https://dalelawrence.info Dale Lawrence Fri, 23 Jun 2023 14:12:22 +0000 https://dalelawrence.info en https://dalelawrence.info/Garbage-projector-2022 Thu, 12 May 2022 11:36:38 +0000 Dale Lawrence https://dalelawrence.info/Garbage-projector-2022 https://dalelawrence.info/Infrastructure-of-togetherness Mon, 25 Apr 2022 22:34:42 +0000 Dale Lawrence https://dalelawrence.info/Infrastructure-of-togetherness Infrastructure of Togetherness Chapter 01: Space Within These Lines Not Dedicated What does it mean to build using inherited knowledge as your guide? How can we explore earth and soil as a medium for remembering? What does it mean to move through a structure whose nature both resists and affirms containment? ‘A structure with exit pathways’1: solid, yet fluid; impermeable, yet porous. Rehema Chachage: I propose an infrastructure of togetherness which connects with knowledge systems, borrowing from age-old and traditional, yet very basic architectural techniques—that my grandmother’s generation utilized in processes of building a home—to create a loose structure in situ. The structure will utilize soil both as a medium for its construction, but also as a tool for remembrance. My grandmother’s generation saw the practice of building as a community building practice, whereby the building site is transformed into a space for togetherness: a space from where to create and recreate identities, to sharpen agency, to preserve a sense of rootedness through storytelling, historytelling and knowledge sharing, and to form one’s own understanding of the world. I am therefore borrowing from this practice, extending it by creating a multi-dimensional and multi-functional site for a collective building of a non-rigid structure for remembrance, for preservation, for conversation, for nurturing and communion, and for tracing and planting oneself within a geography. The structure created here will gain a performative life of its own, as it slowly deteriorates with time, and in the absence of a community to maintain it. Dale Lawrence: Here the act of making becomes both metaphor and measure. It is not limited to material form: what is made is also intangible, social. In the shared act of making, we bond earth to earth and people to people. The desire here is not for an end to the process. A house may be built, but eventually must be rebuilt. Houses of earth don’t last forever, at least not without a community around them to care for, and maintain them.. And so this infrastructure brings us together in a continuous association, in a commitment to an ongoing making without an end. It is a foundation, a base, a premise. ­ — Infrastructure of Togetherness was initiated by Rehema Chachage as part of her ongoing research. This chapter Space Within These Lines Not Dedicated was realized collaboratively and in care with Dale Lawrence and Chantal Vorobei Thieves. We give thanks to the RAW Académie 9 fellows and organisers for their contributions at various stages enabling this to come alive. https://dalelawrence.info/the-mobile-museum-1 Mon, 25 Apr 2022 15:31:59 +0000 Dale Lawrence https://dalelawrence.info/the-mobile-museum-1 The Mobile Museum: Lightweight Infrastrucure for Art Baptiste Manet, Matthias Mushinki, Chantal Vorobei Thieves &amp; Dale Lawrence <img width="1875" height="2500" width_o="1875" height_o="2500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/858537e20a340a92435cba6802ec0dfe929e0b70b43ea5560c095c2aa5f6b7c4/A8478CCC-E631-4A0D-8F09-7B4AF01AFE33-2-220421-2500.jpg" data-mid="140636027" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/858537e20a340a92435cba6802ec0dfe929e0b70b43ea5560c095c2aa5f6b7c4/A8478CCC-E631-4A0D-8F09-7B4AF01AFE33-2-220421-2500.jpg" /> The mobile museum aspires to be social despite its disinterest in social impact as a measurable criterion of value. This is not to refuse the aim of social impact per se, but instead to reject the possibility that social impact can be measured and therefore exchanged as a form of capital, real or imagined. The mobile museum doesn’t apply for grants because it wouldn’t win them anyway. It does nothing new and invents nothing, but instead makes do with the ideas it finds laying on the ground. For this reason, covering ground becomes necessary. By virtue of its placelessness, the mobile museum takes no interest in the marketplace. And its itinerant, nomadic impetus rejects private property as an infrastructural bedrock. It may have been said that infrastructure is everything that is invisible (plumbing, donors, investors, etc.), yet there is nothing invisible about the mobile museum. No back rooms leads to no back room deals; you cannot break into the mobile museum because it is never open nor closed; you cannot steal from the mobile museum because it does not own anything.