ideasforbetterspaces

[ideasforbetterspaces]

Key blog posts:

Zine Research:

Notts Zine Library (Nottingham Contemporary): >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183722112094/23rd-february-nottingham-contemporary-notts-zine

Ti Pi Tin >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184273299899/ti-pi-tin

Fhuiae Kim, Tenderbooks, and GenderFail Press: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183910077629/3rd-april-image-1-yellow-coloured-allergy

Cathy Wade: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183722216134/5th-march-cathy-wades-map-layering-the-city

Display ideas for Duplicate Press Fair: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183910139544/22nd-march-some-ideas-for-the-maaaep-table-layout

IKON Archives: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184201791409/12th-april-ikon-archives-book-mark-idea-for-the

Workshops/talks/events:

Manual Labours: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183722241114/manual-labours-workshop-esp

Research Cluster at Eastside Projects: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184109887549/research-cluster-at-eastside-projects-13thfeb

Zine Making on a Budget with Rabbits Road Press: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184230217719/zine-making-on-a-budget-with-rabbits-road-press-at

Printing experiments:

Screenprint: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183589615069/tutorial-with-justin-sanders-bsoa

InDesign Draft #1: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183722519229/26th-march-this-is-some-print-screens-from

InDesign Draft #2: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184109987929/11th-april

InDesign Draft #3: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184204015249/3-more-pages-covering-collaborative

InDesign Draft #4: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184229812574/15th-april

QR Codes: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184272780259/qr-codes-for-the-publication-the-green-qr-code >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183720403004/a-qr-code-publication

Case Studies:

IKON Archives: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184201430294/12th-april-ikon-archives-i-met-flora-kay-and-linzi >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184201569594/12th-april-ikon-archives-my-research-on-ideas-for >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184202130409/12th-april-ikon-archives >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184202165809/12th-april-ikon-archives >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184202542209/12th-april-ikon-archives-notes-brink-a-point

The White Pube: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184272278439/the-white-pube-home

Eastside Projects: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183589606614/eastside-projects-kunsthal-aarhaus-ideas-for

Rosalie Schweiker: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184270040469/nobody-has-got-the-time-to-read-a-long-text-long

Tate Liverpool: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183722326279/tate-liverpool

Banner Repeater: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183888310619/banner-repeater-art-gallery-and-archive-of-artists

Printed Matter: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183888306404/home-printed-matter

Black Mountain College: https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184109799799/black-mountain-college-prospectus-1952

Black Hole Club / Vivid Projects: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183589401984/black-hole-club-member-at-vivid-projects

CAMPUS Independent Study Programme, Nottingham Contemporary: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/182551096514/campus-independent-study-programme-nottingham

Ya & Papercut in Stockholm: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183589414514/stockholm

Theory:

George E. Hein & Constructivist Learning Theory: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184109816854/george-e-hein-constructivist-learning-theory

Les Levine & Adrienne Rich: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184109838654/les-levine-the-great-american-art-machine1971

Tamara Krikoran: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184109824404/tamara-krikoran-art-spaces-and-social-context

Roy Ascott: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184109832419/roy-ascott-a-groundcourse-for-art-1964

Vincent Katz & Henry A. Giroux >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184109809079/vincent-katz-black-mountain-college-experiment-in

Virginia Woolf: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184109786524/virginia-woolf

William Morris quoted by Jeremy Deller: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184109772389/i-do-not-want-art-for-a-few-any-more-that-i

Eames, Powers of Ten: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184226449024/powers-of-ten-1977

Reflection & Writing: Ideas for Better Spaces content:

Tactics of Visible Production: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184201929129/tactics-of-visible-production

Rooms: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184202645479/rooms

Co-op Mode: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184275600889/co-op-mode

Evaluation: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/184385475289/observations-i-made-an-artists-manual-called

Opportunity applications & Sharing Events:

BAAAD Press / Duplicate Press fair at Eastside Projects: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183888443424/apply-here-baaad-press

Pangaea Sculptor production award: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183680046604/pangaea-sculptors-centre-sculpture-production

The Biscuit Factory: Young Artist Award >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183680204644/23rd-march

Grand Union studio: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183888396684/grand-union-skype-interview

Funding research (Micro-engine bursary from New Art West Midlands): >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183680010079/new-art-west-midlands-engine-micro-bursary

Ludic Rooms sharing event / invite to Coventry Biennial: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183589436414/sharing-event-of-ludic-rooms-fellowship

My National Trust / New Art West Midlands / Trust New Art sharing event: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183589397069/national-trust-residency-sharing-event-at

My experiences with IKON: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183589462504/wheres-the-gallery >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183589116954/extended-invitation-from-forwards-to-show-at >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183589095054/meet-larissa-shaw-forward-artist-reblog-from >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183589013914/reblog-from-ikon-blog >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183589462504/wheres-the-gallery

