Bajo el título ACUERDOS POSIBLES, el proceso de trabajo durante el encuentro que tendrá lugar en Cádiz (14-17 junio) se organizará en torno a tres grandes temas:
ACORDAR. Sostenibilidad de las prácticas artísticas. ARTICULAR. Colaboración público-privada. ATRAVESAR. Movilidad y visibilidad.
Estos temas han sido planteados por la organización a partir de una serie de entrevistas realizadas a un colectivo de cincuenta profesionales del sector de la danza, las artes de movimiento y la creación contemporánea de la comunidad iberoamericana y de otros ámbitos culturales y sociales.
Los tres temas clave se abordarán durante el encuentro en sendos grupos de trabajo* independientes.
El objetivo de cada grupo será debatir el tema planteado, hacer un diagnóstico de la situación actual al respecto, trazar líneas estratégicas de futuro y, finalmente, lanzar una propuesta común de proyecto que pueda ser desarrollado de forma colectiva después del encuentro.
Cada grupo de trabajo estará coordinado por un grupo de mediadores, encargados de facilitar el curso de los debates y su documentación.
Una publicación recogerá los resultados finales.
Organización del trabajo durante el encuentro en Cádiz
Jueves 14 junio
16:30 - Apertura institucional. 17:00 - Conferencia inaugural: Presentación del proyecto Fundación Los Comunes.
Viernes 15 junio
9:00 - 10:00 - Clase colectiva de Naam Yoga. 10:00 - 14:00 - Grupos de trabajo*. 16:00 - 17:30 - Presentaciones de proyectos relacionados con las temáticas de MOV-S 2012.
Sábado 16 junio
9:00 - 10:00 - Clase colectiva de Naam Yoga. 10:00 - 14:00 - Grupos de trabajo*. 16:00 - 17:30 - Presentaciones de proyectos relacionados con las temáticas de MOV-S 2012. Domingo 17 junio
12:00 - 14:00 - Presentación de las conclusiones de los grupos de trabajo y cierre de MOV-S.
*En los tres grupos de trabajo habrá una mesa de trabajo en portugués y otra en inglés, así como traducción simultánea al inglés.
Muelle 3 ha compartido con MOV-S un documento que recoge las conclusiones que surgieron durante la celebración del Laboratorio Visiones Compartidas, un encuentro de tres sesiones que tuvo lugar en Bilbao el pasado mes de enero y que reunió a artistas y consultores del ámbito cultural de Euskadi.
Proponen dos líneas de trabajo interesantes: la Clínica de Proyectos y Crear a partir de lo que hay. Proyecto de Proyectos.
Muelle 3 es un espacio de Bilbao gestionado por artistas que trabaja para entretejer contextos y experiencias para la innovación artística y social desde la danza y otras disciplinas. Quiere posibilitar encuentros, flujos y reflexiones para el cultivo de la creación, investigación y formación en artes escénicas.
El Laboratorio Visiones Compartidas tiene por finalidad establecer un punto de encuentro, uniendo miradas híbridas, de profesionales de la creación y consultores del ámbito cultural, para compartir conocimientos y reflexiones sobre temas diversos de gran interés como la profesionalización del sector, el emprendizaje, la ideación de nuevos proyectos y escenarios en un marco de precariedad, etc.
Dicho laboratorio se realiza junto el grupo consultor AIC, gestión de capital intelectual.
5th International CHOREOGRAPHIC CAPTURES Competition
For the fifth time, JOINT ADVENTURES is inviting choreographers, dancers, film and (multi-)media artists to develop new aesthetic approaches and visual languages for choreography and film in a 60-second ad format in the CHOREOGRAPHIC CAPTURES context.
We are searching for works that operate choreographically with the film medium, react creatively towards movement, leave room for experimentation and initiate unusual aesthetic dialogues with the film audience: “Expanded Choreography”. The objective is to discover the endless choreographic possibilities within film – with, but also separated from the moving body in front of a camera, as well as in editing, rhythm, abstraction or animation.
All information required for participating in the competition is available at: choreooo.org
Reblogged from ART&education
http://www.artandeducation.net/paper/something-out-of-nothing-marcia-tucker-jeffrey-deitch-and-the-de-regulation-of-the-contemporary-museum-model/
“Who needs yet another anthology about Andy Warhol”!? The question came to mind upon seeing, in 2010, the October special issue devoted to an artist for which there seems to be a constant abundance of critical attention.[1] A satisfactory answer did not fail to arrive soon thereafter in an interview with the former dealer and newly appointed director of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Jeffrey Deitch. “For Jeffrey Deitch, Andy Warhol is a longtime influence,” wrote Jori Finkel in her tellingly entitled interview “His Pop Idol,” which, one sentence after another unraveled Deitch’s layman understanding of Warhol’s practice, stripping the work of its subversive, radical, and queer complexities. Deitch’s translation of Warhol’s artwork, actions and intensions shifted the artist’s infamous proclamations just enough to seemingly remain felicitous to their original context, but in fact left the Warholian operation flat by taking its highly contrived words literally. As Finkel cited Deitch:
‘Andy loved American establishment institutions like Citibank, the same way he loved kids who just graduated from Princeton dressed in their preppy clothes,’ Deitch says of the self-proclaimed ‘business artist’ who once quipped, ‘Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art.’[2]
Clearly, this is an a-historical reading of Warhol’s performative opposition to expressionism and its suppression of art’s relationship to money. To take Warhol at face value seems convenient, especially for all the art dealers who are raking in record amounts set by the trade in his work, as they scurry to sell it sans its campiness and often to collectors steeped in homophobic culture. But if art dealers care to devalue the work’s meaning for gain there is probably not much that we can do about it—commerce in art in the United States has never been regulated. However, mandated to self-regulate are museums, whose guidelines do in fact suggest that they have an advanced understanding of art and adhere to ethical standards.[3]
Herein lay the stakes of the corporatization of museums that has been escalating in the U.S. since the 1970s. The increasing sway of a power/money nexus over the operation of museums has been rapidly turning into control over content executed by individuals who are unprepared for the task and hence substitute opinion for knowledge. Acquisition, scholarship and curatorial work in museums should not only be in the hands of specialists, but should also adhere to the ethical guidelines—there to ensure that institutions holding patrimony in public trust are capable of making decisions for posterity. [4] I argue that this is particularly important in the case of contemporary art as we lack the perspective of time to determine significance. Given our proximity to the subject matter it is only sensible that, in order to make sound decisions about acquisitions and programming, leaders should either have an understanding of historical processes or be versed in theoretical frameworks to help guide decisions that will impact the future.[5]
Deitch was recruited from New York to Los Angeles by Eli Broad, a patron well known for his insistence on control in return for his gifts.[6] On the one hand there is nothing new under the sun when a businessman has sway over cultural issues, as Jennifer Donnelly explains about the U.S. context:
The link between business and museums is evident in the profiles and policies of directors, as well as in the contents of the collections themselves. In a country without the tradition of royal, religious, or federal patronage the cornerstone of the first European museums, it has been private individuals, often businesspeople, who have stepped in to help fund buildings, donate artworks, and fill leadership positions as board members and presidents. U.S. museums still receive far less public funding than their counterparts abroad. As a result, American art museum directors have long had to maintain links with private business, in order to fulfill the fundamental objectives of acquiring, exhibiting, and interpreting works of art.[7]
On the other hand, the degree of control exercised by patrons has varied historically, and also varies according to individual institutions. Yet, what has become increasingly problematic in the atmosphere of deregulation, escalating since the 1970s, is the return to a model Vera Zolberg has characterized as the: “pre-professional era,” where businessmen controlled the function and content of museums.[8] Most recently, blatant undemocratic practices have been openly exercised, becoming practically permissible.[9] It seems that anyone footing enough of the bill can institutionalize their personal taste while exploiting the benefits of tax deduction. For example, rather than choosing to strengthen one of the city’s existing institutions, Broad, other wealthy Americans before him, opted to add another museum that will carry his name, taking control over urban-scale design decisions while receiving rebates from public monies.[10] Like many of the other private museums, decisions are made autocratically, oblivious to appropriate democratic processes that were specifically outlined to sustain a self-regulating system. As successful as they may be in boosting or dealing, Broad or Deitch each have a very different set of expertise than scholars, or other professionals, who have the depth and breadth to foresee what will matter for future generations.[11] Being a successful collector or dealer does not qualify one to make substantial decisions towards our collective cultural patrimony. The problem is not with their taste per se—both figures have a proven track record in collecting or the business of art. The setback is that they have not the critical capacity to understand the facts of their limitations, and it is in these hands that decisions about acquisition, and more dangerously de-accession, will be placed. I claim that having failed to absorb the critical lessons of the postmodern period, the corporate model today can be compared not only with the U.S. pre-professional model, but even with an early framework of Renaissance collecting and classification.
