//prj: Michael Ogawa, code_swarm
This visualization, called code_swarm, shows the history of commits in a software project. A commit happens when a developer makes changes to the code or documents and transfers them into the central project repository. Both developers and files are represented as moving elements. When a developer commits a file, it lights up and flies towards that developer. Files are colored according to their purpose, such as whether they are source code or a document. If files or developers have not been active for a while, they will fade away. A histogram at the bottom keeps a reminder of what has come before."
//url: Encounters in the Socialverse: Community and Collaborative Art Practices
[http://inspireart.org/en/2009/02/09/yorksymposium/]
"This symposium focuses on the centrality of human participation in contemporary art practice. It seeks to engage with the ethics, the aesthetics, and the politics of community-based and collaborative art.
[...]
This symposium aims to critically address questions posed by cultural historians and critics concerning the implications in collaborative art projects. Such questions include: How does active participation influence aesthetics? Does collaborative art practice, with its social interactions, shared assumptions and invisible rules, push or hinder the limits of relationality? How does the integration of human participation impact upon works of art? How has the proliferation of outdoor art festivals such as Nuit Blanche in Paris, Montreal, and Toronto permanently affected the way contemporary artists produce work? How has the response to such large-scale exhibitions influenced art practice? How has public or private art funding reflected this increased interest in accessible art? Do such art practices allow for the empowerment of communities and participants? How might the inclusion of community-based projects in institutions like museums, cinemas, and concert halls impact their criticality?
Presentations that touch upon questions relating to community and collaborative art practice in the following sub-themes are encouraged:
* artist collaborations and interventionist works
* authorship and cultural property
* developments in Relational Aesthetics
* legalities of human participation
* theories of time, space, and place
* embodiment and performance studies
* activism and social welfare
* the politics of inclusion
* accessibility issues"
Encounters in the Socialverse: Community and Collaborative Art Practices
The 9th Annual Art History Graduate Student Association Symposium
Symposium Date: March 6, 2009
//cnf: ON COLLABORATION A series of events and talks on collaborative art practices
event held in 2006, Budapest
"On Collaboration is an international series of events investigating the phenomenon of collaborative artistic practice through lectures, art projects and panel discussions.
Collaboration is not a new phenomenon in visual art. Ever since artists have worked together in a
common workshop or in colonies, through the avant-garde movements when artists with a similar view and goals have joined forces to clarify and promote the artistic ideas they stood for we find numerous examples. The idea of sharing authorship and of the participation of communities in the creative process has been for long introduced, too.
However, the radical change in the notion of the artwork and of the role of artistic individuality
from the sixties on, moreover, the extensive development of communication technology throughout the last two decades, opened new dimensions for collaborative work. Civil rights movements, social problems and political context has also challenged artists to express themselves in new ways.
It is not just about working at the same place or in a similar style, not just about a common
discourse based on a conviction alike; the project On Collaboration focuses on the phenomenon
when it is the creative process that becomes a common act and experience so that the work born
out of these efforts can be only attributed to a collective of creators and not to a single person.
What possibilities can collaborative work offer for extending individual creativity, what kind of new energies arise when working together? What could be the strengths and the weaknesses of such methods?
In which ways can a group organize itself, how can a certain autonomy be created as a basis for
critique and resistance? How can a micro-society formed this way occupy alternative spaces of
creation and action?
What are the motivations behind forming a collective at different parts of the world – like in Central Europe or in the United States – and what are the answers to the challenges by various economic and institutional models possibly provided this way?
Does the appearance and the spread of the Internet offer new models of collaboration, how can the experience gained by using the Internet be incorporated into the artistic creation?
It seems that the claim to re-write art history, in respect to socially and politically engaged group
work, that traditionally has largely focused on artifacts and marketable tendencies is being
acknowledged and promoted by a growing number of artists and cultural workers. How can a line be drawn from early twentieth-century avant-garde movements and thoughts on collaboration, participation and social act on through the collaborative projects of the sixties and seventies to present tendencies? How can these activities be archived and presented, what are the possible strategies that curators and institutions could apply when dealing with process based collective projects – and what were and are the forms and results of such an incorporation of independent activities into the institutional and canonization system? Where would a discourse about the respective notions of art and activism lead us? How are these boundaries being dissolved in some of these projects?"
info:
ON COLLABORATION - A series of events and talks on collaborative art practices
Trafó Gallery, Trafó – House of Contemporary Arts Budapest
23 March – 01 April 2006
//quo: How I Drew One of My Pictures: * or, The Authorship of Generative Art. Adrian Ward, Geoff Cox
corresponding crisis of value. It has been argued that under these conditions of the dematerialised artwork, it is process that becomes valued. In this way, the process of creation and creativity is valued in place of authenticity, undermining conventional notions of authorship."
[...]
"Moreover, the output from generative systems should not be valued simply as an endless, infinite series of resources but as a system. To have a machine write poetry for ten years would not generate creative music, but the process of getting the machine to do so would certainly register an advanced form of creativity."
