Introduction to Online Autonomy

These tools are available online and for free. In order to engage our participants we adopted these tools for simple workshops and meetings. Collaborators agreed to tease out the possibilities of using Jitsi, Etherpad, among others and opt to find new means and ways to engage each other creatively, as well as practically. The first collaborator, An Paenhuysen curator and editor at aaaaa ppppp publishing, led a creative and critical writing session to help loosen the imagination by simple exercises. The approach is based on task by task facilitation in drawing and writing from memory and one's personal desktop. The second cycle was held with Florian Weigl, curator at the V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media in Rotterdam. Florian had published open call for online studio visits at the start of the pandemic in March 2020. At this point he was curating the 3X3 for the V2_institute of Unstable Media, a programme which provides artists the space to share and test new ideas with a live audience.

Together with each participant, we discussed the option to reformat, as well as how to find a new host for art under the conditions of social distancing. This included notes on media artists, remote residencies, and provided a good baseline to start sharing resources with the public, along with another collective in the third and final cycle.

 
Introduction to Online Autonomy

In order to strengthen our online autonomy, we adopted a set of online tools which depend on both exchange and publication for artistic activity. For instance, to start off with, the participants in this project were invited to use Jitsi for every webconference and Etherpad for collaborative writing.

These two platforms have the key characteristics suggested by communities leading the Digital Solidarity Network, they are both open source and non-extractive. A number of organisations who work in part as activists for data politics are making these tools available from the privacy of their server. Open Source tools and forums allow these platforms to develop with direct feedback between the general user, and the advanced developer. This label refers to code which is available for access and reuse, and under creative commons. In addition, Non Extractive Tools make it difficult for larger companies to scrape personal information en masse. Such that, a list of demographics and qualitative preferences which is written by a community of users and saved on a non extractive tool, such as Etherpad, cannot be harvested for data on Google. This allows a community to retain the wealth of data it withholds online and makes it difficult for companies to use it for unnecessary surveillance, ad campaigns, among other market driven activity.

The only way to access and reuse content on tools which are both non extractive and open source is by gaining direct access through the explicit permission of a user from the same community. Therefore the control and value of its content as data for marketing bots is retained within the explicit permissions of the community and its active members.

#opentocollaborate #synchronisation
Any tools or additional resources required to host the session were provided for by the mediator, and also followed up in order to facilitate the artist’s practice between one session and another. For instance, if a couple of artists required further technical assistance, such as expertise in audio for 3D simulations, streaming, reformatting their work as a Non Fungible Token, outside experts were noted and invited to provide assistance in the same manner, i.e. 01 intense meeting, along with minor check ins across a wider frame of time. Participants also opted to share their own resources, and expertise, such as providing multiple cameras, synchronising a streaming session, and technical services to reformat each other’s work.

Open Studio

EPI DE

MIO LOG includes a selection of quick drawings and writings which are based on An Paenhuysen’s coffee cup exercise. An came to Malta to lead a workshop by Unfinished Art Space and We Live Here in 2019. We invited her to engage with us online, and lead an additional session with our participants, and the public. 

The coffee cup exercise is perfect to do in the morning. This way you have done your three to five minutes of daily writing and can happily start the rest of your day. Draw your coffee cup and write some (un)inspiring words next to it, like a snippet of a conversation, a weather forecast, the items on your breakfast plate. 

Paenhuysen, A. (2019). Writings from Creative Writing in Art Criticism. Unfinished Art Space and We Live Here with the support of the Arts Council Malta, Valletta Vintage, and Art Paper. 

This exercise can be used to kickstart the backend of the brain and engage participants to draw, write, or sketch freely. We adopted its task by task approach for an online version, whereby participants are invited to an Etherpad, and to remix their own text as well as the text of others. 

The attitude in facilitating this workshop is essential. Each step is alloted a few minutes of silence, and the next step can be used to build on, reinterpret the content of the first, or skip to another task completely. Together with the participants, we stretched this process up to an afternoon, and replaced coffee cup with found-footage from online libraries, discarded objects, among other objects of interest (and disinterest) from our own house and its immediate neighbourhood, Think of it as tapping into the ideas of other participants by taking their line for a walk. To engage with each other, you can also opt to start working in silence.

* Open an etherpad. Greet each user,
and invite them to choose a colour for their name. 

* Erase the initial greeting, and type out
an instruction to start off with. Opt for simple
direct phrases, such that, liveliness is evident. 

* Sit back, and watch participants type, highlight,
and enjoy each other’s company in typing and silence. 

For instance, ask your participants to think about the sounds they hear. Invite them to describe, write a few words, or even a list. In addition, leave your microphone unmuted. This can be manipulated by sharing clips from sound archives, or by moving your phone around different parts of your residence.

Buch, J. & Celeste, A. (2020). How to Beset the Stage. A webinar for Innovair Artists in Residence. The Artists with the support of Valletta Cultural Agency. 

A U T O N O M Y

I S

U N  D O  A B L E

(undoing coersion)

Open Studio

OPEN TO

COLLABORATE engaged our participants to share their work in process and take detours with new tools and modes of presentation. To do so, we invited Florian Weigl to collaborate by joining us for a digital studio visit with each artist.

