Nearlythere

Come Darkness – Curated by Maria Alexandra Vettese

Heather — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:10:04 +0000

Come Darkness – Curated by Maria Alexandra Vettese.

This is a small show of artworks in a clothing store in Portland Maine, USA. It’s displayed in the shop, but you can also buy online. Rather than using a catalogue system like Etsy, it’s a photo- and you click on an item to see it bigger.

The works are small, affordable, some are multiples- such as prints. The works are decorative, could sit easily in the same space, and evoke senses and thoughts of nature.

The colours are muted, the theme is winter: Come Darkness.

I like this black forest photo, looks like a spooky reversal of birch photos by Eliot Porter. And it was sold for $10…

The blue linen crocheted acorn and snowflake by Renilde de Peuter is a lovely set, and were sold with photos of the work. $100.

I’m thinking the works were created especially for the event. It doesn’t say so explicitly.

The most intriguing piece is called “pile” little worried balls of wool and silk: Piles by Caitlin Mociun — $50 three piles (wool, silk with polyester thread, linen) It’s a tiny little amorphous sculpture. Like little balls of pocket lint. Something you would throw away or disregard, but get captivated by.

I like this work alot, it’s decorative, but evocative. It’s not trying to hard… it’s accessible, touchable, affordable…. and overall beautifying and mystifying.

I found out about it through Lena Corwin’s blog. More info about it there.

ArtCamp on Vimeo

Heather — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:56:45 +0000

Not sure if this is an ArtCamp in the BarCamp sense? But I like how it looks like it was held in a cabin. More of a ‘camp’ feel.; horses, walks in the forest.

ArtCamp on Vimeo on Vimeo

It looks like a focus on photography practice, with great settings to take photos, and sessions on digital photo editing.

via ArtCamp on Vimeo.

ArtCamp Ireland! a user-generated conference for artists

Heather — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:00:57 +0000

From the people who brought you BizCamp: ArtCamp Dublin, BizCamp’s creative sister is being rolled out soon in Dublin. ArtCamp is going to be of the BarCamp un-conference style. Mary Carty, Arts Consultant is the founder.

Alan O’Rourke is not only a co-organiser of BizCamp, he’s also Mary Carty’s husband. This means they’re bringing alot of expertise to this event. Alan recently visit Belgium for BizCamp.be

Mary tells me she had planted the seed of an idea back in January, and it germinated and it’s going to bloom in February 2010. Right now, Mary is looking for a venue.

It’s not going to be “the world’s first” ArtCamp, The ArtCamp in Vancouver in 2006 gets that lucky moniker.

Their description of what’s an art camp, is helpful:

Where you “meet, greet, learn, collaborate, mashup, and share practices and ideas about art, media, networks and technology. An un-conference operates on concepts that connect to the internet, such as wikis and open source culture, but the event happens in physical space.”

The BarCamp method for event planning is simple. Little organisation is done beforehand, and trusting that the people in the audience as as important as the people at the podium: you can put together an event with tiny budgets, and great outcomes.

Speakers propose talks, and in traditional BarCamp style, the schedule is arranged with sticky notes on a board on the day. Did I mention tiny budgets? How about €800 for the BarCamp Cork held last year.

Why so little?

* You don’t need t-shirts
* You don’t need banners
* You don’t need printed badges

Etc! Cut out the fluff and overhead. Sponsors get featured, and admission is usually free, or only to cover costs of drinks and food.

And the important thing is, people get to talk about things they are passionate about.

About the <100K Project « <100k Project

Heather — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:00:58 +0000

I was really curious to see this blog by the Center for Rural Arts Development and Leadership Education: the <100k project.

They will advise rural theatre companies and artists on fundraising, bookkeeping- and creating opportunities for living wages for artists in rural communities theatre & performing arts. Rural meaning <100k. Seeing how I live in a city that is <20k, this is certainly useful.

In their presentation (SETC presentation & notes available on Google Docs), they point out there is something fundamentally wrong with the education system. In a presentation they asked will we “Keep training our students for a profession that doesn’t exist?”

“It is important that the arts in small and rural communities be promoted throughout the US as an alternative to the Myth of Broadway that currently dominates the imaginations of young artists.”

Keep an eye on http://cradlearts.org/

My niece is preparing her portfolio for NCAD, and she is down this week so I can help her. One of the things we’re looking at are different jobs and ways you can be a creative entrepreneur- that you *don’t* have to have pie-in-the-sky ideas: and there are many roles for creative people.

