Ian Stephen and Invited Artists.

Exhibition Dates: 21-29 October 2011

Art, Space + Nature, Evolution House, Edinburgh College of Art.

forest X from Aaron McCloskey on Vimeo.

http://www.strickdistro.org

the DEVIL and ME

the DEVIL and ME is a video project in collaboration with sound designer Dan Gorman, as a single channel projection and completed in October 2009.

The video is a visual narrative driven by its music which explores the materiality of the everyday working environment of the Quechuan miners of Bolivia. It highlights their relationship with the underground deity Pachumama, underage workers, dangers of toxic and flammable gases, and mineral transport within the mine.

Video by Aaron McCloskey

Music / Sound Design by Dan Gorman

the DEVIL and ME from Aaron McCloskey on Vimeo.

Some Funding made possible with the financial assistance of the Dundee Visual Arts Award Scheme.

Past exhibitions:

Antimatter festival

http://www.antimatter.ws/

Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art

transitstation, Copenhagen, April, 2010

Cupar Arts Festival October,2009

The Free Social Foundations project explores the current condition of spaces of free and open assembly in our cities, relating those spaces created by the public themselves to those created for public use. This is produced through maps which bring together information on spaces of assembly in different cities. The information is gathered from interviews and conversations with local residents and users of the spaces, along with background materials, and workshop sessions. Information can also be entered directly into the maps on this website.

http://www.freesocialfoundations.org/

http://www.futuresonic.com/08/art/fsf/

The second collaboration between Visual Art and Dance held within the TotalKunst Gallery, Edinburgh. Working on a joint theme Merav and Aaron, lead the artists in turning the gallery into a studio in order to create new work which would be used as the backdrop for the dancers to perform with. Visual Artists include Juliana Capes, Mikey krumins, and Aaron McCloskey

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28826635@N08/

Launch of the new exhibition programme at the Out of the Blue Drill Hall Gallery in Edinburgh. Below are some images of the first exhibition featuring work from the resident studio held on April 19, 2007.

Participants:

• a chef
• an artist / organizer.

Table for two The Dinner Party from Aaron McCloskey on Vimeo.

(video 3:10min -by Aaron McCloskey)

Ingredients – Spring rolls, a tuber, carrot, mushrooms, lemon, courgette, sweet bell pepper, leek, cabbage, coriander, cashew nuts, wheat noodles, eggs, chilli sauce, Soya sauce

A table, 2 chairs, recording equipment, wooden armature for overhead camera shot, two 500watt lights and stands

]]> http://aaronmccloskey.com/table-for-two-the-dinner-party/feed/ 0 http://aaronmccloskey.com/together-outside-the-box-2006/ http://aaronmccloskey.com/together-outside-the-box-2006/#comments Thu, 09 Mar 2006 19:26:45 +0000 aaron http://aaronmccloskey.com/?p=39 a text which explores self-determined artist run spaces, power dynamics…

together outside the box 1.44 Mb

table of contents

pg 6 Decentralized

forest artist-led space, Edinburgh 2000-present

Liminal Spaces Artists without walls, Jerusalem 2004

pg 11 Centralized

breeding ground Manchester, 2004

Camp X-Ray UHC collective, Manchester 2003

pg 13 Collaborative

transit station Edinburgh 2006

Nova Populara Lucy Mackenzie and Paulina Olowska, Warsaw 2003

pg 17 appendix 1 repository contribution

The nature of intertextual dynamics in artist-led process based collective activities brings into question the definition of contemporary curation. According to JJ Charlesworth the current trends of identifying hierarchies is important within the current discourses about the characteristics that distinguish the artist / curator relationship. (1)

The primary explorations raised here are questions about the context of the work, and the content that defines its engagement. By examining theoretical notions of Decentralised, Centralised, and Collaborative network practice, I will investigate my experiential paradigm of collectives, developmental workshops, and the live art event as exhibition through the artist / curator relationship. I believe that the language and activity of the hands on creative curation has not developed in pace with artistic authorship of creative expression. This is an important distinction to be considered when I articulate my stance as a project-based producer who identifies a working relationship with a group of artists in co-authorship in the development of works like forest (decentralized, 2000 – present) breeding ground (centralized, 2004) or transit station (collaborative, 2006).