Florian’s most recent publication is about 3X3, a programme curated as an open ended residency over three months. The book is focused on hosting an artists practice and embedding it in a real life scenario. It recollects the iterations installed by the three artists who are active in critical media, Dries Depoorter, Joroen Van Loon, and Constant Dullart. Every artist was invited to develop a scenario and install a version of this work for a live audience. The approach allows for an open ended exhibition, and direct engagement with a network of peers who are active in Rotterdam, and their host, the V2_Lab for Unstable Media. It is curated with an for a critical engagement about online infrastructures and each exhibition provides for a single iteration of the same work, or a spin off.

In discussion with our participants, we looked over artwork which engages with a live presentation, and identified a few elements, such as group dynamics, itinerant formats, and how to recollect its variation. As lead artist for the cycle, I moderated the session between each artist and Florian. We started by first looking back at how each artist maintained their practice under the conditions of social distance, and I redirected the conversation to focus on the topics at hand.

In order to host a digital studio visit we first engaged the artist informally and organised a set of open ended meetings every Thursday between the months of November and December 2020. Meetings were scheduled weekly and across a wide frame of time. All our participants were displaced from their immediate practice, and moved around the conditions of a social distance across countries. By opening a slot on a weekly basis for intensive meetings, and check-ing in over a extensive period of time, each participants’ personal schedule can fit into the process without additional pressure. Nonetheless, due to such an extensive schedule, a mediator is necessary in order to recollect the experience and hold on to the necessary connections between each artist and their community of peers. This level of instability is not new for emerging artists, however, under the conditions of displacement, the basis of a healthy biotope, such as an immediate and peer network, becomes all the more apparent and necessary to reformat.

The structure of this project provided for both intensive sessions between three parties, and enough time for the artist to work in the privacy of a studio along with an immediate network of online peers. The artists we worked with were all displaced from their original studio, so these two basic requirements of healthy biotope for artistic practice were missing and required more attention than usual. This approach helps to create a sense of equity among participants, and care about the immediate environment of every other participant. We shared practical tools, such as cameras, or microphones, as well as techniques, and respect for wider constraints, such as timezones, and spatial restrictions under lockdown.

#opentocollaborate #extensiveformat
On a practical level, this extended format also provided room to check in with the artists and their resources, as well as methods of participation. Three instances can be used to formulate this type of engagement, 02 informal checkin across an extensive period of time, and 01 intensive session to develop content at hand. 

The intensive sessions for cycle one took place over 02 to 04 hours on ever other Saturday in the month of June 2020. This included a silent writing workshop  with An Paenhuysen, a communal workshop to remix each other’s work as a group, and a public workshop to open up the project to new contributors in the future. The second cycle included a mediator, a curator and an artist discussing their experience in developing work with unconventional formats. Two new artists joined the session on a voluntary basis and also contributed by sharing their expertise in speculative design, and VR. The Third Cycle followed up on one of the major issues discussed in the digital studios visits, how to find a new host for artistic practice and its many variations. In order to do so, we shared resources with another collective in order to guarantee a long term host for this projects output, as well as tested out new tools, including the development of 06 iterations with Non-Fungible-Tokens.

Open Studio

SOMETHING 

FIShY is a testbed about the politics and practice of using NFTs for benefit of managing an artist run collection of digital objects. A ledger system running on Ethereum is mathematically controlled, and your digital objects are accessible over a wallet, an account which runs on the same ledger and its currency. In order to benefit the community as a whole, our objects are uploaded through the same account. Costs to uploads are distributed evenly across each object, and parties are invited to invest by buying a share of each code created to host each object.

NFTs, NFT art and a value-form in crisis. NFT stands for ‘non-fungible token’ and, essentially, it is a long series of letters and numbers (code) that are distributed on a wider string of codes across thousands of computers. This wider chain of codes takes on the function of a ledger which physically carries each asset in blocks of codes. Unlike the money-commodity as presented by Marx, the code is un-interchangeable and unique. This means one code cannot be changed without a clear track record of these changes in every other code on the same network. 

Most NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain and can only be acquired with a personal wallet, an account which runs on the same ledger and counts in Ethereum. As a cryptocurrency, it can be traded with others such as bitcoin, however, it is also embedded in a blockchain and used to support NFTs. This feature provides for a record-keeping system by smart-contracts in which the asset, a digital object, such as an image, and its currency, Ethereum, are made of the same item: a code which is tokenised and non-fungible. The information is maintained and distributed across thousands of nodes on the Ethereum Network, making it pretty much forge-proof and trackable. These tokens are generally used to certify provenance, a digital contract of ownership for any of your assets, virtual and physical alike.

Open Studio

SOMETHING 

FWhat about NFT art? Taking Beeple’s work as an example, it is a digital object and the image itself can be (and has been) endlessly copied and circulated. After it becomes an NFT-based artwork, the same digital object being minted is part of a unique string of code. Scarcity is once again created and the buyer can brag about ownership of an ‘original’ and an ‘authentic’ asset with a token-contract.

artificial scarcity run against digital objects, and in turn, makes
the idea of ownership more valuable than the ‘object’ itself?

The artwork itself becomes a symbolic attachment to, rather than an intrinsic element of the non-fungible token. Following this line of thought, it seems as if in the case of Beeple’s artwork, what was being bid on was an abstract, immaterial version of a decorated banknote rather than a work of art. When bidding, the artwork is a secondary format to the money-form being exchanged, begging the question(s):

What is the relationship between the aesthetic and the monetary value? (Can any digital file, irrespective of its quality as an artwork, be minted and conferred value on the basis of its status as first, a non-fungible token, and then, as a work of art? (turns out that yes, this is the case. (Is this not production for production’s sake?)))