My Ludic Rooms fellowship experiences: >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183588955699/ludic-rooms-fellowship-application >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183588965419/larissaeshaw-28th-29th-november-2018-i-became >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183588970249/larissaeshaw-arandomstring-festival-2018 >>> https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com/post/183588974394/mentoring-and-further-ideas

[ideasforbetterspaces]

Observations

I made an artist’s manual called Ideas for Better Spaces which has been submitted as a publication. Accompanying this manual, is a blog, viewable at the following link: https://ideasforbetterspaces.tumblr.com documenting all production methods, methodologies and experimentations, as well as all primary and second research including but not limited to; interviews, public spaces, contemporary artist-led spaces, historical archival research, modernist interpretations of printing and technological advances within printed matter. promotes decentralised collaboration and non-hierarchical contingency within art practice.

I wanted to establish an artist-led, multi-faceted and multi-user useful platform from the beginning of the module to gear my independent learning and collaborative approaches to apply art education practices and realise the connection between my practice and study. The informed dialogue of the publication and blog expresses that the project came from a particular feeling of my practice; that the art work is not a friendly place for artists.

Included in the manual is a foreword introducing the publication. The introduction introduces myself as an artist, my hopes and worries about my future artist career, and asks the question, do these anxieties sound familiar? The foreword is signed Yours Always, as ‘An Artist on the Brink of Making a Choice’. ‘Brink’ at its primary meaning being the point where something is about to happen. Brink has been an important denotation in this module in contrast to the ideas that the word suggests. In relation to a mini-declaration of who I think I am as an artist at this present moment, the manual includes a new idea for a better space on each page.

The ideas introduce in the publication are; Fairtrade Union of Artists, Co-op Mode, Tactics of Visible Production, Rooms // A Room, Rooms // A Room // A Difficult Conversation, Failure (The Present Representation of an Absent Thing), Artist-Led Research, and Conditions of Work.

The idea for Fairtrade Union of Artists, Failure, Artist-Led Research, and Conditions of Work came after an Eastside Projects workshop with Manual Labours’ project researcher Jenny Richards. After examining what I considered are necessities for my art practice, my ideas were heavily centred on unfair/low/no/late pay from arts institutions that make money from artists. Fairtrade Union of Artists at its centred core does not allow artists to be part of the union if they work for free, but exceptions granted with the artist and institution are in similar career positions and the institution is not making money from the artist’s labour, presence, work, or any other contributions. I believe the main factor in artist’s not being pad, is artists not demanding payment and permitting low/no/late/unfair pay. In turn this creates a dissonant, inharmonious and unfriendly world for other artists. This part of the manual stresses that call-out culture of these institutions is a subversion of working relationships, and to instead encourage the community of artists to ensure payment limits a cycle of no pay > unhappy and unvoiced artist > growing institution from the disadvantage of the artist > repeat. Only when this is established, and we demand fair payment will institutions stop asking the artist to work for free.

Co-op Mode promotes decentralised collaboration and non-hierarchical contingency within art practice. It addresses the director in relation to intuitive out-up impulses and instead introduces alternative working models to collaboration using non-systematic, lenient and indefinite approaches. This idea was formed around research in the Ikon gallery archives. Some materials which shaped Co-op Mode were the IKON education Sculpture Workshop in 1981 which explored the role of the teacher and the learner; that one does not lead the other and that one does not simply provide for the other, but is a permeable membrane on a fundamental of learning – passing through, over, and across.

Tactics of Visible Production was shaped by Esther Windsor’s philosophy session on post modernism citing Guy-Ernest Debord’s ‘The Society of the Spectacle’. “The Spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images. Throughout this short idea, I introduce the relationship between obsolete printing and post-modernist advances that encases the artists control of production. The publication is also the permanent presence of this justification since it occupies the main part of time lived within modern production and encompasses these means of production as ‘true (em)power(ing) tools’ for the artist.

Rooms // A Room highlights a personal worry about how arts institutions interview, cross-examine, and compare the artist against formal, rigid and intangible tick-box-criteria. The next page of the publication introduces provisions of care within these situations, and how they can be moulded into more friendlier approaches and still achieve ‘tick-boxed-criteria’.

[ideasforbetterspaces]

QR Codes for the publication

The green QR code links the Co-op Mode section to an online discussion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkg1HDNz6KM) between Gillie Kleiman and Rosalie Schweiker. I chose this video this video because it addressed accommodating needs, what can I do as an artist, what resources are available, self acknowledgement within practice, in comparison to women with big boobs in high-street shops. I, (30JJ) like Rosalie (34GG) are often to feel alienated within being known as ‘the artist with the boobs’, and as Rosalie discusses feeling at home when she goes to Bravissimo!