&nbsp; At the mobile museum, loitering is cherished as a dually social and intellectual activity. Everything is free because it is yours already. The mobile museum is founded on two premises: Art should be freely accessed by all. No one should be denied access to art that is relevant to their community or society due to arbitrary or financial restrictions. This stems from a view that art as performs a central role in human societies, as a cohesive force in social groups and as a primary vehicle of cultural evolution. The making or distribution of art is seen as a social act and an essential dimension of human social communication. Therefore any barrier to access must be seen as serving to create societal divisions. Art’s primary activity takes place within communities, therefore the celebrity-orientated platforms that dominate present art structures are not sufficient, as based on the elevating and extraction of talented or accomplished individuals from their social contexts and aid in the dissolution of communities. Instead we seek to pursue infrastructures that would see increases in the numbers of artists who are able to reach audiences within their direct social environments. In much of the developed and overdeveloped world, there are serious spatial limitations placed on free and low-cost public gatherings. The writer David Senior notes in his foreword for 'Publication as Practice’ (Inventory Press/Ulises, 2021): “I live in the Bay Area now and it’s hard to imagine sustainable paths for people to take space here. […] The former conditions for makeshift, queer, and bohemian outposts are part of a folklore that bears little relation to present conditions. As an archivist of art spaces, I find myself picking through debris of paper scraps that point towards past moments when it wasn’t so crushingly hard to sustain space to make things, to live with others, to self-organise art. […] In the mid-1970s as new alternative spaces popped up in urban centres, most often in disused industrial spaces.” Here the objective is to identify strategies that would see a rapid rise in the art presented in cities, urban spaces and neighbourhoods, as people are more easily able to congregate in public space, and prospective art institutions are encouraged to enter the industry at whatever level they find feasible: formally or casually, high investment or no investment. The current environment is one that, through unmanageably high property costs in areas with high foot traffic, puts significant financial pressure on art institutions. This has the effect that they quickly become focused on commerce and funding to sustain their operations, and less socially driven as they seek to attract high net worth clients or funders. This also has the effect of creating very little space for artists who are not well suited for commercial galleries or museum and academic settings. Given that the overwhelming majority of artists are amateur and not professional, we believe commercial viability or present perceptions of cultural significance should not be a prerequisite for the creation and sharing of art. In Africa, factors limiting the proliferation of low cost independent art spaces are more complex and varied. In some places cost limitations on public gathering are not a major concern, though these freedoms must be protected as capitalist development advances. Some areas of concern include access to digital networks that are affordable and favour local content. South Africa has one of the highest costs of data in the world, disproportionately affecting prepaid data users. Safety is a factor, where staff of an outdoor museum might become targets for criminals. Here a hybrid model is pursued, making use of under-utilised spaces in public buildings, digital networks, and mobile institutions. <img width="1600" height="1200" width_o="1600" height_o="1200" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/df716b84e0543112648168959e6ad472b25871a767c05cf9ae2b70fdf64d5d92/2E174283-6B11-4ED2-B0F0-E26962930305-2-220420.jpg" data-mid="142407406" border="0" data-scale="50" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/df716b84e0543112648168959e6ad472b25871a767c05cf9ae2b70fdf64d5d92/2E174283-6B11-4ED2-B0F0-E26962930305-2-220420.jpg" /> <img width="1200" height="1600" width_o="1200" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/35dd0bdc15236c45841afe3b15e032377d216dd88263744702515ffce6b168ba/3B3D8ABD-5284-408C-8EB2-6148AAA0341C-5-220420.jpg" data-mid="142407407" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/35dd0bdc15236c45841afe3b15e032377d216dd88263744702515ffce6b168ba/3B3D8ABD-5284-408C-8EB2-6148AAA0341C-5-220420.jpg" /> <img