[NetBehaviour] Pikslaverk2008 - Pixelache in Iceland - Call for proposals

[clemos]

Hi Marc !

I'm really happy to have been a little "insightful" for you, even
through my bad english :)
Because I really consider your work with Furthefield, and
Furtherstudio and all as a model for our modest work at panoplie.
Furtherstudio was definitely a big inspiration (both for Annie and for
me) when we created the "Salon" for panoplie.org, and the Breaking
Solitude events inside it.
Despite the fact that panoplie.org is in my opinion far behind
Furtherfield in terms of "what a new media organisation should be"
(for tons of different reason, and I don't mean to be abusively modest
here, or to minimize the quality of my work...), I feel like we have a
lot in common.

The case of building such a tool, or space, or platform or whatever
like FurtherStudio or the Salon is in my opinion very different from
the "real" artwork creation process...
It implies artistical skills, but not necessarily like "being an
artist". When building such things and organising such events, I feel
more like a galery owner than like an artist. Of course the difference
between being an artist and being a gallery owner is sometimes very
subtle (many persons are both), but the role is very different.
I think there is basically less ego things involved in creating a
platform in which artists would be invited to actually "create art".
Each teamate's place and role are more clear: there are the
"directors", there are the "technicians", and there are the "artists".
You may be both an "artist" and a "director" sometimes (Annie, who
(co-?)"directed" the making of the Salon, also performed inside, etc),
or even "directing" a bit, coding a bit, and performing a bit (like I
did), but everything is ok.
It's very clear because : some people create a platform (no artist
role), and some perform inside (artist role). Also, creating the
platform is about artistic direction and technical realisation. There
can be confusion here, because while designing the programmer can come
with new tech ideas, or even with all the ideas, but it doesn't
matter, because in the end, the "artistic director" decides which
features are interresting from an artistic point of view. For Annie,
I, and the salon, we use (once again) to have both "roles" (I am more
the "programmer" and she is less the "programmer", so more the
"director" (hehehe), but...), and this is only possible because we are
both interrested in the two fields (art and computers/networks).
If the programmer was "only" a programmer (not interrested at all in
art, performances, etc...), or if the "director" was only an artistic
director (no or few knowledge in computer, programming, etc), I think
the collaboration would have been far less fruitful.
I think it *may* be possible to do good projects with only a good art
director, also interrested in computers, and a real art-newbie
programmer...

Anyway, this is, in the end, a platform, and even if it's very
interresting from an artistic POV, I wouldn't really call this an
"artwork". About the Salon, I use to say : "The art is not made by us,
but only by the invited artists". I mean: being a curator, or a
"virtual place" owner, is also a very complex work, and only people
with strong artistic skills can do it, but curating and creating
artworks is very very different.

At panoplie.org, I've been working with lots of artists, in a
artist/webdesigner relationship, and it's very different from creating
something like the salon.
I consider most of the work I "made" together with artists like a kind
of "ad" for the work of the artist (or a "digital format article", an
interactive article about the artist... don't know if it's clear),
because it consists in doing a "web" version of some "non-web"
artwork, and thus it looks more like an "illustration" of the original
work than like an "actual" work. And even when it's not based on some
previous work, it's still often about transposing an "off-web" art
concept, or approach, on the web.
Yet, this kind of collaboration has very rarely led to works that I
consider "real" "new media art", or "web art", or whatever. These rare
works are often the ones where the artist had already quite deeply
thought about internet, computers, and so on, *or* where (in all
modesty, once again) I had ideas about how to do something interesting
on the web based on his work. I mean: I have no problem with animating
someone else's drawings, or with making someone's video interactive,
it's somehow "interesting" in itself, but it's a bit like writing
something *about* the work, it's not like creating something new... I
don't think it's "better" to end up with a "real" "new media" artwork
than with a "pseudo" new media artwork, and moreover probably both can
be considered actual artworks, as both have a certain amount
"quality". But I think the computer can (for some artists) bring a bit
more (or rather: something different) than mere interaction, or
animation, etc, at the condition that the artist's work is
"compatible" with new media and web art thematics, or questions...
It's just that not all artists have something interesting to bring to
the digital world, but in the other hand, artists can bring their work
in a "satisfying" direction by including computers in it: If someone
who draws starts doing simple Flash animations, he will not really
bring anything interesting, or different, or new, to the new media
community, but he will definitely bring his work to some other "area",
and this may be interesting and new in the world of "animation", or in
the field of graphism. Anyway, it shows that his work evolves in a
certain direction, and those who like drawing may find this very very
interesting (and sometimes, as a consequence, the new media world may
start to find something good in his simple flash animations... )

