallery exhibitions:

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This is time-line in more details:

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This is a sketch of envisioned communications streams between actors in ART01 event during its preproduction.

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One of EU cultural funding institution is European Cultural Foundation (ECF). From their web-page: “We believe that culture engages and inspires people to transcend boundaries. The connecting power of culture is essential for creating open, inclusive and democratic societies, and is invaluable for building Europe.”

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Both positive and suspicious criticism can be turned to question of boundaries and to connecting power as it seems by the overview of granted projects from the past that projects envision “barbaric”, “primitive”, “outlandish”, “fringe”, or in most cases “exotic” cultures showcasing in dominant one: Roma, Balkan, etc. in EU.

Is ECF creating a showcases for cultures that have been, or will be included in EU dominant one so as to create atmosphere for domestic/dominant cultures to acknowledge them and thus make less space possible for nationalist forces build up on preconceptions? Maybe that would be the entrance point for ECF grant? There is no explanation what are the boundaries, so one has to envision them according to information on ECF in order to transcendent them accordingly.

“Connecting power” can be loosely interpreted as networking structure of actors in cultural scene: artist and cultural workers. Personal impression is that the artist here is portrayed as “aesthetics design worker” that will create representation according to the cultural worker visions (management in the cultural world where artist becomes a meager discussed by Brian Holmes, Gerald Rauning and others springs to mind). So it is not connections of the artists, but connection of interest groups specified by the cultural managers and cultural industry.

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If autonomous art system is envisioned, than a valid question is where the money comes from and how it influences a project. In this diagram a positive way to give back value to the public for their tax collected money is drawn. Giving back to the public trough involving them inthe project or giving information on how to and creating space for workshops where knowledge transfer is happening are some of the options.

What is in question here is how to negotiate and how to recognize positions of systems that apply for funding: what is agenda of their system, what is systems background? Simply, are they following structure that funder requires to obtain funds or is their focus to retur public welth in the sphere of public.

As ART01 would be collaboration between members of EU and Balkan countries, it occurred to me that ECF funding would be in place for such a project. Researching their web pages I have found that, lucky, they are opening something called “Balkan Incentive Fund for Culture”. By reading summaries of artistic project that applied, went trough the process and won the funding I realized that ART01 will have to adjust to ECF guidelines.

EEII’09 diagram showing interdependencies between participants, organizations,funders, media coverage, themes and methods of the event.

Experimental Electronic Intervention (EEII) is an event that has 6 years of existence worked on self-organized principles. It’s main organizational principles are:
1. there is no audience: event is organized so everyone could take part in creative process;
2. there is no one organizer, everyone helps in organization, organization and curatorial process is collaborative;
3. there is no final exhibition, but what matter is a process of creativity;
4. focus is on collaborative work and distancing the process from individual representations and authorship.

EEII’09 was focused on collaborative work where ideas of every participant would be connected into one “organism”. It was 12 hours event (during December 2009), where participants went trough proposing their individual projects, to connecting them into jointed event, to realizing real time performances that were similar to Fluxus events in their free flow.

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Above drawing is a sketch used to show loop of informations flow from one to other artist. There is a suit with light sensors that reflect on light conditions in the space, sending the sound over FM transmitter to radio receiver. This one is connected to computer and mixer where sound is additionally worked on. From here it is send to another computer with arduino board that controls lights in the room. Another computer with camera is filming actor with the suit and trough computer this image is mixed with other images and is beamed on the wall. Actor can move according to the light input, sound input or mixed image displayed behind him/her.

This is a complex art operating system diagram that is showing interconnections between people, organizations and projects that were developed between Belgium, Slovakia and Check Republic.

Diagram was sketched during Multimedia camp (MMKamp’09), an event held in Art Workshop Lazareti in Dubrovnik, where different artist and art organizations were introducing their work and where future plans created for art/ecology/performances projects and collaborations.

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Art operating systems here are brought to such difficulties by always following state systems – each artist creates a group, connects it to another group in another country or city so opportunities grow bigger. Each artist and group open their project that includes multidimensional outputs. They interact with each other on basis of funds received and needs to express. Complexity of interchange and interactions are mostly due to EU cultural funders and policies.

