Wednesday, 29 February 2012
OKF Helsinki
Just posted up some initial ideas for a panel discussion for artists using open data. In Berlin last year there was only one artist featured and he was not explicitly engaged with open data. In response i pitched the idea of curating and afternoon session featuring artists who explicitly and critically engage with open data, initial posting here http://okfestival.okfnpad.org/helsinki?.
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
#OpenDataLDN 3: Wikimedia and New Collaborations
I presented Landscape-Portrait at the bi-monthly meet up of the Open Knowledge Foundation last night. The night of lightning talks featured various talks including the National Archive at Kew, who are having a hack day in the near future, which could be interesting. The night went well, lots of interest from various sources, charities producing personal narratives of those they help, other students. But as yet no programmer, which was the main aim of the evening, interestingly I was not the only one requesting technical help, seems like a bit of a bottle neck.
Thursday, 19 January 2012
Asier Mendizabal - Raven Row
Last night i went to a talk by Asier Mendizabal at Raven Row, the gallery owned and run by Alex Sainsbury. I am quite perplexed by the whole evening, it kinda makes me wonder if a gallery, even one as accommodating as RR - is the right place for Mendizabal's work. The works seem like props for a narrative that can only be told by the artist, or a select group 'who are in the know'.
Perversely I think this performative, story telling approach would work quite well within the confines of community based work. Whereby a working group develop a set of props and
a narrative, and the performance on this becomes is the work, the story would then (ideally) be retold and mistold, making its transition from object to symbol mmmmm
sort of - It also struck me that most of his works come from a world which might considered - analogue - the punk movement, 50's abstract expressionism. Its like a music fan who refuses to listen to music after 1973, the narratives that Mendizabal develops are not complicated by the confusion and multiplicity caused by domestic access to computing and digital networks, the references he uses seem, in comparison to the contemporary moment, quite fixed.
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
LOD - Programmer
I've been searching for a LOD programmer to both advise and probably do some of the programming for the next stage of LP. Kat from the OKF has been helpful but as yet nothing has materialized. As a result I am going to present the work at LDN 3, the monthly meet up of the OKF, hopefully from that something will occur.....
Tuesday, 10 January 2012
LOD Landscape-Portrait - Programmer/ Open Data advisor Needed !
Overview.
Landscape-Portrait is public art project which collects video portraits of person and place which act as a critique of those produced by demographics. The work tours around the country inviting collaboration between local artists, community professionals and participants within each locale. The work has been running now in its data gathering phase for five years and has collected an extensive archive of video portraits.
The plan now is to release this video content as open data, with the aim of offering an alternative view of person and place to that which is derived from statistical information. In order to do this I need the services of a programmer conversant with Open Data practices (RDF etc), who might be willing to work with me on this next phase.
The project is not a commercial exercise, it has been funded primarily by the Arts Council of England, therefore there is not an extensive budget, however we do has some funding. In addition the project is the focus of my PHD, and therefore I can devote considerable time to it.
If you think you may have some time to help move the project onto the next phase please drop me a line @: kevin@co-lab.org.
Phase one of the project itself can be viewed here: www.landscape-portrait.com
Landscape-Portrait is public art project which collects video portraits of person and place which act as a critique of those produced by demographics. The work tours around the country inviting collaboration between local artists, community professionals and participants within each locale. The work has been running now in its data gathering phase for five years and has collected an extensive archive of video portraits.
The plan now is to release this video content as open data, with the aim of offering an alternative view of person and place to that which is derived from statistical information. In order to do this I need the services of a programmer conversant with Open Data practices (RDF etc), who might be willing to work with me on this next phase.
The project is not a commercial exercise, it has been funded primarily by the Arts Council of England, therefore there is not an extensive budget, however we do has some funding. In addition the project is the focus of my PHD, and therefore I can devote considerable time to it.
If you think you may have some time to help move the project onto the next phase please drop me a line @: kevin@co-lab.org.
Phase one of the project itself can be viewed here: www.landscape-portrait.com
Monday, 5 December 2011
Precarious times symposium - Plymouth
Just got back from the British Art Show (in the day of the comet) at Plymouth where I was invited to take part in the Precarious times symposium at the art school. The conference followed a PHD workshop yesterday. Today's presenters consisted of Mel Jordan - from collaborative arts organisation FREEE, Malcolm Miles, (doyen of Public art and left wing cultural politics), UBERMORGEN (who were born out of the etoy group) Stevphen Shukaitis all rounded off be a group presentation by the members of the PHD workshop.