The key principles that link these ideas are trust, audience engagement, risk, economics, space and authorship in contemporary process-based artistic practice. *(see appendix 1) This intertextual format is a layered composition of a constructed environment, organic developmental contribution, and anarchistic qualities allowing for the overall aesthetic of the work. In these models the role of the artist is to provide a working method that is extended to peer contribution, and supported through open and closed networks. Paul O’Neill cites Michel Foucault’s idea of ‘Heterotopia – as capable of juxtaposing in a single space several sites that are in themselves incompatible’. (2) Each site is the individual and collective experiential application of the artistic working methods in a given context.

What I am looking at is a collective authorship in creative expression- something that would contemporise creative curation defined by Trebor Scholz as ‘a cultural context provider’.(3) The economic principles behind what Scholz references in Christoph Spehr’s essay ‘Gleicher als andrere’s’ ‘free cooperation networks- as a form of cooperation, independence, negotiation, and re-negotiation’, a trend in contemporary practice that I would argue as rooted in current cultural collectivity. (4) At the Art – Place – Technology symposium that I attended in Liverpool, (March 2006) Scholz gave a presentation for a proposal of a collaboration repository. His argument was that there was no common marker outlining these working methods for the successes and failures that artists have experienced. I too struggle to define the working relationship that links my works’ common practice, and wish to provide greater insight into these working methods.

The new media database seems to allow for a more direct interface between individuals faced with these arguments brought forward in articles by Matthew Fuller’s The New Art Etiquette in http://www.metamute.org/ , Paul O’Neill’s /An Observer’s Responce / The Wrong Place: Rethinking Context in Contemporary Art in http://www.situations.org.uk/ , and Trebor Scholz’s www.freecooperation.org. I believe that the crux of the arguments are rooted in the identification of self, through a recognized peer authority, where on the other hand my primary engagement would be in the collective authorship of experiential work that these forums support in an investigatory application.

Bridging the authorship issue in creative project based artist / curator expression as explored in ‘The Next Documenta Should be Curated by an Artist’ edited by Jens Hoffman, which was developed from a discussion with Carsten Holler in 2002. Noted artists were asked about the nature of the role curators have taken on as cultural conduits between the artists’ creative process and the public’s accessibility to the idea, and its uneasy interrelationship. The artists delved into their syntax of explanations about their role as artist or curator. A.A. Bronson draws his distinction in Canada of the vast collection of artist-led galleries / performance spaces as a positive factor. These were set up regionally from the late sixties and early seventies as a system, which is not generally connected (or driven) by the art market its main focus is to the work (although it still may add as a feeder system to the art market) where the artists tend to heartily employ their creative experience in the curatorial position. (5) What Hoffman further considers in the publication is an open forum e-discussion, which followed for six months allowing the artists themselves to comment on each other’s approach and to consider the context that the ideas are expressed within. This process shows how the curatorial position has expanded from the traditional archivist institutional curator to a more hands on engaged position, and artists have for some time taken more of a responsible control over the context that their work gets shown in.

Curators like Reid Sheer, Steven Holmes, and Charles Esche are sited as super agents for themselves and their ‘gang of artists’ (6) described as self-reflexive curation by Charlesworth. (7) Sheer for example began as a painter who curated at Or gallery an artist run centre in Vancouver and moved into the international touring curatorial position with Hammertown which exhibited in Fruit Market Gallery Edinburgh (2002) with artists that he worked with during his tenure. However I am not intending to polarize the relationship between artist and curator, but examine the diverse application of the presentation of works, and through the exploration of collective authorship I wish to define the practice as evolutionary with active reflection in its creative expression. It is with an enquiry into the generative discourse of artist-led culture across a series of contexts that I put forward in this model.

