MPB CURATES (2007)

MediaPackBoard Curates 2007, the 3rd iteration of the MPB project took place in the summer. This time around, Guest Carriers offered the random public audience new personalities and presenter techniques. The program featured the videos of five Canadian artists: Amalie Atkins, Terry Billings, Linda Rae Dornan, Jim Goertz, and Jeffrey John Jackson.

Guest carriers: Mark Lowe, Duncan Kenworthy, and Eduardo Martinez.

Project funded by: Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Project Multidisciplinary Grant.

Intervention / Breaking Loops, Escaping Into the Streets

Through the medium of the itinerant performer, the MPB aims to make unexpected outdoor encounters and interactions possible while generating discussion among a random body of spectators/participants.

As an artist, you have to do what feels right. Motivations might reflect individual perception, community experience, or reaction to conventions. The roots for new art might be reactive, but they could alternatively rise from a deeper well of internal sources, or new technologies. The most obvious characteristic of new art will be that it does not match the couch.

I have always felt that public galleries should have public audiences and not only those clients selected or invited through membership mailouts. Of course, I realize that institutions can only continue if they remain true to their definition and carry on to be self-supporting. However, it is obvious that the audience may and often does become that core group of associates that participates out of a need for self-validation. In many circumstances, the audience has become the artists and the curators, who participate in a reciprocating exchange of nurture and support. In a sense, as we know, the art process can become the proverbial exercise in preaching to the converted. Moral support can go a long way and everyone needs it, but sometimes support can arrive from unexpected people, in unexpected places. This is especially possible if the ‘gift’ is presented in the public arena.

In random public settings, audience composition and the event itself can carry an element of unpredictability: the possibility of a change in perspective from all points of view. Chance encounter presents the artist/animator/performer and the audience/spectator/performer with the opportunity for role flux and its accompanying exchange of ideas. It involves greater risk taking than surprising or satisfying the needs of one’s peers.

The practice of presenting in random public settings does not facilitate the orderly progression of the history of art in any structured sense. It is not easily defined according to the ‘stuff’ of educational institutions and is therefore difficult to support in any sense of the word. And yet a few curators and artists do support random public presentations. The ‘wild side’ carries the additional risk that the event(s) may not seem to hold spectacular significance at the time of presentation. The effect may go virtually unnoticed in the immediate moment as the audience disperses as quickly as it appears.

Everyone has her/his own take on the time they live in. That sense of where we (as a society) are and who ‘I’ am arises from a mix of influences: the individual her/himself; the historical baggage carried individually, and informed by one’s ancestral/recent ancestral and family heritage; the cultural influence of peer/societal ties and liens such as friends, enemies, casual acquaintances, and factors of employment; the geographical location/factors of climate; technological tools, ‘news’ as received through technology and peer groups; and the stranger passed or encountered on the street.

The relative proportional values of the mix of influences are in constant flux. As the percentage of public territory grows and private territory shrinks through technological aids to ‘better living’, the in- dividual is challenged to maintain a comfortable range of personal anchorage or mooring. And yet, that base proportion of private territory remains as important as the DNA mix in defining a human entity. In other words, as well as retaining some semblance of private life, maintaining a day-to-day balance necessitates being able to relate to one or more persons. For those willing to risk participating, inter- inventions through street encounters can work toward increasing the sense of being able to relate to others.

Showing on the walls, or screening a work in a gallery setting, pro- vides the excitement of peer recognition, but my experience has been that the buzz stops at the door. Greater opportunities for meaningful growth occur when the venue is the street. The work is immediately visible and accessible for a randomly passing demographic that is often ready to respond in a moment of spontaneity.

The chance encounter might seem commonplace, but it presents the possibility of gaining greater significance in memory. One might encounter a person living alone, without employment, in-between significant events. That person might go days without talking to another person. Meeting up with someone willing to have a public conversation with them might restore some semblance of normalcy in her/his life. Another encounter might involve a group of overly rowdy young people hassling every stranger they meet. When that group slows down, blasts their usual remarks, and gets a response and a question asked from a stranger (the artist lying in wait with a setup), there is the possibility of a member(s) of the group escaping from her/his peer group. That deviation from the pack mentality brought about through an encounter with strangers could have a profound influence on the individual(s) involved. Remaining forever the optimist, I contend that this experience will have a positive effect. This is not to say that studies have been done – or should even be considered – to prove the significance of public art on the street to its random audience/spectator/performer. This is only to state that the possibility lies there. The direct encounter/conversation/exchange of words has the potential for changing both the artist/animator/presenter and the audience/spectator/performer.

