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Conference “The Present and Future of the Exhibition Format”, May 27th, 2010.

Part of the session ‘Exhibiting the Lab‘ organised by I+C+i

Ele Carpenter is an artist and curator based in the UK. She currently lectures on the MFA in Curating at Goldsmiths College University of London, and is a Research Fellow at HUMlab in partnership with BildMuseet at the University of Umeå in Sweden. She completed her PhD on politicized socially engaged art and new media art in 2008 with CRUMB at the University of Sunderland, UK. Since 2005 she has developed the Open Source Embroidery project to investigate the relationship between craft and code.

Her talk “The Present and Future of the Exhibition Format” at the CCCB on May 27th 2010 gave an introduction to the Open Source Embroidery project and Open Source Software. It is reproduced here with some additional notes on immaterial labour, materiality and the amateur.

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If words, old words, traded at the stock market, we would find that in recent months one of them would have achieved its highs. It is not Web 2.0, because it is neither a word and it is not a common one, though by overuse it very well deserves to be in ranking. The word you seek is “participation.” If every time someone uses it or says something like “participatory tool’ or ‘participatory use’ one cent was given to an NGO in a few weeks would have a new power in the third sector. Although it is true that many of the investors of this hypothetical index of words would have sold their holdings of “participation” just a day after the consultation of the Diagonal. That’s the stock exchange for you.

Here we bring the story of an innovative experimental activity. And, of course, a participatory one. Doubly participative, both phisically and online. These are the voting sessions of urban policies that were made during the International Postmetropolis Cerdà Congress, that were hosted at CCCB between 8 and 11 June. These sessions meant that participants were put at the place of urban planners. Faced with specific caseloads, thet had to make a decision between the various available options, which were then discussed by the experts invited to the sessions. The novelty here is that, just as it is was done with all the committees of Congress, voting sessions could also be followed live online. So if those attending the CCCB area could follow the debate and were able to vote using a remote control that provided them, those who remained at home also had the option of voting via the chat that accompanied the streaming.

The experiment was successful and, above all, it was fun. While votes were added to the overall and the debate that took place at the hall was followed, net users developed a parallel discussion via chat and even dared to ask questions to the table. A very interesting door is being opened for cultural institutions. The activities taking place, simultaneously, are created at several levels. Parallel discussions can end up surviving and replacing the main debate. Will we find ways to take advantage of the amount of possibilities? Will we be able to generate truly participatory programming?

Jorge Macchi. Doppelgänger. 2005

It is undeniable –McLuhan dixit- that new media is reformatting our cognition and subsequently, our relationships. Social networking services are a literal example of this. Probably, in our era building other connections moves via software design and by taking these new environments into consideration, a critical interaction is opening up new literary horizons.
In “Complex networks”, Ricard Solé presents recent scientific discoveries in network science. The study of the architecture of the network is centred on the analysis of interaction between elements rather than on the isolated parts. The research shows an underlying universal regularity in seemingly different areas: economics, biology, language, electric systems and social interactions, producing a revolution in the cartography of complexity. In Solé’s words, when we combine elements many phenomena that didn’t occur on a lower scale, emerge.
Architectures of interaction are characterized by the structure of the “small-world network”, that is, a certain degree of randomization between the connections within a system provide the creation of short cuts between its components. One of the experiments that confirms the hypothesis is the theory of ‘Six degrees of separation’, proving how close we are to any other person in the world. The simplicity of the spreading of information in “small-worlds” also produces a collapse when one of the connection nodes is damaged. This damage reacts like a cancer on a cellular level in the body and is thus mirrored in informatic viruses. Unlike highly hierarchical systems, they are interdependent systems with a less specialized distribution of functions, which constitutes on one side its strength and, on the other side, its fragility. See ‘global warming’ or ‘global economic’ crisis.

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Taking into account today is the International Archives Day, we want to let you know that since last April CCCB Archive is involved in the project Free Software in Cultural Institutions (SLIC), a platform that brings together different cultural institutions of the State to create a system of joint research of the respective digital files. Taking advantage of the blossoming of digitalization and archiving processes being carried out at numerous cultural institutions, this project attempts to create a technological platform to provide different files and to allows users to navigate its virtual contents. The third meeting of this project took place in Hangar facilities and the participants were the following: Medialab-Prado (Madrid), Matadero (Madrid), Intermediae (Madrid), CA2M (Móstoles), Tabakalera (Donosti), Laboral (Gijón), Fundació Tàpies (BCN), Hangar (BCN), Hamaca (BCN), Mediateca Caixafòrum (BCN) and for the first time, also the CCCB Archive team.

