DACS.Open.

Artist group, LuckyPDF talk to DACS about their work, the...

dacsuk — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:06:32 +0100

Artist group, LuckyPDF talk to DACS about their work, the digital space and their experience of the DACS Open workshops.

luckypdf.com

Artist, Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva about her work, the digital space...

dacsuk — Fri, 11 May 2012 15:51:35 +0100

Artist, Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva about her work, the digital space and her experience of the DACS Open workshops.

elpihv.co.uk

"It’s very difficult to build good ‘spaces’ for art."

dacsuk — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:45:01 +0100

“It’s very difficult to build good ‘spaces’ for art.”

Photo

dacsuk — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:34:19 +0100

"These devices could be an environment to gain control."

dacsuk — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:01:04 +0100

“These devices could be an environment to gain control.”

"Finding comfortable spaces in a disrupted environment."

dacsuk — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 11:35:24 +0100

“Finding comfortable spaces in a disrupted environment.”

DACS Open round-up session

dacsuk — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 10:16:20 +0100

Today, DACS will be hosting a round-up session to conclude our four cycles of experimental workshops with artists as part of our DACS Open project. We launched the project in November 2011 with the first cycle of workshops held at DACS in London based on the theme of ‘Storytelling’. We then kicked off the next cycle of workshops in 2012 at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford exploring the theme of ‘Screens and Tablets’ followed by a cycle based on the theme of ‘Post-Digital’ hosted by Lighthouse in Brighton. Our final cycle of workshops is currently underway at Arnolfini in Bristol looking at the theme of ‘Microphilanthropy’.

We have invited all the artists and hosts that participated in the workshops. Today’s session is about drawing together the threads of all the different workshops and sharing with everyone the outcomes, getting their feedback about the workshops and then opening up a discussion of where we go next.

More to come…

Chris Thorpe from Jaggeree talks to DACS about his involvement...

dacsuk — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:46:15 +0100

Chris Thorpe from Jaggeree talks to DACS about his involvement in the DACS Open project.

Meet our Microphilanthropy Workshop Artists

dacsuk — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:03:41 +0100

The following artists are currently participating in the fourth cycle of workshops based on the theme of ‘microphilanthropy’ at Arnolfini in Bristol.

Oliver Flexman was born in 1978. After graduating from Duncan of Jordanstone and L’École Supérieure d’Art d’Aix-en-Provence he worked as an engaged or social practice artist for six years. In 2010 Oliver begun a new body of work partly in response to the memories and nostalgia of living in the Middle East as a child. The work investigates how the same elements of culture, commerce and identity are pervasive in opposing or radically different cultures. The work looks at the strength of personal investment people of all cultures put into inanimate or mass-produced objects and the role of context in articulating or proposing these item’s specific and varied meanings.

Oliver is a current recipient of Arts Council England, Grants for the Arts funding.

Upcoming Solo Exhibitions.

May 2012 - Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter.

July 2012 - Contact Zone. Exeter Phoenix Gallery.

http://www.oliverflexman.com/

Janet McEwan is an artist and educator whose research led practice predominantly investigates our contingent dynamic with the natural environment: often probing the space between the encounter and the mediated experience. Adopting variant, layered, and collaborative modes of enquiry, she attempts to make nuanced responses that will prompt imaginative dialogue and generate renewed understandings.

Outputs are diverse and playful, situated both in gated and public realms; encompassing and frequently fusing traditional, digital, temporal and relational art forms. Enduring interests include the parallels between the worlds of art and agriculture, as sites of durational performative activity, production, and uncertainty.

Not insignificantly, McEwan has mainly lived and worked in rural areas, both in her native Scotland, and in Cornwall where she has been based for the past 6 years. After studying sculpture in Aberdeen, she worked in various spheres including conservation and health, both in the UK and the global south, before completing a post graduate course in community education. She has been engaged as an artist/educator/curator widely since 1997.

