Thursday, October 29, 2009
OSE at MOCFA on YouTube
The Open Source Embroidery exhibition at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art opened in a buzz of excitement on October 1st. The gallery was packed with objects and people with a range of interests in art, craft and programming. Throughout the evening Studio Galli filmed Ele (me) introducing the HTML Patchwork, Running Stitch and Yarn Text. Travis Meinolf and Michele Pred also talked about their artworks in the exhibition.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Masking Tape History of Mondrian
I generally grumble about the integration of American culture into British culture, I like to think I can do without the global everything default. But there are some really truly great things about America which just haven't caught on in Europe. One of these things is coloured masking tape (painters tape). Red for high-tac, blue for medium-tac, and green for low-tac. It's practical, beautiful, and great for colour coding objects and tools as well as decorating, wrapping art works and planning a geometric painting.
My second day in San Francisco saw me purchase 4 roles of tape to bring home with me from the Cole Fox Hardware store (see last post). My last day was spent soaking up artwork at SFMOMA. And there I saw a 'work in progress' painting by Mondrian employing the use of primary coloured tape to design his painting. In my basic A-level Arthistory we learned about Broadway Boogie Woogie, the impact of Jazz and the American city grid structure on his painting - but no-one mentioned coloured masking tape as an essential tool in planning and influencing Mondrian's colour... did they?
Please correct me if you have an expert knowledge of Mondrian and can provide an arthistorical link to the impact of coloured masking tape on his practice.
Slow Networking
Here is the story of my map of the social networks that brought me to the Micro Makers Fair at the May You Live In Interesting Times festival at Chapter in Cardiff this weekend, and the new people I met, and the people we know in common.
On the first day I wore my Cole Fox Hardware Store T-shirt for the first time. I bought the T-Shirt whilst I was installing the Open Source Embroidery exhibition at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco, where I made regular visits to the shop that sells everything, including red blue and green masking tape (see a future post on the missing arthistory of Mondrian’s love of American masking tape). The window display of the store is designed by an artist to exquisitely present hardware objects by colour. So imagine my surprise when 2 visitors to the Fair recognize my T-Shirt and pull out their house keys with a Cole Fox key tag – we are instantly connected in our love of the store, and they tell me their story of their move from San Francisco to Cardiff. Catherine stitches Mark’s name and 'Cole Fox Hardware' onto the map, whilst Mark entertains their little boy.
I was invited to take part in the Micro Maker Fair by Hannah, who I’ve known since the late 1990s when we both lived and worked in Newcastle. We’ve loosely kept in touch partly through art events, bumping into each other in Venice, and partly through our dear friend Julie. I knew Hannah would be super-busy with the opening of the newly refurbished Chapter Arts Centre and running the festival, so I stitched her name onto my network map. At the GwdDiHw (Goodie Who) bar I met Matthew and Tomascz who explained that they were living in Interesting Times in Cardiff. Matthew teaches computer gaming things at the University with Corrado whom I recognized from the opening of OSE at HTTP back in May 2007, Corrado knows Mark and Ruth from Furtherfield. They also know Hannah through Chapter. Then FutureEverything Drew arrived so I added them all to a sketch on the back of my print out of a google map of Cardiff. They all promised to come to the Maker Fair to stitch their names on the map. Drew came along and diligently stitched his name in bright orange. The others didn’t turn up, and I remember that real networks are formed by the people who show up.
The Fair is a hectic mix of stalls in the Chapter Stwdio. I'm squeezed between Dorkbot Bristol and wonderful Piano Migrations.
Later in the afternoon Alison from Bracket drops by the stall – Ah! She knows David Littler from the Sampler Culture Clash project in Brixton, they have similar music interests and often go to the same gigs. We spend an hour or so discussing our work. Saul drops by from The People Speak – he knows Hannah, Drew and me, so the connecting network lines will get interwoven when Saul is added. He has to write some code and doesn’t have time to stitch. I promise to add him on another time.