We believe it is a very interesting project to be involved in because it moves forward towards sharing the knowledge generated from cultural institutions. It presents to the user the opportunity to directly access funds in these institutions, bringing the added value of simultaneous consultation. For the institutions themselves, it also means collaboration and sharing of privileged knowledge of new technologies and intellectual property files.

The objective of SLIC, as its name indicates, is to promote free culture with the use of technology and models of proprietary intellectual property. It is necessary to explore how each institution is adapting to these proposals. In the short term, SLIC (2010) is working in the definition of a first prototype of a technological platform. We are therefore in a first stage of defining needs and possibilities of the project, which makes participation even more stimulating. We will keep you informed of developments in this project, which, we believe, will soon begin showing its effects.

Image created by Mac Funamizu, reproduced with Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license

There are certain terms in the cultural sphere that are beginning to be repeated like mantras. From CCCB Lab we have seen, for example, how the concept of innovation is applied indiscriminately in different areas.

With the concept of augmented reality something similar happens. What are we talking about when we talk about augmented reality? A schematic summary tells us that augmented reality is a veil of real-time mixed reality, understood as information generated by 2.0 devices superimposed on a physical environment.

Meaning: to what we know as the outside world and the information it generates, virtual elements are added with a device-camera, phone, etc…- , to maximize our perception of reality.

This has generated numerous debates about the meaning of reality, the limits on it, just as it happened with the emergence of the concept of virtual reality. But what about applications?

• The emergence of augmented reality creates obvious technological applications already available on mobile devices, third-generation phones and all sorts of gadgets. Hence, commercial and industrial interest.
• So far, the intervention of RA has focused almost exclusively on its artistic applications. Software developers and multimedia artists have acted as precursors leading the way with projects ranging from the merely aesthetic to the questioning of the socio-economic status quo.
• A recently opened field of debate is the media and journalistic voice, probably as an outcome of the first point: the English and American press recently began to explore the consequences of applying augmented reality to the job. What if the availability of instant information could help a journalist to rebut a politician who distorts data in a parliamentary debate simply by pointing a device?

At CCCB Lab we will deal with the development of augmented reality, focusing on its possible applications in the field of exhibitions, and artistic practices in general, not to mention the substantive discussions on the “amplification of reality” which, from genetics to astrophysics-is changing our conception of what surrounds us.

Ele Carpenter’s conference at the last session of I + C + i has proved to be an unexpected synthesis of the main lines of work in recent months, and to define clearly three key vectors of cultural transformation in which we are immersed.

The emerging trinity is not mysterious, nor does it presuppose a divine revelation. It follows a practice that is affecting all cultural players and involves a progressive change in the conceptual approach of genres and formats, working methods, processes and styles of representation production and post-production. Carpenter restricted her analysis to the exhibition format, but it could also be extended to all cultural practices.

The new trinity has three interlocking areas with a certain simplicity to define the scope within which a new culture in being extended.

1. The influence of collaborative digital technologies and Philosophy 2.0, are rethinking the processes of design, production, representation and storage of cultural activities.
2. The progressive virtualization of centers and museums is an unstoppable process that involves a profound reflection on multiplatforms, multimedia convergence, virtual exhibitions and meta-exhibitions.
3. “Materiality” is back, with the assertion of traditional processes, a new face to face and all the effects and paradoxes arising from the post-digital vector.

The emerging trinity can be formulated in many ways and is not due to any specific creed. It is necessary to understand how the unity between the physical and virtual is becoming inseparable and why the great call for participation can become a collective process that goes from contribution to co-creation. Each of the stages or vectors of the new cultural trinity can lead to more byzantine discussions, but at the same time, the radical activation of a process of change has only just begun. In this new complex, open and mutant context, reconciliation should replace the “councils” interdependence should replace autarchies, and self-organized flow to exclusive dogmas . No faith is necessary, just the feeling that all of us -in our own style, knowledge and speed- are creating a paradigm shift.