WHIRLING SKIRMISH

Dear All,

Please find below the minutes of our last meeting.... ALL THINGS GO

Cristobal DRAWS THE TIME LINE
Our presentation everyone is 17th MArch
WE have the following thursdays to complete

THURS 28th FEB
THurs 6th MARCH
Thurs 13th MArch

between the last two dates we need to create THE STATEMENT

Cristobal begins the meeting with a quick summary of the miniature feedback we received from Pe and He.
They introduced the notion that maybe we are using the concept of NETWORK as a FORM OF CONTROL (I still think this is worth exploring and could be very interesting)

David suggests that this is because we are the only group that are looking inwards rather than outwards.

Liliana says that what we are about is introspection rather than extrospection but why is that about control?

Orianna reminds us that initially there were personalities within the group resistant to the idea of Network in the firstplace and so we began with the notion of network as a negative anyway. She then also suggests we are an ideological network rather than an a group investigating actual networks.

Liliana says that the way we work is very fre flowing one action to another and is very confused about why and how 'control' fits into what we are doing because it was all spontaneous...

Flavia suggests that maybe what they mean by control is that we are creating some kind of border around ourselves...

Andrea comments on how other groups showed a very finished end product not revealing how they came to be at this point. This illusion of a united front presenting an idea or concept related to networks without showing us how they came to this point is a defining feature of all the other groups. We have been discussing what a group/network means and trying to illustrate it in our presentation. (side point that came to mind while writing this: actually i think one other group is exposing their procces too... the one that is not really working as a group but as sub groups)

David said that other groups' presentations were annotated bibliographies, we went in a different direction...

Cristobal said how he was somewhat confused by the other groups... they allseemed to have an object of study and work together as a group. We dont work like that... the others all decided to present adn research on a field. we are different. There are blurred boundaries between our OBJET (A) OF RESEARCH and THE GROUP

He then drew the amazing diagram and I cannot recreate it here on the blog but it was 3 circles tha overlap, he called them The SYMBOLIC (CONCEPTS- community of the group, gift, intimacy etc) The REAL (ARCHIVE-dinner parties, videos, blog, ephemera, postcards) and THE IMAGINARY (PRESENTATION) asking HOW? Which Way?????

He then used the example of the suggested BOAT idea by Sophia as a way of illustrating a possible final presentation.... THE BOAT idea is an example of how we could maybe use one idea or one symbol that EMBODIES ALL THE THREE FIELDS OF Symbolic-real-imaginary / concept-archive-presentazione

He said we need to MAKE A STATEMENT
THE statement will reference the presentation itself as well as referencing the previous concepts and archive.
BUT to arrive at a simple thing it is like mathematics...
complexity arrives to simplicity...............
(then i made lots of drawings of boats and circles with Lacanian terminology on them)
(as a side note while writing i have to say publicly HOW IMPRESSED I AM BY CRISTOBAL--- isnt he great everyone??!! )

Lili and Sophia explain in detail the concept of the Boat for those who need more info please READ THE BLOG and previous posts...

Orianna voiced worries of us Pushing a Concept rather than GROUP INTERACTION

Cristobal stresses the need to decide to be PRACTICAL .... and for that we need one or two concepts...the boat for example is not enough by itself we need a conceptual thing to allow us to be free in relation to boat.
We cannot avoid the proccess, the conceptual.
Idea of Boat as crossing borders together, taking journeys and the interaction that the boat has on us.

Then we split into groups and came up with ideas.....

Group one:
How the group came to be a community....
moments of the community, dynamics, functions of the community
BOAT as already filled with meaning
maybe doing a workshop on the boat?

GRoup two:
Sleep-OVer
Gift
Our group as a love story: arguments, exchange, love letters, intimacy, dinner party as first date
Andrea: A romantic date between 13 people
David: Our first night together

Then my notes turn into something else and I guess I was too involved in the reality to continue documentation.........
There were some key words (by that i mean big scrawled out words) written at the end of my last page though:
NOTION OF COMMUNITY, NOTION OF GIFT
HOW can we show the group without being therapeutic
country walks
SElf-portrait, arrow self-portrait

not sure what that all means.