Culture Robot 4.0 project won a prize at ArteMove festival in Belo Horizonte. Winning a prize brought a complex issues and questions: what are interdependencies between artists inside the team, and what are connections between them individually and the festival team. Also , what are the prerogatives and standards that prizes are given for?

As festival is sponsored by Nokia and other corporate powers in Brazil, question is what are dependencies between creating the festival and the capital.

I made a few attempts in diagram drawings:

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CR 4.0 installation at ArteMov festival

4 days of workshops – Circuit bending, arduino, open source tools for sound and video + evening shows. System: get funds from state, city, county, funds for civil society. Get help from local privat bussines.

Negotiations: eat at local rpvat bussines, sleep at local privat hotel, state looks to see what are numbers: how many guests, how many meadia articles, etc., county and city  are looking in how media coverage of event will be on national scale to propagate local political  structures. Civil societ funds have strict causes, in this case propagating reconciliation (many years after wors on Balkans) – consecvences are that bands and artists playing on the event are form Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia.

ACTFest diagram

Longer blog entry covering the event >>

Inspired by London collective ‘Random Artists’, over the past few years collective groups in Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh and Brighton have been coming together to create a cultural, interactive, autonomous space where people are free to be, free to create, and free to express themselves. Forbiden Arts Manchester in 2009 happened in occupied primary school building that was left empty waiting for decisions by city hall and omnipotent property developers will it be brought down or repaired. Idea was to enter existing space that is not used at the moment and put it into public use for local community. Doors were open to everyone who wanted to take part in collective art event.

Wall paintings, poetry readings, video nights, fashion show, sound workshops, cabaret, installations, raveoke night, all fitted in aesthetics of local event that is characterized on MFA web page as: “An event like this doesn’t just happen but is the result of many, many people’s hard work.”

Noisy Toys collaborative event video >>

Event diagram:

TAA Manchester diagram

THE LAST THEATER SHOW EVER,  I-Camp theater, Munchen was a collaborative, participants interactive experiment in deconstructing theater and working in horizontal manner, where there is no single and individual artist. Idea and methodology was to deconstruct traditional theater trough series of collaborative works where one work was supposed to lean on another, where each participant brings an idea and connects it to someone. International crew came around and investigated for 5 days in what might be called horizontal construction decision making and constant reevaluating of the final presentation that was constructed of three distinctive pieces.

All three were on collaboration but with different input and output models: one was following movements outside of theater and by computer calculations bringing it inside trough sound and visuals done with found (theater) hardware.

Another used sound in feedback communication that deconstructed viewers position and placement in theater, being done under the stage and audience sitting space.

Third one used virtual theater through on-line software with international particiants being projected on theater walls, together with orchestrated individual who brought event there.

Experiment was worth while intentions to discover what are group dynamics when artist are put together to work on something that calls for collaboration and sharing. Not to forget to mention that putting creativity with different bacgrounds into same place can be very frustrating and cathartic at the same time.

Event diagram - click to enlarge

Collection of sounds recorded while traveling >> . Advised is to download them all and put them in your sound player, listen with shuffle on.
Next one is from train going between Edinburgh and Manchester:

Recorded sound from train traveling from Edinburgh to Manchester Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I am looking for the method of how to work around art project that follows my multidisciplinary artistic practices whatever they might be at given moment (multimedia artist, artivist (artist-activist), bureaucrat, nomad, lecturer/educator, musician, computer based artist…) and wherever they might take place (gallery, street, festival, theater, NGO space, etc).

• I have successfully took part of couple self-organized “open process” events with collaborative outputs.

• I have had been in constant contact with Ministry of Culture of Croatia and other funders to secure the fundings for further events.

• I have been gathering documentations about my everyday life, my travels and bureaucratic operations I have to get involved with.

• I have started taking video and audio material looking for different media to capture and document, but all seamed to fail to get the moments I was looking to represent.

My output was being documented on web-log trough photography and text. Research is being done in what kind of output would this material take shape, and what kind of tools could be used. All ideas seemed too narrow though, thats why I gave this material a tag ‘frozen in time’, as captured didn’t, and in my opinion couldn’t represent my need to consolidate art practices and ideas I was forming.

Sleeping and working place of artist in Manchester

Photo-logs:

Traveling >>

Artist living space >>

From the events >>