minutes fron 6/11/2006

[zoe]

Here you have it minutes from last meeting!
Any Ideas to develop from these would be great as a starting point for meeting on 20/11/06 at 1pm ,which will be followed by a'show and tell' of work. Thanks, Zoe
Minutes from 6/11/2006
Cfap year 3

• Problems with accessing cfap website. Tom to check this out this week.
• Sign up for ‘show and tell’ every Monday after meeting, 3rd years have an opportunity to present their work informally and with less pressure to show a finished piece. The aim is to receive criticism to forward work in progress and to familiarize ourselves with each others work; this is also an effort towards organizing the degree show’s curation. Tom has put up a schedule on the notice board.
• Amber suggested having a sketchbook/ pad of paper/a folder, a device to write on which would have a page for each student, which we could all contribute to with brainwaves we might have about each others work, articles, references etc.
• Fundraising? Lots of ideas to explore:
-A gig! students who may be in bands or with musical talents: Hannah, Adam…anyone else?
-Cfap Jumble sale?
-Talk of emulating Sculpture’s xmas show. Will mentioned that this is an institution with, lots of tutor support and inter year collaboration.
-Hiring out 35a a possibility for a show.
- Getting sponsorship from businesses that are local or big corporate firms that have budgets for our kind of project.
Suggestion of a concerted effort in raising the funds (if we all contact one company each) .
Need for organization: a specific amount requested, template letter, what are we asking for money for, a catalogue, show in London, we need to sort these issues out, so that we sell our project effectively.

• Idea of having a 2nd act of the degree show in London and hiring out a large space which could perhaps involve 3rd years from other disciplines, such as painting, sculpture etc. in which case meetings would need to be held asap to source out possible interested candidates.(Again issues of sponsorship and funding arose)
• 2nd and 3rd year space to be transformed into a dark room to project films in for degree show.
• Research into funding and sponsorship: Fabrica, University, Library.

[Mary Anne]

Just some quick notes on your notes... (and let me know if you don't want me in this forum as I guess it may to some extent change its function, though on the other hand it's very useful for me to see the debate) - I just assumed it was OK to register, but may be not!

• Yes £ is important for the degree show, but remember lots of money doesn't make a good degree show and it is just about possible to do a good degree show on not so much £. I would suggest that you beware of putting too much energy into fundraising... work out first of all what you need £ for and how much...

• I was somewhat alarmed and saddened to see that the first curatorial initiative for the show is sort of 'white cube' v 'black box'! There's much more to the history of art and its exhibitions and you should start by thrashing out the many possibilities. Perhaps my disappointment (yes, it surely premature) comes from the fact that this was exactly where last year's 3rd year started - and stuck! - for some time... Can I suggest that someone takes responsibility for doing some research into innovative group shows - I'll post a list of suggestions if that's not forthcoming. Maybe...

[rachael]

hey there,

I agree with mary anne. even though I can see the need for the 'black box', with video being the dominant discipline in cfap, i sort of feel that it is rather the easy way out of a challenging situation. I think we really must begin to see the degree show as a GROUP exhibition, not simply as a series of small individual exhibits...
I think that our cfap studios are pretty awkward spaces and present alot of problems, we need to start looking at other group shows degree or otherwise and thrash out as many options as possible until our brains ache. I have a copy of a discussion held with the editors of 'cabinet' about the appropriate imagery for their 'the enemy' issue...its not very long I will post it shortly, I realise that it is about a magazine but I think that just by merely looking at the structure of the discussion, how essential it is to realise as many areas as possible, will really help us get our heads in gear for when we're discussing our show.
"aware" should be our mantra!!!
rachael.

[zoe]

It's great to see that there is a discussion forming about deg show and possibilities we can explore curation wise.
An idea discussed with Gemma today is a corrridor ,or in between space with video, projections, films etc. So that films have a connecting function and are connected to 'installation' type work(if there is any!)There was a little corridor space between two glass doors at 'uncertain states of america' show at serpentine(last month and september) which had several monitors with work by the same artist(not sure of her/his name, the subject was people's faces, distorted, does it sound familiar to anyone?), I thought this was a quite curious starting point and the subject matter quite specific : peoples faces, there's perhaps an immediate visual attraction , so it worked well for me to have this as a starting point to the show, as well as on monitors too, which are familiar territory.It would be interesting to hear how any one else who saw this show felt about it.
Back to our upcoming show, an idea: to do a mock up of a completely hypothetical show (or lets just say putting a piece of work up)at some point just to get a feel for how we all envisage the space, and voice our understandings of how our work fits in the space?
Also, I find it really helpful to have a non third year student's opinion participating in this debate, it adds extra focus, wd it be an idea to invite more external participants in for feed back?