Recent commissions include a legacy public artwork for Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire, installed Dec 2011, and a site-specific work at North Wyke, Soil and Grassland Research Station, Devon, for presentation in May 2012.

http://janetmcewan.com/

Debbie Locke is an artist and multimedia designer born in London, 1966. BA Fine Art: Painting, Wimbledon College of Art, 2009. An artist whose practice is mainly drawing based, working with kinetic drawing machines and installations. Has just had a solo exhibition ‘Dialogue’ at The Stone Space, London. Group exhibitions include ‘Artworks Open 2011’, Barbican Arts Group Trust, London and ‘Emergent Art Show’, Vyner Street Gallery, London.

http://debbielocke.com/

Katrina Horne is an Interdisciplinary Artist working with Installation, Video and Movement, based in Bristol, UK. Her practice includes collaborative and curatorial projects. She received her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, US; consistently ranked as No. 1 Graduate School by U.S. News and World Report.

http://katrinahorne.org

Grace Ndiritu (Kenya/UK) lives and works in London. She studied at Winchester School of Art, London; De Ateliers, Amsterdam (1998-2000); and had a UK studio residency at Delfina Studios, London (2004-2006).

Her ‘Hand-crafted videos’ and ‘Video Paintings’ have been widely exhibited, recent solo shows at Artists Film Survey, ICA London (2011), Artprojx Presents at Prince Charles Cinema (2009), Chisenhale Gallery, London (2007), the 51st Venice Biennale (2005) and Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2005). Recent group shows include those at the International Center of Photography, New York (2009), Studio Museum Harlem, New York (2008), Dakar Biennale,Senegal (2008).

She won the 1st Prize for Landscape Video and Photography, at the Centre for Art and Nature, Spain (2010). Her work has been commissioned by Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool (2010), Chisenhale Gallery, London (2007), and Glynn Vivian Gallery, Wales (2006). Her work is also housed in museum collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and private collections such as The Walter Collection, Germany and New York specializing in Contemporary Photography.

Grace Ndiritu Video Art Collection www.axisweb.org/artist/gracendiritu

www.luxonline.org.uk/artists/grace_ndiritu/index.html

Today we’re at Arnolfini in Bristol for the first of our...

dacsuk — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 13:39:13 +0000

Today we’re at Arnolfini in Bristol for the first of our workshops on the theme of Microphilanthropy

Just kicked off the second workshop at Lighthouse. Can’t...

dacsuk — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:01:28 +0000

Just kicked off the second workshop at Lighthouse. Can’t wait to see what post-digital objects Chris has made!

In Oxford at the Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art for the...

dacsuk — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 10:01:55 +0000

In Oxford at the Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art for the last of our workshops on theme of ‘screens & tablets’

Meet our Post-digital Workshop Artists

dacsuk — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:57:27 +0000

Simon Faithfull is a contemporary artist whose work has been exhibited extensively around the world. His work has been described as an attempt to understand and explore the planet as a sculptural object - to test its limits and report back from its extremities, to connect and collapse space and to understand how the far and mysterious relate to the everyday and mundane.

Recent projects include a video-work recording the journey of a domestic chair as it is carried to the edge of space (commissioned by Arts Catalyst), a drawing project sending back live digital-drawings from a two month journey to Antarctica (an Arts Council International Fellowship with British Antarctic Survey) and an animated film developed from drawings made on a mundane walk out of London along the A13 trunk road (a Channel 4 TV commission with Arts Council England). Recent exhibitions have included the solo shows at the British Film Institute (London), Harris Museum (Preston), Galerie Polaris (Paris), Parker’s Box (New York), Stills (Edinburgh) and Cell (London).

Faithfull was born in Oxfordshire, UK, studied at Central St Martins and then Reading University. His practice takes a variety of forms - ranging from video, to digital drawing, installation work and writing. Faithfull is also a lecturer at Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London.

www.simonfaithfull.org

http://limbo.simonfaithfull.org

Kate Genevieve is a director and artist who works with moving image, sound and the human body to create immersive environments for audiences that explore the interaction between embodiment and perception.

