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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.

Enthusiasm

After extensive research amongst the remnants of amateur film clubs in Poland under socialism, I co-developed the Enthusiasts: archive. A critical archive of beautiful amateur films found, restored and made available for you.

Presented as a collaborative artwork the Enthusiasts: archive enables you to explore how the generosity of the enthusiast reveals a range of interests and experiences generally invisible amongst the breathless flow of the State sponsored, or professionally mediated.

My intention with Enthusiasts: archive is to stimulate interest and discussion into the nature of creative exchange, the function of public archives and the future of the public domain. In many ways, the project informs Procesos de archivo/ Archivalprocess

Archivalprocess

ArchivalprocessI'm working on a research project with Intermediæ entitled Procesos de archivo/ Archivalprocess.

Intermediæ is an experimental programme for contemporary creative practice developed by the Cultural Department of the City Government of Madrid. Active for 2 years, Intermediae is a process, through which they are constructing an immanent institution. Through their development they have evolved three structural axes: creation as a means for research and production, process for continual experimentation and reflection, and participation as a commitment to their publics.

Procesos de archivo/ Archivalprocess is a reflection on, and a set of artistic projects that explore the construction of an archive of Intermediæ's activities. How can we assemble, present and make available to the public, an archive of an institution conceived as process, and committed to participation?

We understand that public Archives, like collections in Museums and Galleries are built with the property of multiple authors and previous owners. But unlike the collection, there is no imperative within the conventional logic of the archive, to exhibit, display or interpret its holdings.

Intermediae

Guernica WhitechapelOn the 1st October 2008 I screened Museum Futures at Intermediae in Madrid.

Intermediæ is an initiative of the Arts Department of Madrid City Council. It opened in 2007 and is located in the Matadero (former abattoir) in the Legazpi district of the city. It provides Madrid with an arena for contemporary creative arts in which the City Council acts as a catalyst for creativity and its publics.

Intermediæ’s defining characteristic and purpose is process, to make and remake relationships between publics, their city council and creativity. 

Intermediæ aspires to extend its processes and practices to other institutions: public and private, local, national and international.

Seven Days

I just finished reading Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton. Thornton guides us through seven different days –constructed over a five year research period. Each day is a description of one of the institutional structures that comprise the market for contemporary art: a Christies auction, the famous art school ‘crit’ of Michael Asher, the Basel Art fair, the build-up to the Turner Prize, the offices of Artforum magazine, the corporate studio of Takashi Murakami and the Venice Biennale. A glaring omission is that one of the days was not spent at a contemporary art museum, or even a particular high-end gallery.

Despite the odd inclusion of Asher’s ‘crit’, and Thornton's insistance that "the art world is much broader than the art market," her mapping of an art world, revolves around the highly visible competitive market. 

Financialization

 “We must try to avoid a vicious circle on which tighter liquidity conditions, lower asset values, impaired capital resources, reduced credit supply and slower aggregate demand feedback on each other.”

I read this quote, a beautifully succinct piece of prose in a paper produced by Paul Tucker, Executive Director and Money Policy Committee Member of the Bank of England, for the Institutional Money Market Funds Association Annual Dinner, in April 2008.

I was researching Auction Houses at the time and trying to keep an eye on financial markets. Of course we have not avoided the vicious circle, in fact we seem to be spiraling into a terrible black vortex.

“One hand, one million dollars, no tears.”

Is the McGuffin or plot device that motivates Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis, which I'm reading at the moment. Its an insiders account of the deregulation of the American Mortgage markets in the 1980's and the beginning of the havoc that CDO's and contempt, are visiting upon us now. Liar's Poker was presented in the 1990's as humorous, now it reads as a tragedy; Marx reversed.

Trust

First, trust seeped away in the debt markets. They seized, and the repercussions caused financial and 'real' economies to collapse. Trust is the most precious commodity in any market.

I'm reminded of a project I did in 2001 at Tate Modern and the Bank of England, Capital. Capital was a series of encounters between two iconic institutions and the economies they animate; the Tate and the Bank of England.

In Tate Modern and in the Bank of England Museum, at unspecified times during the day a visitor was approached by a gallery or museum official. "This is for you" accompanied the presentation of a beautifully packaged gift -a limited edition print.

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.

Immersion and violence

Thursday the 19th February, I went to listen to an interview at the Goethe Institute between the filmmaker Harun Farocki and artist Kodwo Eshun. Harun screened a rough-cut of a work-in-progress entitled Immersion. Immersion is based on a first-person shooter games engine developed by the US military to train troops for service in Iraq.

Clunky graphics pan, track and zoom to reveal pixilated deserts, palm trees, 'arab' avatars, explosions, smoke and ruined buildings. The games-engine, with head mounted display and (plastic) XM8 interface has been released to a consortium of software engineers and psychotherapists. Cut to a therapist. The therapist is using the software to lead a traumatized soldier back, back to a scene of explosion, mutilation and death, back to site of their trauma.

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