Constant

Iterations publication

Peter Westenberg — 2020-06-29T10:26:41Z

Iterations was a series of residencies, exhibitions, research meetings and artistic exchanges committed to investigate the future of artistic collaboration in digitally networked contexts.
Iterations is now also a publication that creates and inspires new concepts and openings for works yet to be developed.

With contributions by: Kym Ward, Behuki, common ground, Rica Rickson, Collective Conditions, spideralex. An insert booklet invites the reader to engage in a practice of 'X-dexing' to discover and process transversal content.

Editors: Jara Rocha and Manetta Berends
Design: Manetta Berends

Iterations is a project by Constant, Hangar, esc MKL
More info on the project: Iterations.space

copyleft FAL, Constant 2020

Download the publication:
https://iterations.space/publication/

View online : https://iterations.space/

next-Iterations

Peter Westenberg — 2020-04-26T12:39:04Z

(JOIN THE LIVE EVENT)

Over the past three years, Iterations has been a beautiful ride through the landscape of artistic collaboration. Now, there is a publication. We invite you to discover the many new starting points it offers during next-Iterations, a two-day contemplative, playfully experimental and festive online event.

Join Sunday 17 May for a programme with contributions ranging from live radio transmissions to body exercises, talks, soundscapes and visual interventions.

next-Iterations starts at 13:00 with an introduction to the publication by editors-designers Jara Rocha and Manetta Berends.

Too early for a lazy weekend start-up? Come and co-inquire feminist infrastructures of support with Spideralex between 15:15 and 16:00, or partake in networked sonic spell-casting with Kym Ward at 16:30.

Did intensive listening make you thirsty? Join us at 18:15 in the IRC-BAR for 'collaborative' cocktails prepared by the Rica Rickson collective.

Doesn't fit your schedule? At all times you can pick up the
next-Iterations audio-stream from the website https://iterations.space and enjoy it in your preferred (off-screen?) environment.

Did the project Iterations escape your attention and now you are curious what it was all about? The organisers compact flashbacks, details, intentions and outcomes in a Pandipodium summary review on Monday 18 May between 13:30-14:15.

View online : https://iterations.space/

Iterations Publication sprint

Donatella — 2020-04-24T17:22:24Z

The organisers of the project Iterations met with editor researcher Jara Rocha and the experimental graphic designer Manetta Berends to work on the Iterations final publication tha will be launched in May 2020. They gathered materials and documentations, discussed content handles, experimented with different lay-outs.

Iterations #5: Collective Conditions worksession

Donatella — 2020-04-03T09:44:12Z

In the framework of the European project Iterations, a worksession on the conditions for/of collectivity took place from 8 until 16 November 2019 at Ateliers Mommen, in Brussels.

Collective Conditions invited artists, software developers, theorists, activists and others to experiment with the generative potential of codes of conduct, bug reports, licenses and complaints and similar performative documents as platforms to experiment with the conditions for complex collectivity in troubling times.

For more information:
http://constantvzw.org/site/-Collective-Conditions,220-.html

Iterations is a collaborative European project between Dyne.org (NL), esc medien kunst lab (AT), Hangar (ES) and Constant (BE). The project is co-funded by the cultural programme Creative Europe of the European Union. In addition the worksession Collective Conditions is supported by Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles Arts Numériques.

Iterations #5: Operating / Exploitation

Peter Westenberg — 2019-10-20T16:59:20Z

'Iterations #5: Operating / Exploitation' is a collaborative work with inputs by: Mia Melvaer, Maxime Stifinner, Zoumana Meïté, Norbert Math, Iris Torruella Segura, Yoan Robin, Rosa Llop, Geraldine Juarez, Martin Rumori, Luis Rodil-Fernández.

Exhibition: 08/11 - 24/11/2019
Tuesday -> Sunday : 10:00 -> 18:00

Opening: 07/11 : 18:00

Iterations talks and performance: 07/11 : 14:00 - 18:00

A computer operating system functions through interacting scripts which negotiate collaboration, instrumentalisation and interaction between connected elements. This exhibition uses the operating system as a metaphor to investigate the conditions for working together. It occupies the semantic space between the English and French terms for it: operating system and système d'exploitation. Operating / Exploitation is the outcome of a group residency in Bozar Lab. It takes place in the framework of Iterations, an investigation into the potential of artistic collaboration in a digital context.

Operating / Exploitation is about the technology of collaboration. Technology in this context is not to be interpreted as 'high tech', but refers to everything that can be said about the know-how, tools, skills and techniques that are connected to the act of working together. Operating / Exploitation experiments with collectively shared authorship. It does not follow the scheme of the individual author as an isolated genius, but is rooted in networked culture. The artists working together in Operating / Exploitation consider their collaboration within a larger framework: a common project between several art organisations, which in its turn is part of a European funding program. Their col-labor-ation addresses the relationships and hierarchies between partners and agencies involved. What is the status of this togetherness? Is that 'labor' a commonly desired objective or a necessary evil? Is the action aimed at a common goal?

