[-empyre-] curatorial re-colonization

Sat Apr 21 14:02:03 EST 2012

Hello again,

In this email I will try to answer the questions Tom has posed as well
as some that jonCates has asked here:
http://www.mail-archive.com/empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au/msg04093.html.

>As I
> glean form the website of the Mother Neff State Park, this land seems to
> have been deeded to the State of Texas by a private family in 1916.  The
> site states that "In the 1930's, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
> restored the park to its historical setting

I should haves stated this earlier: Apache Projects is not affiliated
with the park or the department of Texas Parks and Wildlife in any
formal way. I have been allowed to install works there with the
permission of the park rangers.
The website for the park is written a little poorly.. I am not sure
how the park appeared in the 1930s when it was completed but that what
they are calling a restoration to a historical setting seems
ridiculous to me since a to restore a landscape essentially turns it
into a garden and requires a huge amount of upkeep.
At the info section of Apacheprojects.com I transcribed the text from
a plaque near the entrance of the cave but I don't particularly agree
with the way everything is worded.. I think the use of the term
"prehistoric" seems a little strange and insensitive as well.

The title "Apache Projects" comes from a few sources that are directly
related to colonization.
The first and most straight forward explanation for the title is that
I am 1/8th Apache (nonpracticing) and is in part a tip of the hat to
my grandfather and the west Texas Apache tribes who were nomads and
violent squatters.
I use the Apache server logo on the website because I believe that the
Internet is coming off the screen (through installation and more so
through several projects in the works) and into a cave in this case.
The cave hosts web in its physical form.
In a sense the artists are colonizing the cave for themselves with the
artwork. Any parasite projects somewhat colonizes an area or site. An
example might by logos and advertising. Colonization seems to be
working a new way these days because of mobility. It is temporary.
People are moving from place to place finding work or on vacation etc,
but they don't stay there for too long. They take up residence or real
estate in a place, make an impact locally, take in what they will and
move on again. The Internet and the artworks made for it work in a
similar way.. or we work in a similar way when we browse. A piece
attracts our time and attention for a little while, we internalize it,
change our views of the world and we move on.
Future exhibitions will deal more specifically with the movement of
forms between the realities of hyperspace and the physical. A burial
site seems to me to be a good location for this to happen; the artwork
and Internet will be given a new life in the physical world, like
reincarnation. After an exhibition the work will be removed and the
cave will return to its former state, like a plant growing or a flash
loop.

>also Nate, i wonder, in my own projects as well as yr Apache Projects,
>about selections of alternative spaces for curating / organizing that are
>intentionally outside of traditional systems of authentication
>/ legitimization via artworlds (i.e. galleries + museums). a disdainful way
>to talk about this would not be selection but rather 'willful forms of
>obscurity', a critique i have heard about my own projects. but now i also
>wonder if && when 'obscurity' can exist @ all anymore in our social
>networks mediated friendships + lives. in other words, yr Apache Projects
>may be literally difficult to access on a physical level by those exhibited
>but vry available via documentation + also available by those who are
>unaware of the project (i.e. those who are visiting the cave for the sake
>of the cave). how does that issue of access (purposefully crafted in a
>cave) effect yr curatorial practices?

I think it is because of the way that I discovered Net.Art just
through browsing in isolation that I am so interested in different
sites as alternatives for new media installation. Also the rise in the
number of Internet based venues around the time I found an interest in
exhibition making.. After Brad Troemel made up his "Dual Sites" I
really wanted to see what the spaces looked like for real. I made a
project called Dual Sites Local
(http://www.facebook.com/pages/DSL/186638218047519) trying to get
people to carpool with me to different spaces near New York. Not too
many people wanted to or were able to join for the trips so the
project ended but I was able to see a few spaces (Extra Extra and
Nudashank were the ones mentioned in Brad's essay, along with
LIVESINNY$LA in Tyrone, PA and later Preteen in Mexico DF). All of the
openings had substantial turnouts.. Afterwards I tried to organize a
BYOB at El Cosmico in Marfa, Texas consisting of people who had never
been there which also failed because no one was able to make it out..
I think that despite people not being able to travel for whatever
reasons it is still important to look for places that are suitable for
works and that give them meaning  which may not be as accessible in
other scenarios.
White walls never interested me much because that setup doesn't align
itself as much with the ideology of net based works. When I discovered
Net.Art I saw it on my screen in my bedroom and found it through a
Google search. It wasn't backed by any institution because it existed
in its entirety on my screen. The cave at Mother Neff cannot be put
into a museum or gallery.

More tomorrow.