In the Chapter Café Bar I bump into my old friends Jo and Roy who I know through exhibitions, art film screenings and conferences, but also because my parents live near them in Southampton. We all attended our friend Debbie Fenwick’s wedding in Northumberland years back, and spent a tense hour driving around fantastic countryside looking for the country house, and arriving just in time for the ceremony. I love Jo because she talks about her job as a curator of Aspex Gallery in a very straightforward way. And of course Hannah and Jo know each other through work and location connections too.
When I meet up with Jo and Roy later in the day they are having coffee with Ellie Harrison, the data collector extraordinaire and Neil Mullholland, whom I’ve nearly met on many occasions, but not quite. I first met Ellie through LabCulture in Bridport, and organized an exhibition including her work at Peterborough Art Gallery sometime in 2003 I think. Ellie starts to stitch her name, but is called away by promises of a curry, so I giver her the whole map for her to sew in her own time and post it back to me…..
As Sophie stitches her name onto the Maker Fair map she quizzes me about why I think people have such a strong need to articulate their social networks, she thinks people are scarred of being invisible. I return to Baran’s notes on distributed networks – his vision in 1964 was a communication network which was indestructable. I think there’s an interesting correlation between Sophie’s survivalist stall of Wild Wood weapons for hunting and the need for a survivalist communication network. A point not missed in Heath Bunting’s work, and of course Sophie is selling Heath’s ‘Throwing Stones’. I decide to add Heath and Sophie to my network when I get it back from Ellie.
My other plan was to invite people to ‘speed-date their 6 degrees of separation’ and embroider their connections. But you just can’t ‘speed-stitch’, it’s a process of slowing down and careful precision. So whilst some people drew their 6 degrees of separation, there was too much going on for people to sit and sew their network. This is a project for hours of concentration.
On the first day I wore my Cole Fox Hardware Store T-shirt for the first time. I bought the T-Shirt whilst I was installing the Open Source Embroidery exhibition at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco, where I made regular visits to the shop that sells everything, including red blue and green masking tape (see a future post on the missing arthistory of Mondrian’s love of American masking tape). The window display of the store is designed by an artist to exquisitely present hardware objects by colour. So imagine my surprise when 2 visitors to the Fair recognize my T-Shirt and pull out their house keys with a Cole Fox key tag – we are instantly connected in our love of the store, and they tell me their story of their move from San Francisco to Cardiff. Catherine stitches Mark’s name and 'Cole Fox Hardware' onto the map, whilst Mark entertains their little boy.
I was invited to take part in the Micro Maker Fair by Hannah, who I’ve known since the late 1990s when we both lived and worked in Newcastle. We’ve loosely kept in touch partly through art events, bumping into each other in Venice, and partly through our dear friend Julie. I knew Hannah would be super-busy with the opening of the newly refurbished Chapter Arts Centre and running the festival, so I stitched her name onto my network map. At the GwdDiHw (Goodie Who) bar I met Matthew and Tomascz who explained that they were living in Interesting Times in Cardiff. Matthew teaches computer gaming things at the University with Corrado whom I recognized from the opening of OSE at HTTP back in May 2007, Corrado knows Mark and Ruth from Furtherfield. They also know Hannah through Chapter. Then FutureEverything Drew arrived so I added them all to a sketch on the back of my print out of a google map of Cardiff. They all promised to come to the Maker Fair to stitch their names on the map. Drew came along and diligently stitched his name in bright orange. The others didn’t turn up, and I remember that real networks are formed by the people who show up.
The Fair is a hectic mix of stalls in the Chapter Stwdio. I'm squeezed between Dorkbot Bristol and wonderful Piano Migrations.Later in the afternoon Alison from Bracket drops by the stall – Ah! She knows David Littler from the Sampler Culture Clash project in Brixton, they have similar music interests and often go to the same gigs. We spend an hour or so discussing our work. Saul drops by from The People Speak – he knows Hannah, Drew and me, so the connecting network lines will get interwoven when Saul is added. He has to write some code and doesn’t have time to stitch. I promise to add him on another time.