Kate founded Chroma Collective in 2010 – a group of artists, animators and programmers specialising in interdisciplinary and interactive work – and directs animation performances and large-scale projections. Her practice based research is around virtual environments, immersive visuals and presence research. Her 2011 art commissions build on her collaboration with neuroscientists, most recently the Encephalo//Graphic performance (2010) for the Art of Life Science Festival and NOPLACE at Embassy Court (2011).

She curates events for the BANG network, as well as conceiving and co-directing large scale collaborations such as Dream Machine (2010) and Future Machine (2011) for the White Night festival.

Kate has a background in performance and digital production. Over the last decade she has worked as an animator, performer and director on digital installations and interactive performances for national and international arts festivals. On moving to Brighton she joined digital production company Plug-in Media and was one of the team to receive a BAFTA in 2009 for Big and Small Online and a BAFTA in 2010 for Zingzillas Interactive.

http://kategenevieve.wordpress.com

latest project: http://noplace1.wordpress.com/

http://vimeo.com/kategenevieve

Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva’s practice encompasses of national and international site-specific commissions, fellowships and residences. She has developed a respected and high-quality reputation for producing ambitious and complex works in sculpture and installation. Since graduating from Royal College of Art in 1998, she has exhibited internationally including the 51st Venice Biennale ; Swiss Embassy and World Bank, Macedonia; L’H du Siege, France; Kilmainham Gaol Museum, Dublin. She has taken part in European residency programmes including Gloucester Cathedral, ArtSway, Irish Museum of Modern Art and Berwick Gymnasium Fellowship. Public art commissions include ‘Transpire’, St Bede’s College, Bristol; ‘We Are Shadows’, Unit2, London; ‘Life Cycle’, Bristol; ‘Re|Sort’, Fabrica Gallery, Brighton; Ambush’, The New Forest. She has received many national and international awards including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, she is an AIR Council member and representative for South East England.

www.elpihv.co.uk

http://www.contemporaryartsociety.org/become-a-member/artist-member/elpida-hadzi-vasileva/1139

http://www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=11268

http://www.artsway.org.uk/programme/artsway-associates/visit-the-artsway-associates/elpida-hadzi-vasileva/

LuckyPDF formed in 2008 as a project to develop new ways of funding, making and displaying art. Now working with a set core of four artists (John Hill, Oliver Hogan, James Early and Yuri Pattison) LuckyPDF work with an ever-shifting network of partners and collaborators to realise ambitious projects that combine live events with online video and broadcasts, commissioning and showcasing new performance and video works while intervening in and subverting the structures, institutions and economies of image production and distribution.

They were commissioned to produce four days of live online television at last year’s Frieze Art Fair and participated in the third Athens Biennial. In 2012 they will take part in Fierce Festival, Birmingham and Next Wave Festival, Melbourne.

http://www.luckypdf.com

Clare Strand is a British Photographic Artist. Her constant passion is the appeal of Utilitarian Photography where aesthetic issues are secondary to specific formulations and generic expectations. Research stimulates much of this dynamic. The hinterland to her image making is provided by a childhood upbringing where a family life in a suburban cul-de-sac was confounded by true crime magazines, ominous supernatural events, Paul Daniels on Sunday evenings, a father obsessed by exactitude and a flasher who lived in the house opposite.

Recent (2011) solo and group shows include, Signs of a Struggle, Photography in the wake of Postmodernism Victoria and Albert Museum, London ;Falling Up the Gravity of Art, The Courtauld, London; Sleight, Brancolini Grimadli, London and The Wonders of the Invisible World, Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, Sunderland.

Clare Strand’s first monograph published by Steidl and Partners (2009) was launched with her first major show, Clare Strand Fotografie Und Video at the Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany.