The epitome of value is being abstracted 
further and further away from commodity.

In this sense, rather than the commodity being something that fulfils a need, want or desire, the only value of the NFT-based artwork as a commodity is to accrue more value. It is also worth mentioning that those who have been experimenting with NFTs have pointed out that blockchain technology can offer more beneficial alternatives for artists and creatives to current payment models. The newness of the technology has opened the ethical doors for a powershift in the politics of an art market. Nonetheless, decommodified production, autonomy of expression, and knowledge production should not be equated with the aesthetics which dominate the NFT market. I guess what I am calling out then, is not the technology per se, but a highly financialised art world for hijacking it - in the case of the Beeple sale, Christie’s capitalisation on a financial opportunity sparked a sudden surge of interest in minting and mining, opening up an already highly volatile asset to further speculation and determination by a highly volatile currency.

#somethingfishy #resources 
https://etherscan.io/nodetracker

Ethereum is a distributed network of computers running software (known as nodes) that can verify blocks and transaction data. You need an application, known as a client, on your computer to "run" a node. In combination with a wallet, your node takes a chunk of your computing power to recollect transaction data for the network. The etherscan proacross thousands of nodes on the Ethereum Network, making it pretty much forge proof. Most of these nodes are on the periphery of the North Atlantic, crossing information between Germany, the US, and the rest of the networks global reach.

#somethingfishy #resources 
 https://jlt.ltd/

Jonas Lundt, artist, adventurer in capitalism, and all out fun guy, had created a set of physical tokens along with his own currency in 2015. Each token forms part of an physical object which resembles a large puzzle made out of foam board. In part, they represent investor's stake in his practice by giving physicality to the investment they made in his personal cryptocurrency entitled, JLT. It is way to give inherent value within the physical object by aligning it with its own financial system. It can also be traded across the market and turned into other crypto currencies. The NFT contract allows artists to each out to investors willing to support their practice, and also represent their stake by taking curated decisions. 

#somethingfishy #resources 
Accounting for the Self
This is an essayistic podcast which brings together spoken word, library sound, and psychedelic folk. This episode takes a long view on how selves are constructed through storytelling. Moving from double entry book-keeping to 21st-century art practice, via confessions, court cases and histories from below, the authors ask whose stories have been told and celebrate the importance of multiplicity, de-centering and difference.

Open Studio - Contribution by Elaine Bonavia

Dancing with 
the Virtual
l Today, to say that the prospects of virtual reality are vast is a bit of an understated matter of [no] concern. The idea of stepping into a whole new [digital] world ‘at the click of a button’ is exciting, whichever way you try look at it – especially when we spend most of our time goggling at screens, anyway.

Like many other people experiencing the first [covid-19] lockdown I was struck by the frustrating implications of spatial stasis. Bound to my 30m2 room in Berlin, I quickly saw VR as a means to escape, to extend my circulation, space out, sketch out, and connect to my friends in other countries. I’d been working with VR as a designer and until I was hit with that home office moment I had not realised how irreversible and embedded I am in this process, this tool I had become with. I could pace around the Sahara, my own designer space, and send whole environments to friends by email.

The [v]room of requirement project included a research phase with the idea of people swapping rooms in VR and going on a trip during the mass lockdown. I proposed a social experiment: participating artists could enter into a totally foreign, personal digital space where they could be active agents. The reactions were varied and simultaneously united by a sense of preoccupation and few awkward infractions.

Deeper inside, the elasticity of personal boundaries were stretched. The thrill of immersion overcame the body. Any awareness of the physical, walls floors and doors, rapidly dissolved into silence.

The potential for VR to extend our perceptual abilities in the way we connect with space – even immaterial space - was the most captivating part of this research process. Still a work-in-progress, the [v]room of requirement project will end with a designed place for the commons, full of subtleties and unanticipated traces of an island (Malta) quite unsure of its own non-limits. 

#resources #tools
https://obs.ninja/

This application turns your phone into a webcam. The settings provide for a private stream which takes place in a peer to peer connection. This can be used to engage safely across a community of peers and their private spaces. 

In combination with web conferencing software, the stream can be used for an additional feed, and to share any objects in your studio without interrupting your main videocall. This was adopted for both studio visits, as well as performance based work. Whereby, artists continued to stream and present their work on one window in a gallery on jitsi, and added another window to stream an object from another point of view in the same room. 

More creatively, artists participation in this project also shared a street view. This approach provides an additional aspect of liveliness, however, it can prove tricky if two microphones are picking up signal from the same space.

Open Studio

DREAMING 

SESSIONS In the times when physical distance is non-negotiable, can we get closer by intertwining our dreams? Can we travel in our sleep to places we are missing? Can we extend our perspectives by using a space of the dream to embody another person, a member of a different species or a plant?

DREAMING SESSIONS is a project run by Maja Renn within the framework of a collaborative LAB of the Schauspielhaus Zürich and the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste. During four weekly online group sessions participants learn techniques for more conscious dreaming and experiment with finding new ways of connecting through their dreams.