The grey QR code links Tactics of Visible Production to (http://www.theholodeck.co.uk) 

The pink QR code links Artist-led Research to a joint writing between Jade Montserrat and Daniella Rose King (https://www.womenandperformance.org/ampersand/28-3-rose-king-montserrat). I chose this writing because it investigates the diaspora of (not) belonging. In relation to the non-praxis of the black artist not fitting within a specific artist community, Montserrat and King introduce conversation, exchange, writing and thinking, as productive outcomes of not belonging. Artist-led Research highlights the importance of these methods when artist practice is being undervalued, stretched thinly, or becoming stressful.

The blue QR code links Conditions of Work to http://showmethemon3y.tumblr.com. I chose to link to this platform as a guide to how else participation can informally fit within collaboration, self-blogging/publishing, and the art world. The blog addresses low-pay (a recurring theme throughout the publication), opportunities and news (which I will address on a website in the future), and realtime debates on social medias.

[ideasforbetterspaces]

The White Pube view the bulk of art critique and arts institutional criticism as “not enough”. Publications, artists, websites, and just about all other platforms have the opportunities to make things better by calling out on things that are weak, but don’t. I understand it is a difficult position – how do you navigate critiquing galleries, arts organisations and educational institutions that are funding/potentially working with/exhibiting your work? --- “You can’t just push people through the door with fake positivity and contrived optimism. If it’s fucking shit, tell people it’s fucking shit.” 

It’s not just the content, lack of critique and mystifying of ‘negativity/constructivism’ in critique that’s subversive. It’s the anachronisms of the art world simply as language and aesthetics, and when we examine the proverbial of language and aesthetics, we unveil its un-accessibility. The White Pube’s use of emojis, internet-speak, and tumblr aesthetics act as a middle-finger to these formalities and anachronisms of the art world. 

“When criticism is productive, it’s normally completely impenetrable... like hardcore theory. I don’t understand it,” The White Pube’s criticism demonstrates that ‘clever’ debate doesn’t need communicated in deliberately difficult language and long words. I think the choice of mediums across online platforms, the website, the Instagram, the Twitter and the Tumblr, acts as a tool providing structural support for their message. They act as a multilayered, multi-toned, well constructed stand for a wider range of audiences to experience criticism in different forms. 

The White Pubes tendency to use social media (most younger generations go-to) positions The White Pube, critique and criticism more temporally relevant space which allows interaction through replies and real-time debate, broadening what accessibility can be geared to.

[ideasforbetterspaces]

Nobody has got the time to read a long text. Long texts are also often pretentious, I like it short. But then the problem is that, as you said, most of the work responds to something, so you you first have to describe the setting, then the work, then the effects or what the work did. Yes, but then again you could work in layers, for example have a catchy title, exciting images and then people develop an appetite for more and might read through a long text. Because most of your work doesn't function in these short descriptions. Especially the projects that might be very important for you - they are too complicated to be shown on a website.

Rosalie Schweiker // http://rosalieschweiker.info/work/

[ideasforbetterspaces]

Where is Ideas of Better Spaces in relation to its surrounding environment?

1m_ The publication, the reader

10m_ The reader, the reader’s acquaintances, the gallery

100m_ The gallery, Floodgate Street, River Street, Fazeley Street, Health Mill Lane, Bromley Street, Gibb Street, Hack Street, Liverpool Street, Recent Activity, Centrala, Stryx, Grand Union.

1,000m_ Birmingham School of Art, Parkside, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham Centre

10,000m_ Walsall, Sutton Coldfield, Dudley, The New Art Gallery Walsall

100,000m_ Nottingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Primary, Nottingham Contemporary, Notts Zine Library, Backlit, Bonnington Gallery, City Arts, New Art Exchange, Surface Gallery, Open Eye Gallery, FACT, The Royal Standard, OUTPUT Gallery, HOME, 

1,000,000m_ London, Norway, Sweden, Lithuania, Rabbits Road Press (LDN), Tenderbooks (LDN), Astrup Fearnley Museum (N), Office for Contemporary Art (N), Oslo Art Society (N), Kungl. Akademien for de fria konsterna (S), Rupert Gallery (LT), Nida Academy of Arts (LT), Contemporary Arts Centre (LT).

10,000,000m_ The rest of the world

Where else can this publication function? 

Is it transferable across locations?

Is it specific to just Birmingham?

[ideasforbetterspaces]

15th April

[ideasforbetterspaces]

3 more pages covering collaborative & participatory work, printing//visible production, and rooms.

