In nature, there are many situations where Gestalt Theory can be illustrated, where the whole is something completely different than the sum of its parts.
Complex systems and patterns can arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Social insects such as ants, bees, wasps and termites have been doing many things that us humans have only 'invented' relatively recently. Termites, for example, invented air conditioning for their mounds millions of years ago. Termite mounds are the tallest non-human constructed buildings. The mounds have a complex structure that draws in fresh cool air and expels hot stale air so that the whole mound is ventilated. Yet each individual termite can not possibly not understand the process of Air Conditioning. It is only through working together that this understanding manifests itself.
It is what Charles Green terms 'The Third Hand' in Collaborative Art. Since the 1960s, the Modernist image of the lone expressive artist has been challenged. New creative models are beginning to emerge, and I believe that it is through collaboration that we are able to achieve something completely different to that which any one of us are able to on our own.
I also think that we may not understand what it is, either!
"The globalised art market attributes value and economic worth through restricting access to culture, through restricting access to funding, space, and knowledge. Through competition we are reduced to mere pawns alienating and disabling fellow artists."
Politically this statement hits it for me. Collaboration is empowering of artists. Traditional gallery systems tend not to be.
There are I think as Stephie alludes to different levels of collaboration. The project I was involved with for More Cornwall, Just Re-Located, was collaborative to a degree in that all three of us involved worked together to put the show together but due to the last minute nature of the beast (all put together from conception to installation in under a month) it was very much an overall concept that other's got involved with past the formative stages. When putting it together I knew I wanted to work with other people but didn't have the contacts... In an ideal world it would be the other way around so that the initial idea/concept for a project was generated out of the group. This would be far more powerful in terms of both collaborative process and ultimately in potential/value re the practice.
I too love the contact with other artists. I find I thrive on it creatively with the most bizarre consequences such as the 'game' I am developing for Invigorate. 'PONDart' came about as a direct result of an Invigorate meeting - I went home unable to get Monopoly out of my mind. The name then came 'in a flash' during a long 'chewing the cud' session about artist-led culture in the PZ Arts Club after Revolver one Friday night..... as you do.... Although I am not specifically working with anyone on developing this installation, as far as I am concerned it is very much collaborative with discussions with other artists both individually and during the Invigorate meetings feeding its development.
So collaboration seems to be about several things:
1. creating a context in which to make work, making it happen
2. creating a space between people that facilitates creative processes
3. sharing of skills and knowledge (2+2=5)
4. working more effectively - power and visibility in numbers, critical mass
5. creating a critical context around practice
It could be argued that any formation, any structure is just that, another structure. So is a model of collaboration is another model, another exclusive vehicle for artist to work? I think we have to be honest as say, yes I would exhibit in the a large white walled institution if I was asked, but that doesn't mean you stop collaborating or making energised dynamic work. Without the status quo in place, the open post modernist field would be more that flattened horizons, it would be down hill with no bumps or ha ha's to goad and compel us. I think that these processes are evolutionary, as critical practice is more sociologically linked (Objective One, ACE agenda etc) and engaged, this is maybe territory that now needs to be shifted and moved on. We all collaborate, so what's next?
Ian and I were prompted to collaborate originally from my perspective because we returned to Cornwall post degree and we couldn't see another body that our work could be viewed in relation to. We supported each other in seeing the relevance of making experimental work and in questioning our position in relation to society as artists. The lack of enough opportunities to exhibit work and the desire to create opportunities for artist led culture to surface and for practitioners to be made visible to each other is what catalysed our engagement with curation. I would like to be in situation where we are not pitted in competition against each other for the opportunity to do what we do. A refusal to corroborate the value of competition and to propose collaboration instead questions a fundamental principle of capitalism. The globalised art market attributes value and economic worth through restricting access to culture, through restricting access to funding, space, and knowledge. Through competition we are reduced to mere pawns alienating and disabling fellow artists. These are the issues that continue to focus my attention on collaboration.
I have just begun work on my first installation collaboration with Chantal Brooks. I think we began to work together because we recognised that our interests stem from similar ideas and that we share a similar aesthetic: bascially we seem to fundamentally understand where each other is coming from! It's stimulating and exciting for both our practices to see what will happen as we develop this project (Unspoken).
On a wider scale I have collaborated with other artists to organise events, including More and oneinamillion changes this summer, and I guess it was for more 'political' reasons that I became involved in these - the notion that if we collaborate we'll actually get something done on a bigger, more noticeable scale is hard to deny. I also love the contact with other artists that I get: the feedback is invaluable, the feeling that we're all in it together is motivating and being able to look back on a job well done is a great confidence builder! And, like Rebecca, I agree that by collaborating and working together we reduce competititon between each other, forcing galleries and the like to realise that many of us have something worthwhile to say through our art, that doesn't always get the opportunity to be said simply because of the limiting nature of competition and pitting one artist against another completely equal one.
In nature, there are many situations where Gestalt Theory can be illustrated, where the whole is something completely different than the sum of its parts.
Complex systems and patterns can arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Social insects such as ants, bees, wasps and termites have been doing many things that us humans have only 'invented' relatively recently. Termites, for example, invented air conditioning for their mounds millions of years ago. Termite mounds are the tallest non-human constructed buildings. The mounds have a complex structure that draws in fresh cool air and expels hot stale air so that the whole mound is ventilated. Yet each individual termite can not possibly not understand the process of Air Conditioning. It is only through working together that this understanding manifests itself.
It is what Charles Green terms 'The Third Hand' in Collaborative Art. Since the 1960s, the Modernist image of the lone expressive artist has been challenged. New creative models are beginning to emerge, and I believe that it is through collaboration that we are able to achieve something completely different to that which any one of us are able to on our own.
I also think that we may not understand what it is, either!
I have just begun work on my first installation collaboration with Chantal Brooks. I think we began to work together because we recognised that our interests stem from similar ideas and that we share a similar aesthetic: bascially we seem to fundamentally understand where each other is coming from! It's stimulating and exciting for both our practices to see what will happen as we develop this project (Unspoken).
On a wider scale I have collaborated with other artists to organise events, including More and oneinamillion changes this summer, and I guess it was for more 'political' reasons that I became involved in these - the notion that if we collaborate we'll actually get something done on a bigger, more noticeable scale is hard to deny. I also love the contact with other artists that I get: the feedback is invaluable, the feeling that we're all in it together is motivating and being able to look back on a job well done is a great confidence builder! And, like Rebecca, I agree that by collaborating and working together we reduce competititon between each other, forcing galleries and the like to realise that many of us have something worthwhile to say through our art, that doesn't always get the opportunity to be said simply because of the limiting nature of competition and pitting one artist against another completely equal one.