| Artists in Residence Exhibition Opening, iSummit07, Dubrovnik, Croatia. , by Joy Garnett on Flickr |
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As I write this, the iSummit date rapidly approaches, and the preparations among the artists selected for the iCommons residency grow more intense. None of us really knows what to expect; it’s the inaugural run of the programme so we’re doing more than deciding what to make (and in my case what to write); we’re figuring out what we want the Artist in Residency (AiR) to be. We don’t come to the conference with answers in hand, which is what makes this opportunity so exciting. We’ve been invited to propose scenarios in which copyright works on the terms we determine.
Speaking broadly on the objectives of the new programme and the conversation he hopes will develop at the conference, Nathaniel Stern, the iCommons Artist in Residence of 2006 and head of this year’s programme, explained recently: “My goals were mostly to bring more voices, to both make work and be involved in the discussion, to talk about revenue generation even with CC licenses, and to talk about varying modes of production that involve CC or copyright – even tangentially .
The discussions on the AiR listserve have, in the run-up to the Summit been much more along the lines of finding ways of actualising this message creatively. But rather than discuss tracks of thinking that are certain to evolve and change, I thought it best, as the AiR contribution to the iCommons Annual, to ask the artists a series of questions that drew upon the flavour of conversation already taking place. As such, I’ve provided a brief introduction to each artist’s work, followed by a questionnaire meant to serve as primer to the conference.
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Known amongst many in the art blogosphere as “Nathaniel and the Non-Aggressive”, Dublin- based new media artist Nathaniel Stern works in a variety of mediums, often using digital technologies and the body as a means of creating abstract “cartologies”.
Painter Joy Garnett of NEWSgrist and T.Whid and M.River of the two-person art collective MTAA maintain their healthy web presence from New York, also in part as active bloggers. Garnett is probably best-known for “Joywars”, her self-named copyright battle over use in a painting of the photographic image Molotov Man by Susan Meiselas, The Meiselas picture is now amongst the more well-known on the web. T.Whid represents MTAA at the iCommons conference this year. MTAA is a collective well-known for its use of the Internet as a medium for art.
Slovenian artist Jaka Železnikar also finds the Internet and language as inspirations and mediums, creating lyrical websites and texts. These works often deal directly with copyright as practice, though filmmaker Ann Husman is undoubtedly the most outspoken activist in the group. Husman’s videos address class, heritage, and the position of women in Croatia.
Describing her own films as a forensic look at the medium, Katherine Smith’s work explores the connection between art-making and criminal practice, aptly observing the practice to be “a rather appropriate field of inquiry in contemporary South Africa”.
Given that the range of backgrounds spans halfway around the globe, and that the talent exhibited by these artists clearly runs deep, good conversation is almost inevitable. Never one to make assertions, however, without providing material to back it up, I drew up a questionnaire for the Artists in Residence to fill out. The results are nothing less than awesome. And this, my friends, is just the tip of the AiR iceberg.
Name an image you would most like to see in multiples. Choose the number of times you'd like to see it replicated, the location, and explain why.
NATHANIEL STERN: Lately I've been obsessing about rope. Perhaps at
some point I'd like to source thousands of images of rope – tied, untied, in straight lines or not – and line up the edges of each image side by side, making mostly continuous lines and corners with its "ropely" content, in order to build 2D and 3D sculptures/installations. I'd like to experiment with images and the carving out of space in a public square; maybe in Joubert Park, because lately I've been missing Johannesburg. That could be fun.
JOY GARNETT: I would like to see hand-drawn portraits – caricatures – of famous and not-so-famous proprietary individuals who have acted as over-reaching copyright aggressors portrayed in the style of mug shots with a short text, like the perps on "FBI Most Wanted" posters. The title might read: "CC Most Wanted Copyright Extremists" and include cartoons of folks like Jack Valenti, Stephen Joyce, Dale Chilhuly, Tom Waits, ...Susan Meiselas, etc. The posters would be plastered all over town, on billboards, and telephone poles or printed as broadsheets or public service announcements in newspapers and tabloids, to be taken by visitors upon leaving an exhibition. The posters could even offer a "tips" hotline and the URL to a corresponding website/database...
JAKA ŽELEZNIKAR: I would like to replace all commercials with The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. I find it infinitely interesting and open for various interpretations. Also, I like the colors.
M.RIVER (MTAA): I’d like a simulacrum, a copy without an original. Maybe it would be like Mary Shelley’s Modern Prometheus or something faster like a zombie.