This was a good site to show her too: Another Girl at Play

Irish Galleries told to be more populist

Heather — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:52:10 +0000

Galleries told to be ‘populist’. Around the time of the suggestion to merge Irish Museum of Modern Art (Imma), the National Gallery of Ireland and the Crawford Art Gallery, the assistant secretary general at the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism, Niall O’Donnchu, has written to the director…

A copy of one of the letters, seen by The Irish Times, states that while acknowledging that the institution already pursues “commercial opportunities and businesses . . . We would ask, however, that you and your board take a focused opportunity to examine afresh whether all commercialisation and commodisation [sic] opportunities are being exploited to the maximum by you”.

After querying the institution’s exploitation of merchandising and related activities, the letter also examines policy and programming and asks: “Could your exhibition policies be more populist?”

via Niall de Buitlear – Visual Artist’s Blog » Irish Art Museums Told To Be “More Populist”.

Korsakow : rule-based video editing

Heather — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:30:27 +0000

This reminds me of conceptual artists’ who write “instructions” for creating art. Where there is a method, for example, with Dada poetry made form collaged words; or Sol LeWitt’s instructions for creating Wall Drawings; or 101 Art Ideas you can do yourself by Rob Pruitt.

# In basic terms, Korsakow allows you to turn media assets (eg video files) into Smallest Narrative Units (SNUs, or ‘snooz’ for short). This involves making rule-based associations between all the media assets in your project, using two kinds of keywords: IN (“I am…” keywords) and OUT (“Looking for…”) keywords.

# We call this process SNU-ifying or snoo-ifying. SNUified media is indicated with a white, red, and blue cube in the far lefthand column.

via Korsakow : Quick Start.

This is an example Korsakow video : Not Recovered Time by lucas bamba

Not Recovered Time from lucas bamba on Vimeo.

VOID Comix: interpreting art experiences for kids?

Heather — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 08:00:18 +0000

Not exactly sure what I think about this. I sometimes mix up words when I read and if I look at this URL really fast I see “VOMIX”. Is that mean?

http://voidcomix.co.uk/

“Void Comix is a children’s comic which features a long story around a regular character, “Arty”, a boy who aspires to be an artist and who is inspired by Void exhibitions to make work which relates to the shows. The comic is written and drawn by cartoonist Nick Brennan, who works for the Beano and Dandy comics. It is primarily aimed at 6-12 year old children yet widely appreciated by adults. The comics also contain a puzzle, word search, spot the difference and information about the exhibiting artist(s). They are designed to allow children to interact with exhibitions, and express their opinions about the art work on show.”

via VOID.

The comic tells me in ‘child-friendly’ comic sans that Void was started by “DADA” Derry artists for Derry’s art. The artists’ shows covered are diverse and compelling. Theresa Nanigian, Photography/installation/drawing and Dennis McNulty performance/sound artist from Dublin. The character ‘Arty’ confuses his dad with all this art activity. In the next issue on a show by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, “Walking after Acconci” the character explains that he can’t go see the work because there’re alot of swear words in it, and how it’s a remake of another artist’s work.

I’m just very confused what kids are supposed to get out of this experience. They’re reading a comic book about something they probably aren’t interested in to start with; something they probably can’t relate to (adult themes or topics); and the final product is completely unrelated to the artwork of which it is about.

I think kids naturally have a great sense of DADA. Most of the time that’s being knocked out of them. This comic just makes me go.. hmm.. Are we trying to build future audiences for the visual arts in this way?

It’s just that I know how expensive illustration is… this is a pretty ambitious little publication. Ambitious, costly… is it effective??

The Office of Experiments

Heather — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:59:02 +0000

I found this through reading about John Latham, Flat time theory [Introduction to Flat Time Theory by Ian MacDonald Munroe weblink] and The Incidental Person exhibition to be curated by Anthony Hudek.

I love that The Office of Experiments is both inside and outside formal arts and science structures, and across disciplines. This is familiar territory of me, being in-between.

The ‘experiments’ are respectful of the scientific method, but don’t follow them, see the list of principles. Let’s experiment with ourselves confronted the notion of self-experimentation in analytical science.