In the Chapter Café Bar I bump into my old friends Jo and Roy who I know through exhibitions, art film screenings and conferences, but also because my parents live near them in Southampton. We all attended our friend Debbie Fenwick’s wedding in Northumberland years back, and spent a tense hour driving around fantastic countryside looking for the country house, and arriving just in time for the ceremony. I love Jo because she talks about her job as a curator of Aspex Gallery in a very straightforward way. And of course Hannah and Jo know each other through work and location connections too.
When I meet up with Jo and Roy later in the day they are having coffee with Ellie Harrison, the data collector extraordinaire and Neil Mullholland, whom I’ve nearly met on many occasions, but not quite. I first met Ellie through LabCulture in Bridport, and organized an exhibition including her work at Peterborough Art Gallery sometime in 2003 I think. Ellie starts to stitch her name, but is called away by promises of a curry, so I giver her the whole map for her to sew in her own time and post it back to me…..
As Sophie stitches her name onto the Maker Fair map she quizzes me about why I think people have such a strong need to articulate their social networks, she thinks people are scarred of being invisible. I return to Baran’s notes on distributed networks – his vision in 1964 was a communication network which was indestructable. I think there’s an interesting correlation between Sophie’s survivalist stall of Wild Wood weapons for hunting and the need for a survivalist communication network. A point not missed in Heath Bunting’s work, and of course Sophie is selling Heath’s ‘Throwing Stones’. I decide to add Heath and Sophie to my network when I get it back from Ellie.
My other plan was to invite people to ‘speed-date their 6 degrees of separation’ and embroider their connections. But you just can’t ‘speed-stitch’, it’s a process of slowing down and careful precision. So whilst some people drew their 6 degrees of separation, there was too much going on for people to sit and sew their network. This is a project for hours of concentration.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Weaving the Web
This week I'm at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art (MOCFA) in San Francisco installing the Open Source Embroidery exhibition. It's great to be in the heart of the radical history of computing, from Berkeley Unix to the WELL. Interestingly MOCFA began as an education programme that needed a museum, so the OSE project is warmly welcomed as an engaging and participatory exhibition which challenges the distinctions between amateur and professional practice. I've just finished an interview with Ceci Moss at Rhizome on this very topic - here is the Rhizome link.
Inspired by Paul Grimmer's Ethernet (Swatch), I've been working with Californian Action Weaver Travis Meinolf to create a large scale internet cable weaving for the MOCFA window. Travis imeadiately worked out that we needed red, green and blue cable on a 72 x 72 inch frame. After carefully protecting each screw on the frame with a nylon spacer, the weaving commenced. Couplers connect the lengths of 100 feet cable, which will be too long to support an unaided internet signal. But it wont stop us from trying... plan B is to use one single weft to carry the signal. It's nearly complete - and to my surprise the result is a rather slick piece of blue-chip art!
Friday, September 18, 2009
Open Connoisseurship
I've been to a couple of events this week which have explored the balancing act between expert and amateur knowledge. Whilst many argue for one or the other, fearing exclusivity or dumbing down, others seek to find ways of facilitating the relationship between the two with integrity. It's not an easy task, whether running an art gallery, curating an exhibition or teaching a seminar, or even learning to code or knit. We need good data, referenced information, difficult ideas and questions, inspiration. But we need to communicate on a variety of levels and in a range of styles so that others can find their way in, or contribute their voice, or be inspired to act.
On Wednesday VAGA hosted a discussion on 'Making the Case' for art in the face of massively reduced public spending. The collapse of the financial institutions has been a catalyst for a paradigm shift that provides a space for age-old concepts such as the ‘no-growth economy’, participation, and review of how we define ‘culture’. The idea that culture might be something we do, as well as something held in galleries was mooted, gently. But rather than instrumentalising art for a social agenda, Jude Kelley argued for support for artists to develop their practice with open-ended outcomes whilst located within communities. Gallery Directors outlined their support for artists in their regions, and Godfrey Worsdale called for an appreciation of ‘connoisseurship’ and a respect for intellectual and creative enquiry.