This paper imagines a future where there exists a distinction between opinion and knowledge, and that museums remember that it is their job to evaluate quality outside market considerations and programing driven by ratings. Since in the U.S. the reality is a dependency on private and corporate funds, it is there that the need for a scholarly approach should be impressed, and it is museum professionals that have to advance this imperative. Change can only happen if we continue to press for a cultural shift in values, and it is the onus not only of professionals but also scholars and intellectuals to exercise their knowledge and positions ethically and to resist the “networking imperative” highlighted by Isabel Graw.[12] A model for a better money/art relationship exists already, particularly appropriate for the medium-sized contemporary art museum. The unprecedented structure developed by Marcia Tucker, the founding director of The New Museum, was a non-corporate contemporary art museum in the U.S. context that emerged at the same time as a new market structure is emerging, with Deitch largely at the helm.
Given the influence of the New Museum and its importance in defining and sustaining artistic practices that matters now, this paper highlights the unique relationship set up by Tucker between institutional practices and programs, urging a return to her museum structure.[13] Putting her writing and lectures into context I outline a position within a history of perspectives and debates regarding the appropriate expertise and ethical guidelines of museums and collecting. It examines the waning of museum self-regulation in the context of the escalation of the global art market and asks what it may mean to attempt objectivity and scientificity in an age that challenged these modern notions, and what kind of guidelines we may set to insure that our museums mount substantial exhibitions and collect significant and representative work.
An Abridged History of Curatorial Expertise
It is perhaps best to first ask what is the museum’s scholarly framework and how has it evolved? The development of collecting and classification between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment can be generally described as a gradual and highly flawed stride towards the “scientific,” ending with doubt of the latter’s methods with the advent of postmodernism. In the 16th and 17th century collecting and classification relied on the categories of the curious and the marvelous inherited from the medieval emphasis on wonder as the organization principle of the world.[14] For the most part, princely and aristocratic collections strove for some scheme of order based on poetic or literary structures, and were more formal than didactic. It was scholars, Jesuits and professionals (such as botanists) that began building private collections of natural and artificial objects as depositories of resources, refining their encyclopedic impulse into the early methods for scientific classification.[15] Scholars still debate whether and to what degree those methods were indeed scientific, as they were of course tied to contemporaneous belief systems, their knowledge often subjected to ideologies in support of networking and the perpetuation of commerce, self-aggrandizing or religious proselytizing.[16] Notwithstanding, the point here is that scientificity became a value, a form of authority that necessitated either being a specialist or hiring one, significant for example in the case of the Medici family, as Giuseppe Olmi writes:
The need to legitimize the Grand Duke and his dynasty meant that the glorification of the prince, the celebration of his deeds and the power of his family had constantly to be exposed to the eyes of all and to be strongly impressed on the mind of every subject.
This transition from private to public also entailed a new arrangement of the collection. Works of art and antiquities gradually came to be seen as status symbols and instruments of propaganda, while grand-ducal policy increasingly brought scientific research under state patronage.[17]
As Olmi concludes, it was ultimately a turn to specialty knowledge that influenced the reorganization of museums in the 18th century.
During the Enlightenment period the earlier connoisseur and gentlemanly hang of the fine arts eventually gave way to classification by national schools and chronological installation. These methods then served to promote the ideology of the nation state, while museum treasures came to be considered as the heritage of the entire nation.[18] Based in the rational and reformative intentions of the Enlightenment progress paradigm scientificity and scholarly approaches became the articulated means for the organization of materials, also supporting the architectural scheme and the design of the space.[19] Throughout the Modern period museums engaged in gradual self-correction, advancing through dialectical criticism of former methods. Two major philosophical underpinnings underlie the resulting models. A depoliticized Hegelian contemplative museum and the didactic one, both nevertheless relying on authority derived from scholarship.[20]
In the U.S. context the establishment of art historical departments in universities propelled the professionalization of museums in the early 20th century and curatorial and managerial roles from the late 1920s and on, mostly under the influence of Paul Sachs’s “museum course” at Harvard. A generation of museum professionals became his legacy, forming such strong art historical positions as Alfred Barr’s at the MOMA. Between the late Modern age and postmodernism, advancement of social, political and philosophical critique culminated with the discrediting of scientific certitude and curatorial method became an arena for political debate. From the late 1960s into the 1990s a wave of protest followed by subsequent scholarly analysis challenged museums, and in the 1980s and 1990s focused on the questions of representation in the institutional context. Institutional ideology and methodologies were analyzed, examining in detail how they framed and contextualized the meaning of objects.[21] The demand that museums change their administrative structure and content was voiced strongly by women and minorities, such that it practically characterizes the period. These insights were so significant that they manifested publically, demonstrations commencing with the campaign against the Metropolitan Museum’s Harlem on My Mind (1968), followed by protests against the Whitney Museum for American Art (where Marcia Tucker had worked until 1976) and the Museum of Modern Art, leading to the formation of new alliances between different minority groups, and also Leftist artist groups, demanding that museums better serve the public by changing administrative approaches.[22]
When museums began responding to these public demands, the process was dialectical. When well-intended display and exhibitions were found to have been based in inherited historical biases that replicated structures of social injustice, they were then followed by attempts at correction, and so on the cycle repeated.[23] My point here in presenting this complex history in its abridged form is to underscore a development towards an ideal of social justice. For the most part today museums are still operating between the two historical poles of the didactic versus the contemplative, which can be said have been replaced by an opposition between the political and the experiential. It is widely acknowledged that political work can be easily subsumed into the experiential model, but there still exist a difference between art that associates human development and progress with social justice, and that which is concerned with market value and profit.
