Archive for July, 2004

VISUAL ARTISTS say NO TO NOTHING

Published
by
Lucas
on July 22, 2004
in odds and ends and workplace relations
. 1 Comment

passing this on from the
Sydney Art Seen Society:
……………………

ECHO ACTION NO. 1
Yo Yo your No No

PUBLIC MEETING please pass on to others
WHEN MONDAY, 26 JULY 2004
WHERE AUSTRALIA COUNCIL (ENTRANCE)
372 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills
TIME 5:00 to 6:15pm

VISUAL ARTISTS say NO TO NOTHING but YES TO ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
With a Federal election looming, the Sydney Arts Management Advisory
Group (SAMAG) has invited the Federal Minister for the Arts, Shadow
Minister for the Arts and Arts spokespeople from the Australian
Democrats and The Greens to debate arts policy.

They will speak on how they see the future of the arts and what
policies they have to support and enrich the arts industry.

This meeting will be on Monday, 26 July 2004 at the Australia Council.

Please come along and greet the Feds to let them know what matters to
visual artists:
PROPER ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.
Yo yos will be supplied or bring your own.

This, our first echo action, is part of the VISUAL ARTISTS say NO TO
NOTHING national campaign (26 July - 30 August) that will carry the
STARVING VISUAL ARTIST “put the cliche’ to rest“ PETITION to
Canberra.
Please come along and Yo Yo your No No to the Feds and join us for a
cup of thermos coffee. At least come along and sign our petition.*

* A petition will be present that calls for a standard artists’ fee
of no less than $2,000 per individual exhibition and a pro rata payment no
less than $500 for group exhibitions to be adopted by all publicly
funded, visual art institutions, nationally.

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT CO-CONVENERS OF THE SYDNEY ART SEEN
SOCIETY
GAIL HASTINGS AND LISA KELLY AT sydneyartseen@yahoo.com.au

petition to raise artists fees

Published
by
Lucas
on July 12, 2004
in workplace relations
. 0 Comments

Sydney Art Seen Society: meeting no. 1
Thursday, 8 July 2004, 7:30pm
Reginald Murphy Hall, Kings Cross

Gail Hastings and Lisa Kelly organised this meeting to lobby for “a raise” in artists fees for exhibitions in Australian galleries and museums which receive government funding. They have been distributing a petition to that effect. About 40 people were in attendance, at my rough estimate, maybe half of them being artists. The other half were, I reckon, “soft spies” – that is, folks who work at government funded galleries who came along to check out what might happen. It was a rainy night, and Sydney people being who they are, it was probably a pretty good turn out.

There was some contention as to the details of the “demands” in the petition - at least $2000 for solo exhibitions, and at least $500 per artist for group shows. Some artists, like Marg Roberts, reckoned that this amount was just as tokenistic as asking for $50. For Marg, something in the realms of $20,000 was more realistic.

Damien Lawson made a clear comparison between galleries and employers, both of whom have it in their interests to reduce “labour costs” to a minimum. He advocated a more “french” way of organising artist’s wages, something ongoing like a “living wage” and referred to a big artists strike in Paris which ground the big summer arts festivals to a halt. The “living wage” idea (was/is this in place in New Zealand?) also would accomodate the vast majority of artists who DON’T exhibit in government-funded galleries. Lawson’s points were important, I thought, because no matter what the nuts and bolts are of the “demands,” it will be essential for artists to have some kind of solidarity and collectivity in order for it to succeed. Artists seem to always suffer from this idea that we are “individuals” - not to mention the very opportunistic and competitive nature of the contemporary art world.

Chryssy Tintner from Viscopy was there, and she was good to have at the meeting because she pointed out the discrepancy between what is standard procedure in the paying of royalties for the use of music in commercials, for example, and the amount paid for the reproduction of artworks. It’s all part of the same set of rights that visual artists don’t have…
Tamara Winikoff from NAVA was there too – she provided essential information about the ongoing campaigns that NAVA has been involved in to try to improve artists rights - it will definitely be necessary to continue to collaborate with NAVA.