LOVE TO ALL MY PEEPS
especially BARNABY ADMAS. M. Barnaby ou-est vous???? Je besoin du vin et l'inspration.... Tu me MANQUES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

See y'all later,

Amal

(which by the way means hope for all you nonarab speakers out there and I would like to spread some esperanza, sprinkiling it like glitter dust on all your heads this fine morning so you all to have a little Hope and faith that we will make it through these difficult times TRIUMPHANT.... and more info on the namegame: "for fun and games, type my name in predictive text on your mobile phones and be in for a dirty surprise (please do this later on, not first thing in the morning, and only if you are not offended by horrible words)

Why dont we invite our audience to THIS LECTURE!! Actually I was thining we go but its too little too late.... anyway for anyone interested... amal

Clay Shirky + Brian Eno on the Power of Networks

17 March 2008
Everywhere we look, it seems, companies and organisations are trying to harness the alleged wisdom of crowds – the power of groups of people to come together through the internet and share with one another, work together, or take some kind of collective public action. One of the world’s leading experts on social and technological networking, Clay Shirky, Professor in the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University and the author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organising without Organisations, comes to the ICA to talk about how the idea of networks, and particularly online social networks, is changing everything around us.
Clay Shirky will be in conversation with Brian Eno, musician, artist and co-founder of the Long Now Foundation.
£10 / £9 Concessions / £8 ICA Members.

And Here is some info from the publisher on Clare Shirky's book...

A revelatory examination of how the wildfire-like spread of new forms of social interaction enabled by technology is changing the way humans form groups and exist within them, with profound long-term economic and social effects-for good and for ill

A handful of kite hobbyists scattered around the world find each other online and collaborate on the most radical improvement in kite design in decades. A midwestern professor of Middle Eastern history starts a blog after 9/11 that becomes essential reading for journalists covering the Iraq war. Activists use the Internet and e-mail to bring offensive comments made by Trent Lott and Don Imus to a wide public and hound them from their positions. A few people find that a world-class online encyclopedia created entirely by volunteers and open for editing by anyone, a wiki, is not an impractical idea. Jihadi groups trade inspiration and instruction and showcase terrorist atrocities to the world, entirely online. A wide group of unrelated people swarms to a Web site about the theft of a cell phone and ultimately goads the New York City police to take action, leading to the culprit's arrest.

With accelerating velocity, our age's new technologies of social networking are evolving, and evolving us, into new groups doing new things in new ways, and old and new groups alike doing the old things better and more easily. You don't have to have a MySpace page to know that the times they are a changin'. Hierarchical structures that exist to manage the work of groups are seeing their raisons d'être swiftly eroded by the rising technological tide. Business models are being destroyed, transformed, born at dizzying speeds, and the larger socialimpact is profound.

One of the culture's wisest observers of the transformational power of the new forms of tech-enabled social interaction is Clay Shirky, and Here Comes Everybody is his marvelous reckoning with the ramifications of all this on what we do and who we are. Like Lawrence Lessig on the effect of new technology on regimes of cultural creation, Shirky's assessment of the impact of new technology on the nature and use of groups is marvelously broad minded, lucid, and penetrating; it integrates the views of a number of other thinkers across a broad range of disciplines with his own pioneering work to provide a holistic framework for understanding the opportunities and the threats to the existing order that these new, spontaneous networks of social interaction represent. Wikinomics, yes, but also wikigovernment, wikiculture, wikievery imaginable interest group, including the far from savory. A revolution in social organization has commenced, and Clay Shirky is its brilliant chronicler.

Me & Nancy

A Lovers' Tale

I haven't eaten for three days Nancy had said. I'm menstruating and I'm sick of the sight of you. Moreover I'm sick of this tiny apartment...there's no room: it's cramped and I'm cramped and a television is no substitute for a window. I can't see outside and I can't breathe the air, or see the sun she had complained.

Nancy missed the sun. She was from a part of Europe where the weather was usually glorious in the summer, and mild in the winter. How she hated the Northern climate where the winter days seemed microscopic and the nights intermidable and seemingly permanent. It played havoc with her mood, and worse with her digestive system.

I tightened the belt on my cotton robe with the silk outer edge. Nancy ran her finger over some salt grains on the kitchen table, licked her finger

"I'm supposed to be taking these salt pills, but..." she wrinkled her nose "they make me feel like throwing up"

I switched on the television, hoping for a diversion from the tone of the room, without putting my thoughts into words. Images of a forest filled the screen as a camera plunged through thick growth to focus in on a small animal.

"Urgh" Nancy sighed, "Boring. I'd rather swap places with a wild animal than watch it on telly. At least they get a chance to roam around...maybe even have a fuck once in a while."

The small fluffy grey couch shifted slightly under my discomfort, I exhaled noisily while Nancy picked up the remote control and switched channels, to one featuring an underweight young woman whose skin had stretched taught over her bones, like a lampshade.

I reached over the arm of the couch and picked up a bottle of Fanta orange drink, that had been there since the evening before.

I could think of nothing to say. Perhaps there was nothing to say. I felt miserable and irritated with the room. Nancy's prescence felt like an imposition, as if she were somehow surplus to requirements. She must have felt my thoughts as she abruptly got up from her chair and exited the box-like room through the small kitchen door just behind my position on the sofa.