Strands work is held in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Arts Council, The British Council, The National Collection, The New York Library and private collections. She is represented by Brancolini Grimadli London.

http://www.brancolinigrimaldi.com/

http://clarestrand.co.uk/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Clare-Strand/139616076050274

Post-digital - First Workshop

dacsuk — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:35:24 +0000

Last week, on a cold winter’s morning we travelled to Brighton for the third cycle of our experimental workshop programme with artists at digital culture agency Lighthouse. The five artists participating – Simon Faithfull, Kate Genevieve, Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva, Clare Strand and artist group LuckyPDF joined Lighthouse’s Director Honor Harger to explore the theme of ‘post-digital.’

Housed in a former printworks, Lighthouse is located in the heart of Brighton’s North Laine, the city’s vibrant cultural quarter. Lighthouse is a leading arts agency supporting, commissioning and showcasing new work by digital artists and filmmakers. As well as being a vibrant venue for events in Brighton, Lighthouse supports artists and filmmakers by offering opportunities for development through commissions and mentoring programmes.

Once again the technologist Chris Thorpe led the discussion and took us on a journey through the potential of ‘post-digital’ and presented us with various objects manufactured using post-digital tools; a self-published newspaper from Twitter posts, an artwork dissected into multiples, 3D printing and a physical interpretation of data in the form of a snowman.

The conversation on how artists might employ post-digital tools began with some of the artists recalling their experiences and the challenges that face them. One artist told of their plans for an on-demand printed book of their digital images, whilst another told us of their work being proposed for use as a print on t-shirts but felt that the pricing and distribution model was to their disadvantage. Some artists questioned if there is a need for objects in a digitally advanced world. Would people even want objects, especially a generation that has never had them? “Why have a comforting teddy bear when you can have a mobile phone?”

Artists expressed concern about the value of a post-digital artwork. “The problem I have with 3D printing is why are we filling the world with all these multiples?” Other artists argued that it moves the object away from being a commodity to being meaningful. The issue of monetary value was also discussed with the artists questioning the perceived value a buyer has of a post-digital artwork. The experience of buying art changes: does the way people pay relate to the value a buyer attributes to an object? There is a certain validation when a buyer pays for work from a commercial gallery. Where is the validation when buying post-digital art objects over the Internet? The gallery system is about restricting access to art but this is at odds with that. Does experience, validation and positioning equate with value?

Later the theme of the discussion developed into broader themes around identity and how there is a division between the public and private ‘lives’ of artists. There was a sense of tension between space to create work, space to make money and space for the public. One artist told of their relationship with the online world and how it is focussed purely on their work. Another artist explained how social media is an integral part of their relationship with the public. “We’re still asking the same questions but with different tools”

Should we be humanising the online world? One artist proposed that by humanising the online world, we would make it more meaningful. “I think the humanising thing is making things more awkward, less easy…it’s using technology but actually doing boring, clunky, human, failing things. The human becomes the failing, boring ghost in the machine.”

"Why have a comforting teddy bear when you can have a mobile phone?"

dacsuk — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:55:06 +0000

“Why have a comforting teddy bear when you can have a mobile phone?”

- ‘Post-digital’ workshop artist

Today we’re at Lighthouse in Brighton for the first of...

dacsuk — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:47:23 +0000

Today we’re at Lighthouse in Brighton for the first of three workshops based on the theme of ‘post-digital’

"It feels like we have a very interesting set of Lego now."

dacsuk — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:12:57 +0000

“It feels like we have a very interesting set of Lego now.”

- ‘Screens & Tablets’ workshop artist

Screens & Tablets workshop no.2

dacsuk — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:40:00 +0000

Screens & Tablets workshop no.2

"I think as a user of the Internet you should be able to choose what you look at."

dacsuk — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:28:31 +0000

“I think as a user of the Internet you should be able to choose what you look at.”

- ‘Screens & Tablets’ workshop artist

Just kicked off the second workshop at the Ruskin School of...

dacsuk — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:50:38 +0000

Just kicked off the second workshop at the Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art in Oxford…once again around a large platter of biscuits.