DIVVY/dual.symposium.05 [Q&A]

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Duration: 16 minutes and 3 seconds

Country: Japan

Language: Japanese

License: CC Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike

Genre: Instructional

Producer: NTT InterCommunication Center / NPO Gadago / Mozilla Japan

Director: Dominick Chen

Views: 352 (14 embedded)

Posted by: dominick on Apr 22, 2007

DIVVY/dual symposium at NTT ICC on 09.24.2006. Questions collected from the audience and Skype connection.

Transcription and initial translation by:
- Ashley Rawlings
- Tomomi Sasaki
- Lena Oishi
- Chihiro Murakami
- Dominick Chen

Related links:
0] DIVVY/dual
1] TokyoArtBeat
2] NTT ICC
3] Mozilla Japan

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Video Transcription

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Here's a question for Yamagata-san that we received on Skype.
'Hello, I'm a programmer in Tokyo.
What open source art movement are you interested in the most at this moment?
Please tell us the name of the artist(s) and why you chose them.'
Hmmm... there isn't one in particular.
2channel that I talked about earlier is one...
I regularly give my attention to 2channel, but lately, threads that were interesting in the past are developing a pattern.
This can be said for media art, or any interactive art...
Take for example, Haruko Mikami. She developed various works on the web.
The screen behind me (HIVE) is showing its history, and this comes up sometimes:
There is a project called 'Kaishi', where participants contribute to plan a city over the ocean. An idiot came and repeatedly caused wreckage.
these kind of media art.... interactive and open source-ish works, I mean.
They're interesting in the beginning, but never really seem to reach a final destination.
There's a trend where things get tried for the sake of experimenting, and end there.
Who knows if the work is poor, or the reader/recipient isn't sophisticated enough.
So summing this up, there isn't one project that I can name.
There's a group in New York called 'iBeam'.
They created a small art application using LEDs and published the specs on CC.
People wanting to do business with it started to appear. This was 'iBeam', right?
Yes, iBeam. This is a new media art center in Chelsea and in the same building is a group called
Graffiti Research Laboratory (GRL). They developed these LED Throwies.
An artist called New York called 'Nine' was featured in the design event APMT that was held in June in Tokyo.
Oh, excuse me. What was the question?
No, I just wanted to tell this story to supplement my answer, because this was a group that achieved a certain degree of success.
That's right.
Their residencies are their main feature. They rent their studios for 3 or 6 months to artists and engineers.
There is a lot of high-tech equipment in the studio, and the artists and engineers focus on creating something fun.
It's a slightly peculiar center that forces you to offer all information of your works
to Creative Commons, and all software to GPL.
This is a software called OpenGLExtractor that was created from hacking Google Maps.
It takes samples of OpenGL 3D models that run on Windows, and you can publish the work to other OpenGL applications.
The software itself is distributed by GPL, and the data is published under a CC license.
This is a Graffiti Research Laboratory project hosted on iBeam at the moment by 'Nine' that I mentioned earlier.
The work hacks the town with something similar to drip graffiti, using a projector.
They actively pursue a new kind of graffiti that uses a projector. It's not a criminal act,
and an NPO is backing it so it gets out to the world.
The reason for this slide is that I'm referencing it for thinking about the the future of ICC.
It's an unusual type of center, isn't it?
Any other questions?
The word 'social hactivist' came up a while ago, and I wonder how much of their activities are a part of art.
For example, there are magazine publications in Europe, and 'hactivist meetings' held in Italy.
I'm really interested in how we can support the people who work with
this new kind of social media art, people who are borderline illegal.
One way is for artists to support each other.
Yes, that's right. I'll talk about the group 'Yes Men' that Endo-san introduced earlier.
They hack all different kinds of academic societies and established organizations like GATT -
social hacking like carrying out fake interviews and broadcasting them through actual newspapers.
When they have a project they want to start, they start by going around and asking for money
in an American artist union called RT Mark.
This year, they took 'mass media' as their theme and held a large exhibition in Dusseldorf
with all kinds of hacks on the mass media. They received a great amount of coverage, and were introduced in
Ars Electronica, ubermorgen.com, and established art museums. Of course, they exhibited at ICC.
The art industry and personal funds...
I've heard artists like the YesMen who do politically interesting projects
receive funding from rich people in the States who retired in their late 30s just because it fascinates them.
