Engagement in Social Space

The following images are some of the works that Adrian Blackwell has created. The descriptions of the works are his explanations of what the work is about. The link to the original web page is listed below each description.

Public Water Closet

Modified portable toilet, Urban Textures Urbain, Gallery 101, Ottawa and off/site, Mercer Union, Toronto), 1998

Public water closet (PWC) diverts the basic function of the two-way mirror, which is to provide systems of power a safe location from which to survey a population to be controlled. In PWC this hierarchy is reversed, so that people living and working on the street, are allowed a location from which to watch the city without being seen. The project proposes an alternative relation between individuals and municipal infrastructure, which is increasingly being designed and constructed as one part of a paranoid fantasy of coercion.

Link to image

Detroit’s underdevelopment: separation > divesture > erasure > encampment

It’s not a bad city; it’s a horribly designed city.
Derrick May, Transmat Records

This project maps the relationships between social forces and physical spaces in the city of Detroit. It spatializes recent writing by Thomas Sugrue (The Origins of the Urban Crisis) and June Manning Thomas (Race and Redevelopment). Both argue that the powerful effects of racism shaped the city’s underdevelopment as sharply as did economic forces. The purpose of these maps are to gain a better purchase on the historical factors that lie beneath the situation of contemporary Detroit, as a means to consider the actions required to transform the Metropolitan Area into a more equitable social space.

Link to image



Evicted May 1, 2000 (9 Hanna Ave.)

13 colour Cibachrome contact prints, 20” x 24”, 2001

A camera is a small room into which light enters through an aperture. These photographs are made using a pinhole camera that is a scale model of the room it is intended to photograph. Five of its six interior surfaces are lined with film, each one capturing a different surface of the room. The camera itself is fixed to the ceiling so that the room can be described in its totality. These images are part of a thirteen image series documenting workspaces in a former munitions plant. These spaces were cheap to rent, generous in volume, well lit and easy to adapt.

Link to image

Model for a Public Space
Plywood construction, Mercer Union, Toronto 2000, Architecture Gallery, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg 1999Model for a Public Space responds to my experience with non-hierarchical meeting forms at Toronto’s Anarchist Free School. In its classes ideas were discussed, and decisions were made by consensus between individuals talking together with one another in a circle. The space is constructed by cutting the floor of a room and peeling it upwards, so that it forms a set of bleachers. People sitting across from one another are physically close, creating intimacy between them. The model sets up hierarchies and then destabilizes them. At the top you are on the periphery; in the centre, people sit above and behind you.

Link to image


Adrian Blackwell

Adrian Blackwell is an artist and an architect. His interest is in public space and architectural planning. He is influenced by the Situationist Guy Debord and wants to change the landscape of urban planning by producing alternatives to our existent public spaces and living spaces. His work is about the dichotomy of public and private space. One of his most interesting works about this issue is his sculptural installation piece called Public Watercloset. What is most interesting about this work is that it is a space that is both public and private. The installation works as a public washroom in which any citizen is authorized to use, yet the space is somewhat private as well. You are situated by yourself, in a private moment inside the installation. What makes it even more interesting and also confusing is the use of the two way mirror. While you are inside the installation you are able to view the public space that is just outside the door, while people on the outside only see a reflection of themselves. Not only is Adrian Blackwell raising interesting questions about public and private space with PWC, but he also raises interesting questions about voyeurism and scopophilia

Adrian Blackwell creates artworks or pieces of architecture that allow the audience to get involved. He say that he is “interested in finding ways to get people involved in my artwork rather than standing aloof from it.” Many of his pieces can be seen outside of a gallery setting which is what allows the viewers to easily interact, and engage in his work. Adrian Blackwell, in my opinion, is considered an activist because instead of simply raising awareness about political/architectural/or environmental issues, he is actually solving the issues at the same time. His artwork is about providing a solution to the problems he sees in urban public spaces.

Laura



Video From Nuit Blanche 2006: A Model for Public Space

Guerilla Girl Power: why the art world needs a conscience

All Images are from the Guerilla Girls website

Guerilla Girls Images


































































Elizabeth Hess

The Guerilla Girls is a feminist activist group that emerged from the New York art scene in 1985 at a time when feminism was out of style and the art world was about money and fame. The Guerilla Girls are set up like a collective group of artists where artists are allowed to join and leave the group as they please. The girls in the group remain anonymous and whenever they present themselves to the public they always wear a gorilla mask to hide their true identity. All of the members never reveal their real names; they always refer to each other through the names of other female artists. For example, one Guerilla Girl calls herself “Frida Khalo.”

