am i an artist?

“Without exception, Fee and the people helping her had a deep understanding of the book I wrote and the ways to express its essence into other media and live performance. This was the first genuine electronic and live action Situationist-type event I have ever experienced that actually worked. … I encourage you to support her work in any way you can. I know I will”. Doug Rushkoff, 1997.

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Rhidian Davis goes to Videopositive 2000

There is a goldfish in a tank on a desk with a computer, and a man with ‘FACT’ written in large letters on a sign pinned to his shirt is explaining Superflex’s Tower Block project. He tells me that Coronation Court is a real block in Liverpool undergoing regeneration and that the barely audiovisible little pixel-clips on the computer belong to ‘Superchannel’, a streaming web community initiative bringing council tenants the tools to broadcast themselves to a global audience.

Odd things happen when net projects like this enter dioramic gallery spaces: it is hard to pay proper attention to one exhibit when one’s perceptual apparatus is being so systematically warped by the others.

Community action video and installation work may share the same production facilities, but they have little in common when it comes to exhibition. So it is that a set of old ladies enjoying their monthly tea-dance in Coronation Court enter into parity with a listless goldfish on the table next to them. This may not be a bad thing, but who wants to live like a goldfish? Do these people actually want their lives to be made globally visible? Are they aware of the concatenation of signs and significances they have become part of as their animated community notice board becomes part of a gallery exhibit? And who really wants to watch all these badly produced web casts anyway?

We were interested in application development, and had started hacking, but it is hard, and takes time. The grant meant that we could work with an iPhone application development house. With them, we made the open source code, so we can see how they did everything and use that in the future.”

fear

working solo

out of shape

lack skills

rejected

a fraud

no proof

tempting fallbacks

According to an Opera House insider, the [Detours & Destinations] installation had a greater turnout than Brian Eno's '77 Million Paintings,' which was installed in the same venue for the duration of 2009's Luminous festival.

Ultimately, the skills, knowledge, professional support and conceptual interrogation that occurred during this residency period has by far been one of the most fundamentally career shifting experiences that pvi have ever undertaken.

"future projects

that i discussed

in person but

have removed

for internet

publishing, soz"

am i an artist?