Spinning the Loophole: the Monetization of the Art Object
In 1970s U.S. financial decline and inflation drove museums to heavy dependence on corporate sponsorship, which in return influenced content in direct and indirect ways. As Hans Haacke observed:
Certainly, shows that could promote critical awareness, […] have a slim chance of being approved—not only because they are unlikely to attract corporate funding, but also because they could sour relations with potential sponsors for other shows. Consequently, self-censorship is having a boom.[24]
Led by a way of thinking exemplified by the Guggenheim’s director Thomas Krens, attitudes shifted in the late 1980s and early 1990s when museums themselves began to assume a corporate logic, to a greater degree of consequence, as Rosalind Krauss outlined:
This bizarre Gestalt-switch from regarding the collection as a form of cultural patrimony or as specific and irreplaceable embodiments of cultural knowledge to one of eying the collection’s contents as so much capital—as stocks or assets whose value is one of pure exchange and thus only truly realized when they are put in circulation—seems to be the invention not merely of dire financial necessity: a result, that is, of the American tax law of 1986 eliminating the deductibility of the market value of donated art objects. Rather, it appears the function of a more profound shift in the very context in which the museum operates—a context whose corporate nature is made specific not only by the major sources of funding for museum activities but also, closer to home, by the makeup of its boards of trustees.[25]
Krauss traces the process by which the bonds issued by the Guggenheim to fund their expansion were ultimately leveraged by the collection.[26] In effect placing what was entrusted to them for safekeeping at a risk of falling into private hands, this move directly violated the public trust for the sake of what Marcia Tucker termed the: “mindless expansion in American museums.”[27] Indeed, why would growth, the logic of the so-called free market, even be an ideal for museums? Doesn’t sustainability seem more appropriate? The automatic adoption of the model of growth was part and parcel of the overall atmosphere of deregulation, as Philip Weiss wrote: “To a great extent the museum community’s crisis results from the free-market spirit of the 1980s. The notion of the museum as a guardian of the public patrimony has given way to the notion of a museum as a corporate entity with a highly marketable inventory and the desire for growth.”[28]
Initially, other museum directors criticized the overall direction the Guggenheim was taking.[29]Yet soon thereafter the MOMA and the Metropolitan began emulating some of what their directors initially criticized, mounting what are termed “fluff” exhibitions—populist and easily funded. In an article named after a remark made by then director of the Metropolitan Museum, Philippe de Montebello: “A museum is not a business. It is run in a businesslike fashion,” Andrea Fraser observed the extent to which this structural shift has further taken over every aspect of the museum:
The continuing rise in corporate sponsorship and decline in public spending is only a small part of this trend. Much more striking are the changes in the structure, organization, and orientation of institutions themselves, as well as within art as a professional field.[30]
In our contemporary situation the blatant conflicts of interest are so extreme such that the authority of our institutions of public trust become questionable. As Isabel Graw writes:
This kind of mix-up occurs, for example, when museum trustees try to influence the institution’s acquisition policy in such a way as to enhance the perceived value of works they themselves own. Another example is the now-pervasive figure of the “collector-dealer,” who tends to claim the additional function of a curator or publicist. He collects and deals in art, speculating on the appreciation of his purchases, which he buys at attractive prices, possibly splitting resulting resale profits with the gallerist. Practices that in other fields would be denounced as criminal or insider-trading are commonplace in the art market.[31]
The corporatization of museums ran parallel to an unprecedented growth of the art market, which I hypothesize is the direct result of the establishment and promotion of the art-advisory departments by major banks and auction houses.[32] The art-advisory department at Citibank, in association with Sotheby Parke Bernet, was modeled after a program developed by the British Rail Pension Fund, which ceased its operation because of the clear conflict of interest created when specialist advice came from the same source as the sale. As Lee Rosenbaum writes: “[l]ike the British Rail Program, Citibank’s program is rife with conflict of interest and will not necessarily benefit the people is purports to serve.”[33] In the U.S. the art advisory service was devised primarily by Jeffrey Deitch and according to him aimed to bring “stability and liquidity to the art market.”[34] Liquidity and its aftermath were indeed introduced, but stability not. Following the 1970s recession there was a perceived notion of art as boom/bust resistant and thus more stable than other investment vehicles, but this was partially refuted in the 1990s when art prices fluctuated dramatically. The selective elite services, expanded later to other banks and auction houses, provided uninitiated investors with information and assistance with art collecting, artificially growing the market and creating inflation of prices.[35] The services expanded internationally, targeting and exploiting open markets such as Japan during its real-estate boom.[36] In effect, the status of the art object had been reformulated as asset, with mortgage-type deals offered by banks and auction houses.[37] The influx of new collectors, a globally expanding market, and the new system, drove prices to unprecedented peaks, followed by dramatic fluctuation.[38] Art turned into big business, pushing museums out of the market. Unable to purchase art at bubble prices dependency on collector gifting increased. The consequential current reign of the philanthropist effect is a throwback to the pre-professional condition of the late 19th century.
Today, where there is miniscule governmental support of the arts, in the U.S. cultural institutions are so bound to private interests that the prevailing sense is that there exists no way out.[39] In 2006 the threat on fractional giving evoked a massive outcry from museums fearing the loss of their major acquisition avenue.[40] Letter-writing campaigns were effective, and the law changed in part in 2008. It seems that this is the extent to which museum professionals can have a say in the system, begging the government to retain tax-deductions that grants advantages to wealthy individuals and is thus glaringly unequal.[41] This creates a paradoxical situation where in this late age museums are still servicing class discrimination. Of course, fighting partial giving would be detrimental to museums within the existing system, demonstrating the powerlessness of these institutions to support any kind of broader structural change, and underscoring how they are confined to serve the existing socio-economic order.
“By conviction Alone:” Marcia Tucker’s New Museum, the Self-Regulating Institution
Yet the sense of helplessness in regards to bettering the system is false. One feasible project that worked against the grain took place simultaneously with the corporatizing of museums and at the same time when art advisory boards were artificially expanding the commerce in art. There exists a concrete model worth revisiting and foregrounding as an option. From 1977 to 1998 Marcia Tucker theorized and implemented an unprecedented experimental approach to exhibiting contemporary art, and brought the museum and its program to international prominence. Her decision to open yet another museum in an already culturally rich city aimed to fill a gap created by the limited attention paid to the work of living artists, as well as address discrimination of women and minorities by existing New York institutions. Tucker based her administrative structure on an academic rather than a corporate system, implementing peer-reviewed selection processes and committee-based decision making. Importantly, many of the boards and committees consisted of artists and took diversity as its primary criteria. An experimental model of a rotating, rather than a permanent collection, was in constant consideration. Tucker developed a working model for a contemporary museum, persuading her trustees and donors to allow the museum its intellectual freedom, effectively mediating between the radical ideas of artists and scholars and the mainstream reality of the museum as an institution. Unfortunately, it has been all but displaced since her departure from the museum in 1998, its feasibility as a system has not been considered in the planning, building, or expansion, of a host of recent contemporary museums (including the New Museum itself), all of which follow corporate models and seem to address first and foremost the concerns of private and corporate donors.[42] The New Museum was far from perfect during Tucker’s tenure, riddled with internal conflicts and multiple crises. Yet as experimental and difficult to sustain as it was, it nevertheless offers the best case study for thinking and rethinking the administrative structure, the program and their inter-connectedness in the American museum dedicated to contemporary art.
In the museum’s nonprofit proposal Tucker outlined the mission and structure of the museum:
It will focus on work which does not have sufficient outlet in the present museum or gallery structure of New York, and/or work which is not being presented within a critical and scholarly context. […] It is intended as a forum for the kind of visual and verbal exchange between artists and the public that existed in the 1920’s and 1930’s when the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Studio Club were first formed.
The New Museum’s projected scope would cover the area between the small, non-historically oriented “alternate spaces” which deal with the work of younger and lesser known artists, and the larger, bureaucratically top-heavy museums. […] Establishment of a permanent collection, while not an immediate priority, is intended to provide an extension of the historical framework offered by critical essays and documentation.[43]
The description of the planned exhibition program also discussed: large solo exhibitions for artists whose work has not been shown in depth in NY; group exhibitions covering themes in contemporary art which have not yet been examined in depth; a regional exchange program; circulating NY artists around the U.S. and visa versa; small solo shows for artists with no NY representation; and community access exhibitions of modest scale, showcasing visual material which is not generally considered to be within the aesthetic mainstream. The museum intended to collect slides of exhibitions as scholarly materials, and expressed a strong commitment to forming a depository of scholarly resources that could also support artists and collectors interested in artists working outside the gallery system. The intent was to reach as large audience as possible through multiple programs that would cross audience, as well as offering free admission.