I would still like to address 3 more pages on:

Failure

Funding

Artist-led research

[ideasforbetterspaces]

Rooms

15th April

Every room has a title classifying it’s intended use. These formal titles guide the use of a room even in the most casual of settings. Whilst domestic titles offer some flexibility for varied use more professional titles and spaces (meeting rooms and conference rooms) provide minimal scope for versatility.

A room is a physical boundary, something that closes off and segregates designated space from other space. This closing off isn’t necessarily a negative thing, boundaries can provide positive restrictions, a focused space for discussion, experimentation, and realisation. 

- A thought from an artist after being 4-way-panel-interviewed in a board room for a residency lasting 6 weeks.

[ideasforbetterspaces]

12th April

IKON ARCHIVES

Notes:

Brink - a point in which something is about to happen

[ideasforbetterspaces]

12th April

IKON ARCHIVES

[ideasforbetterspaces]

12th April

IKON ARCHIVES

[ideasforbetterspaces]

Tactics of Visible Production

15th April

One of the most vital aspects in independent self-publishing is the ease with which we can assume total control of production: design, print, collation, binding, distribution. Obsolete printers - such as Risograph and Ricoh stencil printers, widely available on the second hand market, have been pivotal in this shift. These machines offer economic printing of a unique, graphic quality. Half-tone images draped in our colour, at over one hundred copies per minute. They are true (em)power(ing) tools, effective in the production of physical, printed material.

The impulse to utilise these machines is undoubtedly owed - in part - to their basic print quality. But it also signifies a postmodern reaction to digitisation, the virtual, and non-physical exchanges of information. Unlike new technologies that market themselves as user-friendly, at best ‘intuitive’, at worst dumbed-down, Risographs are robust machines that demand their operator learn their idiosyncrasies, intricacies, and capabilities. It is truer technology that encourages problem solving and learning. It functions within craft tradition, designed towards tactile outcomes (printed matter).

Current strands in self-publishing acknowledges that resources, as objects, models and platforms, as resistance to consumerist work designed towards an unforgiving average.

[ideasforbetterspaces]

12th April

IKON ARCHIVES

- Book mark idea for the central piece that holds my publication together

[ideasforbetterspaces]

12th April

IKON ARCHIVES

My research on ideas for better spaces were part of a general and ongoing questioning of the nature of Birmingham and its relationship with its artists. I have been looking for historic models which I could state my position as an artist working within the city against, which brought up some past research on Baskerville. I thought it would be important to write about that here. 

I wanted to make a monumental-type publication that reflects on my experiences as an artist so far, and how I have operated within Birmingham, and will continue on so. This intension in contrast with research on Baskerville feel significant; part of another general and ongoing questioning on the nature of Birmingham. I didn’t want to dress up yet another white male in Portland stone in funny clothes and stick him on top of a pedestal, so I made a reflective little book on being an artist in Birmingham. 

[ideasforbetterspaces]

12th April

IKON ARCHIVES

I met Flora Kay and Linzi Stauvers to find out more about Ikon’s education programme from the last 10 years. I wanted to understand what different approaches are taken for exchange between artist and pupil/parent/participant/gallery/other artists, and specifically to explore how the artist is supported working within these partnerships.

This book examines the partnership between an artist and a school and explores the mutual benefits between the two. The book points at a number of processes which can become complicated such as SEN, parents, curriculum, lack of funding, and an unhappy artist. One way of avoiding such problems is to establish why you are entering a partnership and what levels of collaborations and engagement is necessary. The second image acts as a guide to help you assess what terms the partnership should be best established:

Is everyone involved clear about the objectives? Do they understand their role in the process and what the anticipated outcomes of the project are?

How will the project be evaluated? Who is responsible for managing this process during the project?

Who needs to be kept informed about the project before, during and at the end of the process and how? Are these people partners? Funders? Stakeholders? Participants or audience?

How does the project have a clear, transparent budget? Who is responsible for managing the budget, paying the artists and keeping financial records?

Is there a project timeline that is shared by everyone?

Have all the materials been sources for the project? Has appropriate equipment been hired and insured?

Has a rink assessment been carried out?

If an artist is invited to facilitate activity that addresses a need within a school, it is likely that this school places significant value on creative approaches to teaching and learning and has identified that arts projects have been proven to deliver the kind of outcomes listed above. Many artists find the boundaries inherent within a school-led brief stimulating. They are able to use such boundaries creatively to develop innovative and interesting projects. 

For those artists concerned with context, or the environment in which they make work, the reason why they might choose to work in a school is different. For some artists, playing with this relationship, extending it into dialogue, event or moment of exchange, becomes a key part of the artwork itself. Ikon has worked with many artists for who's this type of interaction is critical.

[ideasforbetterspaces]

11th April