Online tools for social networking and distributed media were also discussed as helping to understand the paradigm shift towards user-generated culture. But it’s important to remember that these are just tools, manipulated by mass-marketeers as well as communities of interest. It is within these communities of interest that the connoisseur, the novice and the expert can come to together to investigate their common passions. Learning within art galleries brings together all interested parties to individually or collectively explore critical ideas and creative experience.
The argument seemed to focus on the need to recognize art and artists as part of our broader cultural life. And to value the institutions that support them. In many ways I agree, art is also part of culture outside galleries, and a worthy subject of Cultural Studies in itself (although rarely so). By focusing on popular culture, Cultural Studies glides over the way in which artists intervene within, and investigate, other kinds of cultural activity too. I think this division between 'high' and 'pop' culture in academic research hasn't helped anyone to understand art as part of the world.
Returning to Goldsmiths Teaching and Learning Course, the discussion was also about how to communicate expert knowledge and inspire others to undertake their own research. The group of new lecturers were motivated to develop a range of tools for engaging students in their own learning process. A deconstruction of the 'transmission model' of top-down lecturing and workshop sessions provided a convivial atmosphere for us to share our experience and knowledge of a range of teaching methods. Whilst respecting rigorous research we learned the importance of not knowing, of critical questioning, and trusting an open framework to give people time and space to think for themselves.
The same strategies can be applied to the role of the gallery, and the role of the curator. And I’m looking forward to finding out how the new Curating Students at Goldsmiths are going to balance their 'open connoisseurship' in their research and practice.
On Wednesday VAGA hosted a discussion on 'Making the Case' for art in the face of massively reduced public spending. The collapse of the financial institutions has been a catalyst for a paradigm shift that provides a space for age-old concepts such as the ‘no-growth economy’, participation, and review of how we define ‘culture’. The idea that culture might be something we do, as well as something held in galleries was mooted, gently. But rather than instrumentalising art for a social agenda, Jude Kelley argued for support for artists to develop their practice with open-ended outcomes whilst located within communities. Gallery Directors outlined their support for artists in their regions, and Godfrey Worsdale called for an appreciation of ‘connoisseurship’ and a respect for intellectual and creative enquiry.
Online tools for social networking and distributed media were also discussed as helping to understand the paradigm shift towards user-generated culture. But it’s important to remember that these are just tools, manipulated by mass-marketeers as well as communities of interest. It is within these communities of interest that the connoisseur, the novice and the expert can come to together to investigate their common passions. Learning within art galleries brings together all interested parties to individually or collectively explore critical ideas and creative experience.
The argument seemed to focus on the need to recognize art and artists as part of our broader cultural life. And to value the institutions that support them. In many ways I agree, art is also part of culture outside galleries, and a worthy subject of Cultural Studies in itself (although rarely so). By focusing on popular culture, Cultural Studies glides over the way in which artists intervene within, and investigate, other kinds of cultural activity too. I think this division between 'high' and 'pop' culture in academic research hasn't helped anyone to understand art as part of the world.
Returning to Goldsmiths Teaching and Learning Course, the discussion was also about how to communicate expert knowledge and inspire others to undertake their own research. The group of new lecturers were motivated to develop a range of tools for engaging students in their own learning process. A deconstruction of the 'transmission model' of top-down lecturing and workshop sessions provided a convivial atmosphere for us to share our experience and knowledge of a range of teaching methods. Whilst respecting rigorous research we learned the importance of not knowing, of critical questioning, and trusting an open framework to give people time and space to think for themselves.
The same strategies can be applied to the role of the gallery, and the role of the curator. And I’m looking forward to finding out how the new Curating Students at Goldsmiths are going to balance their 'open connoisseurship' in their research and practice.
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