“I know how ambitious the project is, and how impossible it must seem to those who do not feel that a museum can be created by conviction alone. I believe otherwise. I am convinced that the best and the most difficult art of our time is essential to human development.”[44] Passion, and the tenacity to sustain it, drove Tucker to continue and fight for what she believed was right. Her letters, minutes from boards meetings, and lectures, all show her working relentlessly to persuade her trustees rather than allowing them to dictate content. Describing her administrative and programming vision as an “egalitarian mode,” Tucker was nevertheless not anti-corporate by any means, for she understood very well the realities within which she was operating. Instead, her actions reveal a persistent attempt to change the ways in which the relation of corporations to museums was established, and to convince corporate entities and private donors that it is ultimately in their best interest to allow museums to function through a cultural and not a free-market logic. Talking to a group of corporate collectors in Toronto in 1985 Tucker emphasized that: “we show work, ideally, which is experimental, difficult, challenging, intellectually provocative.”[45] Through the structure and style of her presentation Tucker issued a gentle yet forceful criticism of the relation of corporations and museums, culminating a list of negative trends with:
6. Museums only doing funded shows.
7. Museums only planning shows, which can be funded.
8. Museums doing post-opening receptions at discos like the palladium.
9. The Palladium doing shows that museums should be doing.
And about three dozen other examples of expediency, conflict of interest, exploitation, showmanship, and decadence. Sort of a fall of the Roman Empire scenario…[46]
Instead Tucker offered examples of collaborative or performative practices and those that are not market-driven or even based in the art-world, also giving concrete examples for how corporations could support these modes of art-making and contribute to art and education without exercising direct or coercive control. She detailed how and why content control would in fact prevent museums from supporting practices most likely to retrospectively become significant. As the very essence of contemporary art lies in the unknown and not in what is already known or expected, museums should be given the room to facilitate what is radical, or at that point may seem radical.
In her notes for a talk entitled “The New Museum and its Programs,” Tucker discussed bringing to the New Museum various exhibitions that subverted her own taste, that were incredibly difficult for the trustees, or that deliberately juxtaposed multiple points of view on truth and history—all of which caused her: “a lot of problems with trustees, who remember ‘the good old days’, i.e., the days when the value of art had to do with its appearance.”[47] Nevertheless, her ability to communicate to her board that a moment’s present will be the future’s past gained her the freedom to program controversial materials, some of which of course became important in retrospect. Leading trustees to allow for artistic speech with which they disagreed, Tucker facilitated a democratic structure. Giving the Hans Haacke Retrospective as an example, she explained how: “the Museum was not a political platform in and of itself, but […] many artists were making art which was socially committed.”[48] This way of thinking and her ability to “sell” political art to a board of trustees was key to her vision.
In a letter to her board in 1993 Tucker emphasized how the relation of program and structure was facilitated through participatory management, various kinds of advisory groups, and housing a semi-permanent collection. [49] She discussed the museum’s aspiration to be multicultural and multi racial not only in exhibitions, but also in staff and governance on all levels, describing how the radicalism of the late 70s and early 80s has by then been accepted and emulated by institutions. Detailing the programming focus on specific socio-political concerns; on interdisciplinary work that collapses media divisions; on the underrated work of women and minority artists; the critical exploration of popular culture; and the intersection art and life, Tucker underscored that the museum aimed to create a lab organization where curators could experiment. This was achieved by inviting independent curators to create exhibitions un-supervised, co-curating with other institutions, paying honoraria to artist, commissioning major work, and placing a strong emphasis on education by incorporating viewer response into exhibitions as well as training on site staff to interact with the public. Citing the publications and grants as evidence of the museum’s strong commitment to scholarship, she summarized how highly regarded it has come to be as a model of radical pedagogy. Nevertheless, she mentions accessibility of the materials as one of the challenges to the museum. Pointing to how artwork today is done not only for the sake of aesthetics but within a social context, she mentions how challenging it is in terms of display and the flexibility required in order to exhibit it. Aware of the shortcomings of her idealistic structure, Tucker also responded to the board’s expressed concern regarding the reduction of the original ambitions plans, cut down due to budget and staff shortage. She explained that, sixteen years after the opening, people are no longer willing to work for low wages or for free for the sake of a cause.
Tucker worked relentlessly to convince publics about her way of thinking. In a lecture entitled “The Fight for the Right to be Wrong: Museums and the ‘Cutting Edge,’” delivered at the Aspen Design Conference in 1988, she framed the historical structure of museums as institutions frozen in time, proceeding to elaborate upon recent changes, while highlighting the paradox of contemporary art museums that institutionalize the present.[50] Identifying that the restructuring of institutions was gradually following the corporate model, she contrasted the corporate model’s constant aim for success with the idea that contemporary art museums should be allowed to fail. Her humorous example of how Hilton Kramer’s bad reviews of her work have helped her built a successful career gave realistic traction to her argument. She then continued to emphasize why it is so important to constantly question the concept of cutting edge, as otherwise it can so easily be co-opted as a commodity, fashion, or style of the new.
In “The Ten Most Pressing Issues for Contemporary Art Museums Today, and Some Uncommon Solutions,” delivered at the MOCA in 1988, Tucker discussed Museum Ethics stating that: “[…] museums today are clearly not simply motivated by pure scholarship (if there even were such a thing). All of us are struggling competitively for funds (and some for survival), and we’re differentiated only by the extent to which we understand our complicity in the process.”[51] This sober proclamation serves as a reminder that running a museum based on scholarship, and governed by an intentionally and actively democratic structure, is in no way impossible or utopian.
Perhaps for larger museums a cultural change in values seems out of bounds, but for the medium-sized contemporary art museum it is possible to imagine that a sustainable ethical structure and an emphasis on scholarship are not impossible. Under Marcia Tucker the New Museum gained momentum as one of the world’s most important centers of contemporary art. Following Tucker’s track record I assert that in order to remain relevant as a museum of contemporary art it cannot be controlled by corporate interests, for the logic of business is always too conservative to be able to facilitate what art may need for its future. While historically the establishment of U.S. museums has always been by the wealth of private money, those that were museums of contemporary art at their time of inception have not managed to sustain their viability as such, and it is precisely into this gap that the New Museum had stepped in 1977.
Conclusion
Above and beyond Tucker’s model respected the intelligence of her audience as well as that of corporate entities.[52] Confusing populism and accessibility, the logic of the corporate model attempts to make everything easy rather than consider the possibility of education seems condescending in contrast. Deitch’s invocation of Andy Warhol neglects to distinguish between popular culture, that can be subversive and political, and mass appeal, which is closer to entertainment and its focus on attendance as rating symptomatic. Art as celebrity culture fosters identification rather than critical distance and foregrounds experience over thinking. This content is echoed in the administrative structure, where dominant figures lead according to what they think is right—after all, they can always “prove” their success by showing attendance numbers. As such, debate and dialogue are rendered moot, denying museums of their societal role as arenas for scholarly experimentation and the development of consciousness.
Museums should be democratic, not autocratic, using peer-review and committee based systems to assure good practices and the sustainability of the symbolic value of their collections. Drawing from centuries of improvement as well as from recent scholarship that has refined its positions through endless debate, professional associations have developed guidelines, which in the U.S. today are simply not followed. Keeping with the guidelines of regulatory bodies not only contributes to their accumulative knowledge, but also has a proven track record for better chances of success. No system is perfect, nor can it make guarantees, but by facilitating broader perspectives it is most likely to have a healthier outcome. For example, observing diversity guidelines such as those outlined by the AAM, is more likely to yield a well-rounded program that will not in retrospect disappear into the sea of mediocrity. Democracy is not just an umbrella under which things happen, and it is the role of its institutions to practice it constantly in order to uphold it. What kind of culture are we facilitating if decisions about cultural heritage are made behind closed doors (as do those about deaccessioning) or for the direct benefit of an amateur elite? We have historically surpassed this structure, and should fight to resist this retrograde trend.
The recent shift to the autocratic museum is potentially unsustainable, as we may very well see a cultural shift that will render their criteria extraneous. With the recent budget crisis and its aftermath, the growing public mistrust of banks and corporations, and the invigoration of the left, it is possible to imagine a cultural shift that will devalue the spectacular and the populist, where much of the overpriced contemporary art will eventually take an unrecoverable dip. What would it take for curators, critics, scholars and intellectuals, to devise ways to work within and in between the system to affect such a change? Can we at least encourage self-regulation amongst ourselves?
The seed is still there. Some of the corporate museums harbor positive elements within them. At the (new) New Museum, projects such as Museum as Hub—a collaboration between five international organizations focused on intellectual exchange—has been facilitating sophisticated and timely forums.[53] As for the L.A. MOCA time will tell, for some of the museum’s future plans still hold scholarly remnants from the past.