"I'd like to be famous, you know" she parted with, "In another life I might get my chance you never know"

I could hear her conversation continue from the small space behind my head,

"I wouldn't still live with you, if I was. You're useless in bed since you've been taking those pills and my social life would get better, Marsha and Sheila reckon that too."

I could hear her rummaging through the rack of kitchen utensils and pans through the open door.

"Since you haven't been working, we haven't gone out at all. You're no fun. And we don't talk when we're in...I might as well be on my own..."

The tone in her voice was rising now, and I recognised the inevitability of what was about to come, yet even so had to resist the temptation to just turn the sound up on the telly, and drown out her nagging.

Suddenly her voice beame clearer as she left the kitchen, yet her words made no sense,

"So this is the last present I'm going to give you."

I tried to turn my body around, my neck stiff and still aching from the uncomfortable night of insomnia I had had the night before, my brain trying to make sense of the impossiblility of the prospect of a gift, when I caught a glimpse of the dull grey steel of the kitchen knife. Blunt, as most things in the apartment had been for a time, it nonetheless made a shattering, nervous, sound as Nancy brought its point down right at the top of my skull, splintering it, pushing the blade deep into my brain with an angry, menstrual force.

As she released her grip,the knife shuddered slightly as if experiencing its own sense of its coldness, and I felt a curious sense of singularity, as if I were alone and that the presence of Nancy were no longer there. Or at any rate, no longer bothering me.

At the same time the blood from the ruptured vessels, mixing with the grey matter from my brain pushed out through the wound and started to blossom in slow, rotating, coagulations.

I sat, still, embracing the silence of the television station which had paused. The flowering at the pinnacle of my skull continued, massing terribly, feverishly slowly into a scarlet orchid bloom. I was transfixed by erotic excitment, my skin prickily at the sensation of its slight rupture. Meanwhile the flicker from the set-slowed by the pause in transmission to a beacon pulse- mixed with the greying light reflected from the kitchen window and its counter surface onto the organic growth, now larger than my head, shining wetly... a vegetable carousel.

(Community of Lovers...February 2008)

LAB GRUP! SO THERE IS SOMETHING OF AN ISSUE WITH HAVING THE MEETING AT MY HOUSE TOMORROW.
I WON'T BE ABLE TO HOST US THIS WEEK.
HOWEVER I HAVE A SUGGESTION.
THERE IS 'MOONBOW JAKE'S' COFFEE BAR WITH A LARGE 'CONFERENCE' STYLE TABLE WHICH I THINK WILL WORK NICELY AND ANOTHER LARGER TEA-TABLE IN THE BACK IF THAT ONE IS FULLUP.

IT IS NUMBER 325 BROCKLEY ROAD.

I'LL GO TALK TO THEM TONIGHT ON MY WAY HOME.
SO SORRY. WILL EMAIL AS WELL.
SOPHIA

Hi All,

As we decided this evening, there is a lot of work to do in the next weeks to prepare the final presentation for Monday 17th March at the Great Hall.

Before start 2 announcements:

-There is a presentation about the Isola Art Centre / Milan on next Thursday, 28th Feb, 12-2 pm (RHB 256).

- I am going abroad from Wed 27th of February till 5th of March to finish my field work. So, I will not be here next Thursday and may be if you have an extra session before Thursday 6th of March. I will talk with Taru (the tutor the came for our Tate Modern session) if she can attend the session on the 28th of February. I will let you know.

In relation with the final presentation.... These are the agreements:

-We will meet on next Tuesday 18:30 at Sophia’s place in Brockley. Sophia, please, sends us your address.

-We defined some tasks to work before the meeting in Sophia’s place.

1.

Nahareen, Amal and Liliana will work in what we can do on the weekend of the 6-9 of March. In this weekend we will produce the main material for the final presentation if is necessary. For example, to go to the country side to film a sleep over in a Pic-Nic. This is just an idea as an example. Basically, you have to propose possibility of a final project in relation of what we were talking today.
2.

Sophie and David will research about the Love’s Story.
3.

Andrea and Orianna will research about the meaning and philosophical discussion about the notion of GIFT.
4.

Flavia and Ella will research about the notion of CIRCLE, and its relation with recycle process.
5.

Midori will research about the notion of COMMUNITY.
6.

Sarah, Kegham and Barnaby, please feel free to join one of these topics.

Each one will have 7 minutes to present the work. Please bring material, photocopies, files. We have to be efficient.

The most important thing as a background for this tasks and research is that we will use the group (our community?) as the main force for the final project. There are many ways to understand why and how we define ourselves as a group, a network and a community. This decision is also an obstacle because is more difficult to create a limit while we are the object of study as a group. The possibility to approach these is infinite. In that sense, I do think that we should be very elegant in the way to resolve it for the final presentation. That’s why is important to take decisions in relation with concepts, etc…basically to clean our thoughts and the work itself.