One of the issues that was glaringly obvious was the rarity of this kind of meeting – that artists are not very good at working collectively – and it would be good to get more information about the history and activities of the ArtWorkers Union – it may be necessary to revive the union to become once again a workable grassroots organisation.

A follow up meeting will take place at 2:00pm on Saturday, 17.07.2004 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales coffee shop.

For more information and the full minutes of the meetings, email sydneyartseensociety@yahoo.com

…………………………………………………………………….
ps the original call out for this meeting was:

SYDNEY ART SEEN SOCIETY: meeting no.1
WHOA! Was that a banana skin I just slipped on! or just another sliding
art-institution standard?
URGENT PUBLIC MEETING please pass on to others
WHEN THURSDAY, 8 JULY 2004
WHERE REGINALD MURPHY HALL
Corner of Greenknowe Ave and Elizabeth Bay Rd, Kings Cross
TIME 7:30 to 8:45pm
The Sydney Biennale opened recently, which provided the opportunity for
many artists to meet and a number to recognise in each others misfortunes
the rapidly declining viability of the local, visual art situation here.
While the Howard Government may have commissioned the Myer Report to analyse,
nationally, the extent of artists’ troubles, its recommendations have not
only not at all been felt within the visual arts at the ground level (ie. by
artists), but also little address the pervading ‘dumbness’ (in both senses
of lacking intelligence and a stifled dialogue (lacking speech)) that is
creeping through our major art institutions and throttling an engaging and
internationally recognisable contemporary visual culture here. Sydney is
quickly becoming the black hole of the Australian contemporary art scene,
the place where contemporary visual artists get swallowed up and disappear:
their work unacknowledged, its potential wasted. Need this be so?

If you feel like some dangerous discussion, please join us at this informal
meeting to rekindle a much needed dialogue and to work out ways to kick-start
a re-engaged, contemporary visual culture in Sydney. At least
come along and sign our petition.*

* A petition will be present that calls for a standard artists’ fee of no
less than $2,000 per individual exhibition and a pro rata payment no less
than $500 for group exhibitions to be adopted by all publicly funded, visual
art institutions, nationally.

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT CO-CONVENERS GAIL HASTINGS AND LISA
KELLY AT sydneyartseensociety@yahoo.com

The Sydney Art Seen Society has been formed as an urgent redress of the
current decline of standards in the professional environment of contemporary
visual art in Sydney, where the production of visual culture is being more
and more determined by art-institutional programmes rather than these
programmes being determined by the art. By facilitating a meeting place for
artists to discuss, debate and discern solutions to the prevalent issues
hindering progressive visual art here at present, the Sydney Art Seen
Society aims to stimulate the development of a more vigourous and potent
contemporary visual culture in Sydney, based on the vital and critical
practice of visual artists.

DUE TO THE IMPOVERISHED STATE THE CURRENT SITUATION FINDS VISUAL ARTISTS,
MEMBERSHIP IS FREE, ONE NEED ONLY JOIN AT A MEETING

SPLINT MATE

Published
by
Lucas
on July 9, 2004
in Relational Aesthetics and writing by me
. 0 Comments

[this article was written in early July 2004, and originally appeared in Spinach7 Magazine, under the title SPLINT MATE. Before that, it emerged as a scrappy blog entry here.]

LUCAS IHLEIN argues that ‘interactive’ arts practice means more than pressing buttons; and assembles a gammy billy-cart to prove his point.

Much has been made of recent advances in new media art — particularly the development of ‘interactive’ and ‘immersive’ environments and installations. Melbourne’s Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) and its German sibling Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie [ZKM] pride themselves on supporting artists who experiment with new ways of overwhelming our senses with sound and image. The public (so the marketing department tells us) is hungry to see futuristic interfaces between human and machine. Yet how many of these artworks succeed in engaging museum visitors beyond “press here and see what happens”? How often is it that a simple, old fashioned conversation is more rewardingly ‘interactive’ than the choose-your-own-adventure style new media works to which we are increasingly exposed?