This article is written in hopes that not only will museum directors and personnel push to rethink their institutions considering Tucker’s model, but that they will also encourage their patrons to direct their energies towards self-education and leave decision making processes to professionals. As for the professionals, again, they too should practice a greater degree of self-regulation.
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These workshops explore the genre of Screendance. The workshops are based on the unique shooting technique designed by Jeannette Ginslov namely, Camera As….Loading The Frame In Screendance. This was inspired by Ginslov's research on: Aristotle’s notion of Rhetoric, dance filmmaker Douglas Rosenberg’s “camera as carnivore” and Ginslov's research on capturing Affect. A workshop on editing, DVD production, uploading, documenting and archiving your work, could also be arranged.
For examples of previous workshop outcomes see:
uValo (2012) for Screendance Africa (Pty) Ltd Workshop
Albany Grove Dance Film Project, Durban South Africa.
This screendance work has been selected to be screened at the Durban International Film Festival 2013
Guy Ndoli, the Director of this work won the Jury's Choice Award at the Student Screendance competition
at the University of Utah May 2013. The dance video was produced during a Screendance workshop
that Jeannette Ginslov conducted in Kigali Rwanda, 16-20 April 2012.
Camera As….Loading The Frame In Screendance
This process highlights affect and the intention of the screendance maker. It amplifies the audience’s reception and appreciation of the emotional and kinesthetic, in a non-linear narrative framework. Through a series of shooting exercises, using formal as well as experimental or improvised shooting methodologies, static and hand-held camera, with story boards or scores for an improvised shoot. The workshops focuses on the use of postmodern dance practice as well as the cinematic genre of Dogme 95 and a non-linear filmic practice.
Outcomes:
a) Each participant will plan and shoot a one-minute edit in camera dance video
b) Teams will then plan, shoot and edit, a 2-3 minute screendance work. Each team will elect a director, cameraperson, editor, choreographer, dancers, producer etc.
Other modules could include:
a) Documenting Your Work, Performance and Rehearsals
b) Screendance for live performance works
c) Screendance Documentaries
d) Vlogging
e) Uploading, Promoting and Distributing your work using social media
f) Shorts, Trailers, Teasers
g) Editing – basic using iMovie, Advanced using Final Cut Pro
h) DVD Production
i) Pitching your ideas - loglines
For more details see Jeannette Ginslov’s online Dance Film’s Association document where she offers a detailed synthesis on Aristotle’s Rhetoric and how to apply theoretical concepts to the filmmaking process in "Camera as........Loading the frame in Screendance" 16 August 2011. http://www.dancefilms.org/dfa-october-news/
Concept Marlon Barrios Solano and Jeannette Ginslov
Produced & Presented by Jeannette Ginslov A Movestream and www.dance-techTV co-production
1) Online Video Production
MoveStream provides an interdisciplinary platform that investigates the crossover between the boundaries usually found in media/dance/cinema/video and the internet 2.0. It provides a fresh and adaptive evolving domain for the public to engage with culture, choreography and performance. As a networked phenomenon, it encourages a much needed flow and exchange in Screendance discourse. It offers a new Screening portal for Screendance makers with the possibility of developing new online performance vocabularies that reposition dance performance as a multi-sited, digitally mediated art form. Ease of accessibility encourages viewers to engage with the ontologies that are foregrounded in the interviews. It also serves as an open archive for Screendance works, preserving the past with the capability of re-informing the present.
Video interviews and vlogs of performances can be produced for festivals, conferences, workshops etc. This could work in tandem with dance-tech.netTV. Teams of vloggers can be trained to shoot and upload material from the festivals onto dance-tech.netTV
2) Lectures
A lecture on MoveStream and the use of the Internet 2.0 as a promotional tool as well as vlogging, documentaries, teasers for the promotion of work.
This will include a demonstration of MoveStream’s videos on line that use tagging and annotations as a tool for online distribution and sharing.
3) Workshops
a) Vlogging – shooting and editing interviews, events and documentaries
b) Shooting and editing trailers and teasers for online distribution
c) Uploading and sharing online
d) Creating an online archive
Online Movestream Interviews for dance-techTV (2010 - 2011)
Online Documents: “What you see is what you get!” 21 Hot/Easy/Quick Vlogging Tips to shoot online interviews by Jeannette Ginslov 07 May 2011. On dance-tech.net
C. SCREENDANCE LECTURES
Jeannette Ginslov offers a variety of lectures based on topics that are pertinent, relevant and useful for any Screendance maker. These are based on Ginslov’s many years of extensive practice and research in the following topics:
Topics
a) “Uncovering the differences of Affect and the haptic in Screendance.” Based on research by Ginslov as Artist -in-Residence for the AffeXity Project with Prof Susan Kozel at MEDEA, a research centre for collaborative media at Malmö University, Sweden
b) “the concrete and the digital - emotional and kinaesthetic amplification of the authentic and digitalised body in screendance” Ginslov’s MSc in Screendance Dissertation topic.
c) Screendance and Augmented Reality using mobile devices with geo-tagging. AffeXity.
d) Social choreographies using online media: AffeXity.
Keynote Lecture:
Screendance and the Global Network - Online Dance Communities: The rise of social media, telematic performance, online curating and platforms dedicated to screendance.
The Gordon Institute of Performing and Creative Arts
Film and Dance Conference, University of Cape Town South Africa 26-28 August 2011
Online Video of GIPCA Conference: Shot & Edited Jeannette Ginslov
Albany Grove Dane Film Project - 22 Nov-02 Dec 2012
GIPCA Dance & Film Workshop Cape Town South Africa 18-22 July 2012
University of Grahamstown - Screendance Residency for Drama Department 06-11 Aug 2012
Ishyo Arts Centre - Kigal RWANDA - 16-20 April 2012
Skolen for Moderne Dans Dance & New Media Dept - Danseformidler Students 4th Year Presentation - Editing and DVD production
2011
Key Note Lecture for GIPCA - Gordon Institute of Performing and Creative Arts, Dance & Film Conference Sun 28 Aug 09h00. “Screendance and the Global Network - Online Dance Communities” University of Cape Town
Open Screendance W/S at AFDA & GIPCA – Cape Town South Africa – 29-31 August
Screendance and Editing Workshops for 4th Year Danseformidler Students from Skolen, Moderne Dans Dance & New Media Dept. at Host Guest Ghost #2, Dansehallerne June/July
Screendance Workshops Skolen for Moderne Dans January Weeks 2 & 3 Direct, Shoot, Edit & Upload 4th Yr & Danseformidler Students
2010
Skolen for Moderne Dans Dance & New Media 1st Yrs & 4th Yrs March
Editing & DVD production Masters Students - Skolen for Moderne Dans April
Open Screendance W/S Level 1 & 2 01-03 Oct and 24-26 Dansehallerne, Cph Dk
SHOOT - Dance for Screen at Moderna Dansteatern, Dans och Cirkus Högskolan University, 18 June 2010 Stockholm, Sweden
2009
Open screendance W/S 12 & 13 December 2009, DanseHallerne, Copenhagen, Denmark
Vesterbro NySkole Dance Explosion for schoolchildren 16 & 19 Nov 2009
Walking Gusto Productions Feb 2009 AFDA, Johannesburg, South Africa
2008
Dance Umbrella Young Choreographic Residency March 2008 FNB Dance Umbrella, Johannesburg, South Africa
* MoveStream is affiliated to dance-techTV. All media produced during the facilitations will appear on MoveStream, on YouTube and Facebook as well as MoveStreamTV linked to dance-techTV.
* *The facilitations may also be combined with Marlon Barrios Solano’s WGL - World Grid Lab as hosted on www.dance-tech.netTV, if we are both invited to the Festival/Event/Facliations. Rates are negotiable.
