Politics of craft/ideas First ideas for the project presention

From XPUB & Lens-Based wiki

Ideas for the exhibition

  • no exhibition, just invite speakers who speak about what is the craft in their particular profession/occupation
  • parody of Swan Market/subversion of arts and crafts street market in V2_
  • artisan factory: creating a 6-day art-/design-making factory assembly line in V2_
  • divide V2_ into two spaces: one art space, one crafts space; create clashes/collapses of the two, simultaneously involve crafts people/designers and fine artists to let them work with the same materials
  • deskilling exercise: a deskilling show/process over the course of the week
  • advertising of a show that doesn't exist
  • reflect on DIY crafts as an ideology in times of economic crisis: capitalist/government-advocated resourcefulness, DIY as self-management in times of system failure (examples of Portugal and Nigeria)
  • one-week permaculture self-sustainability (alternatively: microeconomic) experiment in V2_, with documentation of failures; make use of Nikos in Greece and Caetano in Brazil
  • running a microbrewery or other crafts practice (their culture, technology and economy) as a contemporary example of arts & crafts
  • walk to pop-up DIY entrepreneurs in Rotterdam, retelling the story of William Morris about London entrepreneurs
  • happiness/pleasure as currency
  • exchanging craft for craft; maintaining a constant amount of it at all time

piratepad - http://piratepad.net/craftcraftcraft

Combined ideas

  • internal crafts/microeconomic experiment + external speakers
  • luxury paradox: how can arts/crafts efforts become self-sustainable without producing luxury goods?
  • consumer market of arts and crafts: authenticity in arts and crafts sold as a commodity
  • artists' survival camp: how artists who get put into the jungle of Rotterdam can survive with their skills/trade
  • showcase and documentation of existing micro economies: ask audience how to create micro economies in certain areas of the world (that have certain issues such as environmental pollution); conclude show with a public discussions of submitted ideas
  • show/fair "organic media design" ("organic media art") / "green media design" - media design take on arts and crafts


--> conclusion: practical experiment (addressing issues studied in this thematic project) that engage both us - as the artists - and the audience, possibly with elements of meta reflection (such as lectures/discussions).

  • fallback option: reiterate one of the historical examples of our thematic project and try to think of their contemporary updates: What is Arts and Crafts of the 21st century? / What is the Bauhaus of the 21st century? / What is the Flux Shop of the 21st century? / What is punk DIY of the 21st century?)
  • conversely: what is the arts and crafts of contemporary media? (Sennett: Linux/Open source communities as 21st century craftsmanship)

Individual project ideas

artyom idea for V2-taking as a starting point of w. morris' illustrations of nature (in particular flowers). the way he idealize the nature, seeing it as a refuge for people but at the same time his portrayal of nature is very limited, symmetrical and decorative.

Lídia -> How to extrapolate the intricate relations between entrepeneurship, luxury and precariousness, that is, how is immaterial labor/entrepeneurship founded on exploitation, that of the entrepeneur/immaterial laborer him/herself and how it relates to that of developing countries sustaining western economy. Possible outcome: a booth for people to sign up to the immaterial laborer's union, with informational flyers, the manifesto, etc.

Chen :research the comparison between Japanese and western craftsmanship ( on society class, politic aspect and cultural background). Is it the same pleasure as Morris mentioned in <news from nowhere> present the result as a physical object.

Mihail :an installation that would construct a video social platform for the event | Focusing on the idea of free labor | People contribute to the platform by recording footages of the event.

MAX - The pleasure of labor, sentiment analysis, zero hour contracts, the wellbeing index, speculative economy and profit return higher on capital than production. current rogue ideas - job centre, employing visitors to exhibition. confirmed ideas - ZINE!


Ana Luisa - arts and crafts and the ideology of self-empowerment

Nikos- workshop/reading group bringing in dialogue News from nowhere and key texts/theories of cultural commons, creative commons, Bauwens, Hyde, Lessig.+ suggestion Florian= Paul Keller. Possibly near the end of show, possibly guest speaker. creative commons licenses _ the idea of enjoyable work and honor fame not money

Lucia

.going to read the text again and pick topics of interest

.thinking of using text, not sure about the format yet

.willing to work within constraints - (time?) I had initially thought of using constraints in production, but maybe I could use constraitns for the 'consumption' instead. For example, write text that is readable in 5 minutes (probably even less time, thirty seconds).

.(other) points to reflect on:

  • questions as critique
  • audience engagement
  • question the media design
  • the exhibition as a local/social/exclusive media event

June 4 update -> Morris' text snippets printed on edible paper + edible ink. Through a very simple (computer) interface, visitor can choose the paper and the ink flavors. By clicking on a third button, a text snippet is (randomly) chosen among a pre-defined selection of Morris' text and the edible text is printed (and given to visitor).

Next steps: define the text snippets which are going to be used and check/think of technical details.

Elleke:

Trying to arrange bismuth/yuri landman to do a performance or lecture...