Below you can find the example of one task for each of the sessions:

Session 1: Dreamsigns.
Write or draw five motifs that recur in your dreams. It can be a place, an object, a creature. I.e.: #elevator #stairs #lake #hair #animal. The moderator makes a map of all the motifs.

Homework: Dreamwriting. Each morning, right after waking up, write down as much as you can remember of your dream(s). If you can not formulate any narrative write down the motif, or a feeling after waking up.

Session 2: Intertwining.
One person tells their dream. If you hear a motif you remember from your own dream,
raise their hand and continue the narrative.

Homework: Reality check (question). Draw the agreed symbol (i.e. a moon) on your arm or a paper you carry in your pocket. Until next session, every time you accidentally look at the symbol ask yourself: “Am I dreaming now?”.

Session 3: Reality check (action).
Find a light switch, try to turn the light on / off. If you are dreaming, nothing will happen. Find a clock, check the time, look away, check the time again. If you are dreaming, the time will be different.

Find a book, open it and check page number, close the book, try to find the same page. If you are dreaming, finding the same page will be impossible.

Homework: Integrate the reality check in your daily life.

Session 4: Intention.
Participants tell their dreams one by one. Choose a motif from the another person’s
dream and describe the way they you imagine you would dream about it.

Homework: Set the intention of dreaming the narrative you imagined each night before falling asleep.

Twinery.org

Twinery is an open source tool used to create interactive stories with a nonlinear structure. It is easy to use, and takes the user by hand to create an interactive story. This approach was pioneered by artists such as Mark Amerika, listed below, and this tool makes it possible to create similar experience by generating HTML. This code can be embedded on any content management system, such as Bertha or Wordpress. A cook book is also available with readymade examples for simple games under low bandwidth, and diy adventures in text and hyerlinks.

Catalog of Digital Discomfort http://titipi.org/projects/discomfort/CatalogOFFDigitalDiscomfort.pdf

This publication is useful to manage collaboration and encourage autonomy. It is formulated around tactics focused on decentralisation, as well as useful tools and examples. The tactics refer to ways and means to engage in diversity and also offer alternatives to mainstream platforms. Their recommendations work across different formats, and encourage a hybrid approach for both online and offline engagements. Its politics are anti-solutionists, and prioritise autonomy, subjectivity and solidarity. It's the kind of publication that we can look up to, and use as a good point of reference for peer to peer work. Primarily, it helps to create a vocabulary for collaboration. This vocabulary is split into 10 semantic references to align every participant’s needs and resources.

Here they are listed below

#1: Temporalities

#2: Spatialities

#3: Material conditions

#4: Participants

#5: Methods

#6: Media

#7: Traces

#8: Governance

#9: Tools and infrastructure 

#10: Obfuscation

The Long Table Etiquette

A space, light focused on the Table, microphones
The Long Table is also a performance; people can participate by sitting at the Table, in the light, and using microphones, spectate by watching and listening from the outside, and move between these roles as and when they choose. 

A long table, twelve chairs
Approximately two banqueting tables in length: any longer, or with any more participants, and you will struggle to maintain a single conversation. 

Surrounding chairs for spectators
Well-spaced and easily accessible, to allow for the free-flowing choreography of coming and going from the Table. 

White tablecloth, marker pens
Everyone at the Table can write their own comments and notes, to help document the conversation. The cloth provides a physical record of the event. 

A hostess, and etiquette
The Table will moderate itself, and there is no need for anyone to ‘tie up loose ends’ at the end; however, a hostess can ensure everyone follows the etiquette, and close the conversation at the set time

#dancingwiththevirtual #acm

Elaine Bonavia

[v]Room of Requirement, a project by architect and researcher Elaine Bonavia, recently funded by the Arts Council Malta special Covid call for proposals. In the Covid-19 pandemic scenario, many questions about the use and the accessibility of cyber space emerged. Which role will virtual space play from now on? Experiencing “space” mainly depends on human perception; how do we perceive and navigate through these uncharted digital environments? This and many other interrogatives will be investigated. The room aims at exploring new ways of using VR and remote collaboration as well as questioning the fine line between today's extended versions of private and public space. The project will culminate with an exhibition of the work – coming from the gathered material exchanged through a virtual room swap and an event where attendees will be invited to enter the [v]Room of Requirement in VR. The exhibition will take place in August 2021 at AP. The project is supported by Arts Council Malta and AP Valletta. The artists/collaborators for the Virtual room exchange are: Hugo du Plessix with U2P050, Erica Guista, Alexandre Mballa-Ekobena, Letta Shtohryn, James Bonavia, Fransiska Benkel, Aidan Celeste and Mateo Argerich. 

#dancingwiththevirtual #resources

Artsteps https://www.artsteps.com/

This is an online platform used to create virtual environments. It is simple to use and splits the process into five stages, 1. Define, 2. Design, 3. Add, 4. Plan, and 5. Submit. This makes it ideal for pedadgogic environments, and traditionally used within educational programmes and museuology. It allows you to create an exhibition space by first defining its spatial features, such as dimensions of walls, doors, and apartutres, and then goes on to design these features with texture and light. All the materials are available on a side bar.

The user drags and drops lines to build the walls of an exhibition space in the first stage, and then designes its details in the second stage.