The physicality of the street encounter sets up the possibility for both verbal and non-verbal communication. However, trust must be present for the exchange to pass through to more complex levels. The nature of the technology sets a formality and creates the presence of an ‘other’ with the camera and the monitor. Therefore, the technology sets up an additional vulnerability in the exchange between the artist/animator/presenter and the audience/spectator/performer. It is up to the artist to settle any doubts inhibiting communication because, although a fee is extracted from both sides in the form of an exchange, the artist as an instigator holds the advantage. Similarly to the role of the food demonstrator in the grocery store, the artist has initiated contact by setting up ‘the lure’ to draw in the passerby. Ultimately, through offering access to technology and the chance to ‘open up to the stranger’, the artist has also opened up new possibilities for her/his own sphere of activity. From the artist’s perspective, one of the duties inherent in the exchange is to ‘keep the trust.’ The exchange of trust must be held as sacred. As the instigator of the encounter, the artist has an obligation to ensure that the vulnerable and giving moments of the audience/spectator/performer are well treated. When documentation takes place, the subject (audience/spectator/performer) must always be shown in the same good light that reflects the tone of the exchange as it occurred in the live encounter.

The audience for performance and media art is expanding. Through the comments and reactions of the street audience, I perceive that integrating the performance and media art experience with the every day is contributing to this expansion. Whenever I present to random public audiences, I am, as the artist, changed by the event. In the business environment, they call this a ‘win-win’ situation. As artists, we can lay claim to historical roots in itinerancy, street entertainment, and entrepreneurship. It may not be all of what we do, but we all need to find creative ways to catch the gaze of our perceived audiences.

Process

As artists, we arrive at the concept that the spirit of creation rises up from many sources. There may be spontaneity involved, or creation might be built from entering a laboratory space and brainstorming. That spirit of creation might demand conceptual, literal, emotional, or intellectual treatment/presentation. Wherever the idea(s) come(s) from, the process of realization might follow many streams of research; or the whole thing might open up encapsulated with all of its elements ready-to-go. Whatever the source or process, the majority of artists work to express something to an audience.

Following that premise, the artist, standing back, can look at a work in a series of phases. The work itself is completed, but the process does not end there. Arrangements must be made to exhibit, to present the work to be shared with a public or private audience.

It is a generally understood concept that sharing a completed proj- ect with an audience provides a sense of closure. The ‘opening’ or ‘vernissage’ can essentially serve as a closing. From showing work, sharing it with others, and putting it out there to get a response, an artist can begin to move on in new directions. The artist might clean the slate, and allow a new idea to develop into a project, or she/he might realize that she/he is only at the beginning of something. The re-generation of ideas can rise out of that public and peer interaction; the compulsion to swim deeper into that inspirational source can be directly related to dialogue with the audience. The completed project then rises up to become the tip of the iceberg, regeneration arrives in the form of continuation, reforming ideas, concepts, and materials.

From the standpoint of the artist, the time for completing and exhibiting work is crucial. Waiting too long for answers in the form of ac- ceptance from exhibiting agents can be stifling to the whole process. Some would argue that ‘survival of the fittest’ (or the most patient) steps in to play a valid service to the arts. Through discouragement over time, a process of elimination leaves only the most worthy, or the most connected, still standing. I am convinced that waiting too long to show can be an unhealthy and unnecessary stumbling block to individuals working through the creative process.

Projects and processes demand different audience demographics. One example is the project that is best laid out for presentation to a random audience and cannot wait past the expiry date of ‘con- temporary.’ A common factor in the creation process is the demand for some level of freedom and independence of movement. Following that demand, there are many cases when creation cannot wait for the approval of being granted an exhibition, or to receive sanctioned credibility to proceed within prescribed ‘laws of cultural development.’ Form follows function in the rise of alternate venues. While the Internet is an obvious new outlet for exhibitions, taking control of the exhibition space is not a new idea. Entrepreneurs of all descriptions have moved to create new venues whenever they have needed exposure. Artists taking control of exhibiting work – cutting the waiting time, cutting the red tape, and moving ahead in a pragmatic sense – is basic survival. The artist then becomes the alchemist, moving the cultural dynamic forward.

Valerie LeBlanc – Curator
December 2007
Calgary, AB

References:

Nicolas Bourriaud – Relational Aesthetics, les Presses du Reél, Dijon, France. (2002, English version, 1998 French version) Marcel Mauss – The Gift.

Levi-Strauss – Structural Anthropology.

The Happening – the term coined by Allan Kaprow, 1957.

MPB Curates 2007 (mega.nz)

Photostream Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/people/mediapackboard/