Decentralized creative networks are process-based idea developments used in collective artist-led activity. The idea is to generate a space where members share equalized responsibilities for the role they perform within the aims and objectives of the organization. In most cases a rotating moderator facilitates the group discussion, and project ideas form from generative discourse. These operate in either closed networks of individuals with a collective aim, or open networks that address more of an inclusive community based program like Sparwasser HQ in Berlin.

Transmission gallery (1983) in Glasgow is cited as the first artist-led model of a rotating committee membership in Scotland and is a form used in establishing artist-led galleries such as Western Front (1969), Vancouver; A Space (1979), Toronto, and Forest City Gallery London (1974), Canada. All these models operate to some degree within these principles as a medium between artist as curator and audience. The common theme of these organizations is that it is inspired from the artist activities and is often a response to the lack of facilities needed to achieve individual and collective aims. By setting out a constitution the collectives operate in the form of micro institutions, which are dependent on state sponsorship in order to acquire a space to operate from.

The main distinguishing feature between forest (2000) and the other models is the economic self-sufficiency, which adds another complex layer of managing the salon aesthetic, with an event space, cafe, workshops, and a gallery. (FI1) Open networks like forest operate an evolutionary membership, which is not tied to a remit handed down from a centralized figure either internal or external, but acts as the creative hub of individual and collective activity.

The gallery manager shares operational responsibilities with event organizers, cafe managers, and workshop leaders contributing an equal position to the collective organization as a whole in relation to its collective activity. By being bound to the forest constitution the gallery manager is allowed a different kind of working method then other gallery collectives as the audience and management intentions allow for more of a work-in-progress with active-reflection. This method encourages a predominately high turnover of artist activity and increased access to the space, which allows for a greater variety of working methods between the organizer, artist, volunteers, and audience. The context of the space provides a forum for contributions from guest artists and the audience to set the quality of the creative experience whether it is film screenings, bands and dj’s, dance parties, activist campaigning, murals, choirs, or yoga. The discussions from regular meetings with collective members that generate these activities demand identifiable characteristics like trust in building a meaningful expression. This constitutes a forum for greater risk through greater accountability by the participants.

One exhibition that I facilitated was ‘passport’ (FI2), where I designed a stamp to declare a freedom for creative expression zone by accepting works through open submissions. Another exhibition was ‘Art Jam’ (FI3), where artists were invited to use the space as a studio and relaying with audience members to construct an installation. These exhibitions could be expressed under an individual’s curatorial title, but I choose to see them as projects initiated by an artist under collective authorship maintaining an open audience participatory quality like Bourriard’s vision of the “artist as facilitator rather than a ‘maker’, a Dj rather then a performer”. (8)

Leadership roles are subject to the individual’s attributes and desire to create a holistic creative community and in this instance a collaborative curatorial program allows for a fluxuation between organizers creative practices. The economic viability of running a cafe in order to fund the arts programming and offer monthly artists grants demands a multi-tasking hands-on approach in the responsibilities necessitated within any given situation including, facilitating debate, resourcing material, promotion, creative – technical and janitorial labour, emotional support etc. Moreover an established balance between input of the individual and the output of the collective denote the relevant potential that the work has in order to reach a wider audience and to provide a forum for further development of the work.

Open collectives are dependent upon a stable inter-relationship between the individuals who take risks in their sense of ownership and audience engagement with peer criticism in order to achieve an exploratory creative output.

The decentralized process also operates as a closed network of artists who invite guest moderators such as the case with ‘Artists Without Walls’ for project based interventions.

Trying to make the wall transparent

Twenty Israeli and Palestinian artists joined to create ‘Artists Without Walls’ to provide a permanent platform for dialogue and strive to develop models of artistic and cultural cooperation. They held a conference at the Qalandia Checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah, inviting Francis Mckee and Charles Esche to moderate discussion for artists’ cooperation projects. ‘This work emphases a discourse between artist’s through a conference that expresses the qualities of artistic merit by developing new methodologies that questions the perception of frontier spaces, which confront or interact with physical and mental barriers’. (9)

Shlomo Brosh, an artist of the Jerusalem municipality, came up with the projected landscape in order to address the aesthetic displacement of the wall. The conference style working method is seen as a generative discourse of geo-political idea development and technical application. The artists were interested in figuring out a way to collaborate with their neighbour through a zone of military exclusion. It was decided after the symposium that the collaborative work was the active dialogue (Mckee), which existed during the event, and the projection was the artefact that surmised the discourse. However what I wish to explore further is collective ownership and indeed necessary collective activity to materialise an artists work in the psyche of a particular audience.

