Damian wrote: > i left Wellington for a number of reasons. pertinent to this discussion > was my growing sense that there were a whole lot people in the city, > interested in similar things as myself, who worked in isolation and > didn't share, not because they didn't want to but because (like myself) > they didn't realise their work might be valuable to other people, and > even if they did think it was valuable there was no established place to > share it.
How about thinking of established *methods* to share? Why the 'lab' obsession? > the arts market in New Zealand is as far as i could tell lost > in post-colonialism and so heavy with theoretical nonsense that i always > felt it was impossible to approach it coming as i am from a position of > having no formal arts training. But having a CNZ funded something-lab isn't going to refocus the NZ art world -- it is going to reflect it. OK, so you mentioned before you were keen on corporate co-sponsorship, but that won't help the art. It'll morph into 'innovation'. > i started organising events to try to rectify what i saw as a tragedy of > lost opportunities. this was the point of the Bleep series of workshops, > and although they were successful in doing what i was hoping to achieve, > i quickly realised that without any infrastructure the overhead of > effort was enormous, and that i was not cut out for organising events; > moreover without follow-up the social aspect was quickly lost, and it > was hard to make these follow-ups happen in an informal way. Isn't this an argument against a hack-space: it will fail, because in your actually experienced reality nobody cares much? > when i put together Sounds Like Light, Lights Like Sound for the > Fringe festival in 2007, i thought that because the work that i was > making was coming from a more practical approach to artistic work, it > was somehow lesser art, or perhaps not even art at all because it was > so technical. these feelings are something that of course come from > my identity as a New Zealander, but i know that if there had been a > hacklab space in Wellington i would not have felt so isolated and > confused about what it was that i was actually doing, and as a result > i believe the work i could make would have been much better. > that's what it means to me, and that's why i care, because i know there > are other people back home dealing with the same shit i was dealing with > in my head, and that since such a place would have helped me, it could > help them too. You know Damian, probably not. Young men, early twenties, feeling isolated and confused, think they might be artists? There is nothing that can help them. Douglas _______________________________________________ Ada_list mailing list [email protected] http://aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz/