[..]
"The mathematical value 'pi' can be approximated as 3.141593, but a more thorough and accurate version can be stored as the formula used to calculate it. By analogy, it is more precise to express creativity formulated as code, which can then be executed to produce the desired results."
[...]
Ward/Cox quoting Walter Benjamin:
"'An author who has carefully thought about the conditions of production today... will never be
concerned with the products alone, but always, at the same time, with the means of production. In other words, his [sic] products must possess an organising function besides and before their
character as finished works.'"
[Walter Benjamin, 'The Author as Producer', in Understanding Brecht, London: Verso 1992, p.98;]
info:
How I Drew One of My Pictures: * or, The Authorship of Generative Art. Adrian Ward BSc & Geoff Cox MA(RCA)
Sidestream, London & CAiiA-STAR, School of Computing, University of Plymouth, UK
e-mail: adrian@signwave.co.uk & geoffcox@excite.com
[http://www.generative.net/papers/authorship/index.html]
//quo: The Myth of Immateriality: Presenting and Preserving New Media. Christiane Paul
"A lowest common denominator for defining new media art seems to be its computability, the fact that it is computational and based on algorithms.
Other descriptive adjectives commonly used for charactering new media art are process-oriented, time-based, dynamic, and real-time; participatory, collaborative, and performative; modular, variable, generative and customizable."
"Interaction and participation are key elements in transforming new media works into ‘open systems’. The openness of the system differs substantially from one digital artwork to the next, and one could argue that the degree of openness is directly related to the investment of time the viewer-participant has to make and the amount of expertise necessary to engage with it."
"Openness increases in projects where artists have established a framework that allows participants to create a contribution to the system…"
"Collaborative exchange has become a fundamental part of artistic new media practice and has affected notions of the artwork and authorship, which in turn have fundamental consequences for curatorial practice and the presentation of the art. The artistic process in new media creation to a large extent relies on collaborative models, which manifest themselves on various levels."
"While artists groups and collectives are by no means a new phenomenon that emerged along with digital media, they certainly have not been in the majority when it comes to artistic creation, and the art world in general has traditionally been focused on the model of a single creator and ’star’."
info:
The Myth of Immateriality: Presenting and Preserving New Media, Christiane Paul, 2005
in: Oliver Grau (Editor), Media Art Histories, 2006, The MIT Press
//url: open organizations
about:
"'Open Organizations' is the current name for a framework for a functional organizational structure that people can choose to adopt in part or whole when working together. It can also be used as a tool to analyse other organizations and related theoretical concepts and frameworks. Open Organizations is in a large part the result of observing and distilling the patterns, or processes, in the functioning of existing organizations. It is developing according to the understanding that theory and practice rely on each other."
//def: sharon kagan
paper includes a checklist with questions for successful collaboration
[http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/14/07/f7.pdf]
//url: Beyond Teams: Toward an Ethic of Collaboration. Mark E Haskins, Jeanne Liedtka, John Rosenblum
[http://www.audubon-area.org/NewFiles/ethic-oc.htm]
//quo: the ethics of collaboration. Nikos Papastergiadis
Collaboration presupposes mutual understanding, shared languages, common goals and the ability to negotiate across differences. These qualities and skills are not common, nor are they often presented as part of the identity of the artist. The mythical images of the artist are mostly as solitary figures, rebelling against social rules and pushing the boundaries of institutions. However, the myth of the artist as an outsider is a destructive self-image. It fosters contempt for the complex ways in which the artist is entangled with others."
[...]
"Creativity never occurs in a social vacuum. All forms of artistic practice are structured like a language. The proliferation in forms of practice has also extended the need to multiply our codes of reference and our dexterity in cultural translation. Learning to recognise and respond in the various languages expressed in any group activity is an essential task for collaboration. These qualities can only be achieved with familiarity, good will and an extended period of exchange. The time to develop a collective experience and the personal confidence to express inner needs are crucial elements in any collaborative process. Collaboration can either lead to a new hybrid work, in which the conjunction enhances or cancels the sum of its contributors. Collaboration can create a new third way of seeing the connection between things or it can deepen the rift between. To see a bridge may be as useful as to witness the gulf, either way the difference of others needs to be recognised. Following from here is the challenge of living with and leading towards new spheres of connection, the search for new media which contain both positions and perspectives, and a form which enables the integrity of the individual as well the space that comes from being in a collective to grow."
