Social Practice & Community Art

Red Clay Radio

Added on by Zachary Gough.

August 10th - 17th,  2014. Economy, Nova Scotia.
White Rabbit Arts Residency and Festival.

Red Clay Radio is a pop-up radio station located on Red Clay farm in Economy Nova Scotia for the duration of the White Rabbit Art Residency and festival. The station is broadcast onsite via FM transmitter and over the internet on the festival website. The radio station functions as an experimental art space, conversational and educational platform, a traditional radio station, and a communication medium between artists onsite during the residency and between the community at Red clay and the greater public. During the residency, artists in residence (rabbits) make radio programming throughout their residency on Red Clay ranging from experimental audio art, music and traditional talk radio. Guest contributors from elsewhere are invited to submit material to be played on the station. Artists debate topics of critical interest to their practice. Critiques happen on air. Local experts and community members are consulted for contextual framing of the site. etc. The station was originally founded five years ago by Newfoundland based artist Michael Waterman with his own transmitter.

 

To listen to some of the broadcast, head to 

http://whiterabbitartfestival.bandzoogle.com/home

 

Comment

Citizen Journalism

Added on by Zachary Gough.

Chiron Studies is an amazing program at Portland State University, in which students facilitate courses for other students for credit. The program has been around since the late sixties, and has continuously been an opportunity for radical pedagogy within the traditional institution since then. (For more info about Chiron Studies, listen to the interview I conducted with it's long standing coordinator and board chair, Rozzell Medina, below). 

Luckily for me, the course I proposed entitled Citizen Journalism, an evolution of Correspondents' Be the News, was accepted and will run, provided sufficient enrollment, in the winter term.


 

Comment

International mostly-radio artist residency tour comes to an end. :(

Added on by Zachary Gough.
IMG_20140127_113417.jpg

 A quick summary:

Two host institutions familiar with working with Socially Engaged artists and who were very invested in a successful outcome of the projects, and two institutions that don't have much experience working with artists who invest themselves in the community, who left me to my own devices.  Of the four big projects that I set out to do, I'd count two as resounding successes, one  that was a fantastic experience but would have greatly benefitted from a longer stay, and one project that failed before it even started but that made way for new research and explorations!

 

An incomplete list of  the people that I met, and who generously helped out on the projects and life on the road in general, Thank you to each of you:

YUKON: Sarah Pupo, Emma Tius, Dan and Laurie Sokoloski, James Fitzgerald, Chris Foster (I had met before but really got to know), my darling book ends Joey O'Neil and Justin Apperly, Karen Dubois, Eldo Enns, Diego Martin, Erica Barta, Peter Menzies, Lulu Keating, Tara Rudnickas, Ange Bonnici, Matt Sarty, Rebecca Olsen, Nicole Rayburn, Veronica Verkley, John Steins, Greg Hakanson, Mathias McPhee, Linsey Johnson, Dana Levine, Ashlee, Miche and Hector.  

WINDOSR: Nadja Pelkey, Alana Bartol, Josh Babcock, Hiba Abdallah, Rosina Riccardo, Michelle Soulière, Srimoyee Mitra, Arturo Herera, Michelle Le Chien, Mary Fitzgerald, Judy Harling, Nancy Musson, Richard Blair, Dorothy Barnett, Albert Cockburn, Alice Sheean, Thelma Butcher, John, Jan at the front door, Safi Houssein, Lorette Watson , Edna Rutherford, Karen Boutlier, Diane, Barbara D'Alosio, Sarah Morris at CJAM, and Dave at Wavemach.

SACKVILLE, many friends old and new: Julia Feltham, Michael Freeman, Louis Zatzman, Jisun Kim, Martin Omes, Kate Phillips, Jeanne Fries, Quincy Russell, James Anderson, Vanessa Blackier, Pierre Malloy, Ilse Kramer and Joe of Kappa Chow, Eric, Theresa Richards, Kaeli Cook, Amanda Fauteaux, Elli Hearte, Cynthia Naggar, Rebecca and Jessica, Erik Edson, Dan Steeves, Adrianna Kuiper, Ryan Suter, Chris Down, Leah Garnet, Lesley Bonang, Brian Riley, Andrew Maize, Courtney Harris, Sophia Horowitz, Greg, Tom Young, Tom Macdonald, Al Melnyk, Natasha, Alix Wilson, Jacques Mindreau, Zach Melanson (one of the first people to pick me up hitchhiking EVER), Evan Matthews, Rosie Butler, Bucky Buckler and family, Graeme Patterson, Dr. Paul Bogaard. Jennie Parker! So many others I'm forgetting! 

