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Hi Renate,
Sorry to leave this question unanswered for a few days...
So you were asking about the PED collaboration originating with Millie Chen and
Andrew Johnson, which had its first exhibition in 2001 at the University at
Buffalo, Center for the Arts. To describe briefly, we set up a service center
at the UB gallery that loaned bicycles for public use on a series of ten marked
trails through the suburban campus. Each tour had a unique pedagogical lecture
soundtrack that riders heard emanating from an on-board peddle powered cassette
player that corresponded to the route and deconstructed the projected image of
the university, particularly in relation to issues of land-use. see:
http://www.paulvanouse.com/ped.html
That project fits well what i mentioned earlier about collaborating based on
parity and shared agendas:
(1.) Shared Agendas: Pose project collaborations in terms of shared goals and
agendas, or even shared sense of process. Avoid collaborations based on some
notion of a fixed form or final outcome. It can be tempting when working with
someone that you don’t know well or have little in common with to try to invent
a project based on a shared form/product through which you will each achieve
your own separate agenda. I’ve found this never works because experimental
projects never exactly take the form you expected and if goals differ then
you’ll never agree on the acceptable changes to the form. But when agendas
and process sensibilities are shared, each new challenge and change of plan
tends to strengthen the project.
Basically, we were all three new faculty at the University and we had several
axes to grind:
1--Primarily, we wanted to assert new artistic forms in our first exhibition
there (to practice what we 'teach'), so we agreed we wanted no art on the
walls. Furthermore, it would be best if it wasn't even in the building.
Finally, it would be best if it wasn't static nor visual.
--we kept tossing ideas back and forth and modifying bit by bit until we came
up with the PED project with no visual art on walls, highly interactive (both
in terms of human performance as bureau attendants and electronic gizmos on the
bicycles). None of us were wed to a particular form, but by sharing the same
agenda it was easy to make decisions about each new modification/enhancement.
2--We wanted to assert our role as faculty was not limited to teaching classes,
but as active university citizenry participating in university discussions,
governance and planning.
--to this end we addressed the recurring frustration that Buffalonians had with
the University's move from the city to the neighboring suburb in the 1980s
after student uprisings in the 1960s. Each of the bicycle tours was named
after keywords in adjectives used in marketing suburban property and addressed
topics of location and public space in professorial lecture format.
3--We wanted to assert that the arts (some of the last disciplines to be moved
to the new campus) had an important and broad function in a university culture.
We wanted to assert the arts key role in interdisciplinary action as well as
its progressive voice ... that also could be ironic.
--we designed the bicycle routes and lectures to visit/address not only every
academic building on the campus, but also to address the parking areas, the
public green areas, future planned construction, the former wetlands. Many of
the cannons of a university eduction, such as Shakespeare, Freud, Kant, Edison
and Olmstead were incorporated in the individual lecture tours, their comments
(never in their typical contexts) roughly coinciding with a rider's campus
location.
But, I suppose, like many of my projects there was also a playful interaction
and a rather dry irony to the lecture tours that hopefully was hopefully
engaging and unexpected...
Anyway, I hope that is useful to the discussion. The website I listed above
has more specifics and shows how the project changed after 2001 alongside other
collaborators like Warren Quigley and Joan Linder, and how each manifestation
in a different place led to different kinds of formal and technological
solutions.
Cheers,
Paul
On May 18, 2013, at 12:35 PM, Renate Ferro wrote:
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Dear Paul and Cecelia,
Many thanks for being our guest this week. Paul we did not want you
to get away this week without commenting on the post Renate made about
PED and your thoughts about activism and humor/play/irony.
Simon thanks for the footnote on network/contact.
We are going to be introducing next weeks guests in a few minutes.
Hope you will continue though to chime in as your schedules warrant.
Renate and Tim
On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 10:47 PM, Renate Ferro <r...@cornell.edu> wrote:
Hi Paul, Cecelia, Erin, and to all of our -empyre subscribers,
I have been traveling this past week and am just getting caught up on
your posts. Thanks to Ana for nurturing the list this week.
Paul your posts made me think about your collaborative PED piece
http://paulvanouse.com/ped.html
In your summation of your experiences with collaboration I am struck
by the fact that at the heart of many collaborative successes is
playfulness and humor. I thought about the PED piece because though
there was certainly activist intent humor, playfulness, irony seemed
to seep throughout the entire project. I guess I am picking on PED
because it is one of my favorites but I'm wondering if you could take
a few minutes and talk more about the playful gestures that resonate
in your activist projects?
I am really interested n the gestures of play and fun even in the
midst of pretty serious subject matter.
I am asking Paul this but hope all of you will chime in. At Cornell
about five years ago I founded a lab called "The Tinker Factory."
Riffing off the word tinker to experiment, mess around, with things
that sometimes you have no preplanned path of action for, tinkering
with materials or technology or the stuff of creative production. And
the word Factory, I borrowed inspiration from Andy Warhol's
performance, collaborative playground in New York City in the early
1960's. It was a space that nurtured creative practice and
experimentation as well as conceptual ideas.
The Tinker Factory for my students and me has been a space where we
can bring in guests and share work, ideas in both a collaborative
workshop production space and a creative mentoring space. We have
brought Kevin Hamilton, Maurice Benayoun, Andrew Galloway, and Mari
Velonaki among others. These guests not only provided an opportunity
to share their expertise but also gave us license to think about
broader issues involving critical digital technology in a relaxed
atmosphere. In the middle of Upstate NY we are centrally isolated and
sometimes it is difficult to network. The Tinker Factory brings
together faculty, students, and sometimes even community members who
come together even if it is for a brief period of time. What have
resulted are connections among artist's, engineers, and others that
ordinarily would never have an occasion to happen.
So to all of you what do you think about location? Just a few weeks
ago I heard Ricardo Dominguez talk about his early collaborations with
his Tallahassee buddies. They lived and worked together in the same
geographic location. Is it possible or how is it possible to network
using social media, or email, or Skype to enable collaborative
practice and thinking. Anyone out there have some good examples of
this that has worked successfully?
Happy Friday to all of you and for others Happy End of the Semester!
Renate
--
Renate Ferro
Visiting Assistant Professor of Art
Cornell University
Department of Art, Tjaden Hall Office #420
Ithaca, NY 14853
Email: <r...@cornell.edu>
URL: http://www.renateferro.net
http://www.privatesecretspubliclies.net
Lab: http://www.tinkerfactory.net
Managing Co-moderator of -empyre- soft skinned space
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empyre
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