Best,

Nate

On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 10:59 AM, Timothy Conway Murray
<tcm1 at cornell.edu> wrote:
> Dear Nate and Ellen,
>
> It's very cool that both of you have ended up being available the same week,
> as featured guests of -empyre-.  I am much more familiar with Ellen's
> important projects in Hong Kong, which have led the way for activist
> thinking about curating and new media exhibition throughout Asia.  In a way
> your projects couldn't be more dissimilar, with Ellen working very much on
> an international platform whose every day practices have potential
> consequences for public policy and global politics, and Nate seemingly
> working along more "local" parameters.
>
> I was fortunate to be in Hong Kong at the time of Microwave this past
> November and left feeling very impressed by how Ellen integrates activist
> media installations (such as projects by eToy and numerous bioart activists)
> with exciting public programming that extend the boundaries of artwork and
> installation.  Now Ellen tells us how she was preoccupied last week by
> working to preserve the very nature of her liminal curatorial practice in
> the face of potential governmental incursion.  Truly inspirational.
>
> This is where I'm interested in hearing from you both about the
> intersections of our curatorial practice.  Nate, it's obviously very
> important that you have sited your curatorial project on indigenous burial
> grounds that seem to have been sanctioned by Texas state authorities.  As I
> glean form the website of the Mother Neff State Park, this land seems to
> have been deeded to the State of Texas by a private family in 1916.  The
> site states that "In the 1930's, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
> restored the park to its historical setting. An excavation in 1935 unearthed
> three Indian graves and many artifacts. During prehistoric times this area
> was occupied by several groups of Indians, including some groups probably
> related to the Tonkawas."
>
> What's interesting is that both you and Ellen are working on colonized
> territories.  Helen makes it fairly clear how the politics of colonization
> and re-colonization of Hong Kong are embedded in her practice. I would be
> interested in hearing more about that. And from Nate, I'm wondering how the
> politics of colonization and relocation figure into your curating and the
> work of the artists exhibiting in relation to what you call the "Apache
> Projects."   It could be particularly important to our listserv to hear more
> about this since -empyre- has many subscribers who no doubt would identify
> themselves as indigenous peoples rather than "prehistoric" ones. So I'm
> wondering how the park's own reference to "pre-history" figures in the
> Apache Project and, for the list at large, in curating per se.
>
> Thanks for joining us, and looking forward to a very lively discussion about
> these extremely important matters.
>
> Tim
>
> Director, Society for the Humanities
> Curator, Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art
> Professor of Comparative Literature and English
> A. D. White House
> Cornell University
> Ithaca, New York. 14853
> ________________________________
> From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> [empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] on behalf of ellen pau
> [ellenpau.hk at gmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 4:42 AM
> To: soft_skinned_space
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Apache Projects
>
> Hi Tim, Renate, Aram and Nate,
> Great to meet you all here.  Sorry that I can't make it last week because of
> a numbers of urgent civic actions. I will tell you more below.
> As Tim introduce me last week, I am working in Hong Kong mainly for
> Videoatge and Microwave new media festival.
> We are working on a number of projects, particularly on the upcoming version
> of  Wikitopia, that is a biennial event about collaborative futures.  This
> year, beside the curated unconference, performance, workshops, we will have
> an exhibition that is developed like an open sources projects, such as
> soundcloud, uncloud and github.
> I am very happy to to join in the discussion about curating.  Curating in
> Asia or particularly in Hong Kong is a growing hot topic, the city has a
> number of significant projects / events over the last two years. For Example
> : The mega project (~US$ 3 Billion project) The West Kowloon Cultural
> District ; another multi-million venture HKART12- (Art Basel bought 60% of
> Hong Kong Art Fair); the opening of Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre where
> the highly respected Jeffrey Shaw is the dean of the School of Creative
> media of City University. Two years ago there was a small publication
> commissioned by Para/Site Art Space, co-edited by Alvaro Rodriguez Fominaya
> and Michael Lee, and published by Para/Site, Studio Bibliothèque  and seed |
> projects :" Who Cares? is an anthology that compiles 16 essays on curating
> art in and of Asia. One of the themes addresses the politics of care,
> commonly understood as the basic role of curators, with regards to art and
> artists, across time and contexts. Another theme revolves around markers of
> success in the realm of contemporary curating. A third recurring theme deals
> with curating in the globalised art world of advanced travel and
> communication technologies. A fourth theme reconsiders the audience as
> active producers in a curated experience. Through a variety of perspectives
> and literary styles, these texts constitute primary notes towards
> ‘curatorial criticism,’ a subfield of art criticism that identifies the new
> in curating today."
>
> I am more interested with the third and fourth themes. And that is probably
> accounts for my interest with Microwave New Media Festival and Wikitopia.
>
> Over the years, art practice in Hong Kong had changed a lot, starting from
> the "Cultural Desert" to the flourishing (whether you like the art or not)