The culture of donation is very strong in the States, so the amount of money that goes around would be unthinkable in Japan.
It's fascinating how they make a living, though.
I think this was in New York - an artist called the police from his laboratory because his wife had had a heart attack,
and after he replied 'terrorism' when the police looked around his laboratory and asked what was going on, he was deported.
This was a project that a friend of mine in Spain had donated to.
All kinds of problems will occur if you toe the line, and in a socially charged situation,
they might turn out to be a bit more serious than most.
It's a very political issue, so a lot depends on society's degree of tolerance.
And America's especially high-strung at the moment, so it's extremely dangerous just to be involved in an activity like this.
In that sense, how far institutions can support these activities is a very interesting question.
I'm also interested in how much rights an artist has against something that is free,
and how they can obtain the rights of the parts that aren't free.
Faced with a lack of funding at the expo in Hannover, like Tsubaki-san mentioned earlier,
people collected free software and made a model of the exhibition. This was in the same spirit that I'm talking about.
This insight is very important.
Artists must be able to live without depending on donations.
You know how adventurers like Horie-san raise their own funding and climb mountains?
The perceived notions that artists have are too strong. Artists decide that they need patronage from the start,
and we're stripped of our freedom the second we have this thought.
The only way we can work is if we collect funds from people who agree with us.
Once you've shaped its form, somebody will come along with a greater amount of money.
This isn't something we must do beforehand, but something that follows as the result of our actions.
The most important thing in art is to first cast the idea into a shape. No one will be offering funds elsewise.
Once your work has a shape and if it's interesting, donors will start to appear.
I don't necessarily think that Japan's the only place in a dismal situation. It's the same all over the world.
First, the stance of actively devising ideas and act on them, rather than coax out support from an existing source, is imperative.
The next thing would be for people who are in the position to support artists to have the same conscious,
but it's faster for creative people to act, rather than think.
The networks are already in place - if you're active, you'll be exchanging information with artists that do residencies abroad,
so you'll know which residencies are good, which curators might be interested in your project. You'll be able to decide on your next destination through these exchanges.
Moving forward based on the connections of people isn't really open source, but the ultimate black box.
Nothing will begin if you don't jump into the fray.
Based on past experiences however, my philosophy is that you shouldn't depend on anybody. People will always let you down.
Since it's all about me and I'm doing what I want to do, I must ask myself if I want to make money through art, or through something else.
There's a lot to think about. Works as a platform, and also
an actual platform for artists to be self supportive.
I remembered something after hearing the question about social hacking:
The culture of squatting still exists in Europe, and
when artists illegally occupy a place and turn it into an art space, the situation works out
because society shows a degree of understanding towards artists.
This is a story about when I went to visit a place where artists were squatting in Slovenia.
It was a place that artists had taken over in the chaos that followed Slovenia's independence. Definitely illegal.
The interesting thing is that nowadays, they receive funding from the town authorities. This is because
it's more beneficial for the town to have young people gather at an art center, legalities aside,
than have them turn to crime because they have nowhere to go.
I think that is deeply connected to the system of society.
If Dominick and I were to squat at Opera City, we would be severely criticized, and it probably wouldn't even be realized.
Tabloid shows would report that 'self-proclaimed artists tried to squat', and that would be the end of it.
When I lived in Paris, I was very surprised to see that squatting still existed.
People complain but accept it at the same time,
I was shocked - is society different because France is a country that had a revolution?
I'm in discussion with Dominick about how activities like the YesMen's would be possible in Japan.
A great deal of resolve would be necessary. Talking about all of this has reminded me of that.
Any other questions?
It wasn't today's objective to reach a conclusion and
we had talks from Yamagata-san, Tsubaki-san, and Endo-san, all from their respective positions.
A video of this talk will be available on ICC's website, and will be used for the DIVVY/dual project.
Thank you for joining us.

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