AC SALON BERLIN
At homebase, Berlin, 08 October 2010
For a workshop as part of the HomeBase project in Berlin AC proposed to explore ideas around the creation of communities in an art context. HomeBase is an international, community-based, site-specific and artist-run public art project that was held in Berlin during the months of September and October. The project included an artist-in-residence program and a series of events such as lectures, workshops, talks, etc. Originally founded in New York in 2006, HomeBase’s objectives are to seek out areas of the urban environment undergoing transitional changes and integrate contemporary art into the everyday local experience, opening up the role of art as an educational tool for cross-cultural dialogue, social integration, and community cultivation.
In this context, AC has been invited to carry out a workshop investigating collaborative and collective research practices in the field of contemporary art and knowledge production in relation to the question how notions of collectivity and community emerge. The workshop was planned and conceptualized by all members of the group with the research concerns circulating around the possible constitution of collectivity through communication, debate and knowledge production within a specific local yet cross-cultural and trans-national community.
Prior to the workshop AC examined the exhibition and developed a format that would not only relate to the specific context of the exhibition on view but also tackle questions such as: What is the significance of art for the constitution of communities? How does this process of constitution involve collaborative practices? Is collaboration the joined activity of individuals who collect their ideas to form a sum of them or does collaboration require abandoning the individual and thus supposes a radical production of new and common ideas that potentially can form the basis of a community?
salon outline:
FRIDAY, OCT 8
4.30 – 7.30 pm
The HomeBase Score
An Event of Co-Authorship
A score is a script. A script is a suggestion. Its interpretation is up to whoever reads with it. The score as a framework provides for the creation of an atmosphere, a multitude of voices that come into a void of noises. You are invited to an evening of co-authorship, exploring HomeBase as an exhibition and exposition under the conditions of collaboration, co-operation and collectivisation – conditions that persistently frame the way we encounter, produce and share our perspectives on contemporary artistic production.
8.00 – 9.00 pm
Is the Whole less than the Sum of its Parts?
An Event of Collective Intelligence
Following on from the idea of a score as a composition of voices this second part of the salon poses the question if communication and dialogue in its multiplicity as well as multitudinousness can actually create a notion of collectivity? Can the common assumption of ‘The Whole being more than the Sum of its Parts’ be challenged?
AC SALON MURCIA
AC Salon at Manifesta 8, Murcia (Spain), October, 26th 2010
For more information (in spanish) see: www.manifesta8.com
Tuesday, OCT 26 2010 Murcia Espácio AV
Part One: 11.00 – 14.30
The Manifesta Score. A Session of Co-Authorship
A score is a script. A script is a suggestion. Its interpretation is up to whoever reads with it. The score as a framework provides for the creation of an atmosphere, a multitude of voices that come into a void of noises. You are invited to an evening of co-authorship, exploring Manifesta 8 as an exhibition and exposition under the conditions of collaboration, co-operation and collectivisation – conditions that persistently frame the way we encounter, produce and share our perspectives on contemporary artistic production.
Part Two: 16.00 – 19.00
Is the Whole less than the Sum of its Parts? A Session on Collective Intelligence
Following on from the idea of a score as a composition of voices this second part of the salon poses the question if communication and dialogue in its multiplicity as well as multitudinousness can actually create a notion of collectivity? Can the common assumption of ‘The Whole being more than the Sum of its Parts’ be challenged?
Download Manifesta Press Release (PDF)
AC Research Symposium at Goldmsiths
On Collaboration
14, 15 Feb 2011
AC is a research group interested in transdisciplinary collaborative practices, composed of artists, art writers and curators of the Goldsmiths College’s Art Department’s PhD programme. As an acronym AC stands for various meanings. It illustrates the different positions from and about which to speak. ’Since each of us were several, there was already quite a crowd.’
AC’s research concerns circulate around the critical and experimental investigation of collaborative methodologies and their utilisation in artistic, curatorial and writing practices. We are asking what the significance of collective knowledge production as a concept and practice in contemporary art might be today, how it is articulated curatorially and artistically, and how it works in practice.