The individual artistic practices of the member artists like Eyal Ofers’ photography exhibition ‘fence or wall’; a video installation by Ruti Sela, and a collaborative installation between Ruhama Weiss and Magalena Hefetz at the Haifa Museum represent the extent of achievement of the group under a collective title.

Centralised working methods initiate interactive developmental programs with delegation and feedback of the working relationship of artists under collective authorship. This model analyses the material of creative interrelationship as a follow-up to the decentralised method allowing for more of a critical introspective contribution by member artists.

For breeding ground (2004) I invited member artists to facilitate a workshop based developmental program working towards an exhibition, which we were invited to have at Bankley Studios , Manchester. Artists were selected for the particular strengths that I felt could be addressed in the installation. Two artists were chosen for the structural line qualities to collaborate on the framework, adding two more artists whom I felt had strong narrative attributes, a fifth artist and myself for the flexibility to address both contexts. Each artist was asked to present their process, and the current issues they wished to address, followed by an evening of drawing which saw the application of the ideas formed from the workshop. The role of artist and curator was bridged in order to achieve a greater collective aesthetic. In this instance the artists are asked to each develop a facilitators role to outline the content they wished to see addressed in the final exhibition. I became the composer as I watched the interrelational development of the individuals’ mark making while adding my own predominantly through a discourse of questions to the intention behind the marks. This working relationship was crucial in the final time-limited exhibition set-up.

I’m interested in an exploration into how a work comes to exist, its context and the application of content. Artistic collectives that enable the ability to blur the boundary between traditional expectations of creative practice, and the ability for the practitioner to activate a civic aesthetic are core to the content of This is Camp X- Ray- ‘An intervention that investigated the experiences of incarceration and sensory deprivation’. (10) This work was a human scale detention camp staffed by volunteer artists enacting the roles of ‘prisoners’ and ‘guards’ based on the known media information on the workings of the camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The iconography of the orange clad prisoners is familiar with activists whose works confront the lines of police / activist relationship. Jai Redman, producer of the work, which received £5000 from the Arts Council of the North West of England in order to recreate the site in the neighbourhood of Ron Fiddler (known as Jamal Udeen who is held in ‘detention’) where his sisters, and Redman also reside. The fundamental motivation in Redman’s work is aghast to the ‘Mancunian apathy to the situation and attempts to demonstrate the weapon of state terrorism and asks the public if they are happy with it’ through a public intervention / installation / performance work. (10)

This was one of three projects staged as part of Don’t cross the line an art work designed to make people think about the greater symbolic gesture behind the work and extending the questioning process through the exhibitions of Helen Knowles – Growth Investment, and Maggie Lambert – Asylum Seekers. With a documentary of the event by Damien Mahoney interviewing artists and audience, which provides a balanced perspective of the achievements within the project.

‘The UHC collective exists to produce and promote art and graphics concerned with the fundamental social phenomena of power relations, economics and the environment. They initiate shows and events, community based training and education projects. They also operate UHC design, working with progressive groups, projects, and businesses to produce design solutions in a socially responsible and ethical way’. (10) They are planning 17 public interventions in Manchester for the summer 2006.

The strength of the interpersonal relationship of a group will denote the motivation required to achieve the collective aesthetic. The key principle to this working method is the ability to negotiate the generative dialogue that accompanies the individual and collective intensions. This is undoubtedly true with collaborative artistic activity like the recent project I was involved in with transit station (2006).