The third Stage entitled "Add" is where objects are uploaded for display. These can include 2d objects, such as flat images for photographs, paintings, text, and moving image, as well as 3D objects such as sculptures imported as a model. By registering for a free access to the platform, you can upload anyfile up to 4mb, including sound, and meta data such as title, description, and informatoin about rights to the content it depicts.

To mediate presenation, the user is also invited to plan a tour in the fourth stage, and then go on to publish it in the fifth. Dyring the visit, users can interact with the objects and gain access to furhter information, as well as chat to each other on the sidebar.

#dancingwiththevirtual #resources #travel

In alignment with our needs to combat to our own lockdown islandness, the project becomes an open access destination for future trips by providing a platform for personal and individual retreat. It aims to be an ‘option’ and a node of potential in the list of possible places to go, considering post-lockdown life.

#art 
Internal Hot Spring by Dustin Wong and Yoshinari Nishiki

In part with Irrational Collective, Bristol, the artist Yoshinari Nishiki adopted Dustin Wong’s work as a soundtrack for an immersive online experience. The webpage is made for VR and uses google maps to track down a feed from eight notable springs across Japan: Minamisanriku, Aomori, Yamanashi, Shinjuku, Hakuba, Izumo, Hakone, and Kyoto.

Open Studio - Contribution by Elaine Bonavia

Dancing with 
the Virtual

On the tech side of things, VR is still very much in development – partly because it’s constantly being updated and re-released, on both the software and hardware side. Users require standalone or PC powered wearable equipment [namely the outside-in cameras, the headset and the controllers] at both ends of the physical spectrum in the case of truly live interaction or VR artistic collaboration.

I would say that the future of VR lies in its capacity to extend itself smoothly to online platforms. Websites such as Mozilla Hubs and The Wild are merely a start, while others such as Veer offer you the possibility to upload work if you are a professional VR artist or developer.

It’s pretty easy to upload VR videos online now that YouTube and Vimeo have included the option of VR viewing - all that is required is to add spatial metadata into a 3D video or a 360 panorama and then the upload is just like any other video. VR community building has become more of a topic since Covid 19, where people from all over the world can meet in real time environments at meetups such as RecklessVR (A Bitcoin VR meetup) This is still relatively small, but seems to be far more exciting than the cumbersome zoom bar. In truth, much of the digiscape in VR still remains heavily populated by gamers because at the moment, mass accessibility still relies heavily on mobile or standalone headsets such as the Samsung Gear VR or Oculus Go respectively, which allow for limited interaction.

These options are still relatively simplistic, yet they have definitely made VR far more accessible. Tethered VR sets, such as those equipped with ‘live -tracking’ sets, including HTC Vive Pro or Valve Index, are very suitable for the creation of immaterial worlds. As they become more, more and more compact, it’s only a matter of time until the physical and digital worlds blend in more seamlessly.

D  I  G  I  T  A  L      W   O   R   L   D

P   O   R   T   A   L   S          A   R   E

D       A      N      C       I        N       G

A R O U N D    U  S

A N D   E D G I N G

C L O S E  R  !

Open Studio

Peer to Peer 
Data Collection
Consent is necessary for the participants to learn about the lifecycle of their data in your project.

This includes explicit references to what type of data is collected, and what it is used for. Once the participant is informed about the value of their consent, go on and provide questions to process each detail. 

Here are a few notes from our experience in projects which depend on peer-to-peer data collection.

Informed Consent: Introduce your consent form with a single line about the project at hand. 

The consent form is about the data lifecycle, therefore specific details about the project at hand are not necessary. Further links, and or documents can be provided in order to share such details. The general aim of this document is to contextualise the project's interest in a participant’s data, it’s collection management, and the value of your contribution to the topic at hand. 

Always clarify a time-frame which includes an expiry date. Include any milestones, such as storage, as well as publications in the near future. In addition, provide an example as to how such data can be used for presentation. 

It is also necessary to make it clear that if at any point in time the participant issues a request to withdraw their contribution, the data must be deleted and, or provided for the participant without difficulty. The right to be forgotten must be clear to every participant. 

Provide different levels of confidentiality, such that, a subject may, or may not, prefer an Alias, Complete Autonomy, or degrees of nominality by Name, Nickname, Location, and other data which can be used to identify the person at hand. For instance, a participant may be confident in publishing transcripts from an audio interview, however, the same participant may prefer not to include their full name or photograph published alongside the same interview. Therefore this activity requires clarity on the publication of sound, text, and image carriers of their personal contribution to this data set.

Open Studio

Peer to Peer 
Data Collection

In addition to the information sheet, close the introduction with your contact details,
and start the process of obtaining consent. This takes the shape of a form with boxes to tick for clarification, along with a signature by each party, and date to record the agreement at hand.

[?]The agreement asks the participant to clarify that they:

1. Agree to Participate

2. Can elaborate by making conditions for every question

3. Dictate exceptions for every question

4. Can ask you to clarify and understand the purpose of the study

5. Can ask you to clarify and understand any foreseeable discomfort 

6. Can ask you to clarify and understand any foreseeable benefits

7. Provide voluntary agreement

8. Can withdraw their contribution without any difficulty

9. Agree to publish, along with a reference to specific formats of presentation

10. Agree to use specific contributions by the participant

11. Agree to integrate their contribution as part of an aggregate

12. Agree for the researcher to secure and protect their contribution of data

13. Provide a date of agreement, along with their full name and signature for consent forms, 

14. Provide A Date of agreement, along with a distinct code to safeguard anonymity for data collection

Open Studio
PRESERVE
YOUR INTENTTo document artistic intent and its authentic reproduction, think about its live presentation, & describe it at a glance. Support your description with text and visual reference, including registrations in audiovideo.

