(Above image : Madeline Flynn performing 'Spirit Cloud')
CONSTRUCTING SITUATIONS IN MELBOURNE CENTRAL Tue 9.30-1.30 + 2.30-5.30 with Caroline Vains at Melbourne Central. ( contact : caroline.vains @ rmit.edu.au ) Fri 1.30-4.30 with Sean Healy at (computer lab, 8.11.42) ( contact : sean.healy @ rmit.edu.au ) This studio explores ways of using performance and video projection strategies to investigate, critique and intervene in an existing site. (Aka Melbourne Central shopping hub)
- We will be working out of a dedicated space in Melbourne Central for the duration of the semester.
- We will begin our investigations by targeting aspects and areas of Melbourne Central, and creatively mapping them using a wide variety of techniques (drawing, photography, collage, film making, performance etc.).
- Guided by these preliminary investigations, we will then draw on a range of video projection and performance technologies and combine them to enact and critique the site and its myriad consumption practices.
- These interventions will then inform the design, construction and performance of a range of on-site constructed situations; installations, objects, events and pop-ups that integrate performance and projection to creatively intervene in existing site conditions and generate new ones.
- The outcomes of the studio will be exhibited as part of the ‘Situation symposium from 31st July-3rd August.
- Exhibits will be in videos format and screened in various locations throughout Melbourne Central. Students will need to be available in the days leading up to this exhibition to install their video exhibits.
- In keeping with the studio’s implicit critique of consumption, students will be expected to re-use, re-cycle and re-purpose materials wherever possible.
CONSTRUCTING_subject guide (PDF) Each week, new reading, tasks and links will be listed below:
| Week 1: Introduction to Video Possibilities | Week 5: Spatial Design for Video | Week 9: Animation and Sound |
| Week 2: Planning for Video | Week 6: Preparing for Projection Mapping | Week 10: Projection Mapping Tips |
| Week 3: Editing With Premiere | Week 7: | Week 11: |
| Week 4: Compositing with After Effects | Week 8: | Week 12: Projection Tips |
Week 13: Week 14: Week 15: Week 16:
Readings / Texts:
1. Bourriaud, Nicolas, Relational Aesthetics
2. Claire Bishop, Participation, White Chapel Gallery and the MIT Press, 2006.
3. Claire Doherty (ed) Contemporary Art: From Studio to Situation, Black Dog Publishing 2004. Especially, the chapter on Nicolas Bourriaud’s relational aesthetics.
4. What We Want Is Free: Generosity and Exchange in Recent Art (Suny Series in Pop Modern Culture) by Ted Purves Editor, 2004
5. Haydn, Florian & Temel, Robert (eds). Temporary Urban spaces: Concepts for the Use of City Spaces (Basel: Birkhauser, 2006)
6. John Rundell, ‘Couldn’t we Live Perfectly well without Money?’, Talk at Melbourne town hall, 2000 http://ethicalpolitics.org/seminars/johnrund.htm
7. Soper, Kate. ‘Beyond Consumerism: reflections on gender politics, pleasure and sustainable consumption’, in Relational Architectural Ecologies: Architecture, Nature and Subjectivity, Routledge.
Precedents & references:
1. https://www.skynoise.net : many valuable links regarding contemporary applications of video projection, tons of software tutorials + especially : https://www.skynoise.net/edu/constructing-situations
1. Astra Howard in Artlink Vol. 29 no. 3, September 2009.
2. Workman Jones Freedragging website http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=263858707
3. Jan Family: Plans for other Days, Edited by Marie Jan Lund and Nina Jan Beier, Published by Booth-Clibborn, UK. 2005.
4. The Interventionists; Users Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life, edited by Nato Thompson and Gregory Sholette, MASS MoCA Publications, 2004.
5. Black Market and Mobile Academy links: www.schwarzmarkt-archiv.de www.mobileacademy-berlin.com www.kiosk-berlin.de
6. Various websites on relational aesthetics: https://lists.thing.net/pipermail/idc/2008-January/003099.html http://delicious.com/salrandolph/relationalaesthetics http://salrandolph.com/text/7/notes-on-social-architectures-as-art-forms http://salrandolph.com/studio/
7. www.fieldfaring.org/projects 8. www.publicworksgroup.net/log/
9. Park Products text by Public Works (try online also covered in Rendell’s ‘Art and Architecture’ book.)
10. Modern Urban Fabric (MUFF Designers and Artists)
11. The Haight Ashbury free store www.diggers.org/free_store.htm
12. Reverend Billy’s Church for Stop Shopping : http://www.revbilly.com/
13. Russell Brand’s pop up shop ‘Buy Love Here’ http://www.obeygiant.com/headlines/russell-brand-pop-up-shop
14. Stalker: Campo Boario : http://www.templace.com/project-pool/one37ba.html?prj_id=3654
Caroline’s Bookmarks: https://delicious.com/carolinevains/Constructed%20Situations
Sean’s course related bookmarks : https://delicious.com/jeanpoole/constructingsituations
A Forest of Projects: Sean’s ongoing collection of projection + installation links on tumblr. Sean’s videos at Vimeo.
skynoise.net