width="1200" height="1600" width_o="1200" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0e142f1a9845f3d4535bb0e7e5d5a1133bd83c9f2fbe3c6f9ef41070be0eddeb/F491FF29-277F-4509-852D-13367B1679EB-3-220420.jpg" data-mid="142407408" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0e142f1a9845f3d4535bb0e7e5d5a1133bd83c9f2fbe3c6f9ef41070be0eddeb/F491FF29-277F-4509-852D-13367B1679EB-3-220420.jpg" /> To achieve this goal, three formats of lightweight art institutions are imagined: Mobile institutions: portable structures set up and removed daily, by foot (with trolly), by bicycle or by car.Institutions occupying networks of underused spaces: foyers, parking lots, street-facing windows or walls and open spaces in pedestrian-frequented streets, social venues, traffic islandsLocal virtual networks: Closed-circuit wifi networks accessed , onlineLow cost print publications: ‘zine' publisher and distribution networks The mobile museum is a low-to-no-cost portable institution. It consists of a table with trestle legs, two fold up stools for staff, a bench for visitors, and a chalkboard sign attached to a goods trolley for support, to announce the current exhibition. All of these items can be loaded on the trolley and wheeled on foot to a location. The locations are not set, but are intentionally changing within walking distance from a central location, as to reach a broad audience in a range of neighbourhoods, so as not to favour one neighbourhood over another. The atmosphere of the museum is social and, hopefully, approachable. The desire is that passers by will stop by to look at the art and chat. There are no tall white walls and frameless glass doors to intimidate. There is no pretence that the work presented is good. The desire is simply for the museum operators to hang out for a few hours, show some art to brighten people’s days, stimulate their minds, engage in conversation and make new friends. And to not have to worry about much more than that. Basically the desire is to make running and art institution easy and fun, with the hopes that there may be many more, thus allowing many more artists to show work, and many more people to see it. It is intentionally low cost and easy to assemble. It was built over a period of three hours and used no new or expensive materials. Mobile institutions must be ready to have their institutions confiscated, so it is important that it be easily replaceable.&nbsp; Copy welcome (2022) No rights reserved. https://dalelawrence.info/2-an-index-of-alternative-infrastructures-for-art-copy Wed, 27 Apr 2022 16:22:56 +0000 Dale Lawrence https://dalelawrence.info/2-an-index-of-alternative-infrastructures-for-art-copy Variations of an Insistence: an Index of Alternative Infrastructures for Art &nbsp;this is a growing index of models for the development of equitable, sustainable and socially-focused arts infrastructure contributions are welcome, please submit here︎ 01: &nbsp;Networks of Artist Collectives, Artist-owned Institutions, and Art Cooperatives Lumbung:based on the concept of a collective-owned rice granary that acts as shared resource in times of need, ruangrupa collective from Indonesia and Gudskul have extended the practice of shared resources to an international network of art organisations. Scribe Video Center:a centre for the facilitation of socially-minded filmmaking by providing guidance, education and access to equipment and funding for community groups and aspirant filmmakers. INLAND:an arts collective and a collaborative agency, working together, against and beyond existing institutions. It promotes cells in specific rural locations whilst operating at a supranational level, setting up agencies in different countries to affect agrarian and cultural policy frameworks in Europe. Canadian Artists’ Representation (CARFAC): a&nbsp;collective bargaining representative for visual and media artists who developed a minimum copyright fee schedule, used by the Canada Council in the payment of fees to living Canadian artists a requirement for eligibility for Program Assistance Grants to Public Art Galleries. Skowhegan:Sarah Workneh on changing an institution from the inside. Arts Collaboratory a funding program and as a platform for knowledge-sharing among artist initiatives in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and the Netherlands. Fora do Eixo: a collaborative and decentralized network made up of cultural collectives based on the principles of solidarity economy, associativism and cooperativism, containing a political party, a bank and a complimentary currency. 