Describe what is presented at a glance with every production.
Identify and think of the object of art as a set of components and their properties.
Describe the behaviour of components in terms of actions, including any changes that take place when they interact. If these components influence each other, describe how such a component connects, and how such an action changes any distinct properties or the presentation as a whole. In addition to the artist’s preferences, align these descriptions by the preferences of any other party engaged in production, including technical advice.

Colored Sculpture can be described as a large scale animatronic installation, where a two metre high, cartoon-like puppet is dragged across and smashed on the floor to a tightly specified choreography within a stage like space.
The chains that hold it hang from a metal gantry and are driven by the type of motors normally used for boat anchors. The puppet’s eyes are custom-made video screens that follow visitors in the space, with regular interruptions to show numbers and images. The sound in the space must be overwhelming, either by the sound of the chains being dropped or Percy Sledge’s “When a Man loves a Woman”.

This is an extract from a description of
Colored Sculpture (2016) by Jordan Wolfson.

In Coloured Sculpture by Jordan Wolfson, the primary component is a puppet hanging on a long chain and being dragged around a stage. Its behaviour is highly dependent on each member of the audience walking in and out of the room. The physical condition of the puppet is always damaged at surface level because it is designed to drop and hit the ground at regular intervals. While the body of the puppet can be presented in a damaged state, other objects must remain functional. This includes a sensor which is used to identify humans walking into the gallery, and in turn, audiovisual triggers which replace the images moving in the puppet’s eyes, as well as the sound playing in the background. In a case study about the work’s integration into the collection at the TATE, the conservator notes that it is essential to identify the level of deterioration which the artist allows for, as well as any precautions which are necessary for a safe-interaction with audiences.

Revisit your description by mapping out its contributors: If the properties of an artwork are also liable to change with the engagement of a live audience as much as a performer, or a participant, both parties are included in this process of documentation. This can be realised with a script of actions OR a diagram to communicate the installation process for an authentic reproduction. 

Create Video Interview: In this registration, engage the artist to revisit this information by visiting the object of art on presentation, and describing it. Invite the artist to give instructions about how to reinstall this object, and what to look out for when reproducing it in the future. 

#somethingfishy #diypreservation
Artwork Documentation Tool

This tool provides a detailed form for artists to self document their work. It is primarily made for complex artworks, such as interactive art, time based media, including the use of both software and hardware. It can also be adopted by any other object of art which depends on multiple parties and different skills to reproduce it. The structure develops a set of instructions to rebuild the artwork, step by step. Along with references to the variations it can take. These instructions can be used for a variety of exhibitions, including galleries, museums, and collectors. The designers recommend just explore and answer what's relevant. It is based on the Variable Media Questionnaire, and inspired by the 2016 Manifesto by Rafael Lozano Hemmer. LIMA produced the Artwork Documentation Tool to simplify the process and empower artists to control and preserve their own objects of art with this tool

#somethingfishy #diypreservation
Variable Media
The Variable Media Network provides a similar database and case studies for objects of art which are made of different objects of media. 

Unlike a traditional object of fine art which is based in a single medium, such as wood sculpture or an oil painting, the physical properties of media art are generally technical and therefore, secondary to the conceptual properties and their manifestation. In order a concept and its manifestation, documentation for media art takes into account variability. Much like the tool provided above, the Variable Media network provides a form to engage artists in recodring their primary concern to retain the concept, and most importantly, to what extent can its manifestation change. This brings into consideration the fact the same object of media art can also be presented with a slight variation in every manifestation(Laurenson, 2006).

The variable media questionnaire allows the artist to decide on a set of parameters which are subjective, and open to change the manifestation of an artistic project without detriment to its authenticity.

#somethingfishy #diypreservation
Rarible Unlockable Content

Rarible is platform to encode digital objects into a blockchain network. In addition to coding your digital object on the blockchain, rarible also allows for hidden content. This content is only revealed with a personal key linked to your wallet. This content can include versions of the same object in a higher quality, or even further details such as best practice notes in terms of presentation, as well as additional material by the artist .By combining traditional archival documents, such as provided by LI-MA, and the Variable Media network, and including it in your digital object on Rarible, this data can be locked into your NFT.

Defend Our Movements https://defendourmovements.org/

This website provides advice on how to safely use mainstream tech and withhold the autonomy of a user from being identified in a crowd. Such its Q&A sections provide advice on daily use, such as changing security settings on your phones, as well as more specific applications such as CRM-Database Managers, and Cloud Storage.

For instance, with regards to video conferencing, the organisation recommends the free service by Jitsi for its ease of use, as well as the paid service by Goto Meeting. This advice comes with general advice about their practical application, such that:

1) If you connect via a regular phone line, encryption is not possible. Your entire conversation can be captured. This means any program that allows a phone connection is insecure by its nature.

2) Encryption is often not end-to-end. Your communications are encrypted as they travel between you and the server, and again from the server to the other participants. This means it’s possible someone can connect directly to the server and access your communications there without encryption. So the rule to remember with all these programs is to choose your provider wisely and ask if they will protect your meeting data.

