[dev] Invito progetto / LABoral website

[Domenico Quaranta]

Ciao cari,

vi scrivo per una proposta a cui spero siate interessati. Qualche  
tempo fa, sono stato contattato da Benjamin Weil, Chief Curator al  
LABoral di Gijon (http://www.laboralcentrodearte.org/en). Per il  
rilancio del sito dell'istituzione, Weil stava pensando a un ciclo di  
commissioni, una serie di progetti non pensati per una gallery  
tradizionale, ma per un uso "performativo" della rete e possibilmente  
del sito del LABoral. Contattava me, come credo abbia fatto con altri,  
perché gli facessi delle proposte di artisti con cui ero in contatto.

I progetti selezionati verranno presentati di volta in volta sul sito  
del LABoral per un periodo di tempo definito. Specifico subito che non  
c'è budget, almeno per ora, né per gli artisti, né per i curatori che  
fanno da mediatori e che in seguito si occuperanno di presentare i  
progetti proposti e selezionati. Insomma: se accettate la proposta,  
come ho fatto io, fatelo sulla base di altre valutazioni: la  
possibilità di avviare una relazione con il LABoral, l'interesse a  
usare un sito istituzionale per un intervento pubblico, ecc.

Se siete interessati, quello che vi chiedo è di mandarmi una proposta  
per la fine del mese (diciamo, Sabato 30 aprile 2011). La proposta può  
essere un breve abstract scritto (preferibilmente in inglese) o già un  
bozzetto di prova del lavoro, se ve la sentite. Se necessario ne  
discutiamo, poi io confeziono un documento da presentare a Weil, e se  
la cosa va in porto si parte con un calendario che concorderemo insieme.

Personalmente, la strategia che ho seguito è stata, una volta tanto,  
di concentrarmi su artisti italiani. Mi sembra che ne valga la pena,  
dato che non disponiamo, nello stivale, di alcuna istituzione che  
possa fare un lavoro di questo tipo. Ricevono questa email: Iocose,  
Elisa Giardina Papa, Les Liens Invisibles, Artisopensource, Paolo  
Cirio, xname, Jaromil, Molleindustria.

L'indicazione di un approccio "performativo" alla rete è ovviamente  
molto generica. Come ulteriore chiarimento, vi allego (in via  
confidenziale) il concept steso da Weil e vi racconto il progetto  
pilota, già online sul sito del LABoral. Si tratta di un lavoro dello  
spagnolo Rui Guerra (http://www.v2.nl/archive/people/rui-guerra), che  
visualizza i vari utenti presenti sul sito del LABoral nello stesso  
momento in forma di cursori.

è tutto, per ora. Fatemi sapere se la cosa vi può interessare.

Un caro saluto

Domenico

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Back in the early days of the World Wide Web, a number of artists  
started creating online projects.  Numerous directions were explored,  
but a majority of those projects tended to explore the structure of  
the medium, using the hyperlink structure  - such as Refresh, a sort  
of exquisite corpse which used the automatic refresh function of the  
web browser, loading another web page automatically from another web  
site – while others used the bugs in the software.  The main source of  
inspiration for those works was a critical reflection on the emerging  
medium and the quick appropriation of a turf that was primarily  
occupied by universities and officials, by commercial entities.
By 1995, a number of art institutions started commissioning and  
producing online art, including such distinguished North American  
museums as Dia Center for the Arts, the Guggenheim Museum as well as  
The Walker Art Center.  Other initiatives included adaweb and Rhizome,  
among others, as well as such artists collectives as The Thing in New  
York, and the famed London-based cooperative studio, irrational.org,  
founded by Heath Bunting and Rachel Green.  The majority of artists  
working online chose to develop their own web site as a standalone  
project.  These included the likes of Jodi.org (Joan Heemskerk and  
Dirk Paesmans), vuk.org (Vuk Cosiç), teleportacia.org (Olia Lialina)  
or easylife.net (Alexei Shulgin), just to name a few.
Fifteen years later, the web has become ubiquitous, and is accessed by  
a majority of citizens in a very large number of countries in the  
world, and while authoritarian regimes still control or attempt to  
control access and use of the network, a large number of humans in the  
world access the web daily, and make use of it to carry out domestic  
and professional duties as well as social exchanges.  As with  
television and video in the early 1970s, a number of artists and other  
cultural producers have continued to take a critical approach to the  
way the online world has become controlled, how commercial interests  
have reduced the potential of creative use of the network.  They have  
carried our projects in such virtual communities as Second Life - Cao  
Fei, and Eva and Franco Mattes just to name a few – or Facebook, and  
continued to develop projects, although at the margin of the  
mainstream contemporary art sphere for the most.  Interestingly  
enough, very few institutions have continued to support artistic  
investigations online.
One key issue is that there may not be a viable economic model that  
enables artists to support themselves with online work.  That is  
because the art market is still very much predicated by the notion of  
a unique object, which can be purchased, and resold, or integrated in  
a public collection.  It is noteworthy, in that sense, that a new  
generation of artists working online are actually referring more  
directly to the world of performing arts that to the one of visual  
arts.  Not only this may lead to new definition of this kind of work,  
and help define a field that would more easily be supported.  Using  
the online realm as a venue to carry out time-based interventions,  
these artists combine a number or references that blend the actions of  
the 1960’s and 70’s and the spirit of hacking.
Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial is happy to inaugurate  
its new web site with a “site specific” work by Rui Guerra.   
Throughout the months to come, we will invite other artists to produce  
new works made in the spirit of what could tentatively be referred to  
as “virtual performances”, or display existing ones for a limited  
duration.  The web site becomes a stage of sorts, rather than an  
exhibition space.  Maybe this new set of paradigm will encourage a  
second wave of institutional support for this kind of works, which  
will undoubtedly become more mainstream, as the online realm continues  
to take more of our time and to become a site for many of our daily  
business.

Benjamin Weil

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Domenico Quaranta

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