The recently founded MA Studies in "Choreography and Performance“ and the Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture at Justus-Liebig-University Giessen held two cooperating conferences with similar subjects but different foci. The international symposium „ „Communications: Dance, Politics and Co-Immunity“ “, organized by the MA program in „Choreography and Performance“, asks to what extent dance, in its history as well as its contemporary development, is linked to concepts of the political. The conference „„thinking - resisting - reading the political““, organized by the Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture, asked what specific perspectives and methodological consequences arise for the study of culture that are informed by recent deliberations on the relationship of the political and the aesthetic.
Soul Project, conceived and directed by the legendary David Zambrano, in collaboration with a cast of seven remarkable performers from Mozambique, Slovenia, Greece, Slovakia, the U.S. and Venezuela, invites you to get close with its glorious performers and your fellow audience members as spontaneous solos performed to classic soul tunes erupt all around you. The joy is contagious as dancers strive to embody the dance as deeply and powerfully as soul music greats -- Aretha Franklin, Ike & Tina Turner, Bettye Lavette, Gladys Knight & The Pips among others -- reveal the song.
The U.S. tour of Soul Project is made possible with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, supported by lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Community Connections Fund of the MetLife Foundation, and the Boeing Company Charitable Trust.
10:30 A001: Keynote: Pieter Verstraete on gestures and sound
11:30 Welcome address, William Leahy, Head of School
11:35 – 13:00 Roundtable 1 (with presentations by Julian Henriques, Eirini Nedelkopoulou, Nick Collins)
13:00 Lunch break 14:00 –17:00 Physical Movement/ Sound Lab (001) BadCo with Ivana Ivkovic & Zrinka Uzbinec 14:oo – 17:00 Electronics Lab on Kinect interfaces (003) Ian Winters 14:00 – 17:oo Clinic with Carl Faia (Music and Programming); Presentation of new work/demo by Arthur Elsenaar
Short Coffee break 17:10 Roundtable 2: Reflections on Sound Performance (with presentations by Jay Murphy, Nicolas Salazar-Sutil; Claudia Robles; John Collingswood; Ian Winters)
18:30 Reception / dinner buffet, followed by art openings:
19:30 Installation-Performances (101) (103)(115) (107)(109) "Cabinets of Post-Digital Curiosities": performance installations by Camilla Baratt-Due (N/D), Jörg Brinkmann (D), Arthur Elsenaar (NL), Kate Genevieve & Alex Peckham (UK), Rebecca Horrox (UK) & Dani Ploeger (NL/D/UK)
21:00 Concert & Performance Installations (001) John Collingswood “Duet for Three” / Frieder Weiss, “Blue Flow” / Simon Katan "DarkStar"
Julie Wilson-Bokowiec, with Mark Bokowiec: “V'Oct(Ritual)”
Sunday, April 1
10:00 Presentation: Body Performance Noise (introduction) Darren Vincent Tunstall: Non-verbal communication/embodied experiential knowledge 11:00 Roundtable 3 (Artist presenters: Camilla Baratt-Due, Jörg Brinkmann, Arthur Elsenaar, Kate Genevieve, Rebecca Horrox Response panel: Alissa Clarke (performance studies scholar, De Montfort University), Sophia Gräfe (media art critic, Bauhaus University Weimar), Niall Richardson (media and film theorist, University of Sussex) Chair: Dani Ploeger (Brunel University)
13:00 Lunch break
14:00 Theatre / Sound Lab : KINECT 2, and Frieder Weiss Clinics with Carl Faia, Daniel Ploeger
16:00 Roundtable 4 (moderated by Johannes Birringer, featuring Julie Wilson-Bokowiec and Mark Bokowicz, Nick Till, Frieder Weiss, Carl Faia, Simon Katan, and guests)
Trailblazing Conceptual Walks Organization Announces Third Season Two years ago, Elastic City was just an innovative idea. Poet and performance artist Todd Shalom, then 33, returned to New York from living abroad and wanted to continue to have the feeling of travel while back in his hometown. Drawing upon the community of artists and thinkers he inhabits in New York and around the world, he started Elastic City to present conceptual walks that make audiences active participants in a poetic exchange with the places we live in and visit. The organization, now entering its third season, has already surpassed Shalom’s dream. Over 30 artists thus far have led walks, not only in New York, but also in Detroit, Buenos Aires, London, Reykjavik and Sao Paulo. Upcoming walks are planned for San Francisco, Berlin and Paris.
The new season, which runs April to October 2012, features walks from American and international artists, both emerging and established. These include: Adam Weinert; Andrés Andréani (Argentina); Andrew Mount; Ben Weber; Eileen Myles; Felipe Meres (Brazil); J. Morrison; Jon Cotner; Josely Carvalho (Brazil); LoVid (Tali Hinkis & Kyle Lapidus); Lynn Marie Kirby & Alexis Petty; Maria Chavez; Matthew Radune; Meredith Ramirez Talusan; Michelle Boulé; Miguel Gutierrez; Nancy Nowacek; Neil Goldberg; Niegel Smith; Office of Recuperative Strategies (Christian Hawkey & Rachel Levitsky); Pratt Institute students; Robert Mauksch; Sarah Owens; Todd Shalom; Tomaz Hipólito (Portugal); Xavier Acarin (Spain).
Some highlights include internationally acclaimed dance artist Miguel Gutierrez’s unique “Sensewalks,” which plan to awaken, explore and illuminate the senses through movement-based techniques. He will lead participants through such locales as the High Line, the New York Public Library, the Staten Island Ferry and Prospect Park. “Stories the City Tells Itself” is a walk through the lens of video artist Neil Goldberg that will capture everyday passenger behavior in NYC subways. Using their brand new reality-warping GPS-based smartphone app, iParade, LoVid will trace the path of Alexander Hamilton’s oft-moved house in Hamilton Heights (Harlem).
What follows is a listing of walks offered from April through June.
In "Moss Me," Tomaz Hipólito presents participants with a recipe for a green intervention amidst Manhattan's dense urban landscape. Drawing on Tomaz' background in architecture and his current practice in visual art, the group will identify and evaluate abandoned objects to paint, then use a homemade mixture of moss and yogurt to coat the objects. Individually and in groups, participants will paint these objects, re-engaging the street's detritus.
This walk holds eight people and is presented in partnership with Residency Unlimited and Le Petit Versailles (a program of Allied Productions, Inc). “Moss Me” will be held in English, but Tomaz also speaks Portuguese and Spanish.
Dates/Times Thursday, April 12, 2012 at 6:30pm Wednesday, April 18, 2012 at 6:30pm Wednesday, April 25, 2012 at 6:30pm
Walk Starting Point 346 East Houston St. in Manhattan. "Moss Me" meets outside Le Petit Versailles public garden.
On this walk, video artist Neil Goldberg invites participants to experience the observational processes behind his work in real time. The group will traverse a section of the subway with attention directed to details of the underground environment and nuances of passenger behavior that might otherwise go unnoticed. Goldberg will share his poetic approaches to seeing, refined over 20 years of creating art in New York. This walk holds 15 people and will end inside the Museum of the City of New York's exhibition of Goldberg's work.
This walk is presented in partnership with The Museum of the City of New York. There will be no walk-ups for this walk; prepayment is required.
Dates/Times Thursday, May 10, 2012 at 3:00pm Saturday, May 12, 2012 at 3:00pm
Walk Starting Point The meeting location will be in the Lower East Side and disclosed upon registration.
Duration 2 hours
Admission $25 for non-members; $20 for Museum members, seniors and students
For the first of the four Sensewalks, participants will gather in Prospect Park to investigate the five basic senses—hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and touching—teasing their particular properties apart through anatomical and experiential exercises and then watching how they interact, compete, rise and fall to construct a magical and wondrous reality. Miguel will then lead these new bodies on a trip through the Prospect Park Greenmarket. Be ready to roll in the grass.
Date/Time Saturday, May 19, 2012 at 12:00pm
Walk Starting Point Please meet at the big arch (Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch) at Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn.
Get ready to speed up, slow down, get on your feet and then fall off balance. In the second Sensewalk, Miguel Gutierrez will lead participants in playing with the different components of the movement senses so that every place becomes a potential context for physical adventure. The group will be moved across the water via the Staten Island Ferry where they’ll take their sea legs for a spin.