MELBOURNE: My DARLING Gemma Rose Turnbull, Marnie Badham, Robert John Ball, Leuli Eshragi, Kate Just, Hart, Adva Weinstein, Ben Fox, Lucas Ihlein, Ted Purves, Amy Spiers, Lara Thoms, Ferdi Thajib, Tania Canas, Steve Mayhew, Rimi Khan, Tiffany Bishop. 

 

 

 

Bourdieux was a success!

Added on by Zachary Gough.

I never would have imagined all the ways that the participants of the Spectres of Evaluation Conference used and organized Bourdieux.  They really got into the role playing of the project! There were charitable organizations working toward social-financial equality, artists selling objects, currency counterfeits, and crowd-sourced funded art projects, quantitate easing, embezzlement, you name it!  Bravo everyone for supporting the project and putting such creative energies behind it.  I'll make a proper post soon, but for now, here are some photos.

Be the News

Added on by Zachary Gough.
photo 4.JPG

Take a listen to the promo clip for the show that the Correspondents are making, Be the News. I'm so excited to be working with an awesome team.  

We're creating local talk radio, invested in diversifying the voices and perspectives on CHMA 106.9FM and progressing the discourse on local social, environmental and political issues in Sackville New Brunswick.  We're also acting as ambassadors of CHMA to the community, and teaching ourselves the ins and outs of how a community radio station functions.  

This project made possible by the support of CHMA Struts Gallery and the Faucet Medai Arts Centre!

Coming up in Melbourne! February 6th & 7th, 2014.

Added on by Zachary Gough.
postercolour.JPG

BOURDIEUX is a medium of exchange for social capital between the participants of the Spectres of Evaluation conference.  

At the beginning of the conference, the currency is distributed in correlation with the hierarchies present at the conference: keynotes get the most, presenters and panelists get lots, artists get some, attendees get just a bit, and the general public get none at all.  

People are invited to exchange the currency for information and items of social value in whatever way they see fit. Email addresses, ideas, inspiration, influence, contact information, inside jokes, url links, website coordinates, pdfs are bought, sold and traded with Bourdieux. Transactions are recorded in each participant’s personal log.  

Participants are encouraged to discuss how they generate power in an art context, who accumulates social capital in socially engaged art works. At the end of each keynote lecture and panel discussion participants are encouraged to take an amount of Bourdieux that correlates with how much they felt that they learned/acquired during the presentation.  At the end of the conference, participants use their wealth of Bourdieux to bid in a silent auction for prizes rich in social capital. 

Participants can also evaluate the project’s success by submitting their evaluation form found in the currency logbook, along with a quantity of Bourdieux.  Thus, participants who accumulate more Bourdieux will have a greater say in determining the project’s success.  

The project aims to reveal the economy of social and cultural capital already present at the conference.  It also shows how our economies of power mimic or operate under similar rules to our financial economy.  Further, the project presents currency as an abstracted representation of our social relationships and explores the danger of quantifying value.  

Make Your Own Ready Made!

Added on by Zachary Gough.

"R.Mutt 1917" vinyl stickers now for sale.

photo 2 (1).JPG
photo 1 (1).JPG

Taken from Marcel Duchamp's first ready made Fountain these "R.Mutt 1917" stickers can be applied to any object in public or private.  

“It’s time to put Duchamp’s urinal back into the restroom” —Tania Bruguera

"R.Mutt 1917" vinyl stickers now for sale.  
Please send $2 to me at 2238 SE Oak, Portland Or, USA 97214, complete with your name and postal address.  

The photo below shows the toilet on Air Canada flight AC7758 Windsor to Montreal, transformed into a readymade art object at 15 000 feet.  

Pablo's Method

Added on by Zachary Gough.

What advice would you give to someone who is losing their independence?

6d918d093e1073401d02cd3fe6f2cf6a.gif