EXPOSE, EXTERNALISE, EXTEND, EXQUISITE

Overview:  
LAB REPORT: Hypothesis: collaborators are becoming an intelligent organism. Methods: Wed. No. 2 Tom Barker and Tom Rivard provocation. Observation: Wed No. 2 provocation seemed to coagulate the fluidity of self identity and awareness that has been left after dissolving the outer layers of the artists through centrifuging of artistic processes and creative working methods.  A chain reaction and fundamental ionic bonds between the underlying molecular structures quickly occured, affording a beautiful, raw manifestation of collective social planning. This is believed to be a type of Ausmosis. Hypothesis confirmed.

Today's workshop was led by Sydney-based architect, artist, and culinary extraordinaire Tom Rivard and brought to by the letter, Ex.  Everytime you see the letter Ex, you must yell out the secret word.

SAA...We are You!

On Wed. the group was given the homework to compile an exquisite corpse manifesto of creative practice which was scribed in to existence at dawn, thus calling forth the 'Art Army' to suit-up and ship out on a mission of Splendour. This document can be viewed in it's splendid entirety here. I've already enlisted.

The collective manifesto exercise was Tom Rivard's extension of provocateur Tom Barker's externalisation exercise in which each artist was given the task to develop their own personal working manifesto of creative practice (see this post).

The Splendish Exquisition

Tom R. introduced the group to a slew of creative exercises centred around developing further externalisations and communicative acts focalising the Splendour in the Grass festival. As an continuation and extension of the critical self-reflection and conversation that Tom Barker provoked on Wed., today the group was reconstructed through the lens of the Splendour in the Grass festival. The exercises asked the artists to set their 'sites' beyond the immediate task of developing artwork(s) for the 2010 festival, each given the creative task of developing some form of correspondence or communication amongst a variety of people external to the festival; a postcard from a teenage friend, a letter to the Australia council based on results, a note to a punter, a street mag review, an apologetic letter to the artists that didn't get in, an SMS at the festival.

Another exercise in Tom R.'s workshop honed a sense of cooperative creativity, involving the artists cutting and pasting together ten collective briefs that were then presented and pitched to a review panel. It seems one of the core concepts behind this activity was creative adaptation and a lesson in gifted instant ownership.  The artists were tested in a way one how well and convincely or passionately they could adapt to the often absurd or fantastic conconctions of the others in the group.  The outcomes; a massive peace sign that people could enter into and be velcroed to one another; a virtual enchanted forest of real-time stories and narratives; or of course the anti gravity underground love chamber sponsored by NASA.  These were just a few...

What was made apparent in these exercises was a collective vision of fantasy, love, and lived, active experience was in the works. From a broad perspective, the workshops this week have been quite focused on allowing the group opportunity to develop a dynamic that could then be realised through the various creative tasks and exercises. Internalisation Externalisation; breath-in-breath-out.

Tom Rivard pointed out, that art often about realising the seemingly impossible, and that by firstly forecasting the affectivity and agency of the art, the forms evolve as part of the crystallization process. Post-happening visualisations and artistic affirmations.

Could you please pass the polenta?
Fusing the activities of the lab beyond the walls of the Italo-Australian with the lounge rooms, kitchen sinks, and dinner plates of the artists and provocateurs gave me a glimpse of some beautiful sticky substance the group is culturing and dishing up through the lab.

The group could now interpolate themselves into a whole through their extracurricular assignment; Exquisite Corpse Dinner Party.  (Sounds a little morbid, I know). The consideration, preparation, and execution of a dinner party; Is this an easy way to indenture some artistic kitchen-hand labour, or a masterful exercise in performed social planning that stretches the lab from experimental studio work to expressive lived synergy? The group was given their first collective project outside the confines of the studio, in the 'real' world so to speak.  After a half an hour of planning and design the artists dispersed with their blueprints for the evening.

A dinner party is an actractively suiting metaphor for the Splendid project. By putting on a show, that blurred the lines of performed and lived or ceremonial and celebratory,  the group manifest their unification in an explosive culmination of food, music, love (the matrimonial kind), and laughter. It was beyond exquisite and can really only be described through the following words.

Playlist of the Gods

Musical Chairs*

Burning Man Slideshow

Architectural Goon

Memorial Service to a Master with Full Color Guard

Matrimonial Singles Club with Instant Honeymoon included

Spin the Glass

Dr. Suess Freestyle Session

Chamber Pot Raffle

Nature is a bunch of unused confetti

and Polenta fit for the Pope

I have nothing more to say.

CONCLUSION:

It seemed as though the group after being opened through deep sharing at the source of their creative springs that Tom Barker's soul-searching and investigative exercises summoned up connections withinthe group that resembled something very familial. These connections were then expanded upon in the context of the Splendid project and SITG festival with Tom Rivard's instigative approaches to collective design. In many ways these exercises have asked the artist to expose themselves, and strip down in order to allow themselves to reconstruct as one, from within, from a unanimous understanding of self-resilience and cooperative development fostered by base values of togetherness, sharing, and openness (and polenta).

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