The Splendid Ten Report
posted by: Nathan Stevens 21st August 2009
The Splendid Ten Report.
During the Arts Lab we employed the technical and professional abilities of the project's own Daniel Tanner to assist in documenting imagery of the Splendid artists. Images taken at the beginning of the lab are displayed on the left column, images at the completion of the lab are displayed on the right. It is evident that there is a high degree of morphic resonance that has occurred in the lab, thus generating a proposed stable morphogenetic field. According to British scientist Rupert Sheldrake, "The term [morphic fields] is more general in its meaning than morphogenetic fields, and includes other kinds of organizing fields in addition to those of morphogenesis; the organizing fields of animal and human behaviour, of social and cultural systems, and of mental activity can all be regarded as morphic fields which contain an inherent memory". It is this memory that has manifested itself in the lab's participants, thus exposing the effects of the SMF09 (Splendid Morphogenetic Field 2009) as documented in the following image sets.
Collaboratarian's Notes
"Artistic collaboration is a creative method that offers the opportunity for intellectual conversation and critical discourse as part of the evolution of an artwork. Throughout the process of creative collaboration, partners engage with the emerging artefact through their observations, the questions they ask and the level of detail they require in order to communicate effectively with each other."~ Nancy de Freitas, Assoc. Professor in Art and Design, Auckland University of Technology
There are at once many different manifestations of collaboration. Some involve the freeing up of boundaries, some concerted extensions of self, some are cooperative communicative resonances. In these ways, collaboration can be found in many forms and instances. A conversation, a shared meal, a photograph. Collaboration is not necesarrily measured as the outcome of a process, but rather a type of exchange and a co-emergence of practicing form or artefact.
Artistic collaboration is a continuous negotiation and nurturing of not only the forms of process and outcome, but also of self and other. An instance where the boundaries between entities become confused, obscured, and fluid.
Throughout the Splendid Arts Lab ten 'others' have demonstrated and exercised a co-emergence and growth of a collaborative 'self', through an engaged and exploratory interaction with one anothers practices, ideas, ideals, dreams, truths, and beings. The collaborations between these artists have been nothing short of inspirational.
Empty yet full, nuanced yet sublime.
These artists are setting the foundations for something more than the development of a singular work of art. They are working towards new knowledge and new experience of what it means to develop art together, collaboratively and presently. They are challenging the processes and outcomes of collaboration, re-thinking its formation, its purpose, its value, its existence, its meaning, and its evolution through this practice.
"when you start to think in different ways it builds new connections in the brain [and mind] and what this has done for us and everyone involved [in the Splendid Arts Lab] has allowed us to make these new connections, to think in new ways, and to make new relationships and these are the things that will last forever." ~ Daniel Tanner, Artist
A rendering of morphic resonance by Ernest Haeckel entitled, Tafel. 2006
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