As we talked this afternoon, there are three main fields: first, the potential concepts (intimacy, centrifuge, community, circle, gift, love and network). Second, the archive that makes visible the research (postcards, round, dinner party, blog, notes, maps, pictures, sound pieces and videos). Third, the field that is empty in this moment, because is the project to come. The latter is open and could take many ways, but is a third element that needs time, work and creativity. The final statement will explain all these.

The group should be able the answer in a simple and precise way: what is the group about?

So, listen, re-play this email if there are comments and proposals.

Amal, did you take notes of the session? Can you send to us a brief summary of the discussion, just the main points?..many thanks...

That's all
Sorry for the extension.

Have a nice weekend,

Cristóbal

Hi Everyone.
This may be a crazy idea but I just wanted to put it out there.
A barge for 12 people costs 500 pounds for a weekend. That works out to about 40 pounds each...divide that and then think of the amazing adventures we could have and film while in a real-world like scenario...ON A BARGE.

I've attached a photograph of 'river dance' a boat which is available for cruising the canals of the west midlands.

It'll be JUST LIKE HEART OF DARKNESS!
Aaaah!

http://www.banksy.co.uk/drawing/draw_frameset.html

....scroll to the right... and behold the circle...
i am not bored or anything!

INT. STATION. NIGHT

As if by chance, or perhaps the workings of the networks of the beyond, several members of the group meet on the escalators at Clapham Common station. Luck and happiness and we walk towards Andrea's house.

One by One various members of Lab Group D walk through the big black gates into the warm candle light.

INT. ANDREAS. NIGHT

Nourishments are presented and laid onto the crystal table. Everyone gathers round making chitchat and nibbling elegantly. We are introduced to two new members of the group Rosie and Jazz. They are now essential players in the meeting.
Group disperses around the house.

Orianna and Sophia are cutting carrots in the kitchen.

Andrea intermittently makes tours of her abode while trying to find the corkscrew. When the elegant machine is revealed all the group marvel at its ingenuity.
Goblets of wine are filled then emptied and the cameras click and tapes record the conversation. The last member of the group to arrive is M. Barnaby, with a large crate of claret.
Remarks are made about how the group has finally made a dinner party. Tentative discussions begin about the presentation and are quickly dissolved by salsa dip, Midori's yummy rice and the smell of burning salad bowls.

David says that in Mexican culture the size of the hoop earrings indicates the sluttishness of the wearer. Andrea has large ones. She removes them and Barney wears them.
10.22pm With the profusion and consumption of reds and pinks on the dining table headed by Cristobal, it brings to mind a Warholian interpretation of The Last Supper; but in the words of Hayley Mills in the film Whistle Down The Wind - "thats not Jesus it's just a fella!"

After the extravagant meal of potato salad and Skittles on a plate we repair to the upstairs lounge where a projector is lit but not used, the record player is spinning but not playing and Kegham is absent but not forgotten. On that note, a seance is suggested and a phonecall made. We receive answers from Kegham, who is communicating from beyond the Mediteranean about Zars, the possiblity of resurrection and Nicholas Sarkosy.
Meanwhile, Orianna urges David to coax the cat from behind the couch using some sort of toy. All tries prove unsuccessful, until the idea of lying to the cat is tried. With (false) promises of lasagna and a world free of Mondays, the cat finally emerges from behind the couch.

Alas, while behind the couch the cat has ample opportunity to sample some Barney Wine which Sophia has unwittingly spilled and neglected to clean away.
Not used to these more bacchanalian pleasures, Rose (the cat) enters into a state of wild confusion... stumbling over her own feet she fell into Flavia's Lap
Rosie is not the only one in a state of wild confusion. So is Jazz. So are some of the group. This is the ideal moment to plan the presentation.

We contemplate the séance, the unknown, the beyond…

We ask ourselves: What were we thinking? And Will Kegham be at the presentation? To Postcard or not to Postcard?

FIN

So, apparently, David says that in Mexican culture the size of the hoop earrings indicates the sluttishness of the wearer. Andrea has large ones. She removes them and Barney wears them.

Hi All,

Tomorrow morning (10, 45 am) I have a meeting with one of my supervisors at Goldsmiths.
So, this time I can not attend to our meeting before the inter-media presentation.
It is not an ideal situation, but for me it is very difficult to have time for feedback of my research. Literary, I have to hunt my supervisors every time.

I sent by e-mail some of the pictures that I took in the last weeks.
Please, send an email/post here with the final agreements.
I do think that you are making a quite clear and strong work.

Good luck tomorrow,

Cristóbal

monday at andrea's studio then? is that the deal i've heard?