neil cummings

the enthusiast has the same relationship to capital as the gift to the commodity

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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.

Practice of Everyday Life

I was in conversation with Dr Dan Smith at Chelsea College of Art and Design. We were attempting to play with the lecture format and discuss notions of the everyday. We used Michel de Certeau and the Practice of Everyday Life (1984) as our guide.

De Certeau defines two broad spheres within everyday practices.

The first sphere is that of Strategy. Strategy is the realm of power. Political, economic, financial, aesthetic, legal and scientific. It’s the proper place for the excise of authority. A strategic authority confers the ability to oversee a particular field - financial, aesthetic, legal, etc. Armies and war, laws and legal codes, monetary policy and bond issues spring to mind. Institutions help dominate a particular field of strategy, like the Serpentine Gallery, White Cube or the Frieze Art Fair.

Economy of Contribution

At the invitation of Scott Lash and Götz Bachmann (cultural studies, Goldsmiths), philosopher Bernard Stiegler (Centre Pompidou) and Robert Zimmer (computer science, Goldsmiths), a diverse group gathered at Goldsmiths to consider the idea of economies of contribution.

The workshop included perspectives from media, art, design, software and theory. In their introduction, the organizers outlined the emergence of a shift from consumer capitalism to an economy of contribution.