R\evolutions Through Distribution

Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire, UK. 15 - 18 February 2010.

A four-day retreat of talks, performances and workshops, which looked at the theme of distribution as a common thread, programmed by the first year Curating Contemporary Art MA students, Royal College of Art.

The retreat pointed to the models that have revolutionised distribution – from the printing press to the internet and digitisation – and the evolutionary forms of social change that open up or are constrained by these changes in communication. We explored how artistic practices, literature and film have addressed these issues. Guests and events included:

Mark Essen (Artist, UK) Record Exchange and Celebration, live performance. Essen set up a record exchange space whereby participants were invited to bring records, videos, magazines and other paraphernalia for exchange.

Mark Essen (Artist, US) For the duration of the retreat the participants were invited to play Flywrench (2007) and Scrap Collector (2008), video games created by the artist.

Maria Fusco (Director of Art Writing, Goldsmiths and the Editor of The Happy Hypocrite), conducted a writing workshop exploring exercises in writing in first, second and third persons.

Mindaugas Gapševičius (Artist and curator), gave a presentation on o-o, the first Lithuanian new media art platform on the net and explored important tendencies in digital / networking arts from different viewpoints.

Emma Hedditch (Artist), lead a video workshop focused on thinking about self-reflexivity both within her own practice and contemporary art practice, in relation to issues of distribution and self-representation.

Francesco Pedraglio (Curator, writer and co-director of FormContent) in conversation with Daniella Saul (Curator). Pedraglio gave a presentation, All Right / All Wrong, which explored the distribution of history and knowledge through subjective literary methodologies. Saul presented her research on her upcoming exhibition at FormContent, which explores issues of contemporaneity in art.

Mike Sperlinger (Head of Distribution, LUX) in conversation with Karen Alexander (Senior lecturer, Royal College of Art) addressed the challenges of distributing artists' moving image today.

Film screening programmed by CCA of Space is the Place, 1974, featuring Sun Ra and directed by John Coney.

Suns Neither Rise Nor Set

An exhibition curated by the first year MA Curating Contemporary Art, Royal College of Art, Hockney Gallery, Royal College of Art, Stevens Building, Jay Mews, SW7 2EU, Opening Wednesday 9 December 2009, 6.30 — 8.30pm, exhibition continues 10 — 18 December 2009

Suns Neither Rise Nor Set brought together work by Vanessa Billy, Richard Hughes, Nina Beier & Marie Lund, The Atlas Group / Walid Raad, Richard Rigg, and Kim Rugg. Using everyday objects, archival materials and collage techniques, these works call into question the processes through which reality and illusion are constructed in visual communication and perception.

Vanessa Billy’s Suns neither rise nor set (2008), from which the exhibition took its title, alludes to the fact that everyday events such as the rising and setting of the sun, are not objective truths but part of a subjective system of symbols and narratives that supports our understanding of reality and perceived position in it. Whereas Billy looks to expose such fictions, The Atlas Group / Walid Raad, claim new ones. Their renegotiations of contested historical memory take the form of presentations of archival documents of Lebanon's recent past, which are themselves of questionable authenticity.

Nina Beier & Marie Lund also engage with notions of the archive. In The Archives (2008), the content of second-hand peace posters is buried beneath the weight of a fold, denying the original authors their protest and quashing past, unrealised hopes for the future. Along with Kim Rugg’s A Single Balloon Drifting Skywards (2008), an evocative reconfiguration of the language and graphic conventions of a daily newspaper, Beier and Lund’s series points towards the hierarchies in place in the distribution of information and how these can affect our interpretation of events.

The reworking of everyday objects is also apparent in the playful and illusory propositions of Richard Hughes and Richard Rigg. Rigg has made a precise but flawed replica of his own desk, whereas Richard Hughes presents us with a shattered clock face, which provocatively questions the authority of time.

In different ways, each of the artists in this exhibition interrogate or deconstruct weighty or complex notions. In doing so, they bring to light the uncertainties that pervade the production and reception of knowledge, helping us to visualise the oscillating line between fact and fiction.

Where do we go from here? Salon Discussion

WDWGFH3  by  Barbara-rm