TXT2 At the Vulcan public house Cardiff

2009-03-04T15:00:00.000-08:00

Images above and below by Chris Colclough

7. 30pm on the 3rd MARCH 2009.

Artstation will present this work as part of Nutopia Symposium the Arades Project in Cardiff April 2nd to 3rd. www.arcadesproject.org

What will happen.
As the day light disappears, powerful projection from University Atrium building opposite on to the face of Vulcan Pub will provide the first public viewing of this Mashup and Guerrilla Text - An Artwork in support of the Vulcan Pub a much loved landmark of old Cardiff which is currently scheduled for demolition in June 09.

The Artwork creates a tapestry of publicly generated content, on the surface of the building with which to express the cultural value of the site in an immediate and simple method. Texts are sent to the building and are seen on the outside in a mural of light.

Postscript:Following this event, a curator of everyday life working at St Fagans Museum rang Artstation. He had been in the Vulcan the evening of the event and described the effect as magical There was interest in getting hold of the data (mobile messages). Kath and Glenn visited the Museum for talks about future research collaboration, these are continuing. In the meantime we have given the data to St Fagans Museum for the good of the nation.

THE VULCAN IS SAVED for the time being.
Recent news of a 3 year reprive:http://save-the-vulcan.blogspot.com/

Social networking software
A building is incorporated into the social networking surrounding it. Long time users, younger users, passers by indeed any potential stakeholder may nudge the systems via a contact number projected as a foot note. The system is used to communicate ideas, poetry, memories, slogans, prepared texts and quick notes.

Conversation
Meaning is constructed between the artists and public users, on or between buildings, places and spaces. MMS Images can be txted to the project and in development currently under discussion future emailed content such as images, short movies and text will be incorporated directly into the tapestry. Old buildings may speak up for them selves or converse with young buildings.

As an outcome of TXT2 at Vulcan there is a 12 min film of the TXT2 event available from Artstation and discussion is taking place with curators of contemporary life at St Fagans Museum.

Partners/funders/friends
The software has been developed in association with Dr Ian Grimstead from University of Cardiff and anthropologist Kath Williams of University of Glamorgan.

Artstation also acknowledge the kind support of Arts Council of Wales, UnLtd and Science Shops Wales of University of Glamorgan. Cardiff University Computer Science department, St. Fagans Museum and Wyn Mason for assistance on filming and projection.

Background
Originally the software was designed around an existing crises, the Shepherds Arms Freehouse in Cwmaman where community feelings were running high. Design and function of the software has been conceived for public feedback on buildings which are facing demolition or irrevocable change. It addresses situations where local identity, distinctiveness or relationship to community stand to be lost. By projection onto the exterior of a building it provides a way of getting messages back to those who need to hear, be they other members of public or officials. It is a way of stimulating the public mind with specific ideas or impressions, creating agency and interest in the public relationship to place. The open source software provides public with a method to respond to questions and evocations using their mobile text massaging. It was designed so that out put can be large screen or projection. The project is ideally suited to public, social spaces like bars, café etc. Images and film can also be incorporated into the system. The artwork is designed to be low maintenance. The Content for projection is carefully controlled. Impress page templates cycle through pre-designed slides automatically. All incoming txt and phone numbers are audited and saved by the system.

Further Testing and development
Discussion is currently underway with Chapter Art Centre to test the system in the public bar area, Chapter is currently undergoing a major refurbishment and Artstation will be using the bar later in the year to mount another event.

see www.artstaiton.org.uk/chapter/chaptertxt2.htm

Free House in the State of Cwmaman

2008-05-01T08:05:00.000-07:00

The Free House in the state of Cwmaman.
by artists Anne Hayes and Glenn Davidson of Artstation

Gradually we will bring the blog upto date to cover the fascinating developments on the Cwmaman Project. First some background:

During 2006 - 7 Artstation presented a series of three highly localised commissions, 3 public temporary site specific installations.