The metaphor of the operating system extends to the way computers can operate between each other and in relation to other systems. To operate a system, of whatever type, is to integrate, use, deploy and exploit material and energy. This goes for businesses, politics or art institutes as well as for humans doing things together. Computer code and software tools are often presumed to do this in agnostic ways, as tools that can be deployed for many purposes. However, they are deeply entangled with social political complexities that are not innocent nor neutral. For example, software needs hardware, a computer, a server, which uses metals, plastics, electricity, bodies that bend over keyboards. Working conditions on assembly lines, the way that electricity is produced, and the violent realities bound to the mining of conflict-minerals such as coltan which is used in electronic devices, is also part of the system in operation. Each time we 'power up' our computers we activate these realities.

In June and October, Constant invited several artists to exchange and work together in a collective residency that was hosted by Bozar Lab. The artists shared their practices through experiments, talks, studio visits and common exercises, and further developed the theme of a preceding exhibition that was made by another group of artists in esc, medien kunst labor in Graz, Austria. 'Collaboration Contamination' was made by the group that called themselves 'Common ground', and consisted of a huge pile of fertile soil that was deposited in the gallery space of esc, from which several elements grew: plants, textile, sounds, interactive motion. The exhibition stated that no collaboration is possible without making time and space for mutual change and influencing.

An outcome from the Bozar Lab residency in June was the decision to work around the conditions of working together. A start was made with a listing of what can be expected from a collaboration. Conflict and friction were considered to be essential notions to work with and were moved to the center of attention. The October residency, which took place in the two weeks before the exhibition opening, elaborated on this notion and developed the installation that is shown here.

Operating / Exploitation develops new languages that arise from doing together, finding out, trying, failing, trying again. Anthropologist Anna Tsing reminds us that 'Collaboration is only possible through dedication to knowing that, "you are going to be changed in the process.". The artists engaging with the project have committed themselves to a process of change, of the work, themselves, and the world it inhabits. Working together artistically puts image into action. Collective imagin-ation is doing, acting out while imagining together. It is through working together and mutually influencing each other that we will imagine and give shape to the world of tomorrow that we will inhabit together. If we write that story together and we want to be part of that, then togetherness is the tool that we need to study, improve and distribute. We cannot afford to not find out about its technologies.

Iterations #5: talks and performance

Peter Westenberg — 2019-09-30T15:51:42Z

Iterations is a collaborative trajectory committed to the future of artistic collaboration in a digital context. On the occasion of the opening of the exhibition Operating | Exploitation in Bozar Lab, an afternoon with reflective inputs is organised.

With : Melanie Sehgal, Giulia Deval, Nayari Castillo. Moderation : Shusha Niederberger

Melanie Sehgal : Techniques as a Mode of Relating. Thinking with a
Transdisciplinary Experiment
Melanie Sehgal is Juniorprofessor of Literary, Science and Media Studies at the European University Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder. Her talk will explore techniques as mode of relating between participants with heterogeneous disciplinary backgrounds and address questions such as: What are the theoretical and historical necessities and constraints to re-think our modes of knowledge production today? What are the potentials, the gains and losses of considering these modes, and knowledge in general, as techniques? What is the particular relevance of addressing modes of relating?
The talk will intersect theoretical and historical reflections with experiences of the transversal working group FORMATIONS that Melanie Sehgal co-leads with the artist Alex Martinis Roe.

Giulia Deval : Phonotrasparence
Giulia Deval is active as artist and researcher in the field of sound and visual arts. Her performance Phonotrasparence uses field recordings, magnetic tape and a sound suit. It reflects on the body as a deposit and transmitter of sounds, an involuntary reservoir and intersection of trajectories determined by a rest or a walk. The work was born during Trasformatorio, the first phase of Iterations held in Sicily, and evolved over time. It started from the concept of "phonotransparency", the ability of the acoustic fabric to absorb sound by transforming a good part of the acoustic energy that passes through the material into another type of energy, such as heat.

Nayari Castillo
Artist and researcher Nayari Castillo specialises in art in public space that engages with history, time and space. Following examples of artist collectives and collaborations, her presentation will investigate collaboration strategies and modalities of working together, and the common grounds, dialogues and processes they produce.