The girls are known for their “guerilla” style attacks in the New York art scene. They are most famous for the public awareness posters that they put up all around SoHo, and Tribeca. The purpose of the posters was to inform the public and the art world about the misrepresentation/invisibility or women in the New York art scene and around the globe. The major event that brought these women together was an upcoming show at the MOMA. The exhibition was survey of the work of international artists. What infuriated the women was that in the exhibition, less than 10% of female artists were included and 100% of them were white, which caused the girls to speak out about these issues through their posters. The posters were “activist statements that conformed to a distinct aesthetic format. It was obvious at first glance that the Girls were artists, yet these texts were pure propaganda.” I guess much activist work (especially if it contains political content) can seem like propaganda, but the point is to get the message across and make people feel as if they need to act in order to change things. These posters were meant to make female artists angry about the statistics, and make them fight for a balance in the art world. Just like so many women who belonged to the feminist movements across America, the Guerilla Girls wanted people to know that the fight for equality wasn’t over yet.

One of the interesting facts about the Guerilla Girls was that they remain an anonymous band of female (and possibly male) artists. The Girls often claimed that the message was more important than the person behind the message. They didn’t want the public to get wrapped up in the identity of these women; further, they didn’t want to ruin their own artistic careers for fear of criticism because of an association with the group. They admit that the anonymity drove people crazy because people always want a tangible person that they can point a finger at, which was impossible with the Girls anonymous existence. They liked the idea that they would be at exhibition openings, hearing people comment about the latest poster on the street.

My disappointment lies in the fact that the women have to remain anonymous in order to get their point across. Why is it not possible for women to freely and openly speak their minds without being fearful of being personally attacked? Although we have come a long way, it seems to me that we still have a long way to go before women are completely liberated and equal.

Laura

The Collective Camcorder in Art and Activism

Jesse Drew

1968 was an important year for video based artists because that was the year that Sony introduced to the market the consumer level video camera which was self-contained and battery0powered. This new, affordable device allowed a new generation of artists access to the world’s most powerful medium. Jesse Drew’s article is about the new struggle of video based artists to fit into the boundaries that defined video “art.” Before the invention of the hand held camera, there were already artists using video based work and these were the artists that set up the boundaries for what would later be considered the rules of video based art. Many of the critics and gallery curators considered video based art to be about form and aesthetic and often ignored work that was “political.” Socially concerned work was not particularly favored and thus dismissed. Another concern about the new video work that was appearing in the art scene was that much of the work was done collectively. The idea of the collective in art production was somewhat problematic because the idea of the individual “genius” was hard to distinguish along with the question of authorship and ownership.

The Collective idea of an artistic group was somewhat of a lifestyle for these artists. Their work was not strictly associated with their careers as artists, but it was also attached to their lifestyle. These people worked together without any hierarchy of members. Each individual was considered an equal. Many of the individuals who belonged to a collective often lived together. Collectives were considered a loosely associated group of like-minded individuals who worked together towards a common goal. The common goal of these artists was seen to encompass a way of distributing their work among their peers and sharing information about their ideas. It was about community within the media. These artists produced an alternative to the popular media run by big broadcasting companies within society.

Some examples of contemporary media sharing and information sharing would be websites such as Flickr, youtube, ares, and blog sites. All of these media sharing websites are possible because of the internet. The internet has allowed individuals to post information and share media with other people in the virtual community for free. Websites such as MySpace allow individuals to post their music as a way of promoting themselves as up and coming musicians. Youtube allows any individual to post a video they have created and share it with the world. The internet has become a space beyond the exhibition and the gallery and has become an inexpensive way for individuals to share knowledge. Although in recent years the internet has been a valuable resource, there are some problems; any individual can post whatever they like without any discretion. Access to the internet is open to anyone, which can be problematic when it comes to the authenticity of the work. These are some of the same problems that the video collectives faces; the idea of authorship.

Laura

Feminist Media Strategies for Political Performance

Myths of Rape performance by Leslie Labowitz as part of "Three Weeks in May" by Suzanne Lacy.
Link to original website













Women protest album cover violence. Video production still from "Record Companies Drag Their Feet" by Leslie Labowitz.
Link to original website

Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz

The problem of sexual violence towards women in the media and society is the primary reason for the emergence of feminist media art. In 1977, feminist artists like Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz brought the subject of sexual violence to the forefront with their media work. Violent and pornographic imagery of women were very visible in the dominant media culture which caused uproar in the feminist community. The basic cause for the anger towards female representation in such a violent way was seen as an influence on society and how they treat women in the world. Cases of sexual violence and rape were seen as a direct cause of the glamorization of violence within the popular media. In this time of protest, activists against violence teamed up with artists to bring attention to the issues at hand and create a listening audience who were willing to help fight the battle against violence towards women.

Artists such as Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz are responsible for artistic performances about sexual violence such as Three Weeks in May.

“Each day the red stain spread further over the bright yellow map of Los Angeles. One red-stamped "rape" marked occurrences reported to the police department; around each of these, nine fainter markings represented unreported sexual assaults. Installed in the City Hall Mall, the twenty-five-foot map sat next to an identical one that listed where victims and their families could go for help.