But it's starting to go off topic (once again?).
It definitely depends on the nature of the work. And as Marc said,
it's really about respecting everyone's skills and desires. When
"directing" projects like that, you must ensure that everybody feels
free to bring his ideas (or to bring nothing else than his particular
skills...), and that everybody is able to share his knowledge with
each other.
All ideas are respectable (not necessarily good, but respectable :p ),
and all different skills and knowledge can bring ideas. And the more
different skills you have, the more differrent ideas you'll share, and
finally, the more chance you have to end with a good artwork. After
that, it's all about selecting ideas, and I think the artist is the
one who ultimately chooses...

++++++++
Clément

On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 5:12 PM, marc garrett
<marc.garrett at furtherfield.org> wrote:
> Hi Clemos,
>
> What an interesting question,
>
> I think that it does matter. I feel that it depends to what degree the
> programmer is involved in changing the original concept of the work, as
> well as what is agreed between the artist and programmer. Which can get
> quite ambiguous at times.
>
> In 1991, I used to organise regular artists talks at the Ikon gallery in
> Birmingham, in the UK. One of the artists who was asked to do a
> presentation at that time, was a female sculptor called Alison Wilding.
> I posed a question to her asking 'what difference do you feel that it
> makes to your work once you have designed the concept of your artwork,
> then to be put together and made by men at a factory?' It turned out to
> be a very complicated and fascinating discussion for all...
>
> This is a very complicated subject. When we work with Neil Jenkins on
> Visitors Studio, even though Ruth and myself are the main drive behind
> getting it happening, as connecting it an interested public and finding
> money from funding - figuring out the ideas, function, context and
> direction. Neil is the the programmer, and he his highly skilled. He
> also had a lot of input into the design, although we do as well. His
> skills in pearl programming (and much more) are an asset which has
> greatly advanced VS, through the years. We do not view that only us 2
> thought of VS, because Neil came up with the functionality out of
> another project we collaborated on called 'furtherstudio'. So, it was
> more about sharing an adventure in exploring where it can go together,
> with regular meetings. Even though Ruth and myself, between us possess
> skills in Linux, processing, MySql, PHP and Drupal etc. We are aware
> when involved in such a dynamic culture as we are in, when being
> multi-skilled is an advantage that, there comes a point when others have
> to asked to be part of the team. This is when collaboration happens, and
> the work can sometimes change its original reason of being, to become
> either something completely different or something close to what was
> intended. When working with Neil, we know that he is an artist as well
> as a programmer, and we see this as an advantage for all concerned.
>
> The other things is, when working with various groups of people on a
> project such as VS, others contribute as well in less technical ways.
> For example, offering suggestions that reflect upon their own experience
> in using the platform. This creates useful information, that in its
> process incorporates them also as collaborators also, but not in the
> same way. Then you have high-end users who contribute in the culture of
> VS, organising regular events on there who are also collaborating, such
> as Roger Mills with networked live events, who is the editor of
> furthernoise.org and Graziano Milano who also set up events and worked
> on line with various users around the world, as well organising
> workshops in places like Bosnia, with VS. So, I suppose the most
> important thing is that everyone is respected for their input and skills
> as much as is possible.
>
> marc
>
>
>
>  > > * Does it matter whether or not artists do their own programming or
> hire
>  > > professional programmers to do it?
>
> I've been chatting a *lot* about that with Annie Abrahams, and we even
> gave a kind of "public talk" once which was largely related to this
> topic, here in Montpellier. We spoke about our relationship which,
> though she knows a bit of programming and I am (or have been, once) a
> bit of an artist, was of this kind (she has "hired" me for programming
> some little things for her).
> I've also been working that way with quite a lot of "artists", and met
> many other "artists" whose work was only to "write the concept" and
> let programmers do the job, as well as a few programmers who had been
> working for "artists" (though they sometimes claim to work *with*
> artists, or even to be "co-authors"... ).