Around the same time that ACMI launched its teched-up exhibition 2004: Australian Culture Now in Federation Square, CLUBSproject inc, an artist-run venture above Melbourne’s Builders Arms Hotel, presented multipleMISCELLANEOUSalliances (mMa). Taking place in July, mMa was an ongoing series of “art conversations” taking the form of “collaborative events and activities […] by and between people whose practices construct, explore, and enact multiple social relations”. The most sophisticated items of ‘new media’ in mMa were video cameras and television sets — all of which have been more or less available as artists’ tools since the early 1970s.

Among the myriad of old media projects at mMa was Splint, a kind of organic Meccano set made by Jason Maling and Torie Nimmervoll. Described as “the way of the stump and the strap”, Splint is a toy/tool-kit, hand-made from wood, rope, and leather that deliberately comes without instructions or hints.

Nimmervoll and Maling rarely present Splint within an art gallery context, which they claim can restrict free play and participation (they prefer to work in schools or public places). Gallery visitors usually come with a tentative not-sure-if-I-can-touch inhibition, which they learn from the conventional presentation of art. Splint’s makers set arbitrary (and often silly) tasks for themselves and willing participants to carry out — usually within an urban context. For instance, “use the apparatus to scale a tall, sheer wall”.

When I arrived at CLUBS my friend Damien was already sniffing around Splint — he was instinctively drawn to it, but wasn’t sure exactly how to tackle its mysterious inventory of spare parts. The elements of the kit seem very much like found industrial tools for the engineering of a car. They look like something ‘proper’ — something extremely well made with a (hidden) intended purpose. The kit is divided up into “cells” – each cell contains wooden disks, various lengths of rope, spiral-carved “stumps” (much like medieval cricket stumps), and a leather harness and hexagonal mat. All are engineered to withstand the hammering they receive from enthusiastic users, and are often repairable when damaged or worn out.

Splint lends itself to — and almost demands — collaboration. Soon enough Damien and I were diving into the metal cases containing the stumps and rustic-smelling sisal rope, and attempting, in our uncritically-masculine way to make our own ‘billy-cart’. This playful, absorbing construction task kept us going for a few hours, and even when our makeshift vehicle ended up in the pits, with a tragically split chassis, Maling didn’t chastise us — “I guess we’ll retire that piece,” he said with a shrug.

Cleverer than us were a duo of (also male) theatre designers who set about designing a comfy and functional chair out of the versatile kit. The dedicated pair, concerned not just with the use-value, but also the look of their piece of furniture, gave themselves the limitation of not using any knots. Such aesthetic concerns are very much a part of the Splint experience. The kit comes complete with a “self-assessment” system — a blackboard (pictured) upon which participants can rate their own progress — using criteria like “environmental negotiation, utility, gameplay, geometry, physical negotiation, and aesthetics”. And Maling and Nimmervoll have kept a log of results at regular intervals during the evolving life of Splint.

One of the most important products of Splint is also one of the most intangible: the collaborative relationship which stealthily develops between the two or more ‘players’ as they work on a common task. This was evident in the knotted brows of the chair-makers as they quietly tackled problem after problem with the utility of their ad-hoc furniture, while not wanting to sacrifice the aesthetic decision to avoid knots. Splint is thus a tool for learning, not only about physical construction, but also about how to negotiate joint decision-making in a (self-determined) task. This educational aspect renders the kit ideal for workshops with children — and watching them work with the elements of Splint helps Maling and Nimmervoll improve its materials and design in a constant process of evolution.

When I returned to CLUBS a few days later, I found our billy-cart had been recycled by subsequent participants into a harness and rope ladder for scaling the exterior wall of the Builders’ Arms Hotel — a MacGuyver-style emergency exit system from the bustlingly sociable art venue.

Each time I visited mMa it was jam-packed and chaotic. Groups of artists seemed to be cooking up projects in every corner, and newcomers were warmly welcomed to join in. Soup was doled up as you walked in the door, and free tea and coffee were available. These humble, hospitable gestures may seem minor, but I don’t doubt that they were as thoroughly discussed and orchestrated as any of the other rich and interactive elements of mMa.