1)"Homage to the top down and bottom up" Coed Hills Rural Art Space commission. In which we evolved the use of “ontological maps” produced with people living and working at Coed. These greatly influenced the final form and meaning of the installation. Which will be available as website film soon.
2)"Ty Bont" in Porth Plaza reflecting on a bicentenary William Edwards single span stone bridge in Pontypridd and the new link road and Realto Bridge spanning the Rhonda Fawr and Fach Valleys. In which we developed the mapping concept to include philosophical discourse from Dr Chris Groves Bambo Soyenka and engineers from Costain Ltd - Available as a PowerPoint soon.
3) Arising Nature - St Josephs Church, Cwmaman Cynon Valley S.Wales. A biodiversity audit of the valley conducted by Science Shops Wales - Artstation create public engagement thorugh a commissioned installation. http://www.polonio.com.uy/ofarisingnature/index.html

Flowing from Arising Nature we have embarked on a new and collaborative work about the The Shepherds Arms freehouse, the oldest pub in Cwaman. This has come about through the experiences and research gained in 2007 commission where a practice based research process lead to an installation in the local church of St Josephs as part of a biodiversity audit commissioned by Science Shops Wales (SSW) - science communication a department at University of Glamorgan, S.Wales, UK.Working with SSW .

Dr Steve Harris manages the SSW team and has a background in computing and cybernetics. He had known Artstation for many years before he became involved in the communication of science and in the process finish his Phd. It had beenan expressed interest of Steves to work with us for some time. He proposed we met up after he attended the opening of "Y Bont" our 2006 installation for Porth Plaza. Our first meeting was at Uni. of Glamorgan where we discussed proposals to work with the Science Shops Team who Steve had bought together over some 2 years to address science communication.

In 1988 we had undertaken a seminal an artist in residence, an art science residency within a Social Science programe on cybernetics and complex systems research under prof. Gordon Pask, prof. Gerard De Zeeuw among others. This provided an underlying connection through cybernetics, however Steves and our knowledge and interest were somewhat different. Ours came from social science; the work of Gordon Pask, Ranulph Glanville, Heinze Von Forster, Homberto Maturana, Francisco Varela and many notable others. We had been associated with the American Society for Cybernetics and the Dutch Systems Group with whom we remain in occasional contact (see the latest Cybernetics paper for Vienna 2008 on our website:
http://www.artstation.org.uk/vienna.htm) Steve's interest is from within systems and computing. He had studied early 20th century Russian systems scientists predating, Norbert Wiener and his 1949 classic publication "control and communication in the animal and machine", often quoted to us as an origin from which cybernetics of the kind we became influenced by had grown. We will, I hope discuss this further with Steve.

I should say our sensibilities informed by cybernetics are further filtered through our art practice. The first meeting placed found our interests somewhat at counterpoint - a striking soft science verses hard science divide in terms of the influences. This immediately increased awareness of our potential position as artists within the collaboration with SSW and we became intrigued as to how things might progress.

Artists can be at potential risk in working with scientists. Science operates and makes its case very differently from art and artists. Scientists who use art for its communication and participation potential may not be skilled in providing the necessary conditions for a successful art project. We were highly aware of the caustic repercussions if outcomes were to under whelm or fail within the context of SSW.

Our first point of real unease on the Cwmaman commission was the problem of a none negotiated project title. Unable to extract one from us, Steve emailed, first suggestions to us then strong statements and time constraints and in desperation made a title up that he felt suited what we had discussed. There it was a title : “Of Arising Nature”. The conventions of “work in progress” or working title or process commonly used in artspace were never part of a solution. Neither could we evolve a title through the process of undertaking the work in its self. Some how such methods were absent from discussion it created difficulty about the politics of control, sensitivity to authorship. We also felt potentially this did not bode well for conditions surrounding operation of art work. The experience served to sensitise us to potential for a disrupted process and possible disaster.

As Artists we have fundamentally different and at times apposing methods of working and thinking about the "world" from science, most particularly when constructing meaningful statements about or from it. And this, of course, is the primary interest in attempting to doing so. Discourse with science and science professionals has made us aware of conditions for our work, particularly when our art may be constructed from within the method of its coming about ! . What this means in practical terms is that we usually say as little as possible about our intentions and methods before embarking on our own style of primary research at the location for the work. In this way we strategically attempt to avoid our own assumptions it is an approach epitomised the general Artist Placement Group concept (APG) the “open brief.

The SSW had started unintentionally as a provocation to our art practice, we needed to establish and impress our influence on the process surrounding the biodiversity audit.