> situation now. I observed that as the idea of collaborations between authors
> and audience grows, some artists move on to an artivist works (such as Leung
> Po, Wen Yau, Liu Wai Tong, Ger Choi, Complaints Choir of Hong Kong and many
> many more)
>
> In the last two weeks, because of the new Chief Exective election on 25th
> March, many believe the next government will exert more control over freedom
> of speech and strident moral values.   Starting last week, people from The
> keyboard frontline build a petition against the copyright law that makes
> sharing online and derivatives work a criminal
> offense http://www.change.org/petitions/intellectual-property-department-of-hong-kong-withdraw-copyright-amendment-bill-2011
> The second is the campaign " Our Representative is Invisible! The Cultural
> Sector Demands the Expulsion of Timothy Fok Tsun-ting and the Return of Our
> Voting Rights"
>
> In an art world that is less market/ fair driven and even less academic
> moderated, if we are thinking about the spectrum ranging from a formalist
> fine art object made by a singular unit to the interactive or participatory
> social actions / collaborative happenings, then we can find the art projects
> in Hong Kong shifting more to the interactive social actions reacting to a
> number of political, ecological and cultural issues.
>
> We find guerrilla farming @Hong Kong Film Cultural Centre, beer
> making at Woofer Ten, karaoke or picnic or other social participatory projects
> are popular than exhibitions type of art events.
>
> In the coming Wikitopia, I am curating people to collaborate and work
> together in an open sources framework exploring the idea of social coding,
> sharing (such as uncloud as tactical media ) and mix skills (such as Audrino
> crosses over with vertical farming).
>
> I am interested in this type of events because this makes the communities
> less passive and less consumer-ic.
>
> Sometime the artist in these projects will use relational aesthetics to be
> the theory of their art making but I think the role of the curator, the
> artist and the social activist are also merging. I think if we believe that
> we are doing art and art is to inspire, to be creative, to make changes then
> like an electron, I would call these people active agents.
>
> I am happy to be in the this space and learn so much form you.
> Thanks again for the invitation.
>
> best,
> Ellen Pau
> (852) 90206183
> Videotage
> Microwave
> Inter-Act Arts
> ellenpau at facebook.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 5:50 AM, Nate Hitchcock
> <natehitchcock at apacheprojects.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hello room,
>>
>> Thank you to Renate and Tim for the intro. and invite. It is really
>> great to have this opportunity to present and join in the discussion.
>> A little about me. I am somewhat based in Weehawken, New Jersey and
>> previously based in Chicago (SAIC) where I started making shows.
>> My personal website has some links to past exhibitions I organized:
>> natehitchcock.com (scroll straight down). I begin studies this May at
>> Danube University's Media Art Histories program.
>> Apache Projects is what I am working on right now: Apacheprojects.com.
>> It is an open-source exhibition site located in Mother Neff State Park
>> in Moody, Texas. It is a Tonkawa burial cave discovered by the C.C.C.
>> during the construction of the park in the 1930s. Here is the park's
>> official history of the cave (it is written on a plaque posted on the
>> path to the cave): http://apacheprojects.com/info.html.
>> Right now I am working with artists who are interested in making solo
>> shows inside the cave. The artists are all interested in moving new
>> media, net.art etc. ideology from screens into other forms or away
>> from screens in altogether.
>>
>> Here are some things that interest me..
>> Studying in Chicago gave me a possibly different approach to making
>> exhibitions that involves little to no money. For those of you who may
>> not be familiar, Chicago has a huge amount of artist run temporary
>> spaces, usually taking form in someones living room or empty bedroom.
>> The first show I made in 2008 took place at Normal Projects
>> (http://normalprojects.info/) in a kitchen where I hung 2d works on a
>> fridge. The living room displayed 2d works or works on screens curated
>> by the woman who lived in the apartment.
>> I find that new media work etc, despite the cost of equipment, is very
>> conducive to this type of exhibition making. Also, cost wise I have
>> found it relatively easy to find equipment for free.
>> Through my interest in this type of practice and work I've found that
>> not only is new media cheaper to display, but also more mobile.. which
>> brings me to another interest of mine that may be more relative to
>> discussions of curatorial practices and strategies..
>> How mobile is new media/net.art/screen based work? I know there is a
>> lot of talk about format shifting recently and making sculptures from
>> an internet oriented perspective but each time we load a work onto a
>> machine in a different context can the meaning of the work change as
>> well? It seems to me that this type of work is very conducive to
>> alternative spaces. If this is true, how much curatorial freedom do we
>> have in choosing the locations, and in that case, what makes a show a
>> show even?
>> Some very good responses to these questions so far are Aram Barthol's
>> Speed Show and Rafael Rozendaal's BYOB because they highlight the
>> mobility and reproducible nature of these types of works and instead
>> of doing what might be obvious; taking control away from the artists
>> since everything is accessible they relinquish the control of the
>> curator for the benefit of the artist (somewhat).
>>
>> Looking forward,
>>
>> Nate
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Director
>> Apache Projects
>> Tel. 1 432.242.2056
>> ApacheProjects.com
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
>
>
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