Date/Time Wednesday, May 23, 2012 at 6:30pm
Walk Starting Point Broadway and Beaver Street in Manhattan, in front of the HSBC bank. Please wear something comfortable that won’t constrain your high kicks!
In the third Sensewalk, we'll go in to go out—way out. Participants will enter the hallowed halls of the New York Public Library to travel into the senses of space and time. Using the simplest of actions – walking, standing, sitting, lying down – the group will find out how our bodies register the poetics of the environment and observe how a seemingly stable environment becomes an arena for change and possibility.
Date/Time Saturday, June 2, 2012 at 1:00pm
Walk Starting Point Meet at the bottom of the front steps of the New York Public Library (the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building) on Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street in Manhattan.
In the fourth and final Sensewalk, participants will take flight on to the High Line to explore an exciting and interconnected array of senses that relate to play, composition, and performance. Using the context of one of the most popular destinations in NYC as a playground, studio and stage, participants will find out how to unleash the art and performance makers inside us, as the group traipses along the slippery lines between participant and observer. Have no fear!
Date/Time Wednesday, June 6, 2012 at 6:30pm
Walk Starting Point Northwest corner of Gansevoort St. and Washington St. in Manhattan
Building upon their work that renews appreciation of the physical environment through a digital lens, LoVid, along with guest performers and their newly developed smartphone application, iParade 2, will lead "Unchanged When Exhumed." Participants will travel the route of Hamilton Grange’s historical move around Harlem. Using locative video that transforms one's surroundings into a virtual set, participants may graze with a hungry tree, safari in jungles between residential homes and the street, and climb hills to uncover an emerald treasure. This walk holds 15 people.
Directed, written, filmed, and produced by LoVid
App development by Sean Montgomery
Soundtrack by Maria Chavez
Theme song by Dan Friel
With appearances by: Juan Pazmino, Pauline Decarmo, Yoni Weiss, Silvia Angulo, Gregory Sheppard, Irene Moon, and Vera Beato Smith
"Unchanged When Exhumed" is made possible with support from DiAP NY City College, Experimental TV Center Finishing Funds, NYSCA, rhizome.org, Franklin Furnace Fund, and Elastic City.
Dates/Times Thursday, June 7, 2012 at 7:00pm Saturday, June 9, 2012 at 4:00pm Saturday, June 9, 2012 at 6:00pm
Walk Starting Point 1619 Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan, outside of Cafe One. Participants should arrive to the walk with a fully charged smartphone (iPhone or Android) and be prepared to download a free App. Headphones are optional.
Hi. My name is Ben. I'm a Capricorn and my spirit animal is a moose.
They say this is the year when everything changes. The sun will flare, the poles will crumble, and the heart of the galaxy will align with the center of the Earth. As humans, we're the shepherds of this cosmic transition. Personally, I'd like to convene with the Mayan ancients as much as the next guy, but it's tough forging meaningful connections in the sweaty New York City summertime.
Let me take you to a tangle of art & industry in LIC, where we'll prepare for this new cycle using techniques from applied theater. We'll peek into a poisoned creek and sculpt our bodies into the baggage we wish to leave behind as we enter the World of the 5th Sun from world of the 7 train.
This walk holds 8 people.
Dates/Times Tuesday, June 12, 2012 at 7:00pm Thursday, June 14, 2012 at 7:00pm Saturday, June 16, 2012 at 7:00pm
Walk Starting Point 46th Ave and Vernon Blvd. in Long Island City, Queens in front of LIC Bar.
Duration 2 hours
Admission $20
About Elastic City
Todd Shalom, a New York native, devised Elastic City while traveling in Peru and founded the organization in 2010. Having worked in a variety of artistic genres (poetry, sound and performance), he decided to expand upon his existing repertoire of sensory-based walks and commission other artists to lead walks in their own disciplines. Elastic City walks explore various planes of human sensory and aesthetic experience, such as dance, architecture, poetry, sound art, the paranormal and ritualistic performance.
Elastic City is now in its third season of presenting conceptual and poetic walks by artists throughout and outside of New York. With this season, over 50 artists will have led walks.
Elastic City has partnered with numerous organizations to co-present its walks, including Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn Flea, Le Petit Versailles, Museum of the City of New York, NY Art Book Fair, Open House NY, Pratt Institute, Residency Unlimited, Wave Hill and Urban Design Week.
In 2012, Elastic City will launch its educational program, beginning with a series of “ways.” Whereas a walk offers the opportunity to participate in a narrative series of poetic moments, "ways" are experiential workshops that explicitly engage participants in *how* to generate these moments through exercises, tools and techniques offered by Elastic City artists. In a "way," participants gather in an intimate group to prompt exchange, tone the gut and sharpen poetic decision-making. Elastic City ways typically do not involve walking and are offered outdoors unless otherwise noted.
Each walk & way lasts approximately 75-120 minutes and costs $20 on average.
Payment for walks & ways can be made on-site or via the Elastic City website at: http://www.elastic-city.org
Elastic City is a non-profit organization awaiting 501c3 status and is currently fiscally sponsored by Flux Factory.
Massachusetts Dance Festival (http:www.massdancefestival) is again creating dances across the state in 2012, on June 23rd and 24th @ Boston University Dance Theatre, 915 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA, 02215, and again September 22nd and 23rd, at UMass Amherst Bowker Auditorium, Amherst, MA, 01003.
Saturday evenings @ 8:00 pm MDF presents 12 professional companies based in Massachusetts, for a multi-cultural, multi-genre sensory spectacular! Sunday afternoons @ 4:00 pm present 12 emergent dance companies, also showcasing the widest variety of high level entertainment from youth groups across the state. Admission: $25 Sat nites, $15 Sun afternoons, with BDA, senior and youth discounts. All tickets are $5 off when ordered in advance, online.
Our Mission:
Massachusetts Dance Festival believes that dance, as a major component of arts and culture, is essential to meaningful lives and healthy communities.
Dance and arts education contribute to quality life in the 21st Century by providing rich education for youth and promoting cultural understanding and tolerance, within diverse communities.
MDF offers annual statewide education workshops and performances that are inclusive of all dance genres. Our festivals provide opportunities for professional and emergent dancers and choreographers, while inspiring community-wide involvement.
MDF seeks to raise the profile of dance as a profession in Massachusetts, as a means to stimulate social and cultural development across our state.
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Help us create enlivened communities! Call today: (781) 6086084; (508) 429-7577
Digital strategy What might a DS look like? Speed/efficiency around what we already do Audience data – more data, and how we might use it
What we do now, expanded: Web email Facebook/twitter You Tube channel Digitizing Study Room/other content Editing/authoring/making DVds
What’s completely new: Integrated web/databases UB website design Study Room/other content online Sharing Doc Bank content with curators online Ebooks/other publishing Wikipedia Library of Performing Rights
Concerns Staff time Staff turnover/knowledge loss Budgets Copyright/permissions
LK Given the Agency's remit, activities and ambitions what are the ways we should be thinking about digital technology (as a resource, as a platform, as a context etc), what possibilities does the future hold for us, and how can we best implement/integrate these thinkings/aspirations into our work given our limited resources of time, people and money?
Mateo Feijoo insta a los países Latinoamericanos a fijar su propia agenda de temas de interés tendiendo en perspectiva y tratando de huir de los errores europeos. Cree en la necesidad de establecer un nuevo código de relación entre artista y estructura y apuesta por MOV-S como curador.
Patricia Picazo Sanz es asistente técnico a la dirección en el Centro Cultural de España en Malabo (Guinea Ecuatorial). Nos habla sobre cómo cree que ha de ser esta cuarta edición del Espacio para el Intercambio Internacional de Danza y Artes del Movimiento MOV-S.
¿Qué preguntas/temas propones para el debate en MOV-S 2012 si queremos hablar de futuro y de otras formas de operar en danza?