Letta Shtohryn investigates the entangled relationship between the physical and digital realm, explores post-human thought, human-nonhuman collaborations and speculates about the future. As a method, Letta employs speculative investigations, storytelling, sci-fi inspired amalgamations, using new media, sculpture, video games, commercial goods and imagery. She engages with layers of “reality” that are at odds with each other as well as investigates social constructs and paradoxes. Letta’s work also explores gender constructs and gender representation, as part of her identity is being a full-time woman.

Letta has been with us since the first cycle of Driven By Points Made Apart in the summer of 2020. At the time she was closing off a show with The Unfinished Art Space at MUZA, Malta, and looking forward to showing work under the curator, Klio Krajewska at the Valletta Contemporary. Throughout the online sessions, she took an active lead in sharing her expereince with online curating, such as her contribution to The Wrong Biennale, as well as resources for online engagement in VR worlds, such as Mozilla Hubs. In part, she also contributed to [V}Room for Requirement, a project by the contributor and participant Elaine Bonavia. For Temporary.Show, Letta took the lead in researching NFT Platforms, and is also curating media for #somethingfishy.

Samuel Ciantar is currently reading for a Masters in Architecture & Conservation at the University of Malta. He is interested in the thresholds of art practice, architecture & design. His work revolves around researching new ways of perceiving our position within larger ecological processes.

In 2020  he was working with Critical Concrete in Porto, and came back to Malta over the summer. The ideas he developed were based on dealing with entropy, and the experience of displacement. Amid a global pandmic, it was difficult to judge how long he is here for, and how to go ahead and engage his practice. He offerred to share his experince in using Are.NA, an online tool to share notes and developments across research projects. Most of the content is highly visual and builds on artistic practice and the myriad ways it can be visualised. As a narrative, Samuel hooked into  the strange divergences between the physical and digital make up of the same object. This allowed him to experiment with 3D scanning media, and its extensive readings of materials, including light. The narratives he built were mainly about erosion, protection, and conservation. In addition he also share a few odd tools for capturing media in 3D, as well as broadcasting over multiple devices, such as OBS.NInja 

Johannes Buch's practice includes graphic and exhibition design, photography, and curation. Johannes curates with the urban fabric by designing essential details. This often takes the shape of in-situ sculpture, among other disciplines, such as his contributions to the studio, FoAM Filfla, Anna's Weekend at Blitz Malta, and Fleeting Territories.

As an alumni of (nl)ArtEZ Institute for Art & Design, he studied Graphic Design in Arnhem, as well as Art & Communication Design in Enschede. In addition, he also holds a Master of Arts in Exhibition Design from HS Düsseldorf where he graduated by developing a multichannel cinematographic exhibition about Ethnographic Music and Film.

The content from De Licerias and their residents is archived by Johanness Buch. You can find it on temporary.show listed under 2020 FIRST WAVE. Johannes was also a participant of Driven By Points Made Apart, and took an active lead in designing publications, as well as myriad ways of hosting online conversations with multiple screens and voices. As part of the last cycle for Driven By Points Made Apart, Johannes invited us to cross paths with De Liceiras 18. Together with the founder, Maja Renn, we discussed how to reformat in 2020, online interventions to keep each other engaged, as well as putting our resources together for collaboration.

The Consentful Tech Project https://www.consentfultech.io/
This project is a campaign for advice on using an online interface and what it means to provide consent as a user. Their defining pillars are abbreviated into FRIES, such that, consent is

Freely Given
Doing something with someone is a decision that should be made without pressure, force, manipulation, or while incapacitated. 

Reversible
Anyone can change their mind about what they want to do, at any time.

Informed
Be honest. For example, if someone says they’ll use protection and then they don’t, that’s not consent.

Enthusiastic
If someone isn’t excited, or really into it, that’s not consent. 

Specific
Saying yes to one thing doesn’t mean they’ve said yes to others.

Aidan Celeste is an artist and research support officer with the Horizon 2020 Project AMASS at the University Of Malta. He graduated with an MFA in Digital Art (2013), and is skilled in research and coordination for interdisciplinary projects. Celeste has also contributed to publications about socially engaged art, such as (nl)Open Set, (it)Altofest Displaced, and as part of a curatorial team, such as (nl)Data in the 21st Century by Dr. Michel Van Dartel, and the upcoming (mt)FUSE by Elyse Tonna.

His approach as an artist aims to ask better questions and engage critically with the world around us. In Malta, this work included What Will Fall, a spatial intervention developed from an industrial sized fishing net for Dal-Bahar Madwarha in 2018, and his contribution to artistic communities, such as that of Fragmenta Malta in 2015, and Momentum in 2019.

Manuela Zammit is a contemporary art curator and art historian currently reading for a Research Master Critical Studies in Art and Culture at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. She previously graduated with a MFA in Contemporary Curating from Manchester Metropolitan University and completed a curatorial internship at Foam Photography Museum, Amsterdam. She is currently based in Amsterdam with her 5 typewriters that she uses to run @textpresso, an ongoing fun and playful typing experiment. 

