I spent yesterday in Shaftesbury Dorset after being shortlisted for the 'WIDE OPEN SPACE' commission. Shafestbury is famous as the backfrop for the Hovis advert !
The brief was to produce a proposal for a public art project. I would imagine we were shortlisted for a project I and architects civic completed in Burnley where Proposals were used in an iterative way, to gradually build a mandate for the projects we were developing with residents and the council.
My feeling is my presentation of the ideas behind this approach did not translate well to the Shaftesbury Civic society (who made up the interview panel), I just cant get away from the fact that what they really wanted was a stone carved monument, which is fine, but why select me for the shortlist, cabaret perhaps ?
One thing to learn, always check out who the commissioning panel will be and tailor content accordingly - I think I know that but temporarily forget. Hohum.
Friday, 25 June 2010
Monday, 7 June 2010
Cornmarket Plaza Commission, Dublin 2010 - A feeling of rejection
Just received a very strange thanks but no thanks email from Dublin City council. This has never happened to me before, but after shortlisting a set of candidates and commissioning them to produce comprehensive proposals, the interview panel, which consisted off:
Anne Graham, (Engineer, ex Central Area Office Manager for DCC – who initiated the commissioning process
· Frances Hegarty, Artist
· Ruairí Ó Cuív, Public Art Manager
have decided - and I quote:
"After carefully examining and assessing all the proposals we have decided that no team offered all the requirements of the commission. Therefore, Dublin City Council will not be nominating anybody for this commission at this time. " mmmm - and interesting development in the role of professional art managers, one where they have to go through with a publicly accountable procedure with little appetite for actually commissioning the work ? certainly one that is very frustrating for all the artists involved and a general waste of resources.
Anne Graham, (Engineer, ex Central Area Office Manager for DCC – who initiated the commissioning process
· Frances Hegarty, Artist
· Ruairí Ó Cuív, Public Art Manager
have decided - and I quote:
"After carefully examining and assessing all the proposals we have decided that no team offered all the requirements of the commission. Therefore, Dublin City Council will not be nominating anybody for this commission at this time. " mmmm - and interesting development in the role of professional art managers, one where they have to go through with a publicly accountable procedure with little appetite for actually commissioning the work ? certainly one that is very frustrating for all the artists involved and a general waste of resources.
Friday, 21 May 2010
Cornmarket Plaz Commission, Dublin 2010
On a more upbeat note I have just got back from Dublin, where I along with civic architects and curator Andrew Chetty, were shortlisted for a commission. The location of the commission, on a triangular public space in Dublin is incredibly demanding site, as it is bordered on all sides by traffic.
Our proposal incorporated a community engagement strategy, partnered by Create Dublin and the Digital Hub, an architectural intervention designed by civic:
and a curatorial programme put together with partners; Forma, Transmediale (Germany), Forma Arts & Media (UK), Sonar (Spain), Radar (Mexico) and DoDig (Turkey).
We will see what happens, but either way its interesting what they decide to do as Dublin has been hit hard by the financial downturn, and the role of a public art commission such as this, is very contentious. It would be my plan to interview the council arts officer about the project as part of my PHD.
Our proposal incorporated a community engagement strategy, partnered by Create Dublin and the Digital Hub, an architectural intervention designed by civic:
and a curatorial programme put together with partners; Forma, Transmediale (Germany), Forma Arts & Media (UK), Sonar (Spain), Radar (Mexico) and DoDig (Turkey).
We will see what happens, but either way its interesting what they decide to do as Dublin has been hit hard by the financial downturn, and the role of a public art commission such as this, is very contentious. It would be my plan to interview the council arts officer about the project as part of my PHD.
time delay
Its amazing just how quickly all the connection that we strove for weeks to build, whilst doing LP in Bournemouth, can vaporise. Since the end of phase 1, the collecting of the data, i've not had much todo on the project, due to other partners and myself being weighed down with commitments. This is a real failing of the project, its incredibly important that contacts are maintained, via any means necessary. With LP this has not happened, and now we'll have to wait till the end of the month. Not good.
Monday, 26 April 2010
Bus Tops - Viziters
Just updating myself with Bus-Tops, the digital public art project being produced by Artists Alfie Dennen and Paula Le Dieu. I have just selected my local bus stop as the site of one of their Viziters.
Reading through their blog entries the artists seem to imagine the screens as an organic network, with each screen having a set of intelligences:
"Each Vizitər will be a totally distinct being. Each will have an artificial intelligence which will let it filter what comes through it’s sensorium (the art people make and send to it) and make, to some extent, it’s own decisions on what it prefers, over time."
mmm not sure about that, is it no enough just to have a network of publicly accessible signs, the new digital public realm and all that ?
Reading through their blog entries the artists seem to imagine the screens as an organic network, with each screen having a set of intelligences:
"Each Vizitər will be a totally distinct being. Each will have an artificial intelligence which will let it filter what comes through it’s sensorium (the art people make and send to it) and make, to some extent, it’s own decisions on what it prefers, over time."
mmm not sure about that, is it no enough just to have a network of publicly accessible signs, the new digital public realm and all that ?
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Census - The installation
I've been thinking about how all the content generated via LP could be used in a final, physical piece of work. One where audience members could move through the content, incorporating filters such as postcode area, question type.
As show that really impressed some years back was Kutlug Ataman's Kuba. There would seem some - in my head at least- correlation between the two ideas in terms of presentation.
As show that really impressed some years back was Kutlug Ataman's Kuba. There would seem some - in my head at least- correlation between the two ideas in terms of presentation.
Monday, 19 April 2010
Martha Rosler - If you lived here......
This quote from Martha Roslers book "if you lived here" seems really pertinent to my thinking about Landscape-Portrait:
"Social activists, certainly, continue to recognise the importance of documentary evidence in arguing for social change. It is the necessity ot acknowledge the place- and time - from which one speaks that is an absolute requirement for meaningful social documentary”
"Naturally, this shifts the terrain of the argument from the art object - the photograph, the film, the videotape, the picture book or magazine - to the context, to the process of signification, and to social process."
The idea of documentary evidence - allowing "acknowledging historical context yet allowing 'unquantifiable sources' - LP can be seen in this light, in try to create a dataset of documentary evidence as part of a integrated practice. How this data might be used, either in gallery, planning office or locally convened online campaign is relevant to its audience.
The other thing to think of here is time:stamp. LP is ambiguous about this, the video is not dated, whilst it acknowledges place - via a Google map. Is it important for each of the video portraits to be dated.
"Social activists, certainly, continue to recognise the importance of documentary evidence in arguing for social change. It is the necessity ot acknowledge the place- and time - from which one speaks that is an absolute requirement for meaningful social documentary”
"Naturally, this shifts the terrain of the argument from the art object - the photograph, the film, the videotape, the picture book or magazine - to the context, to the process of signification, and to social process."
The idea of documentary evidence - allowing "acknowledging historical context yet allowing 'unquantifiable sources' - LP can be seen in this light, in try to create a dataset of documentary evidence as part of a integrated practice. How this data might be used, either in gallery, planning office or locally convened online campaign is relevant to its audience.
The other thing to think of here is time:stamp. LP is ambiguous about this, the video is not dated, whilst it acknowledges place - via a Google map. Is it important for each of the video portraits to be dated.
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