@ Platea Project VIII: Tree-Blogging

On Twitter we “retweet.” On Tumblr we “reblog.” On YouTube, videos go “viral” and are often “embedded” into other sites. On Facebook, we “share” others’ words, images, and links. In these ways, discrete works circulate and spread, pushing roots and branches across the Internet.

We also sometimes “remix.” We create mash-ups and digital collages. We rework others’ works into something of our own and share it, knowing that it too may be reworked by someone else. In this way, our creative expressions spur other creative expressions and grow organically, like a tangled hedge, like a tree, like a forest.

For this @Platea project, we plan to investigate the intangible tangibles of connections between art works. We encourage participants to make work out of each other’s work and to create links between sites where these works are shared. We hope to grow a conceptual art tree through reblogging, to fill its branches with the music of retweets, albeit reworked more than simply repeated.

Procedure:

On January 10, we will post some prompting material (sound file, image, text, etc.) to this web site as a trunk. Participants can use this material to branch out and make their own art on their blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, etc. As the event proceeds, participants can also use the material produced by other participants. Post a link-forward to your work in the comments section of the participating site(s) where you borrowed inspiration material. In posting your work at your site, include a link-back to the inspiration material.

With the obvious exception of Twitter (or other microblogging sites), where you post your work should include a comments section, preferably one that allows active hyperlinks. This will allow any folks who use your work to post a link-forward to their re-working. In Twitter (and similar microblogging sites), the reply function will be the best way of indicating link-forward, although a shortened URL could be included in the Tweet for a link-back.

If you are planning to use Facebook, LinkedIn, Ravelry, or other restricted social networking sites, you can include information for joining your network in the comments below. Or, if you prefer, you can allow branches/roots to cross into your private domain and disappear from public view. This happens all the time with real trees, right?

Your work can be in any media that you can share on-line: text-based, image, video, sound, or any combination of these. How you “sample” the inspiration materials or others’ works is completely up to you, from mash-ups to meditations. If you take the branch/root in a puzzling “new” direction, that is great!

Documentation:

To the best of our ability, we will attempt to map the growing network of linked works. Our plan is to produce an interactive map that will allow users to link directly to the work being produced while also demonstrating the connections between works. As with all cartography, we expect some discrepancies between the map and the territory.

Event Dates: Monday, January 10 to Friday, January 14.

Following up: Sorry We Couldn't Be There!

Couldn't go to Miami? Neither could we.  After an open call for video submissions, we received 16 videos from around the world from artists who couldn't attend Art Basel Miami Beach (and two who could but still wanted to join us!).  The video was screened at SEVENMiami in the Winkleman Gallery space, as part of Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida's #rank.

We received a very positive response to this piece, and it was definitely one of my favorites.  I had drinks recently with Christi Nielsen, and we talked about the power of video, how it really puts a face to the names we've been tweeting with all this time.  The art "world" is much larger and more geographically diverse than the major art centers, and hopefully this video was successful in bringing that out.

Many thanks to all our amazing performers!

Project VII: Sorry I Couldn't Be There

Image courtesy mbshane on Flickr

Love art? We do.  Always wanted to go to the Miami art fairs?  We have, too.  Can't go, though?  Yeah, us too.

This month, Miami is once again opening its doors for the contemporary art world to swoop in and look at, discuss and purchase art.  Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida, organizers of the very popular #class earlier this year, are organizing yet another event to critique and comment on the nature of the contemporary art world.  #rank, situated in the Winkleman Gallery's SEVEN Miami booth, will feature a host of events, including one with @Platea's own Joanie San Chirico.


Image courtesy Cameron Bennett on Flickr

But what about those who can't attend?  @Platea has an answer for you all!  Attend virtually through video.  Here's the scoop:

* Interested? Sign up below so we can get a general sense of who's participating.

* Record a 5-10 second video of yourself saying: - Hi, my name is______ . I live in______. Sorry I couldn't come to Miami. I had to_________

 - eg: "Hi, my name is An Xiao.  I live in Los Angeles.  Sorry I couldn't come to Miami.  It's way over there, and I'm way over here, and... you know."

* Then send me (thatwaszen@gmail.com) the video file via YouSendIt.com or vimeo.com (preferred), ensuring it's no larger than 20 MB.  The format I would prefer would be .mov or .mp4, but I can accept other formats.

* I'll then line up the videos into one giant video and place it on Vimeo and send to the #rank organizers.  The video will play on loop throughout the course of the Miami show.

* Send your video to thatwaszen@gmail.com (no attachments please!) by Saturday, November 20.  Please let us know if you have any questions!


