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Critical Practice

Chalk & Talk

Critical PracticeAs part of Critical Practice I participated in a discussion organised by Department 21 at the Royal College of Art. Six independent, bottom-up educational initiatives shared their experiences of experimenting with different systems of teaching and learning, through radically reassessing accepted modes of knowledge distribution. For the future, we aim to compile a manual of good practice to explore horizontal, transparent educational models within institutions.

Interview

Peter Maloney is a researcher working on the impact of technology within learning environments. This is an edited text of a conversation from Thursday 3rd June 2010, the full research will be published soon.

Peter Maloney: Neil, I’m interested in the origins of the Chelseawiki, and the benefits of FLOSS software development as a model for creative practice,………… among other things. So, in 2004 students you had been working with started up a wiki, can you say a little about how that came about?

N: Yes, I think it was 2004, it’s all still archived on the Chelseawiki if you need to check! It grew out of two things – a group of undergraduate students began to collaborate together, Ian Drysdale, Tom Neill, Trevor Giles, Daryl Stadlen and Wei Ho Ng, and I gave a series of lectures and seminars – called something like Free Culture. The seminars introduced ideas from Free Libre or Open Source Software [FLOSS], and explored how these might impact on art’s practice and organization.

PARADE

Working SessionPARADE: public modes of assembly and forms of address

I contribute to Critical Practice, a cluster of artists, researchers and academics hosted by Chelsea College of Art and Design, a constituent college of the University of the Arts London. We have a longstanding interest in art, public goods, spaces, services and knowledge, and a track record of producing original, participatory events.

Chelsea College of Art and Design has a large contemporary courtyard at its heart: the beautiful Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground. We collaborated with Polish curator Kuba Szreder to develop a programme of events that explore the diverse, contested and vital conceptions of being in public.

In a bespoke, temporary structure designed by award-winning Polish architects Ola Wasilkowska and Michał Piasecki - assembled in public - we produced a landmark event in an amazing location with a host of international contributors.

Parade challenged the lazy, institutionalised model of knowledge transfer - in which amplified 'experts' speak at a passive audience. Our modes of assembly, our forms of address and the knowledge we share are intimately bound.

See the full programme or images of the amazing events

the educational turn

I will take part in a three day event FL∆G: re-turning the educational turn at Chelsea College of Art and Design

Working SessionEducation is increasingly a key concern for contemporary art practice and its exhibitionary institutions; recent events include PARADE, Documenta 12 and United Nations Plaza, or Transpedagogy: Contemporary Art and the Vehicles of Education at MOMA, and events covened by the Serpentine and Hayward Gallery like de-schooling society, could all be defined as art turning educational.

On the one hand, claiming pedagogic practices as a form of art for exhibition could be seen as a way of idealising art education, or as an attempt to aestheticise education for exhibition. On the other hand, it could be seen as a form of engaged, dematerialised and participatory art practice. Regardless of the hand we choose, the proliferation of interest in the educational turn, demonstrates a new and widespread interest within exhibitionary institutions, art practice itself and sites of art education for self-reflexion.

modes of assembly

 I contrbute to Critical Practice, here is an invitation to an event we are working on.

Dear ******

Parade

We are writing to inform you of Parade, an upcoming event facilitated by Critical Practice.

Critical Practice is a cluster of artists, researchers and academics hosted by Chelsea College of Art and Design, a constituent

college of the University of the Arts London. We have a longstanding interest in public goods, spaces, services and knowledge, and a track record of producing original participatory events. For instance, in 2004 we organized Open Congress at Tate.

Chelsea College is opposite Tate Britain on Millbank, and has a large contemporary courtyard at its heart, the beautiful Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground. We have worked with our Polish partners over the last year to develop a program of events that will explore different, contested and vital conceptions of being in public. These events will unfold over Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd of May 2010. We will investigate the history of public space and the public sphere, along with differing cultural perceptions of 'being in public', the politics of public assembly, the socialization implicit in 'publicness', the architecture of public knowledge, and much more besides.

Public Body

I will be participating in a Public Body Barcamp. 

On Saturday 17th October at 14:00 at the Nowy Wspanialy Świat, Ul. Nowy Świat 63, Warsaw, Poland.

Jointly facilitated by Critical Practice - a cluster of artists, researchers, academics and others hosted by Chelsea College of Art & Design, London - and Free/Slow University Warsaw -  a nomadic centre of interdisciplinary studies, critical reflection, and independent thinking about art and society - the Public Body Barcamp is an extension of Publicamp. The assembly will be concerned with notions of being-in-public, and aims to explore ideas about the public body.

The Public Body Barcamp aims to examine the relationships among singular and assembled bodies, what infrastructures are necessary to facilitate a public body, public knowledge, art, social practice and fields of action in public space.

PubliCamp

I'll be in  Kennington Park London, on Sunday 5th July

To refine and generate some of the intellectual content, and perhaps some of the participants for Parade, Critical Practice are planning to convene a PubliCamp in Kennington Park – a former common, scene of a huge public Chartist gathering, enclosed (with Royal sponsorship), and now a ‘public’ park.

We intend to explore different conceptions of the publicness - historical, cultural, political, social, architectural and digital. We aim to develop a shared ethic towards the notion of public goods and will not be deterred by the disagreeable, contentious, messy, inefficient, live, improvisatory and provisional nature of Being in Public. Public, common or shared resources are like muscles, they become stronger with exercise.

Publicness

Archivalprocess

I contribute to Critical Practice, a cluster of artists, researchers, academics and others, supported by Chelsea College of Art & Design, London.

We are collaborating with Kuba Szreder, a freelance curator from Warsaw,  on an international conference exploring the contested, and increasingly relevant to topic of ‘publicness’ or 'being-in-public'. We are working towards Parade (working title) a conference and series of events in the beautiful Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground at Chelsea, opposite Tate Britain in central London – 4 minutes from the Houses of Parliament. Parade is scheduled for May 2010.

We intend to explore different conceptions of publicness - historical, cultural, architectural  and digital, as represented in Eastern and Western Europe through the contrasting experiences of Poland and Britain.

Cooperation

I took part in a student initiated symposium on Collectivity, Collaboration, and Cooperation Friday 30th January at Chelsea College of Art and Design, in London.

It was chaired by Bernice Donszelmann & Paul McGee

I tried to look at how cooperation might be different from collaboration and I used Critical Practice – a cluster of artists, researchers and academics (of which I am a part), as an example.

I'm interested in cooperative and collaborative art practice, in issues of access and participation, the impact of digital technologies and social exchanges like generosity and friendship. I recognized that these themes provide tools to enable me to think through, and think differently about the conventions of art's authorship, its ownership and distribution.

images

SylvanoCamino 2009Jze (?)GerrardLetitiaMarta Nadia Kasia