Aidan and Manuela took on the role of lead artists and ran the project, Driven by Points Made Apart. They mediated with collaborators, and facilitated the online engagement, as well desktop research and publications with every participant listed below.

https://www.are.na/

Are.na is an online platform to share media across communities with an interest in artistic research. It is ad free and provides an alternative to facebook. It favours channelling media ona peer-to-peer level. This helps to provide a cleaner approach to browsing and works against the market driven approach of online giants. https://www.are.na/

#openstudio #epidemiolog
Etherpad This is an online writing pad which allows for multiple users to type in at the same time. Users are generally identified by a distinct colour code, and a chat box for more informal exchange across peers. Communities have also used it as a platform to read and discuss specific text, and to engage in silent writing exercises. Some good fun can also be had with asci art. Variations of the same tool allow for web conferencing, images, as well as more animated features, however, at base it is an online word pad. It is available over multiple hosts with an interest in the culture of open source and non-extractive media. For the session we tapped into the pads provided by FOAM network, as well as varia, and wikimedia.

Here are a few public instances to run a an online pad.

https://etherpad.wikimedia.org

https://video.etherpad.com/
This pad allows for a simultaneous video conference and chat boxes.

https://board.net
This pad includes options to append images, by copying and pasting directly on the pad.

https://demo.sandstorm.io/
This pad runs for roughly one hour, and then gets deleted. A great way to keep things temporar and off the radar.

For an extensive lists of sites that run a pad, click here

#resources
soundgardens
In a time when screen time is a minute by minute experience, sometimes two, sometimes three, it becomes easier to focus with multiple screens at once. Alternatively, we can forget the screen altogether, and look at other ways of getting in touch online.

https://upprojects.com/projects/wet-signal-voice-gardens

Wet Signal Voice Gardens by Kari Robertson is focused on building a data base of voice recordings, and presenting it as cacophony of sounds over any browser. Users of this website can record their voice, save it in, and receive it back in playback. With every recording, a blob of colour takes shape on screen. This blob is a trigger and hovers across your screen. Multiple blobs can scatter across your frame, and everytime one blob hits another, the sound is triggered and played back immediately. The result is a cacophony of experimental sounds building up into a sequence.

https://www.bicyclebuiltfortwothousand.com/
A bicycle built for two thousand by Aaron Koblin, is a much earlier work. It is also focused on building a database of voice recordings, however, it’s aim is to hack Amazon’s Mechanical turk and use its basic functions to break against its uniform approach to making content. Traditionally, it is used to engage cheap labour in mindless tasks, such as pressing a button when the right subject appears on screen. In contrast, Aaron Koblin invited the workers engaged on mechanical turk to imitate a sound. The sound was originally part of a recording for Daisy Bell made by a computer in 1962. The recollection of all these extracts was used to create something close to harmony. Once edited into a full rendition, workers realised that it is a full song, with all the nuances of a bad choir in harmony.

Over Temporary.Show we are still missing participants who are well versed in the sound arts. If you have any tips, tricks, or tools in mind that can be featured in this tool box, please go ahead and get in touch. info@temporary.show 

#epidemiolog #dreamingsessions #collaborativedrawing

Excalidraw https://excalidraw.com/
Drawing pads can also be used to remix each other’s work with basic shapes, as well sketches. Text, as well as images can be swapped on a platform such as Excalidraw. These pads are limited to the sharp movements of your online cursor, the finger print on your phone. However, these limits can be used up to their extent, and embraced for their faults as much as our limited experience in drawing on screen from our own home. The artist Aaron Kooblin had amassed thousands on online drawings of the same sheep to create the project,

WBO Collaborative Writing Boards
https://wbo.ophir.dev/ This is a free and open-source online collaborative whiteboard that allows many users to draw simultaneously on a large virtual board. The board is updated in real time for all connected users, and its state is always persisted. It can be used for many different purposes, including art, entertainment, design and teaching.

This project brings together a loose collective of artists for ad hoc experiments. These include a combination of Participants who are open to collaborate, formal Collaborators who can run workshops and interventions across our peers, and Contributors who can share more specific resources and experiences.

The Participants
Johannes Buch 

Aidan Celeste

Isaac Azzopardi

Samuel Ciantar

Letta Shtohryn

Stefan Nestoroski

Manuela Zammit

Elaine Bonavia

Keit Bonnici

Collaborators
An Paenhuysen
Florian Weigl
Maja Renn

Collaborators are invited to run workshops and interventions for our loose collective of peers. These workshops generally takeplace on Saturday mornigns, or Thursday evenings. If you'd like to run an intervention, we're more than happy to host and make space for it in our OPEN STUDIO. Subsections are curated, and participants are invited to follow up on each intervention and in their own time.

Contributors for MAY 2021 
Kane Cali (Studio) writing on 3D Scanning, and Printing
Glen Callejja (Studio Solipsis) writing on Mapping and Innovation
Clive Vella (Airwars) writing on Online Resources for GIS Investigations

We are still missing peers who are well versed in the sound arts. If you have any tips, tricks, online interventions, or simply, a useful tool in mind, please go ahead and get in touch on info@temporary.show

More specifically, we are also looking for contributions about: Physical  Computing for Speculative Designs; Hosting Augmented Reality objects in Public Space; Soundscapes with Spoken Word.

 These contributions are generally 500 to 800 words, and will be included in the ongoing toolkit. Contributors are also invited to take on the role of a formal collaborator by providing a workshop for this community and its peer network of artists.