This performance focused attention on the pervasiveness of sexual assault through a city-wide series of thirty events. Performances, speak-outs, art exhibits and demonstrations were amplified by media coverage. In one particularly striking series of street performances, Leslie Labowitz focused on myths of rape, men's role conditioning, and self-defense. Lacy's performance She Who Would Fly provided a ritual exorcism. Other artists included Barbara Smith, Cheri Gaulke, Anne Gaulden, Melissa Hoffman and Laurel Klick. Three Weeks brought together norma1ly disparate groups - including artists, self-defense instructors, activists and city officials - in a temporary community that suggested future collaborative possibilities.” (Lacy & Labowitz)

In 1078 a group called Ariadne was formed which was an “exchange between women in the arts, governmental politics, and media,” with a focus on sexually violent imagery in popular culture. In the three years that the group existed, they produced 7 public works and performances. The purpose of these works was to use the media to their advantage. Because they were criticizing the media and the exploitation of violent and sexual imagery of women, the feminist activists decided to use the media to exploit their works of art in protest.

The remainder of this article is a “how to” guide on taking advantage of the media if you are planning to use it as a means of protest for your activist intentions. The ladies tell you to consider what time of media format will best suit the content of your work and your message. They suggest that sometimes media activism is not always the best suited for certain ideas, although it can be quite helpful in reaching a wide audience. They also warn you to stay focused on the content of your protest so that it doesn’t get lost in the interests of the media reporter. Your message must be clear and simple because media editors do not want to be bogged down with deciphering complicated messages.

When considering media coverage, it is best that the content of your work be current. The best way to guarantee media coverage is to appeal to what is presently going on within the world; the issues at hand must be up to date so that people will take interest and listen to your message. They also mention that it is very important to document your work so that you can evaluate its success once the performance is finished.

“Media work has three ultimate purposes: first, to interrupt the incessant flow of images that supports the established social order with alternative ways of thinking and acting; second, to organize and activate viewers (media is not the only, nor necessarily most effective, way to do this); third, to create artful and original imagery that follows in the tradition of fine art, to help viewers see the world in a new way and learn something about themselves in relation to it.” (Lacy and Labowitz)

Laura

Video

Acid Visions

Image of Drop City

Felicity D. Scott

Acid Visions is an article describing the purpose of Buckminster Fuller’s patented invention of the geodesic dome and its use by countercultural groups of the 1960’s. Hans Meyer, a dome builder, produced a publication called Domebook 1. This publication was embraced by counterculture of the hippies. Domebook 1 interviewed Buckminster Fuller about his experience and interest with the geodesic dome. He described that as a child he was practically blind without the aid of his corrective glasses. He claimed that when he removed his glasses his vision was confined to an array of “‘blurry colours,’ producing and ‘enjoyment of colour [that] was fantastically intense.’” He explained that this experience as a child is what led him to the understanding of the patterns and structure of the dome.

Fuller also mentioned that his “philosophy” of a one world ideology and “doing-more-with-less” attitude, was closely linked to the ideas of the antiwar political protestors and the environmental movements of the 60’s. The reason that many environmentalists shared a common interest in the dome structure as living quarters was because the structure could be built very easily and quickly with lightweight material. The dome also allowed the possibility for solar heating which would reduce the need for electricity, thus saving energy by using less invasive resources for producing heat. Fuller was completely aware of the limited number of resources that the world had to offer and wanted to preserve the earth’s resources as much as possible.

The hippie culture was most likely drawn to the dome structure because it allowed for a living space that was free of structural support, enabling the group to be “together.” Not to mention the shape and design of the dome offered a psychedelic experience. In the 60’s, many of the hippies and the youth would take “acid” of LSD to have an altered state of consciousness. They believed that this heightened state of consciousness allowed individuals to become one with the world; the drug made you feel as if you melted into the ground. Many of the artist groups of the time were interested in simulating the effects of LSD through strobe projection projects and psychedelic use of technology. The psychedelic culture proclaimed that the effects of LSD had “consciousness-expanding potential” and “visual sensations are often accompanied by a sense of oneness with the universe and a disappearance of the feeling of being separated from other people and the physical environment.” So whether the hippies took LSD to have this heightened experience, or simply simulated it with the use of strobe projections, or building universal living environments such as domes, the purpose was to have an experience of being one with the earth and one with the people around you without the presence of the ego.

Drop City is an example of an artist community of communal living environments. It was an “experiment in life-off-the-grid living” and conceived of as a “large environmental sculpture.” The Droppers who lived in Drop City were a group of artists who considered themselves as a “community of artists who were innovating not only in the area of buildings and lifestyle, but also in a multi-media approach to art.”

Laura

"The Ultimate painting" by Drop Artists, 1966, acrylic on panel, 60"x60"

Video of Drop City