> There are lots of differents situations.
> Some artists I've heard use to compare new media with the movie
> industry, where huge teams of specialists work together, and see
> themselves like "directors"... Some don't even credit the other people
> involved in the creation (programmers, or even the tools used, which
> can be very important), and I think this attitude is mainly inherited
> from the "contemporary art" world.
> Some artists, who act like minimalist artists or conceptual artists,
> feel like the IDEA is everything, and its realisation is almost
> nothing (it's programming, so it's technical, so it's "exact", so it
> doesn't make sense... talking computers will be able to do this alone
> soon ).
> (by the way, I know an artist who paints blue squares every year; he
> started to paint a 50% square on a white canvas in 1983, and every
> year, he added 1% so that in 2033, the canvas will be filled with
> blue... He needs to paint 70 times over and over to get the "blue"
> color he's looking for. In a project like his, it's important that the
> artist himself do the work, paint himself - painting 70 layers takes
> him about 3 month. He could have easily hired someone to draw his
> squares, but drawing squares and "running a program" is apparently
> interresting him... The fact of doing this single thing during 50
> years makes sense to him. His idea is nothing compared to the
> realisation iteslf, while the project is still minimalistic and
> somehow conceptual. And what has been surprising me the most is that
> he loves doing this, and is deeply sincere...)
> Now everything depends on the nature of the work.
> exist.pl is IMHO a very good programming art work, luckily by the same
> artist who seems to organize the event  :) . In the case of a work like
> this, it seems difficult to have a "team", because it's something
> deeply related to how computers work, what a software is, etc and
> involves direct relationship to programming. Lots of (nearly all,
> actually) early net.art work in the same way, and that's often why I
> like them (Form art, for example). You just can't expect something
> like that to be produced by a duo artist/programmer, because it has to
> do with "playing" with computers, and getting more or less unexpected
> things, or at least surprising things. (There are duos, like Jodi, and
> it would be interresting to see how they work, but I doubt that one is
> the programmer, and the other the "artist", or the concept-guy)
> Then the "mainstream" new media art is more about using computers to
> do what you expect, like interactive movies, or installations,
> whatever... It often interrest me a little less; or let's say that
> I've seen less interresting works in this field. And there are so much
> crappy interactive things.
> I think the main problem comes when (how can I say it...) when a
> person, who is more a programmer than an artist, tries to "wrap" his
> work into some poor art discourse, or add badly understood art
> concepts around it (or currently "sexy" hype concepts), and, on the
> other side, when an artist who has poor knowledge in computer and
> programming expects his work to be a very interresting "anticipative"
> work about "technologies", by hiring programmers and explaining them
> his pseudo-revolutionnary techno idea, and so on. This will almost
> always produce terrible things...
> There are a few persons who have a good and practical knowledge of
> both art and computers, and only these persons are able to do
> something interresting. Or, to say it in a slightly different way: a
> few people who are *very* interrested in computers and technologies,
> can also, sometimes, be very creative, have a very original point of
> view, and use both. You must definitely understand what the medium you
> use actually is, you must have a practice. In the case of computers,
> some artists do very interresting things with few "technical"
> knowledge, because using computers (for whatever reason, art, reading
> emails, ...) is not necessarily programming, and you can do *lots* of
> cool things with computers without programming, though it sometimes
> looks less "sexy" (some artists try to learn programming anyway,
> because it looks more powerful, almost magic, and end up loosing
> themselves... because they are artists!)
> I think it's all about finding both skills in a single person. You can
> do very good things in a team, but in the end, an artist is definitely
> someone who is alone.
>
> I'm mainly interrested in DIY projects, because computers make them
> possible. But computers also make it possible to do huge things, and
> such projects need teams which can gather artists together with
> programmers, and so on.
> Being interrested in both programming and "culture" (I don't call it
> art anymore cause I often find so-called "art" sucks, whereas