02: &nbsp;Universal Basic Income for Artists Basic Income for Artists Pilot Scheme (Ireland, 2022 – 2025): will examine, over a three year period, the impact of a basic&nbsp;income on artists and creative arts workers. Payments of €325 per week&nbsp;will be made to 2,000 eligible artists and creative arts workers. Basic Income Pilot for Artists (San Francisco, 2021): features is a $1,000 monthly stipend for 130 selected artists during a period of six months starting early next year, forming part of&nbsp;nearly $6 million in funds to arts organizations as well as individual cultural workers, like teaching artists. Guaranteed Income for Artists (New York, 2021):Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY) will issue monthly, no-strings-attached payments to up to 2,400 artists with financial need over the next three years. Federal Art Project (USA, 1935 – 1943): Not exactly UBI, but certainly an historical precedent, the U.S. government employed thousands of artists and other creatives in the wake of the Great Depression.&nbsp; 03: &nbsp;Alternative Finance ReUnion Network: A socio-economic ecosystem channeled through digital technologies, helps people organize bottom-up social support systems to facilitate collective well-being and social solidarity, via long-term P2P care agreements and relationship-driven cryptocurrencies. Solidarity Economy:a report and resource repository produced by Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA), an association of public and private arts funders in the US, seeking to develop grantmaking to become investors in culture. The Question of Funding: In the context of documenta fifteen, The Question of Funding is creating a communal economic model that combines trust and zero trust systems based on blockchain technologies.&nbsp;The collective is also developing a community-governed economic system that will facilitate and connect local production from diverse sectors. Art museum as financial institution: Using the value of the museum’s collection as capital to provide access to finance to living artists, or even to issue their own currency. Time/Bank: was a platform where groups and individuals could&nbsp;pool and trade time and skills, bypassing money as a measure of value. Time/Bank was based on the premise that everyone in the field of culture has something to contribute and that it is possible to develop and sustain an alternative economy by connecting existing needs with unacknowledged resources. 04: &nbsp;Independent Distribution Networks and Platforms Lumbung of Publishers: Daniela and Camila from HAMBRE (Chile)&nbsp;are building a network of independent publishing based on solidarity and the sharing of knowledge The Co-op Cloud: public interest infrastructure&nbsp;built by tech co-ops, as an alternative to corporate clouds. Feral Trade: Feral Trade is an an artist-run grocery business, trading goods over social and cultural networks, freighting goods across the world using various means, including voluntary product-hitchhiking in travellers’ luggage, since 2003. 05: &nbsp;Policies and Regulatory Bodies Four-day week:There are many arguments for implementation for a four-day work week, for increased productivity at work and to allow amateur artistic practices to flourish. W.A.G.E. Certification: a U.S. program that publicly recognizes nonprofit arts organizations demonstrating a history of, and commitment to, voluntarily paying artist fees that meet minimum payment standards. presented by Ana Milena Garzón Sabogal and Dale Lawrence copying and sharing are welcome https://dalelawrence.info/A-Modest-Price-Video-copy-copy Thu, 21 Oct 2021 19:54:38 +0000 Dale Lawrence https://dalelawrence.info/A-Modest-Price-Video-copy-copy https://dalelawrence.info/A-Modest-Price-audio-1 Thu, 21 Oct 2021 20:09:34 +0000 Dale Lawrence https://dalelawrence.info/A-Modest-Price-audio-1 https://dalelawrence.info/A-Modest-Price-Video-copy Thu, 29 Jul 2021 15:22:59 +0000 Dale Lawrence https://dalelawrence.info/A-Modest-Price-Video-copy https://dalelawrence.info/A-Modest-Price-quote-copy Thu, 12 May 2022 14:48:45 +0000 Dale Lawrence https://dalelawrence.info/A-Modest-Price-quote-copy “Now art is being made in smaller spaces, on kitchen tables, out of things at hand, with kids nearby, cooking happening in the background […] life going on all around. This is how our species made most things over the last 50,000 years. Creativity was with us in the caves […] Viruses don’t kill art. ” Jerry Saltz, Excerpt from ‘The Last Days of the Art World … and Perhaps the First Days of a New One’, published 20 Apr. 2020 on vulture.com https://dalelawrence.info/Peep-Show-2020 Sat, 07 Nov 2020 12:13:18 +0000 Dale Lawrence https://dalelawrence.info/Peep-Show-2020 Peep Show (29.10—29.11.2020), was an exhibition hosted in the bedrooms, studios and otherwise available spaces of the participating artists; presented online at&nbsp;peep-show.co.za. An opening event took place during which artists broadcast their opening action via live stream. @peep.show.exhibition⟶ https://dalelawrence.info/Broken-Tools-under-the-lamp Fri, 23 Jun 2023 14:12:22 +0000 Dale Lawrence https://dalelawrence.info/Broken-Tools-under-the-lamp