The derive Detectives review: The Art Of With seminar 

 

On Wed 24 June, Four artists from derive attended the first public seminar of an action research programme entitled The Art Of With at Cornerhouse in Manchester. The aim of this programme is to investigate how Cornerhouse can learn and adapt to the working practices of the Internet in the way it operates as an arts organisation. The title The Art Of With, is taken from an essay written by Charles Leadbeater 'a leading authority on innovation and creativity' who also wrote the book, We Think: mass innovation not mass production. 'In 2005 Charles was ranked by Accenture, the management consultancy, as one of the top management thinkers in the world'. (quotes taken from http://www.charlesleadbeater.net)
This review considers the way it is structured as well as its content, to provide a critical stand point to evaluate this seminar. Artists from derive - James Snazell and Tom Watson presented the review as part of The Art Of With 2, at Cornerhouse 25/11/09.

 

We mixed organisational structures in order to relate to The Art Of With program and Cornerhouse itself:

The review is written by four artists who were not present at the seminar, but who had an interest. This allowed what we felt was an over reliance on Cornerhouse's part, on the premise of the participant, to then be opened up and questioned through the process of writing a review. We marked different ways of understanding the term participant; as in being present OR in simply sharing, and split these differentiations from their coupled form. Our aim was that this would give each of us a new space with which to approach a review and The Art Of With.
 

 

At this stage we appropriated another organisational cue, that of a Murder investigation; THE MURDER OF THE ART OF WITH

Next we adopted one of two roles depending on the value of our participation:

Those who were present at the first seminar became the Witnesses

Those who were interested but were not present became the Detectives

The interviewing then began...

This charge was brought about as a necessary focal point in order to heighten the roles we had adopted, as well as provide some novel maneuverability depending on how much each person played up to their role, then the interviewing happened;
 
Each witness sat at a table alone, with recording equipment picking up their every breath and neuron flash in their brain. The detectives took it in turn to move around the witnesses asking questions, sometimes interrogating, and taking notes on the responses given. Once every witness had been interviewed/examined and then cross examined, they were left alone.
The next step was for the detectives to each take a recording of one witness and use this along with any notes they took, to write a review. Four detectives wrote four reviews each listening to one recording of a single witness being interviewed.
Following this, all four reviews were collated into one document and placed on a blog, which every detective had access, with the aim of producing a review using these four essentially disparate voices into one singular voice, the voice of the derive detectives.

Both these documents then stand together: The collection of four individual reviews, and the worked up singular review; as the review of the first art of with seminar.

Click here for the front page (or Right click and save as)

Click here for the body of the review