…………………………
addendum for blog:

Also part of mMa:
-a vast repository of artists books, zines, articles and journals, set up in a comfy couchy carpeted space next to a ricketty photocopy machine.
-a re-creation of Azlan McClennan’s censored artwork - complete with a planned forum to discuss the issues surrounding the work, on Sunday 4th July…
-an old Mac Classic set up so that visitors can log in their immediate responses and messages regarding the show (presumably these responses will be posted on the CLUBS website shortly)…
-documentation of The Laws Project by Damien Lawson and Kylie Wilkinson - this piece began with the distribution of hundreds of fridge magnets outlining the US government’s INTERROGATION RULES OF ENGAGEMENT - rules which became apparent following the scandal surrounding the treatment of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers.
Wilkinson and Lawson followed this up with a “re-enactment” (in Federation Square) of the famous photograph of the Iraqi prisoner balancing precariously with a black sack on his head.
-and there are DOZENS more projects coming up during the rest of the mMa…

The launch afternoon of mMa was jam-packed and chaotic. Soup was doled up as you walked in the door, and tea and coffee were constantly available for free. These humble, hospitable gestures may seem minor, but I don’t doubt that they were as thoroughly discussed and orchestrated as any of the other elements of mMa.

mMa was organised by Bianca Hester as a part of Resistance Through Rituals, coordinated by Lisa Kelly at Westspace.

the art of snoopping

Published
by
Lucas
on July 5, 2004
in performance art, public art and spatial politics
. 0 Comments
On Wed 7 July 2004, Jaye Hayes presented an evening of "snoopping" @ West Space. In the invitation to the event, she wrote:
"NUCA has lured me out of the shadows for 1 nite only to share the SNOOPP story for Resistance Through Rituals. there'll be some kind of explanation of my behaviour & various bits of antenna trash, plus a tour of the local gutter network.
so come along for a cup of tea & a chat :)
jaye"
—
NUCA #41 : Jaye Hayes | snoopp
snoopp vs 2.0 (2004)
subliminal non object oriented piezoelectric processor
http://subliminal.va.com.au/snoopp
She crawls into inner-city gutters after dark, a mobile cellular operator, a subliminal insect on an obscure mission. She is submerging, diving into the darkness, a bug in the code of the street, a disturbance in the energy field. The de-visioned dancer becomes a renegade radiobody, picking up signals & generating bodytext transmissions. She operates as an interactive micro-media unit; embodying the meta-physics of micro-radio.
Gutters are a network, she finds a portal & hacks in. As she jams the architecture of the indent, she mobilizes other possibilities. A temporary telemetric system emerges as the radiobody tunes in to the spatial signal & starts generating feedback. Inside the loop, her data-body dislocates across time-space dimensions creating a re-spatializing sequence; an electro-magnetic interference zone. Dissolving into waves of white noise, she becomes a distributed radio-kinetic entity.
Radio text & signal data are redirected via tech-tools while other residues remain at street level. Night after night, lurking in the dark, mapping the nodes of the network, a tiny telemetric insect shedding data, creating links to an elsewhere…

………….

after the event, Jaye wrote the following:

an experiment in SNOOPP sharing >>>
 
a back room, a faraday cage, a radio bunker, a listening library, a snoopp cell, a receiving dock.
i opened a gateway to my subliminal world & invited low-level listening & personal space-sharing.
the cosy room filled with warm bodies. 'it felt like being in your bedroom.'
but the critical mass solidified an expectation of 1-to-many broadcasting….
 
she attempted to reboot.
she deployed tactical failure.
she let them feel their way in.
she followed the flow.
she was speechless.
she hung out in the library.
she was dull & happy.
she scanned their bodies for signals.
she made personal connections.
she made lists.
she drank tea.
she became buffologous.
she started invoking willow.
she let andrew set the tone.
they waited for something to happen.
it didn't.
she let it go on that way for a while.
some people got immersed.
some people got impatient.
she was too subtle for some.
she surrendered to talkback.
she was curious.
she was conversational.
she was unprofessional.
she was a duckling (ugly).
she showed them her antenna trash.
she made a circuit of radiobodies.
she channel surfed.
she consulted the books.
she held onto the rock.
she played the inbetweens.
she led them out into the rain…