Yes, that is what I would like to see. Lots and lots of zombies making more and more zombies. Why? Just for laughs.
T.WHID (MTAA): Andy Warhol's Soup Cans. Millions of times on canvas, t-shirts, shower curtains, calendars – oh wait! That already happened...
ANA HUSMAN: There are so many images around that we should be very careful with producing new ones. It is also pollution in some way.
KATHRYN SMITH: 1. Warhol [redux]: “I [don’t] like boring things. I [don’t] like things to be exactly the same over and over again”.
2. Anything made in the Dafen Art Village in southern China. One workshop exports up to 10,000 hand-painted works per month.
What is your favourite public art work and why?
NATHANIEL STERN: When I was at Cornell University in the late 90s, I often found myself on late night strolls around the gorges of Ithaca, NY; there was always what seemed like a distant banging, a metallic but beautiful resonance, chiming in the background. It was only a few years ago that I found out this was a sound sculpture installed on the top of the Johnson Museum – a series of extremely long metal rods (must have been 10 meters long, I think, 6 or 8 of them), pointing skyward and hitting each other in the wind, washing over the entire campus with a continuous but uneven soundtrack. I couldn't find the artist or artwork with a search on the Internet (which may even add to the enigma), but I think the combination of its simplicity, effect/affect, and long lasting personal resonance, might make it my favorite. At least for today. [Ed’s note: I contacted Andrea Potochniak, the Publications and Publicity Coordinator at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum, who informs me the sculpture is called Sounding Piece (1978) by Harry Bertoia (1915-1978), and is made of copper and bronze, measuring 19 feet high. It has not been on display since late November 2003, when it was damaged in a storm.]
JOY GARNETT: My favourite piece of public art – the only piece I can't ever get out of my head – is Richard Serra's despised and reviled Tilted Arc, a giant curved wall of solid steel taller than a man, that once bisected Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan (in the early '80s), forcing CEOs, stock traders and the like to walk around all 120 feet of it in order to simply cross the otherwise windy, barren plaza during their work day. It was dismantled after much hoo-hah and public outcry. Call me misanthropic if you like, but "pure ego meets raw ambition" is a perfect combo if you ask me.
JAKA ŽELEZNIKAR: I don't have a favourite work at all. This idea left me quite some years ago. Instead I like many works. The public one that pops to mind first is Pozor: enske pri delu (Attention: Women at work) by Sanja Ivekovi. I saw it recently in Ljubljana. She changed a man's figure to a woman figure on the traffic sign that signifies work on a road.
M.RIVER (MTAA): The Henry Moore sculpture in front of the Columbus Museum of Art. My high school girlfriend and I would crawl inside it at night and make out.
Ah, good times.
ANA HUSMAN: I don't know if I have favourite one. It is hard to choose. As Jaka reminded me of Sanja Ivekovic, it could be Lady Rosa of Luxembourg.
KATHRYN SMITH: I can think of three as I sit here: Kristofer Paetau’s Art Forum Accident, Gustavo Artigas’ Spontaneous Human Combustion and Rosenclaire’s bronze ‘soap boxes’ outside the Iziko South African National Gallery. The first two are fabulously antisocial, while the last is not only all about dialogical/relational aesthetics, but is the one public artwork that I know of that actually works.
Solve this problem: "I like to collaborate, but not with others." What kind of project do you make that involves working with your colleagues, while simultaneously excluding them?
NATHANIEL STERN: Is this a trick question? I'm making art, and you're all invited.
JOY GARNETT: Can I answer that one after the residency is over?
JAKA ŽELEZNIKAR: The only thing I love and hate is traveling to distant cultures. Be it as a traveler or by means of mediated poetry, art, music, philosophy, street life ...
M.RIVER (MTAA): I could “wiki” my responses to your questions. Will that count?
T.WHID (MTAA): APIs, baby, APIs!
ANA HUSMAN: You can share your files – that is involving people's work and excluding them personally from the process.
KATHRYN SMITH: This sounds like a description of an overly ambitious someone in a grey suit in a dead-end office job – Ricky Gervais perhaps? I think the answer to this one might just be the residency experience itself and how one narrates or retells of it after the collaborative moment is over. Myth-making.
Bonus Query – Collaborate amongst yourselves: "I love drawing, but this Q & A only uses text." What do you do?
JOY GARNETT
I offer the still life in ascii for no real good reason (it looks cool), but you'll have to go to the AiR flickr pool to see it (ulterior motive: please feel free to upload and download and remix stuff to the pool): http://www.flickr.com/groups/icommonsair/
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