[-empyre-] SenseLab - new forms of collaboration

[Cecilia Parsberg]

11 maj 2013 kl. 17:25 Erin Manning <erintango at gmail.com>:

> But, for me, understanding
> (and "drawing") these relations has meant many a detour into the
> non-artistic.  (A small voice within says : "So what.")
> 
> I am interested in this "so what" - I think it's part of so many of our experiences. The relational has been absolutely central to our practice, as you surmise, and it is what moves us beyond a focus on humanism toward an "ecology of practices." 


Dear all,
I can just start with agreeing on this, below, "so what" in my way of understanding. 
I have "survived" as a visual artist, not participating in the traditional art-market but in an extended field, for 25 years, done some teaching but been working mainly independent.
My techniques: video-art, photo and film, social media, actions of different kinds, mostly projects together with others but also run by myself. Educated as a painter, taken up painting again within my PhD research in Fine Arts and as "un-social media" ;)
My work has often been on the border to the anthropological field. 
A very important collaboration has also been the editing board of the magazine Glänta, which is in Swedish but also publish in English on the Eurozine journal, http://eurozine.com
F.x. the essay "Networking on the wall" http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-05-30-parsberg-en.html

I would like to present my activities in short. In some projects an activist, in others not. I regard activism as an open definition and it's defined in the project by the project itself; by what is made or achieved in regard to the purpose, the initiative and response, process, situation/site/relations.
Ana Valdés has informed a little about our collaboration and the link http://ceciliaparsberg.se/jenin/
which was made urgently in 2002 when Jenin camp on the West Bank was demolished, 
and a follow-up of that project, is http://ceciliaparsberg.se/thewall  
which was a collaboration with Ana V and Interactive Art Institute in north Sweden, Umeå University and with the independent filmmaker Erik Pauser.
These websites are now archived and only active as historical references. They are referred to by activist organizations as info-sites because we were only a few photographs and writers that managed to get into the sieged area and there is not much material /evidence of these violations.
These information sites I also referred to when making art-installations.

I am interested in the space in relations and how to handle this. I can be handled with respect and in beautiful ways as well as violated. Where is the image of the other and where is the image by me making the image and how to make images together  in this space between us? To not take an image, rather give and receive an image? How can this process look like? This interests me.
One example: a heart is given, 2006 from a family, their son, living in Jenin camp to a family, their daughter, living in a village north of Haifa in Israel. The gift of the heart, the intention to give and the intention to receive as well as the action drills a whole in the wall.

It was not possible for the boy or the girl to travel to each other and they did not even think of it before the killing of the boy.
See the factual project at: http://ceciliaparsberg.se/a-heart-from/

The gift does not exist if it's not received. There is no giving without reception so how can anything move - how can anything be active if giving and taking is not happening/initiated/activated between us, in relationships and relations. Well- the intention of the Israeli wall is to cause the opposite - to hinder that activation, that sharing happens, that dialogue is activated. But this ordinary families did activate sharing… and this is an example how individuals , when connecting, can "move walls"

This space between us is to be handled in collaborations. Handled; shrinking, moving, growing, violated, respected…
And I am interested in the images that are created "between us", in this space.

In my PhD I am making a project: http://ceciliaparsberg.se/how-do-you-become-a-successful-beggar-in-sweden/
There is a more comprehensive site in Swedish, will be translated. In this project the research into giving and receiving continues and also methods of making images, it's difficult…!

I'd like to discuss "sharing is caring" (which was the  slogan of Pirate Bay), gift - economy, forms of giving and receiving.
And methods to work in practice

…maybe this is enough for now…to start with

All the best
Cecilia