Shusha Niederberger
Shusha Niederberger is research associate for the SNF funded research project "Creating Commons" based at the IFCAR Institute for Contemporary Art Research, ZHDK. As lecturer on contemporary net culture she is connected to the F+F Schule für Kunst und Design, Zürich. She works as educational program curator at HeK (House of electronic Arts Basel)

The afternoon is English spoken. Live translations to French and Dutch will be available.
The program starts at 14:00 and runs until 18:00.
Followed by the opening of the exhibition Operating / Exploitation
Doors open at 13:30, entrance by rue Baron Hortastraat 11, 1000 Brussels, next to Cinematek.
Please, reserve through Bozar website:
https://www.bozar.be/en/static-pages/54511-tickets-reservations-information

Iterations #5: Artistic Residency

Peter Westenberg — 2019-09-19T14:46:59Z

Iterations researches the conditions of artistic collaboration in a digital context. Conviviality, togetherness, institutions, transitory operating systems, documents as performance and other notions will be investigated by six artists who are invited to think, exchange and experiment together in the spaces of Bozar Lab in Brussels.

This group residency is in preparation of the exhibition Operating | Exploitation that will take place in Bozar Lab, between 8 and 24 November.
An afternoon with inputs and reflections is organised on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition, on 7 November.

For more information see this article:
[http://constantvzw.org/site/Iterations-talks-and-performance.html?lang=en]

With contributions of: Maxime Fuhrer, Mia Melvaer, Yoan Robin, Iris Torruella Segura, Norbert Math, Zoumana Meïté

The residency is not open for public.

Iterations is a collaborative European project between esc medien kunst lab (AT), Hangar (ES) and Constant (BE). The residency and the exhibition are hosted by Bozar, Centre of fine arts (BE).

Iterations : Handover Residency

Peter Westenberg — 2019-05-28T12:17:15Z

Iterations researches the conditions of artistic collaboration in a digital context. Conviviality, togetherness, institutions, transitory operating systems, documents as performance and other notions will be investigated by six artists who are invited to think, exchange and experiment together in the spaces of Bozar Lab, Brussels.

With: Luis Rodil-Fernández, Maxime Fuhrer, Géraldine Juarez, Martin Rumori, Mia Melvaer, Rosa Llop.

The residency is not open for public.

This residency is in preparation of the series of Iterations activities that will take place in autumn 2019 in Bozar.

7 november: Conference
8 - 24 november: Iterations Exhibition
9 - 16 november: Iterations Worksession

View online : https://iterations.space/

Iterations #4: Collaboration | Contamination > NOI

Peter Westenberg — 2019-03-26T17:32:08Z

For the fourth Iterations Media art laboratory esc invited Nayari Castillo, Antonia Manhartsberger, Norbert Math, Mia Melvær, Constanza Mendoza, Ulla Rauter, Martin Rumori to make a collective work to be exhibited in the esc gallery.

The esc medien kunst labor was transformed into a spatial laboratory where ideas around Collaboration and Contamination filled the room. As a result, a temporary installation came to place: real dirt (soil) filled half of the room giving substrate to seeds and plants to grow — a metaphor to constant transformation. Under the bed of earth, sensors (movement and seismic) told about the behaviour of the visitor. The sounds and noises produced by the meandering were incorporated into a six channels sound composition that mixed the new information in an aleatory way with a database. A moving coconut net filled with microphones and hanging over the centre of the space incorporated sounds of its internal contortions to the composition. The atmospheric development was completed by 5 speakers singing a whispering choir.

Subverting the power relations and constructing a new conglomerate within an action, the individual names of the artists disappeared, leaving behind just some vowels that formulate a new compound: Common Ground.

The exhibition run from 04/05/2019 until 18/06/2019, with an opening on 04/05.

After that, the exhibition was reiterated and re-worked, taking a new shape. NOI or Network of Iterations attempted to give sense through an immersive installation to the entire process of Iterations. This new version was shown until 23 August 2019. A parallel program of lectures, talks and presentations run through the hole exhibition period.

View online : https://iterations.space/index.php/...

Iterations #3: Hangar Residency

Donatella — 2018-06-13T16:16:36Z

For the second residency in the framework of the project Iterations, 8 artists were invited to develop a collaborative art project during a 15 days residency at Hangar. Some were selected through an open call, others ones were going to participate to the next iterations residency. At the beginning of the residency an Handover meeting was organised between this group and two artists as representatives of the previous group in residency in Italy, Iterations 2: Trasformatorio Residency

The focus of the residency in Hangar were collaborative practices. The participating artists decided to form a collective called Rica Rickson.

The results of the artists residency were presented in the form of a performative lecture in the context of Paratext, a monthly programme of presentations by the artists residents in Hangar of long and short duration, as well as the international residences, always on Wednesday, from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The artists in residence are invited to present in different formats, specific projects or parts of their works. The sessions are always open to the public in order to facilitate interaction with the artists themselves.

View online : https://iterations.space/index.php/...