The conference set about discussing possible strategies or thinking about the precarious times we live in. This was purposely contrasted with the thematic premise of the British arts show which was curated around a vision of what a comet means:
"We are interested in the recurrent nature of the comet as a symbol of how each version of the present collides with the past and the future, and the work of the artists in British Art Show 7, in many different ways, contest assumptions of how ‘the now’ might be understood." Lisa Le Feuvre and Tom Morton, Curators of British Art Show 7."
With exception of Hans from UBERMORGEN and Malcolm MIles the presentations were dense, in part indigestible and not particuarily engaging to a mixed audience. There is almost a badge of honour in incoherence when academics and practitioners present around difficult topics, in this case labour, the politics of refusal and the modus of revolutionary acts. This was a real failing of the conference. That said there were lots of interesting nuggets, just that they were not linked together in a coherent manner in most of the talks. Malcolm Miles talked about the interaction of modernism and socialism, both of which allegedly died in the 80's. In response he put forward the idea that we have now entered the promise of modernism, so its not that it has disappeared, just that we are in it and cannot see it. He also talked about an early autonomy in modernism which he contrasted to its later manifestation as formalism, which occurs in high modernism and cements the gap between artwork and audience, which is much criticised by NGPA.
Generally it was quite a difficult conference, it suffered from a lack of coherent flow, each talk was like a different new iteration that was unrelated to the previous, difficult for the audience and presenters alike.
The conference set about discussing possible strategies or thinking about the precarious times we live in. This was purposely contrasted with the thematic premise of the British arts show which was curated around a vision of what a comet means:
"We are interested in the recurrent nature of the comet as a symbol of how each version of the present collides with the past and the future, and the work of the artists in British Art Show 7, in many different ways, contest assumptions of how ‘the now’ might be understood." Lisa Le Feuvre and Tom Morton, Curators of British Art Show 7."
With exception of Hans from UBERMORGEN and Malcolm MIles the presentations were dense, in part indigestible and not particuarily engaging to a mixed audience. There is almost a badge of honour in incoherence when academics and practitioners present around difficult topics, in this case labour, the politics of refusal and the modus of revolutionary acts. This was a real failing of the conference. That said there were lots of interesting nuggets, just that they were not linked together in a coherent manner in most of the talks. Malcolm Miles talked about the interaction of modernism and socialism, both of which allegedly died in the 80's. In response he put forward the idea that we have now entered the promise of modernism, so its not that it has disappeared, just that we are in it and cannot see it. He also talked about an early autonomy in modernism which he contrasted to its later manifestation as formalism, which occurs in high modernism and cements the gap between artwork and audience, which is much criticised by NGPA.
Generally it was quite a difficult conference, it suffered from a lack of coherent flow, each talk was like a different new iteration that was unrelated to the previous, difficult for the audience and presenters alike.
Friday, 2 December 2011
The rehabilitation of 'community' art
I presented my research yesterday at PRECARIOUS TIMES workshop/symposium, which is par of the British Art Show 7 “IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET”, at Plymouth University and Plymouth College of Art, Plymouth, UK.
The presentation came at a good time, having submitted transfer docs I have been in the studio for a month actually making work.
My presentation was called 'Proposals for a Digital Public/Community Art Practice'. After the presentation I was speaking with Geof Cox, my 2nd supervisor, and he suggested dropping the words 'digital' and 'public' so:
'Proposals for a community art practice',
which is quite scary, having always been critical of and bored by the the majority of community based work, to quote Patricia Phillips: '‘many communities installed public art as a confirmation of dominant ideologies, safe platitudes, spent recolections, or user friendly aesthetics" (Patricia, P., 'Public Constructions'. ArtForum). So can community art be rehabilitated via the developments of critical community art practice (or Socially Engaged Art) and digital means and methods, can it ?
The presentation came at a good time, having submitted transfer docs I have been in the studio for a month actually making work.
My presentation was called 'Proposals for a Digital Public/Community Art Practice'. After the presentation I was speaking with Geof Cox, my 2nd supervisor, and he suggested dropping the words 'digital' and 'public' so:
'Proposals for a community art practice',
which is quite scary, having always been critical of and bored by the the majority of community based work, to quote Patricia Phillips: '‘many communities installed public art as a confirmation of dominant ideologies, safe platitudes, spent recolections, or user friendly aesthetics" (Patricia, P., 'Public Constructions'. ArtForum). So can community art be rehabilitated via the developments of critical community art practice (or Socially Engaged Art) and digital means and methods, can it ?
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