St Josephs Church Cwmaman was our project base for 4 weeks, often working in the background as farther David ministered to the congregation. First days of the residency some of the Science team had problems relating to our process and the purpose and position of the work within the broader remit of the Biodiversity Audit. Mostly science backgrounds SSW team members were ill equipped to assemble reasons for the demands we were now making upon them as they were enlisted to help run sessions and contribute to conversations with a range of community groups and individuals. As things proceeded discussion were clearly happening between SSW management and the team. As SSW people began to adjust and find their feet, conversations, drawings and ideas intensified. Two wonderful photographers Christian Helgessen and Diego Vidart captured and recorded the work in progress much of this work landed up on the project website www.ofarisingnature.org.uk. Their carefully observed compositions began to circulate back to the science team and things became easier and confidence grew as community members joined conversations Patterns and key pieces of information began to emerge in the maps and drawings we were creating. The process gained meaning and contributions increased.

“Conversation” is a term we use after Prof. Gordon Pask’s “Conversation Theory“ and it marks the first stage of our engagement in our installation commissions. The first person on the SSW team to become professional motivated and connected through this process was Kath Williams. During a stimulating exchange of ideas Kath and we explored how the mapping and research methods we were using could be applicable in anthropology her field of study. (She is also a cosmologist but we only found that out later…) As a core member of SSW her involvement and visible motivation further linked and integrated the work with the wider SSW team.

The design which emerged is also is covered on the website The cwmaman Installation

We then saw the central metaphor of the work emerged out of the many community conversations. We had started all the discussions in St Josephs simply asking what what was important in or about Cwmaman.

In answer most people at some point bought The Shepherds Arms Public house in to their descriptions. Here emerged a central theme that was to carry us to completion on this project and beyond into the new one.

Kath Williams takes up the story :

The Shepherds Arms – Cwmaman Aberdare

In the course of researching for an art installation the artists realised that the Shepherds Arms Pub, situated in an extremely prominent place in the village and under threat of demolition, was very important to the community for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the pub was important geographically. Whether they used it or not, time and time again, people identified where they lived and how they fitted into the village as being geographically speaking ‘above’ or ‘below’ the “Sheps”.

Secondly, the pub was important socially. Despite the pub being open only after around 10pm on a few nights a week, many people were using it regularly, considering it their ‘local’ and, when they could, still organising gigs and get-togethers for special occasions.

We quickly came to realise that the Shepherds Arms a dilapidated building in the small village represented a continuing battleground. The Sheps was inked to an assumed village hierarchy who were running ever faster under the agenda of progress. This small and influencial group appeared to be missing, even strategicallly mis-interpreting the buildings social role and its symbolic importance to the wider community.

We decided to visit the Shepherds Arms with photographers Diego and Christian to have a drink with the locals. We also invited our friend and Ceramicist Keith Munro for his robust good humour. We met a range of characters who have subsequently become involved in this project and other run by the university.

We immediately noted how people in the pub were unaware of the feelings other members of the community, non pub users, had for the Shepherds Arms. Many wonderful stories and anecdotes had been shared with us by the community who had use the building over many decades. Last Christmas a large crowd had cooked their Christmas dinners and then carried them to the Shepherds Arms to consume, just to be together...

Pub verses club drinkers
At the back of the bar a retired older contingent of drinkers were understandably suspicious and a bit cagey about their relationship to the pub and its uncertain future. Nearer the front of the bar another group of younger 35 – 50 were openly and vocally against the “owners” knocking the building down. Many told us they drank as pub drinkers, independent of clubs and groups or organised institutions. A sharp contrast with the Institute drinker. It was a basic freedom this group cherished, the comfort of the old place.

Art:

The installation at St Josephs proved succesful. Many local people entering the church were given to reflect on the various forces in the community and events surrounding the Shepherds Arms.

At the installation open evening attended by a couple of hundered residents and local councillors the save our sheps SOS band were invited by the artists to play a couple of rock folk songs to set the scene - which they did....

The comissioned research and its installation revealed the conditions for Free House in the State of Cwmaman emerged.

TXT2 - practice led research by Artstation

TXT2 At the Vulcan public house Cardiff

Free House in the State of Cwmaman