Collabarts.org

Collabarts.org was established in December 2005 as a resource and platform for artists, theorists and art students setting out to offer a source of information, dissemination and discussion about collaborative art practice. The site hosts a number of commissioned essays and interviews including some important published and as yet unpublished essays on collaboration that have been generously contributed to the site by their writers. There are also a large number of links to relevant articles and artists’ websites. In addition the timeline for collaborative art practice sets out to place artistic collaboration in a historical perspective in relation to cultural and political events.

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Groups and Spaces

Proximity Magazine has put together a great director of independent art spaces and groups for reference here.

We are about to relaunch the website soon at www.groupsandspaces.net! Groups and Spaces was conceived by Temporary Services, an art group based in Chicago. In its short history, the project has cultivated a unique list of independently run art spaces, art groups and groups that runs spaces, boasting a registry of thousands of entries. The list, as Temporary Services explain is incomplete, reflective of the idea that group practice and collaboration is part of a trend defined by time or location. Rather, these groups and spaces are part of a larger culture of collectivity and collaboration – a way of making art that is built upon the idea of working together.

Join the Institute for a Potluck Skype chat via Basekamp this Tuesday, March 16th at 6pm to learn more about the Groups and Spaces project!

Alpha One Labs

Alpha One Labs hackerspace was founded in the summer of July 2009. Boasting radical inclusivity, Alpha One Labs superb design aims to provide a safe, clean space for users of all ages and interests to work on projects together.

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Kits for an Encounter

Kits for an Encounter is an exhibition that examines artists’ kits that instigate or trouble the notion of a (social) encounter. Providing the equipment needed to initiate a situation, kits can be characterized by their promissory quality, embodying potential and containing the possibility for transformation. ‘Wearable Mosque’ by Azra Aksamija unfolds from a fashionable women’s semi-formal wear into a minimal mosque which the artist-architect spatio-temporally demarcates as a prayer rug for two, head covering, compass, and prayer beads. Aksamija, born in Sarajevo and living between Austria, Bosnia, and the United States, comments that the wearable mosque “explores various ways of negotiating spatial relationships between Islamic traditions and modernity in the US and Western Europe.” An allegory about the impossible fulfillment of an imagined identity, Noam Toran’s ‘Objects for Lonely Men’ is a film that depicts a male protagonist vaguely resembling Jean Paul Belmondo’s character in Godard’s 196o film classic “Breathless (Au bout de Souffle).” Both likeness and difference is heightened as the protagonist interacts with a kit whose components, a steering wheel, mannequin head, dinner, cigarettes, allow him to simulate the filmic narrative from the comfort of his living room.

Many kits provide the sculptural and performative components needed to frame a social encounter, functioning as the control to unforeseen variables. Lize Mogel’s ‘Public Park: Personal Planning Kit’ contains instructions and signage so that any denizen can turn their private property (from a parking space to a front lawn) into public space. Judi Werthein’s ‘Brinco’ is an athletic sneaker equipped with a flashlight, compass, painkillers to enable those illegally crossing the US-Mexico border. Sold at a hop boutique shoe store or to art collectors, the proceeds support the free distribution of the ‘crossing trainers’ to border crossers.

By implying a situation, many kits either invite, enable, question, or obviate the future. Limor Fried’s ‘Minty MP3′, a portable listening device made from simple electronic parts and an empty Altoid mint case, presents a $50 do-it-yourself alternative to an iPod that questions the relationship between fetish and access. Janice Kerbel’s Deadstar (2006) is a city plan for a ghost town with all the necessary information for its realisation. Replete with topographic and geological data, water, vegetation and buildings, the city plans prominently feature the graveyard. With neither roads nor hospitals, the city is an area so poorly planned for human living that it is doomed to die before it’s been built. Vahida Ramujkic’s ‘Assimil’ is a text book whose exercises and lesson plans ‘teach’ non-European Union citizens how to properly enter and assimilate into the EU.

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Public Collectors

One of my favorite, artist as collector, collector as artist – Mark Fischer has a great show (study center) up right now. Starting on December 9th, 2009, the Public Collectors Study Center will open at 2456 N. Mozart, 1st Floor, in Chicago.

When Don Celender died in 2005, he left behind an unusually focused and accessible body of work that is ripe for rediscovery. Some of the books included in the exhibit:

OPINIONS OF WORKING PEOPLE CONCERNING THE ARTS (1975)
MUSEUM PIECE (1975)
DESTINY OF A NAME (1978)
OBSERVATIONS, PROTESTATIONS AND LAMENTATIONS OF MUSEUM GUARDS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD (1978)
NATIONAL ARCHITECTS PREFERENCE SURVEY (1979)
REINCARNATION STUDY (1982)
MORTAL REMAINS (1995)

Public Collectors is founded upon the concern that there are many types of cultural artifacts that public libraries, museums and other institutions and archives either do not collect or do not make freely accessible. Public Collectors asks individuals that have had the luxury to amass, organize, and inventory these materials to help reverse this lack by making their collections public.

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Public Collectors Site

CUP Affordable Housing Toolkit

The Affordable Housing Toolkit is a portable workshop that housing advocates, policy experts, community boards, developers, and others can use to teach their constituents about land use and development in New York City. It’s the first in our series of Envisioning Development Toolkits on topics like affordable housing, zoning, and ULURP.
Affordable Housing Book (PDF)

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Spatial Information Design Lab

The Spatial Information Design Lab is a think- and action-tank at Columbia University specializing in the visual display of spatial information about contemporary cities and events. The lab works with data about space — numeric data combined with narratives and images to design compelling visual presentations about our world today. The projects in the lab focus on linking social data with geography to help researchers and advocates communicate information clearly, responsibly, and provocatively. We work with survey and census data, Global Positioning System information, maps, high- and low-resolution satellite imagery, analytic graphics, photographs and drawings, along with narratives and qualitative interpretations, to produce images.

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The Brooklyn Skillshare

Education is a right, not a commodity. We are all students and teachers, and we believe that everyone has something to teach and to learn from each other. The Brooklyn Skillshare is a communal, hands-on, learning experience that aims to serve as a jumping-off point in the construction of an autonomous, nonexclusive, reciprocal learning community.

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Fix City

fixcity.org is about taking small steps to fix your city. Our first endeavor, FixCity:Bike Racks, is a social mapping application designed to “crowdsource” community and government collaboration in the gathering, planning, and implementing new bike racks.

This application encourages residents and community organizations to suggest new bike racks, verify suggested locations, gather statements of support from the broader community, and finally submit a “shovel-ready” bulk order to the Department of Transportation. This application is designed to use the best of today’s web technology to enable smart ways to meaningfully and efficiently match residents’ wants with city services.

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Stackd

STACKD helps people in office buildings get in touch – for business or beers. We would like to think that it’s the people around you that should be part of your social network: people you meet in the elevator rather than on Facebook, people you follow to the 14th floor instead of on Twitter. Online social networks are great for what they are. We built STACKD to tap the potential of the place you stick around most: the office.

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