Finally, we had a good time teasing out our interpretations of i.p.text today,very stimulating, so if you want to join in next week,same place 206, at 12.30! Zoe

[Gemma]

Hello Zoe,
i think the idea of a mock up of the show would be a great way to start, even if we have crazy ideas for it, to put this out there might be a very useful way to get all this into practice. I think we seriously need to get the discussion out the way and start laying plans (as mary anne suggested on her response to our minutes about the show) because then we have what our ultimate goal is and can create financial and technical avenues. I had an idea of making a full size camera obscura, which may need to be discussed, and could be an interesting way to join spaces, i am open to collaboration in that space Maybe we could discuss this Monday???

Also the seperation of the spaces (although i envisage it as beautiful), may be too separate and we should consider curation of the show. the problem with separating space is there becomes too much of a secularisation of mediums, and possibly what we are getting away from is that it is a degree show where technically we are all collaborating, which doesnt mean just helping people out with their own area! so tackling this should be considered, and zoe's idea of the corridor has been used before in the cfap show (2003 i think!), and pushing this would really extend and formulate the movement in the space.

Gemma

[adamkidd]

Perhaps we need to get a rough idea of the sort of work we're going to be showing before we decide on the environment. There's no point setting aside installation space if no one is making an installation, for example. We do know some people are going to be working in video, but how many of us?

[mark]

I agree that the show should be approached as a group effort, and for it to work we need to be aware of each other's requirements and be prepared to be flexible. Thats generally the idea of the Monday meetings, so obviously if you aren't there then you're going to end up being a bit left out!
Saying that, I think attempting to extend that into somehow making the work collaborative is frankly far-fetched. Maybe it would be plausible if we all practiced and developed our work and ideas together, but in reality CFAP doesn't support that structure. In terms of the Interim Presentations, the limited studio space and the whole course atmosphere we have been encouraged to develop our work individually and distinctively, and I feel that trying to shoe-horn it together at such a late stage into somehow being a cohesive and collaborative whole would just result in an unconvincing and detrimental compromise for everyone (e.g. the second year show).

-

Splitting the studios (for me) makes practical sense, in that it allows us to tailor a somewhat unpleasant space into venue that will show the works in their best light. The sense of space and light in the main studio is about it's only redeeming feature, so it seems a shame to break it up. Contrastingly, the smaller studio has ruined every piece of work I've ever seen presented in it, so blacking it out (essentially removing it from the viewers conciousness) whilst using it's space to avoid the horrible nest of boxes of last years show makes perfect sense.

And segregation between mediums is almost a given anyway due the vast difference in requirements of viewer participation between time-based and non time-based media. I don't think it's an issue insofar as it's just a reality of art making. Juxtaposing time-based and non time-based mediums together can make interesting results in a piece, but juxtaposing separate time-based and non time-based pieces together in one space almost always proves detrimental to one or other in my experience.

But feel free to argue with or ignore me, chances are I won't be showing "work" in a traditional sense in the show, instead showing documentation of a kind in the display cabinet in the corridor (unless someone else has already laid claim to it!), so it won't especially affect me.

m

[adamkidd]

I think you're the first to stake that claim. Go for it!

[gnewby]

i have to agree mark, there could be interesting results from integrating time-based and non-time based but essentially if as a group our concern is not with testing how time-based is presented, then it would be irrelevant to show in such a way. Personally, with my work i see the viewers static relationship with the screen far more interesting, its such a focused involvement and i think the fact much video is shown in such a dark and confined environment is synonymous with the internality of the experience of film/video.

I suppose the decision comes with whether we have work shown seperately in the 'black-cube', on several monitors in the space or whether we show them on a show reel. What seems apparent is that we are unsure as to whether we want to show work as a group on a singular screen so every work is contemplated fully, but there may be problems with how long an audience can endure the process of multiple videos/films. I dont think putting up showing times would work, so maybe we need to look at seperating the work. It would make the space more interesting and i think it would help the viewers feel that they are consistently moving through the space, and each work would get accredited. i would usually say that we should collaborate but as has been mentioned we are very individual and i know everyone would want there own work to be accredited, so possibly we should look at how we can integrate all the works. apologises if this makes no sense at all!!