Since the formation of the group at the beginning of 2010, AC has experimented extensively with collective research practices, e.g. collective writing, and the reading of exhibitions. We have also held two workshops in the context of collectively curated exhibitions in Berlin and in Murcia at Manifesta 8.
How do temporal and spatial configurations affect the process of collaboration? Does the sharing of knowledge entail a compromise? Does communication in a collective tend to shift from the word to the gesture? Is collaboration the joined activity of individuals or does it require abandoning the individual altogether, thus enabling the production of otherwise impossible collective ideas and their manifestations? Or is it – in the words of the curators of Manifesta 8 – something in between: a process of deliberately losing and finding oneself again? How does a collective relate to the not included? What is the added value of collaboration?
In this symposium we are hoping to expand our collective knowledge once more, with the active help of our invited guests and the plenum.
Guests:
Olivia Plender works comprises video installations, performances, text, as well as drawings and printed matter. Historical research is at the core of her practice. She seeks to interrogate the methods and approaches used to record, interpret and recount historical events. Plender has dealt with topics ranging from the early history of the BBC to modern Spiritualism. She contributed to the Manifesta 8 catalogue. (See oliviaplender.pdf at VLE)
Common Culture presently composed of David Campbell, Mark Durden and Ian Brown, the artists’ group, founded in Liverpool in 1996, have consistently produced artworks that seek to question the social dimensions of advertising, stand-up comedians, nightclub bouncers, fast-food, shopping, tribute singers and discos. The video ’The New El Dorado’ (2010), was presented at Manifesta 8 and will be shown during the symposium. http://commonculture.co.uk/
Yesomi Umolu is a London-based curator, writer and researcher. Having studied Architectural Design at the University of Edinburgh and Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art, her practice interrogates the politics of translation and participation across a wide range of critical spatial practices. In 2011, she is curator-in-residence at Hordaland Art Centre, Bergen. She is a regularly invited critic and seminar tutor at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College of London. Her recent projects include co-curating the archival space AGM 10: Collectivus CPS at Manifesta 8 (2010), co-curating the exhibition John Smith Solo Show and collaborating on the interdisciplinary workspace Department 21 (Royal College of Art, 2010), co-curating the exhibition Goldfinger’s Lost Cottage (Platform 1 Gallery, 2010) and curating the screening/talks programme Performing Localities (Iniva, 2009). Yesomi has held positions as a Curatorial Assistant for Chamber of Public Secrets at Manifesta 8 (Region of Murcia, 2010), Public Programme Assistant at the Serpentine Gallery (London, 2009) and Project Coordinator at Tate Modern (London, 2005-8).
Schedule
Monday 14th February
Studio A & Studio B
10.30 – 13.00 Introduction, presentation, discussion: AC collective research project
Lunch break
14.00 – 16.00 Presentation, discussion: Olivia Plender
Chairs: Marit Muenzberg, Wiebke Gronemeyer
short break
16.15 – 17.00 video screening and discussion: AC workshop at Manifesta 8
Tuesday 15st February
Studio B
10.30 – 10.50 Screening of: Common Culture, “The New El Dorado“, 2010, HD video
10.50 – 12.00 Presentation, discussion: Common Culture (Ian Brown, David Campbell)
Chairs: Carla Cruz, Nina Höchtl
12.00 – 13.00 Presentation, discussion: Yesomi Umolu
Chairs: Wiebke Gronemeyer, Julia Martin
Lunch break
14.00 – 15.45 Democracy
Presentations: Carla Cruz, Nina Höchtl, Wiebke Gronemeyer
short break
16.00 – 17.00 Discussion
AC is a research group interested in transdisciplinary collaborative practices, composed of artists, art writers and curators. It was founded in 2010 at Goldsmiths College, University of London, by five researchers of the Art Department’s PhD programme: Carla Cruz, Wiebke Gronemeyer, Nina Hoechtl, Julia Martin and Lee Weinberg.
For more information see www.acrowd.info