neil cummings

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

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publicness

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

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.