> "culture", which contains "pop culture" - not the "pop" from "pop
> art", the "pop" from "pop culture" - is at least "alive" sometimes), I
> consider some block-buster games are artworks, just like some movies
> are, but also love tiny projects like exist.pl, or even more "nerdy"
> things like http://www.rockonflash.com/blog/?p=42 , which I could call
> "art", despite the fact that even its creator don't call himself an
> artist. Actually I hate the "art-like" discourse in general. I find
> that it's more important to do something interesting than to do
> something not very interesting or even interesting and then talk and
> talk and talk around it to make it seem more interresting.
>
> Anyway, the festival and conference look very promising  :)
> ++++++
> Clément
>
> On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 1:35 PM, Pall Thayer <pallthay at gmail.com> wrote:
>  > > New node in the Pixelache Network - Reykjavik!
>  > >
>  > > - - - -
>  > >
>  > > Pikslaverk
>  > > November 6 - 9, 2008. Reykjavik, Iceland
>  > > www.pikslaverk.org <http://www.pikslaverk.org>
>  > >
>  > > The Pikslaverk 2008 conference is the Icelandic component in the
>  > > international network of Pixelache conferences. It is organized by
> Lorna
>  > > (the Icelandic organization for electronic arts) in collaboration with
>  > > The Icelandic Academy of the Arts and The Reykjavik Municipal Art
>  > > Galleries. Through a series of lectures, presentations and
> performances,
>  > > this year's conference will continue Helsinki's theme on education and
>  > > act as a precursor to Bergen's them on Free, Libre and Open Source
>  > > Software by focussing on artists' use of computer programming code to
>  > > create works of art. Invited and selected guests will present a variety
>  > > of views regarding issues relating to artistic applications of computer
>  > > programming code. Amongst the questions that will be explored are:
>  > >
>  > > * Can we view computer programming code as a distinct artistic medium
>  > > and if so, what are the conceptual and aesthetic implications?
>  > > * Does it matter whether or not artists do their own programming or
> hire
>  > > professional programmers to do it?
>  > > * Can the "open-sourcing" of artistic code aid in the long-term
>  > > preservation of this type of artwork?
>  > >
>  > > Call for Participants is open, deadline 30 September 2008!
>  > >
>  > > (Participants who would like to apply for funding to cover their
>  > > travel costs should send in their applications ASAP)
>  > >
>  > > More information: www.pikslaverk.org <http://www.pikslaverk.org>
>  > >
>  > > - - - -
>  > >
>  > > OFFICIAL CALL FOR PROPOSALS:
>  > >
>  > > Lorna is now accepting submissions to Pikslaverk 2008. Please read the
>  > > festival description well to determine whether or not your submission
>  > > fits into the scope of the festival. What we are especially interested
>  > > in are work or papers that examine the roll of code within computer
>  > > programmed art. Whether you feel that code means everything, is the
>  > > *essence* of the work or that code adds nothing, is simply a tool,
>  > > nothing more, we would like to hear from you.
>  > > Send your submissions to Pall Thayer at pallith*AT*mbl*DOT*is.
>  > > Submissions should include the following information:
>  > >
>  > > * In the case of work include a brief description, link and/or up to 5
>  > > images (JPEG or PNG). Also explain how you think the work fits into the
>  > > scope of the festival.
>  > >
>  > > * In the case of papers/presentations include a brief abstract.
>  > >
>  > > * All submissions should include the names of those involved, i.e.
>  > > collaborators, co-authors, etc. and a bio/CV or a link to one online.
>  > >
>  > > * Include contact information, i.e. Name, address, email.
>  > >
>  > > Please send only PDF, ODT or DOC (DOCX files are unacceptable) for text
>  > > files and JPG or PNG for images.
>  > >
>  > > Participants who present or show work should be prepared to share any
>  > > relevant source-code. That's what it's all about, people.
>  > >
>  > > Pikslaverk will pay accepted artists and speakers a small fee but we
>  > > cannot cover travel costs and lodging. We can however assist selected
>  > > practitioners in finding funding to cover these costs. We would
>  > > especially encourage people from nordic countries to apply.
>  > >
>  > > The official deadline for submissions is September 30, 2008. But we
> will
>  > > do our best to accomodate those who may need to reach travel-grant
>  > > applications before that time, such as the KKNord Mobility grants where
>  > > the deadline is September 3, 2008. SO PLEASE GET YOUR APPLICATIONS
> IN ASAP!
>  > > _______________________________________________
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>  > >
>
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