The Office of Experiments. a project by Neal White http://www.nealwhite.org

“The Office of Experiments (2004 – ) original initiation stemmed from the need to both study and work with experimental independent structures through which practitioners in divergent and separated disciplines could meaningfully collaborate and test new forms of knowledge and form. Temporary experimental models and projects form the vehicle for the research of the institution. These experiments utilise approaches and changes in collective art practice as well as experimental approaches in the sciences. Recognising a shift occured after the advent of process sculpture and socially engaged practice in the late twentieth century, and pursuing new dynamic collaborative working models, this form of collective action and co-practice also reflects the shifts in the contemporary network. Individuals are working and experimenting together under one name, experimenting with new areas of knowledge development, sharing insights and experience, Embedded in the social, the Office of Experiments reflects upon these devlopments, related to but resisting designated institutional practices and divisions.

To date, The Office of Experiments projects have arisen from collaborations between a range of experimental practitioners developing new knowledge in the cultural/social field. Recently some of those include: John Latham and Flat Time House, Barbara Steveni, Antony Hudek, Steve Rowell, Lisa Haskell, The Centre for Land Use Interpretation, Em Druiff, N55, Max-Planck Institute, Dr.Nicolas Langlitz, Sue Breakell, Neil Cummings, Jens Hauser, Simon Gould and Jim Wood.
The Office of Experiments currently works on new experiments with the help of: The Latham Estate, O+I (formerly Artist Placement Group), The Arts Catalyst, UCL Department of Geography, The Henry Moore Foundation, Camberwell Offsite Projects, The John Hansard Gallery, Chelsea College of Art (Critical Practice), and Bournemouth University (IPE).”

Affordable art: the multiple

Heather — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:45:20 +0000

I love any ways to make art accessible/affordable. I’m a sucker for populist ideals.

Art cards are a great idea. Last year I purchased some Art Cards on Etsy by Nakisha of Blue Dog Rose. Art Cards are a bit like baseball cards, for trade, collection. See: http://www.art-cards.org/

Multiples can take any form. For example, they are themed such as this series by MonsterTruck gallery in Dublin, Ireland: “Multiples Cabinet Series 1 – True + False” Multiple Cabinet see more at MonsterTruck In that show is a range of works starting at €10 to €80. Books, edible sugar paper, cups, badges, found objects. Some nearing decorative, some miniature monuments.

They’re lovely little needful things. If you spent any time at all playing with dolls, the lure of the miniature is very strong. Mostly, the scale and relative ease of production keeps costs low. But can you count the value on size? time for production? Leave that one for the art economist. Mainly it’s the notion that there’s more-than-one, so it’s mass-produced… therefore cheaper. Really you’re buying one part of a whole piece and participating in an event.

“In the mid-sixties George Maciunas had embarked on the production of ‘flux-boxes’. Fairly cheap and simple, these toy-like receptacles were produced in large runs and mailed all over the world. Their low price made them affordable to a wide public. At the same time, the democratic principle of ‘art for all’ was accompanied by a subversive principle which opposed the possession of art and the concomitant social status.” via Panta rhei by Jan Winkelmann

I volunteered at a book show in Boston for an exhibitor who was specialising in sales of Fluxus multiples sold originally by George Maciunas. I had lots of time to inspect originals and books on the multiples. I was familiar with Fluxus, but I had never seen so much of it in one place. Everything was small, portable fold-able, fit into boxes easily. Sometimes they were one-liners, and almost always had a bemusing mind-tickling aspect to them. “I am a big fan of Fluxus – the notion of affordable multiples that give an alternative perspective on life, using art and humour, is inspirational.” mentions Jackie Batey, a book artist [via V & A museum interview]

Culture: A Tool For Reversing Recession – LabforCulture by Simon Mundy

Heather — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:40:35 +0000

This report: Culture: A Tool For Reversing Recession written by Simon Mundy gives good arguments for culture, in terms finance ministers can understand. Bottom line: culture can help “lead the way back to prosperity.”

I met Simon when I worked at the Centre for Creative Communities. He was the rapportuer at a conference in 2003: Common Threads: An Agenda for Active Citizenship. I should mention Simon is a very good poet as well. (I wish I could remember his poem Archives).

I found this via @Campaign4Arts on Twitter. They also have a blog about the Campaign.

This paper sets out ten arguments that Ministers of Culture can use during annual budgetary discussions with their ministerial colleagues to highlight the vital role of culture.

Published by Council of Europe’s Culture Watch Europe, it suggests reasons why cultural investment can be an important tool to combat the effects of recession and to lead the way back to prosperity. From boosting confidence to attracting mobility, the arguments are as relevant at the intergovernmental, regional and local levels as they are at the national level.

via Financial crisis: online report: Culture: A Tool For Reversing Recession – LabforCulture.