Past events and developments 

 

Part 2 April 2010 - November 2009 (reverse timeline)

derive # 10

The role of the gatekeeper - led by Tom Watson

 
Read In A New Window (& download as PDF)
or Download the essay extract as  DOC
Original essay available at http://writetoreply.org/gatekeeper
The subject of this derive will be a short extract from an essay entitled 'A Manual for the 21st Century Gatekeeper', commissioned last autumn by Cornerhouse, written by New York based curator Michael Connor. He presented his ideas as part of Cornerhouse's current action research program, The Art of With.
Conner builds on the founding title essay for The Art of With, written by Charles Leadbeater, an expert on innovation in business.
Along the lines of Leadbeater's assertion that "audiences increasingly expect their cultural experiences to emphasise interaction and creation. In the age of the Web, Talk and Do are becoming more important than Enjoy."
Connor follows up with "Audiences today - particularly young audiences - are used to curating their own cultural activities from a seemingly endless supply of content. In a world where everyone is a curator, what good is a curator?"
Into this conversation I would like to reference another New York based writer, by the name of Gregory Scholette, who's involvement in artist/activist group PAD/D in the 80's, provides a crucial counter point to Conner's. Hopefully this will open up a discussion in a very different way.

 


derive # 9      

Collaborative working - led by Dani Abulhawa  

 Spurred on by her own practice as a performance artist and by her involvement in the very well recieved derive Detective's review; The Art of With (see derive projects), Dani will be setting up an experiment to reveal a collaborative process of producing art outcomes.

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Here is Dani's account of the session:

I have to be honest, I didn't really have aims, just a handful of darts (if you want to look at it that way). My interests for bringing the subject of 'collaborative working' to derive are a little ambiguous. I am intruiged by collaboratively made projects because I've never been able to successfully work in that way. By successful I mean I've never been able to see a project through sufficiently whilst working in direct relationship to someone else. But then at the same time, I see derive as a collaborative space I contribute successfully to, so I wanted to bring a discussion about collaboration to that space in order to help illuminate it for me. I also wanted to use the opportunity to propose some practical experimentation; to suggest a creative project we could all work on together from our own seperate geographical locations and timetables. Regarding the proposed project, it relates to the three main things I see as being important to collaborative creative processes (and creative processes in general). The first is the development of a community that exists for the purpose of the project (as a seperate 'machine' making work distinct from the artistic endevours of individuals within the group), the second a propensity to be open to and initiate playfullness, and finally, the importance for members of a collaborative to displace individual authorship (or ownership) over their ideas/work. I suppose 'as' research the project is ultimately about investigating those three things. The important thing for me is that I'm writing this after the session has taken place and this response is entirely shaped by the discussion that happened. I believe I couldn't have written something as lucid or acquianted with my aims or purposes before hand.

 


derive # 8

James Snazell  - A dérive

2pm meet at Islington Mill for a prompt departure (walk should last under 3 hours, return to the mill before 5pm)

An insufficient awareness of the limitations of chance, and of its inevitably reactionary effects, condemned to a dismal failure the famous aimless wandering attempted in 1923 by four surrealists, beginning from a town chosen by lot: Wandering in open country is naturally depressing, and the interventions of chance are poorer there than anywhere else. But this mindlessness is pushed much further by a certain Pierre Vendryes (in Médium, May 1954), who thinks he can relate this anecdote to various probability experiments, on the ground that they all supposedly involve the same sort of antideterminist liberation. He gives as an example the random distribution of tadpoles in a circular aquarium, adding, significantly, "It is necessary, of course, that such a population be subject to no external guiding influence." From that perspective, the tadpoles could be considered more spontaneously liberated than the surrealists, since they have the advantage of being "as stripped as possible of intelligence, sociability and sexuality," and are thus "truly independent from one another."