[http://www.capelan.com/texts/ethics.htm]
//url: Ethology of Art and Science Collaborations: Research Ethics Boards in the Context of Contemporary Art Practice. Garnet Hertz
Frameworks for ethical review of scientific research are well established and documented;
however, many interdisciplinary artists and art institutions are unfamiliar with these policies and
procedures, as well as the potential benefits this process offers within emergent areas of
collaborative research. In this paper, we will examine currently established models for ethical
review of scientific research as they would apply to interdisciplinary fields. Using the Canadian
system as a basis for discussion, a practical overview of its guiding principles, conducts,
application processes, terms of approval and liabilities will be presented. Issues covered will
include tissue culture, animal use, genetic modification and transgenics. Relavant highlights will
be presented from the Interagency Advisory Panel on Research Ethics (PRE), the Canadian
Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of
Canada (NSERC), the Canada Council of Animal Care (CCAC) and the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Examples of contemporary artworks will be
explored as specific case studies in relation to the ethics review process. Proper navigation of
these processes may offer guidance to artists and institutions that engage controversial subjects,
use scientific facilities, or attempt to gain access to funding traditionally oriented to scientific
research.
info:
Ethology of Art and Science Collaborations: Research Ethics Boards in the Context of
Contemporary Art Practice
Presented at Bridges II Conference, Banff New Media Institute
Garnet Hertz (2002)
[http://www.conceptlab.com/ethology/hertz-ethology-notes-v20081124.pdf]
//def: collaborative authorship
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_authorship]
//quo: Roland Barthes
"The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from innumerable centres of culture.”
Roland Barthes, Image, Music, Text, translated by Stephen Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), 146.
//quo: Who is the Author? Sampling / Remixing / Open Source. Lev Manovich
some quotes from the full text, that can be accessed under:
[www.manovich.net/DOCS/models_of_authorship.doc]
"
new media: new types of collaboration, new relationships, new distribution models
1. Collaboration of Different Individuals and/or Groups
"We can think of this as a “social culture”; we may also note that while the new media culture may not have produced any “masterpieces”, it definitely had a huge impact on how people and organizations communicate."
2. Interactivity as Miscommunication Between the Author and the User
--> relation between artist and user is that of feedback rather than of collaboration3. Authorship as Selection From a Menu
--> selection from a small number of choices makes user feel like an artist/creator, where really she/he remains just a consumer4. Collaboration Between a Company and the Users
--> incorporating users' feedback/experiences in new versions of a product5. Collaboration Between the Author and Software
"6. Remixing
""
"
"
similar to remixing, but not the same: quoting - or as it would be called in electronic music: sampling
7. Sampling: New Collage?
similar to collage and montage (from literary and visual modernism), but in a new cultural context8. Open Source Model
different types of licencing-models,idea of the kernel, that is more persistent than the rest
"
9. Brand as the Author
"
//lst: fred turner on iDC
[https://lists.thing.net/pipermail/idc/2009-June/003510.html, 12.6.2009]
//txt: Re-Writing the History of Media Art: From Personal Cinema to Artistic Collaboration. Ryszard W. Kluszczynski
strategy of collective work, reinterpreted through the opensource work and interactive art
of today. The author identifies three steps in the development of the 20th-century concept of
joint creative work: avant-garde general strategies of artistic collaboration; avant-garde film
works oriented toward creative collectivism; and collaborative artistic practices that manifest
themselves in non-hierarchical strategies of contemporary interactive art."
LEONARDO, Vol. 40, No. 5, pp. 469–474, 2007 (as part of the refresh! conference papers)
//txt: artistic bedfellows: histories and conversations in collaborative art practices. holly crawford
Artistic Bedfellows is an international interdisciplinary collection of historical essays, critical papers, case studies, interviews, and comments from scholars and practitioners that shed new light on the growing field of collaborative art. This collection examines the field of collaborative art broadly, while asking specific questions with regard to the issues of interdisciplinary and cultural difference, as well as the psychological and political complexity of collaboration. The diversity of approach is needed in the current multimedia and cross disciplinarily world of art. This reader is designed to stimulate thought and discussion for anyone interested in this growing field and practice
[http://books.google.at/books?id=eA5G2-J-ovoC&dq=collaborative+art+practices&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0]
info:
artistic bedfellows: histories and conversations in collaborative art practices. holly crawford
University Press of America, 2008,ISBN 0761840648, 9780761840640;340 pages
//url: networked collaboration
http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/09/29/network_collaboration_peer_to_peer.htm
//quo: mark tribe on collaboration in new media art
[https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/display/MarkTribe/New+Media+Art+-+Introduction]
//txt: When artists collaborate - The Third Hand: Collaboration in Art from Conceptualism to Postmodernism. Charles Green
"[Green] attempts to construct a new "model of authorship" that involves a "third artist," a phantom figure allegedly generated when artists set about working jointly"
[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_11_90/ai_94079415/]
quo:
"The working method of collaboration implies an ideological downplaying of the role of imagination as it is usually conceived: as the expression of individual subjectivity.
Memory, on the other hand, makes things relative: It gives perspective and has therefore been considered ethical in itself because it relativizes the individual, self-centered subjectivity that is a poor guide to how to act."
[ p.97]
info:
The Third Hand: Collaboration in Art from Conceptualism to Postmodernism, by Charles Green, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2001; 248 pages
//vid: from representation to participation. ruth catlow, marc garrett
orig url: http://vimeo.com/3364184?pg=embed&sec=
Ruth Catlow & Marc Garrett of Furtherfield.org and the HTTP Gallery from Renée Turner on Vimeo.