• Las danzas afrodescendientes en Iberoamérica y España. • Las fronteras entre el teatro y la danza en África. Más allá de los tópicos africanos. • La danza “en español” en África: Guinea Ecuatorial. • La danza como factor de desarrollo. • Itinerarios escénicos: Proyectos en red, creación en red. • El hip hop, danza urbana ¿global? ¿lenguaje común? • Seguir investigando en las piezas audiovisuales dentro de la danza, la posibilidad de diálogo con ellas.
Teniendo en cuenta que MOV-S se plantea como un proceso y no como un evento, ¿cómo crees que se debería dar continuidad al trabajo? ¿De qué manera propones seguir avanzando sobre los acuerdos? y proyectos que surjan durante el proceso y durante el propio encuentro?
Propondría talleres que lleven a creaciones en red, pequeños proyectos que cada participante pueda llevar a su realidad y continuar allí para un montaje final.
Sin duda crear una red entre las diferentes instituciones/profesionales interesadas en crear un proyecto común.
¿Cómo propones trabajar durante el evento? ¿Qué tipo de actividades/metodologías consideras que se deberían incluir en el programa? ¿Te gustaría proponer alguna dinámica en particular?
Since 2005, on one day, simultaneously around the world, dancers, students, cab drivers, artists, business folk and dreamers, young and old alike put aside their daily grind and unleash their moving creativity in parks, sidewalks, office buildings, schools, museums, subways, anywhere their dancing bodies will fit. Now in it’s eighth year, public art performance piece dance anywhere® will take place on Friday, March 30, 2012 at Noon pacific standard time (PST) 3pm EDT (New York, etc) 9pm in Paris, Rome, etc.
Artist and dance anywhere® creator Beth Fein explains, “When I first thought of dance anywhere® it was just an idea. Imagine if we all took a moment to dance. It changes your day, your mood… when you stop to dance, you find inspiration and creativity you may have forgotten. With tough economic times, and so much divisive discourse, here is common ground we can all enter, even if just for a moment - anyone can dance anywhere.”
At noon (PST) on March 30th, thousands of people in countries (including Estonia, Argentina, Italy, Turkey, Ireland) across the globe, will pause to express themselves through dance. Join us for another year of transforming public spaces and everyday relations into vehicles of inspiration. Anyone is encouraged to participate, and the project involves people of all ages, abilities, nationalities, and backgrounds. It is free for dancers and audience alike. Participants have been professional dancers and artists, plumbers, doctors, soccer players, teachers and politicians. Some dances are choreographed, some are improvised, and some stretch the definition of what dance is
Posted by TMA Hellerau on March 16, 2012 at 9:20am
Open call for CYNETART competition 2012
The international CYNETART competition is open to artists, designers and scientists who dedicate themselves in their artistic and reflective discussion; in particular, to interdisciplinary and hybrid approaches. The call for submissions accompanies the festival every two years since 1996. This competition represents some of Europe's most prestigious prizes in the field of media art.
The following prizes will be awarded:
I. Grant of the Arts Minister of Saxony: 10,000 EUR,
II. The artist-in-residence grant from the Arts Minister of Saxony 2013,awarded in cooperation with the Office of Cultural and Historic Preservation, City of Dresden: 10.200 EUR
III. CYNETART Prize, donated by HELLERAU(European Centre for the Arts): 5,000 EUR
The allocation of additional CYNETART-prices is intended.
CYNETART is an internationally renowned festival for digital culture, based in Dresden. The 16th edition of the festival will present a major exhibition of winning projects as well as selected competition entries, first-class performances and high profile/level music. The programme will include live sets of international electronic musicians and VJs at the Festspielhaus Hellerau and other emerging venues in Dresden. The next festival edition will take place from 15 to 21 November 2012 in Dresden, Germany.
Application deadline for the above prizes: 30 March 2012
El creador e investigador catalán Toni Cots, es el protagonista de esta nueva entrevista en la que se habla de los temas a tratar en el encuentro de MOV-S en Cádiz, la metodología de trabajo y su posible continuidad.
¿Qué preguntas/temas propones para el debate en MOV-S 2012 si queremos hablar de futuro y de otras formas de operar en danza?
Me interesa especialmente el tema de la movilidad, de los derechos culturales y el funcionamiento de las redes. Cuando me refiero a redes prefiero pensar en redes que vehiculen conocimiento y experiencia más que redes de carácter comunicativo y de producción/distribución.
Cómo elaborar un banco de información basado en artículos, reflexiones, presentaciones de investigaciones y procesos que posibilite tanto una difusión pública de carácter periódico (virtual) y al mismo tiempo sirva de espacio de intercambio, relación y diálogo entre los profesionales. Más que un archivo hablo de pensar en un contenedor generador de diferentes estratos de información. Quizás Teatron sea un ejemplo, pero pienso también en Sarma (contenedor de artículos críticos) o incluso Artea con su archivo de las artes escénicas. Pero a todos ellos les falta un dispositivo que se abra a un público interesado en la danza y sus propuestas.
Teniendo en cuenta que MOV-S se plantea como un proceso y no como un evento, ¿cómo crees que se debería dar continuidad al trabajo? ¿De qué manera propones seguir avanzando sobre los acuerdos y proyectos que surjan durante el proceso y durante el propio encuentro?
Creo que aparte de que surjan grupos de trabajo, la posibilidad de que se pueda generar una base de datos compartida como archivo que permita la publicación periódica de artículos críticos, metodologías de trabajo y sistemas de gestión sería un gran paso.
¿Cómo propones trabajar durante el evento? ¿Qué tipo de actividades/metodologías consideras que se deberían incluir en el programa? ¿Te gustaría proponer alguna dinámica en particular?
Mi interés actual es el trabajo entre teoría y práctica para generar herramientas de cara a la educación en danza y de la danza como instrumento/herramienta educativa, a partir de diferentes contextos. Otra cuestión que sigue siendo de primer orden es la movilidad y derechos culturales.
Mariana Soares, responsable de relaciones internacionales y programación de Cena Cotemporânea - Festival Internacional de Teatro de Brasilia (Brasil), nos da sus ideas para el trabajo en MOV-S 2012.
¿Qué preguntas/temas propones para el debate en MOV-S si queremos hablar de futuro y de otras formas de operar en danza?
Dada las condiciones económicas y las nuevas organizaciones del trabajo, propongo que los temas de futuro tengan un especial enfoque hacia los procesos de trabajo colaborativos y en red que pueden fortalecer el sector y disminuir su dependencia de la institucionalidad. Herramientas de trabajo y comunicación, formación, financiación y creación partiendo de procesos colaborativos. También el tema de la cooperación y circulación artística más allá de las fronteras europeas (Latinoamérica, África, Asia) es un tema que tocaría discutir para el futuro y que interesa una buena parte de los gestores/creadores.
Teniendo en cuenta que MOV-S se plantea como un proceso y no como un evento, ¿cómo crees que se debería dar continuidad al trabajo? ¿De qué manera propones seguir avanzando sobre los acuerdos y proyectos que surjan durante el proceso y durante el propio encuentro?
Creando una plataforma continua donde quede claro los beneficios para la gente que haga parte: unos prácticos (convocatorias, oportunidades de colaboración) y otros políticos (contenidos y discusiones)… es cada vez más difícil mantener la gente conectada de manera sostenible. También el modelo “satélite” del IETM, que propone pequeños encuentros presenciales descentralizados con dinámicas y experiencias que después son llevadas a una esfera más amplia.
¿Cómo propones trabajar durante el evento? ¿Qué tipo de actividades/metodologías consideras que se deberían incluir en el programa? ¿Te gustaría proponer alguna dinámica en particular?
Mesas de trabajo con temáticas concretas e intercambio de experiencias/entrevistas son formatos que me gustan. Propongo espacio de experiencias entre artistas, capsulas de creación, de donde saquen alguna cosa juntos en pocas horas de proceso: ¿un manifiesto?, ¿un flamenco?, ¿un dibujo? como un ejercicio primario de dinámica creativa simbólica para concretar este término muchas veces intangible que se llama proceso colaborativo.