Ultimately, the video will highlight concerns around geographic access and about who's left out during these large art fairs.  For too long, the influential art centers have been located in major metropolitan regions such as New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Paris, London, Beijing and Seoul.  We want to highlight the parts of the world where artists are working.

http://www.hashtagclass.com/rank/sorry-i-couldnt-be-there-by-platea/

#FlatAnvatar's Journey

Here's a compilation of the trek that #FlatAnvatar made going from NYC to LA. Map courtesy of @platea member Christi Nielsen.

The Adventures of #FlatAnvatar

@Platea's founder, An Xiao is embarking on a new adventure. She's moving from New York to Los Angeles where she'll be attending Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in the fall. To ease her transition from East to West Coast, the members of the group concocted a fun performance showing #FlatAnvatar on her very roundabout travels across the country with some unexpected side trips. So far, Flat An has been to places in England, Rome, Paris, and all over the US.

Here are a few photos of her stops so far:

Flat An started out on the High Line in New York City.

Here's Flat An in a poppy field in Sussex, England.

Flat An was seen hitchhiking in Adirondack State Park, in Upstate NY.

Flat An waiting to get a tour of the Louvre, Paris, France.

There's no telling where Flat An will pop up next, so stay tuned. You can follow her travels either by using the hashtag #FlatAnvatar on Twitter, or on the @Platea flickr page.

Mrs Miniver and the #Plateaknits by Ingrid Murnane

No, it's not a new band...

Friendsocks © Giles Babbidge Photography.

Remember #plateaknit? Remember that I said that I would knit a full-instruction scarf from the archive of #plateaknit tweets?

Well, I did. Then I was asked to exhibit it and the other items which I'd made too.

I currently have an exhibition on at Prick Your Finger which is a brilliant and quirky yarn and haberdashery shop in Bethnal Green in London.

I'm showing both the Mrs Miniver series of socks which talk about relationships between people, and also the final pieces from the #plateaknit performance in January.

Setting up the Plateaknits © Giles Babbidge Photography

I went up to London last Wednesday to put the show up with lots of help from Giles who was also kind enough to document it all for me. Rachael and Louise and their shop staff were lovely and made us very welcome with cups of tea throughout the day and put on a great private view in the evening.

Mrs Miniver and the Plateaknits © Giles Babbidge Photography

The exhibition is on for the rest of April, with the #plateaknits in the window, so if you are in London, please do visit and let me know what you think.

As always, you can follow @platea on Twitter and Facebook and take part in discussions on Ravelry too. Check back on the blog soon for details of our coming performances!

PS My lovely chap, Giles took all of the photographs for me. Please do visit his blog here.

participant view, by Nikki

My participation in #plateaknit has made me think specifically about a few key things, but not limited to; nostalgia, stratification, interpretation and networking/collaboration.

Nostalgia: I come from a large family of knitters however don’t knit myself. It was something I always wanted to do as a kid; but as the only left-handed person in a whole family of right-handed people; as you can imagine the attempted teaching/learning became a source of frustration for all concerned. We used to all congregate at my Grandparents house on the weekends and there didn’t seem to be a weekend in my formative years that brightly coloured yarns - with symbolic tin cans - didn’t connect us all in some form. It seemed to me that the ability to make something from wool was akin to a rite of passage in our family and I would experiment with other ways of forming yarn into objects so as not to miss out on the experience altogether. I still think of knitting as quite mystical yet at the same time social and have fond memories of garments and toys that were created during that time.

I also feel that the resurgent interest in handcrafted items (I include knitting in this broad category) is partially driven by nostalgia. Many environmental (and also in some part economic) concerns have driven me personally to seek alternatives to mass-produced items, preferring to opt for something a little more unique, or thoughtful, when considering gift options.

Stratification: I’m interested in archaeological matrices and their formation through palimpsests of data, which bears an interesting correlation (I feel) to a crowd sourced knitting pattern. As assemblages of cultural and environmental information stratify in an archaeological record you could perhaps view this as mega-tweets of social instruction/trends overlapping each other as displayed in some of the pics of #plateaknit pieces on the @Platea Flickr pool. I hadn't really considered the application of archaeological process to an artistic endeavor before, but its certainly something I'll give a bit more thought to on the back of this project.

Interpretation: I was fascinated to watch how the reader interpreted the data presented to them and translated it to fit within their working model, particularly when both literal and metaphorical instructions were provided. All the makers involved in this project produced very distinct pieces from basically the same instructions. But then, I do still have a childlike awe for knitting viewing it as alchemy!

Networking and collaboration: With so many social networking sites opening up greater avenues for exploring many crafts/arts/hobbies it only takes minutes to find a community of people from all over the world happy to share their knowledge with the uninitiated or those rediscovering a forgotten passion. With this too comes an increase in collaborative ventures that, I feel, strengthens not only our relationships with each other but gives us a greater visualisation for what we can achieve as individuals. For example, through the work of the collaborators on this project – and in deed a great many friends whom I see (in person) regularly - I’ve been inspired to have another shot at knitting!

(apologies for the lack of pictures with this text)