Transit stations’ concept is a 24-hour weekend exhibition as event in an unoccupied retail space within a busy shopping centre. The work is a constructed environmental platform allowing for the organic developmental contribution of works in performance, performance to video, electronic sound art, contemporary classical music compositions, installation, dance, poetry, and poetry performance to video. This was a two-way collaboratively curated exhibition with the external lead curator Charles Ryder and artistic director Dagmar Glausnitzer-Smith providing a history and working method, which was adapted by Rosemary Strang, and myself who hosted the event. The context was set according to the physical composition that allowed for the manoeuvrability of the framework for the application of a continuous flow of individual works for a collective aesthetic. The whole space was intended to be a platform for works, which also allowed the audience to become involved, even as passive observers.

The artist’s work that was selected to support transit station was process-based explorations offering some sort of risk and evaluation of the tenuous relationship between creative processes and the audience. The artists outlined their preferred time bracket and as curators we scheduled the daily activities, and arranged with the artists any specific requirements of overlap. The composition was dependent on each artist being prepared for a continuous flow of work, whilst also allowing for an undulation between intention and its organic development. This process separates from the traditional definition of curator as it has a greater risk for failure. Thus these works are not necessarily predetermined and are live so many possible outcomes could have been enthused.

This is often the case with audience participation projects as Sholz defines as the user / producer relationship. (11) This method is explored in Lucy Mackenzie and Paulina Olowska’s Nova Populara (2003).

Mackenzie and Olowska, produced Nova Populara in Warsaw, Poland a composition which was about the active engagement of a ‘Salon’ (temporary bar) in a gallery for a month playing host to ‘concerts, slide presentations, cooking evenings, and djing’. (12) Their main focus in the work was to approach the space as a painting, removing most of the detailing information of consumer products and brand names. This working method emphases a controlled context allowing for organic content contribution by invited quest artists / performers and the general audience. Mackenzie’s inspiration was drawn from her desire to establish a space that materialised a social quality that she felt didn’t exist elsewhere. ‘Relating to its function as an art project, I think the construct of a salon offers a path between two artistic modalities. On one hand there is involvement in events and creative organization, and on the other the gallery exhibition. (12) While Olowska’s idea with Nova Populara ‘was to create a space designed by artists for artists, friends, and passers-by’. (12) The engagement of the audience was in the ability of the artists to be a good host. In this case, alcohol is used as a social lubricant by providing an illegal booze house, which may also provide a forum for a more aggressive aspect of the audience. At the end of the project closure is secured by auctioning off the works to the audience to recoup funds for the cost of the exhibition.

The context provider under collective authorship is an important model that materialises creative works in a socio-political environment. The collective activity is central to how the forest began in August 2000 as a one-month project, which has since developed into a long running organization. When a project like Nova Populara remains with a sense of complete activity it is easier defined as art. Once the project establishes itself it begins to take on new meaning in how it manages to continue its operations and how well it is able to produce continuous artistic content. The generative discourse is often a process of controversy and friction, which enables the clarification of intension that I would argue as a good thing and may well be the art itself. However, a balance of input and out put must be achieved for the continuous application of the idea. If any one individual is seen to have a disproportionate amount of responsibility the project is unlikely to achieve its vision. This may be the very reason I wish to work from project to project so that I can reflect on the questioning process of ideas and how to take them forward into new situations.

Artists working under a collective title who share organizational and compositional content of the work can claim the curatorial authorship when applied to a specific geo-political area. These project-based works tend to have a few core members who invite guest artists in for both open and closed networks in order to generate the discourse needed for the successful application of the idea. Liminal Spaces and breeding ground’s success can be measured by the network of contributing artists as the process of exploration in the workshops, which meant an established trust relationship was secured when addressing the work in the exhibition context.

Evolutionary development of the works must relate to the original intent of the proposal in order to achieve a successful application of the idea. The role of the organizer must be adaptable to the individual context with clear lines of communication with the participants. For collaborators in transit station meetings are crucial in order to address problems as they arise. This includes the organizers and the contributing artists during the live art event as exhibition’s successful integration of the audience within the larger context of the work and the environment that it takes place in. Thus for the artist / curator relationship I would define it as -

the appropriate content of the work should be

described in the appropriate context.

Appendix 1

The principles that I would add to the repository of the experiential development of the works would be explored in decentralised, centralised and collaborative practice from generative discourse would be:

trust - why engage with a work at all?

