from the very start an anxiety broke out about the imperative of producing a product by the end of the first week of the Lab.
Several participants voiced their clear dissent regarding being pressured to present their work in such a short time period and having their work judged in light of those fifteen minutes.
Erin and Brian who were assigned the role of catalyzers suggested a sratetgy that Erin used to facilitate the process of creating a platform for a collaborative effort.
Building on their work, they are more interested in the process of art creation, then in the finished work itself. They think the focus should be on the connections that happen along the process, the different phases, rather than just to present a finished work as it is.
They both suggest a proposition. A game of 24 hours duration based on a project Erin did back at the university. While the project lasted for an entire semester, here it was to last for a few hours.
The idea was to uncover the technique different people use in their process of creation.
The game was styled as follows:
- Each member of the lab will write his/her name on a piece of paper
- All the pieces will be mixed together
- Each member will draw out a piece of paper that has a name of another member
- After each member selects a piece of paper, the group will divided into "process-prospector" and "prospectee", each engaging in 30 mins conversation.
- Then a switch in the role will take place, and those who talked, will listen, and those who listened will talk
- The aim was to create a dialogue where different lab members get to articulate their processes of creation, and each member write three verbs describing or summarizing this process
- Then a verb diagram will be created, where we will try to locate common verbs through which we can start creating a collaborative process
selecting-empathizing-anti-socialing
navigating-fitting/unfitting-living-embodying-
reducing-questioning-focusing-stabilizing/de-stabilizing-unkowning
trusting-multilayering-doubting-balancing-challenging-expecting-
negotiating-editing-translating-searching limited
paralleling
reconstructing - letting go - daydreaming
listening - eating -walking
getting bored- being alone - forgetting
drawing sound- making emerge- finding a certain something in an apparent nothing
transmutating - reanimating - perceiving
Another discussion broke out, in the sense of a riot would, about the use of questioning or musing over the process. While some lab participants were in constant engagement about the process of their work, others came from contexts where this process was considered of minor importance, and the sole focus was on the "product".
Then again the anxiety about the "prodcut" and strategy of work came to the surface. How will this product emerge?
And several creative suggestions came out:
- We can choose not to present anything at the open house
- The product is of momentary importance. The aim of the lab, is bring about different artists from across the spectrum, to dialogue and exchange. The "product" is of minor significance.
Erin shifted the focus a little bit, when she started thinking about the verbs compiled, and she was particularly drawn to the verb "non-inventing" used by Lilibeth in her work.
Lilibeth was then approached to explain and perhaps elaborate on what she means by non-inventing in her work. She explains that she uses elements already existing. Its not something new or spectacular, citing an example, Lilibeth works with words, presenting these words, which people think its about her, however the songs are inspired from myraid of different things. Her manipulation of "formal language" to make it appeal to her own language. Same goes for documentary, one selects what one chooses to show. Or to edit. These things were not invented. But the way that they are presented was invented in a way.
An artistic intervention at this point reconceptualizes the idea of "taking"
One artist suggests the term "stealing". Different terms might be used (exchange, translation,...etc) but the actual process of creation starts when you take something. The moment you get hold of it, you start reflecting on how to make use of it.
Another lab particpant answered back that there is a moral charge in the term "stealing".
Another artist explained that stealing is a complete appropriation of the object, where its possession moves from one person to the other and its no longer there.
To that the reply was, the object might be lost, but the recollection of it remains.
The same artist, then questioned, stealing as a transgressive act. But receiving is considered a more of a passive act.
The discussion went on to ponder upon the question, what do artists work with? How much is there of borrowing and taking?
One artist suggested that just its impossible to invent beyond nothing, one has to invent with an existing matter.
An artistic intervention suggested that dislocating is an interesting possibility. How can on rearrange entire systems by introducing insignificant or minuscule elements that result in the overhaul of the whole system.
Erin then pointed out that to her traveling to do her work is a process of dislocation, or rather its an interruption or a disruption till one is reintroduced in his "original system".
Or rather traveling as a condition where you take things in. Or maybe the different context refinorm the object in ways that were not perceivable at first, but this hinges on how open one is.
Erin poses the terminal statement that there is only so much invention that can happen, there is bound to be an element of repetition after a certain point.
At this point one artist points out to the fact that the demanding context of touring, is nothing like the context of a lab. The lab is a "welcome contrast" to the rigorous mechanism of presentation exemplified by touring.
The functionality of traveling is then brought to question. What is the purpose of traveling?
One travels to experience different way of surviving other systems.
One travels to places where one is immune to their influence.
One travels in order to protect a particular work.
Erin suggests that the temporality of a work is crucial in understanding the process of art creation. Some temporalities get in the way. One has to consider how long does the process of art creation takes.
But can an artistic process be circulated within a paritcular economy of exchange? Can on "sell" his/her process? Can it be given.
Sean relates how he was approached by people who were interested in "buying" his "software" he uses to process image to sound. Which brings to question what this process can do on its own, without the artist who actually created it.
The conversation is brought back to the issue of production. Producing a final product. And the example of the entertainment industry creating reality shows that create a product every single episode is mused upon. Yet one has to to situate entertainment as a function of a capitalist system that ineluctably linked to profit. The question should then be is the creation process linked to profit and the notion of profitability and productivity as in the "entertainment industry"?
Erin and Brian then discuss how certain ideas need "gestation" to be brought about. And how one should think in phases. In a way ideas do not arrive in a finished sense as products, as a quantifiable product.
Thomas then argues that one can be creative in different ways. Any idea one work into an artistic process. A work of art is a process where does the impossible, with no need to explain, justify or proof anything. There are unnecessary limitations on our capacity to imagine and understand.
Eleonora saves the day by appropriating the conversation and pointing out to an affirmation of a particular notion through a speech act. The modern question of "It is art", to the more contemporary question "what is not art?". This speech act opens up a paradox, allows the excavation of layers upon layers of meaning. This movement, movement of ideas, creates a series of thoughts, creating tension of what is the basic image of an ontological existence.
She explains a project she did where she brought two chairs from her kitchen and placed them in a public square in Rio, where she sat there holding a sign saying "we can talk about anything". The idea was to collapse limnalities of a private space and a public space.
People will come sit in a chair and talk, each time for three hours. In some instances she had the permission to record.
When asked Eleonora what is the culmination of her project or idea, she answered, "To make peace with the space I live in"
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