At the opposite pole from such imbecilities, the primarily urban character of the dérive, in its element in the great industrially transformed cities - those centers of possibilities and meanings - could be expressed in Marx's phrase: "Men can see nothing around them that is not their own image; everything speaks to them of themselves. Their very landscape is alive."

 

derive # 7 - A crime against art

We will watch dvd documentation of a mock court case, in which your favorite art world pundits take sides to determine, or dismiss a crime against art:

A Crime Against Art is a film based on the trial staged at an art fair in Madrid in
February 2007. The trial, inspired by the mock trials organized by avant-garde movements in the 1920's and 30's, theatrically raised a number of polemical issues in the world of contemporary art: collusion with the 'new bourgeoisie', instrumentalization of art and its institutions, the future possibility of critical artistic agency and other pertinent subjects. The trial begins with the assumption that a crime has been committed, yet its nature and evidence are allusive and no victims have come forward. The testimonies and cross-examinations become an attempt by the Judge (Jan Verwoert), the Prosecutors (Vasif Kortun and Chus Martinez) and the Defense Attorney (Charles Esche) to unravel the nature of the puzzling "crime against art". Set as a television courtroom drama and filmed by four camera crews, A Crime Against Art presents a condensed 100 minute version of the trial.


 

 Part 1 September 2009 -Feb 2009 (reverse timeline)

 

 

derive # 6 - (prompt 2pm start)- Evi Grigoropoulou

- a written account of The speakers platform at Grieskirchen by Clegg and Guttmann.

We will consider a subjective account of a project which took place in a small Austrian town, the aim of which was to find a new spiritual leader for the folk who lived here.  

please read the text before hand, a pdf can be downloaded Here

 

 

derive # 5; - Nomic at derive - A game illustrating the paradox of self amendment. To take a turn:

Propose a change to one rule

Vote on it

Roll the dice and add the number on the face of the dice to your score

The first to 100 wins


But this rule can itself be changed.

 

 

 

301. A rule change is adopted if the vote is a simple majority    

OVERRULED

 

302. Proposed amendment to rule 210 - A ten minute discussion period for consultation of other players is allowed

OVER-RULED

 

303. Proposed amendment of rule 201

If a players proposal gets voted through that player gets the option of proposing directly after; one further proposition within the current circuit

OVERRULED

 

304. Amendment to 204

"each player who votes against winning proposals shall have one roll of the dice and add those points to his/her score"

OVER-RULED

 

 

305. Amendment to rule 202

One turn consists of four parts; (1) Proposing one rule-change; (2) a straw poll; (3) Vote and; (4) throwing the die once and adding the number of points on its face to ones score

OVER-RULED

 

306. Amendment to 201 (paragraph 1)

No mutable or immutable rule can take precedence over another (within its set) based solely on the number hierarchy of that rule.

In the event that two rules conflict later on in the game, a vote must be cast

In the event of a stalemate the judge at that time decides on which rule takes precedence other the other one

OVER-RULED

 

307. A rule change is adopted if the vote is a simple majority

OVERRULED

 

308. Amendment or removal of rule 206

I want players to change the rules for the benefit of the game

OVERRULED

 

309. Amendment to rule 202

All of it-plus:

We each get some more beer, if we want to play

PASSED!!!!

 

310. New people can join the game at any point but new proposals need unanimity to take effect for their first round.

OVERRULED


 

 

The scores as they stand (liz needs to roll)

 

 

derive # 4;

Maria Dada from Islington Mill Art Academy- Open source development

Front page            Reader # 2          Glossary and Links page

 

 

derive # 3

Peachy Coochy afternoon -a succession of rapid fire presentations which set up the following formal considerations...

20 images, 20 seconds for each image

You must speak your text out loud for each image

 

narritive is not necessarily implied and randomness is frowned upon 

however thematic associations are embraced

 ...in the hope of creating new forms

  

 

derive # 2 - Development from first presentation

-Artists Interventions Into The Market Economy 

 

 

derive # 1

Tom Watson - Artist's Interventions Into The Market Economy

Get reader #01