• inviting a guest

• welcome

- gifting

audience engagement – introduced as part of the work at a developmental stage

• promotion

• documentation

• open and closed networks

risk - context

• content

economics - where does the money come from?

- and who is it going to?

• transparency

• diversification

space - how is the art made?

- where is the work shown?

authorship - recognize what people do

• thank you

• being a good host

- (getting burned)

(Still to come is some text of net-based art including Simon Yuill’s spring_alpha:collaboration / and Google will eat itself…)

Image credits:

-Giant Cake Giant People, Design by Mikel Krumins August 2005

-The Evening News (Edinburgh), Monday September 18, 2002 Forest’s growing strong Business section pg 2 (FI1)

- Passport republic of forest stamp, design by Aaron McCloskey, 2003 (FIa-c)

-Artjam image Aaron McCloskey August 2004 (FId)

Liminal Spaces Artists Without Walls: http:// pia.omweb.org images 1,2,3,

breedingground (bga,b,c)

-group image of Mikel Krumins, Aaron McCloskey, Jacob Bee, Jenny Stephens, Mary Trodden, photo by Paul Stanley 2004, courtesy of the artist

-workshop image of Tessa Smith, Jenny Stephens, Mikel Krumins, Jacob Bee, Mary Trodden, photo by Aaron McCloskey 2004

-install image of Jacob Bee and Jenny Stephens photo by Aaron McCloskey 2004

This is Camp X-Ray www.uhc.org.uk

transit station flyer designed by Aaron McCloskey 2006 (tsa-d)

evening image 1, image photo by Louisa Preston 2006, courtesy of the artist

day image 1, image of Jen Wilke and Alexandra Patience by Aaron McCloskey 2006

evening image 2, Ian Stephen with Alexandra Patience by Aaron McCloskey 2006

Nova Populara http://metropolism.org/page.php?node_id=52 images 1,2,3

Bibliography

1- Charlesworth, JJ. Curating Doubt (Art Monthly March, 2006 issue 294) pg 1,2-4

2- O’Neil, Paul. An observer’s Response / The wrong place: rethinking Context in Contemporary Art (Situations Paper 1, www.situations.org.uk/publishing.html University of the West of England, Bristol, 2005) pg1,2-5

3 Scholz, Trebor, a cultural context provider’, http://collectivate.net/currently 2006 from Art – Place – Technology symposium www.art-place-technology.org at John Moores University. Liverpool, March 2006

4- Scholz, Trebor It’s New Media: But is it Art Education

http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue3/issue3_scholz.html pg 1,2-18

5- Hoffman, Jens (ed) The Next Documenta Should be Curated by an Artist, e-flux and Revolver, 2004) pg 22- 25; 79-89

6 Lowndes, Sarah. Social Sculpture, Stopstop 2003, 192 (sited from Neil Mulholland’s Onwards and Upwards, Art Monthly May 1998 for Trust curated by Charles Esche at Tramway 1995)

7- Charlesworth, JJ. Curating Doubt (Art Monthly March, 2006 issue 294) pg 1,2-4

8- Bourriard, Nicolas. Relational Aesthetics, Les Presses de REel, Translation Simon Pleasance and Fronza Woods with Mathieu Copeland, Paris 2002 pg

9-Artists Without Walls ‘Liminal Spaces’ http://pia.omweb.org

Francis McKee, Art – Place – Technology symposium www.art-place-technology.org at John Moores University. Liverpool, March 2006. www.francismckee.com

http://www.osa.ceu.hu/galleria/the_divide/chapter19.html

10- UHC collective ‘This is Camp X-Ray’ October 10 – 18, 2003 www.uhc.org.uk Ultimate Holding Company

11- Scholz, Trebor, a cultural context provider’, http://collectivate.net/currently 2006 from Art – Place – Technology symposium www.art-place-technology.org at John Moores University. Liverpool, March 2006

12- Mackenzie, Lucy and Olowska’s, Paulina Nova Populara (2003).pg1-4 http://metropolism.org/page.php?node_id=52