Week 11: Groups & Spaces

Hi Again,

This Tuesday is the next event in a year-long series of weekly conversations and exhibits in 2010 shedding light on examples of Plausible Artworlds.

We’ll be talking with Chris Kennedy, Brett Bloom and Scott Rigby, about the history and future of Groups & Spaces.

Edit - the URL is now live:
 http://groupsandspaces.net/

Groups & Spaces is an online platform, initiated by Temporary Services with the help of many contributors, which gathers information on people making art in groups and collaborative situations, and groups that independently run artist spaces and centres. In the site relaunch we will discuss the potentials for the Groups & Spaces project to provide historical reference points, opportunities for networking and the chance to visualize collaborative cultural production and its impacts on situated and global communities.

The discussion will touch on a preliminary research project initiated by Chris Kennedy called Artiscycle which explored the inner workings of various independent art spaces around the country. Brett Bloom of Temporary Services and Scott Rigby of Basekamp will talk about the early manifestations of the Groups & Spaces site, its intention and current content.

The deliberately unrestricted scope of “groups” and “spaces” — avoiding any mention as to whom the groups are comprised of or what the spaces may plausibly contain — raises a crucial question: Is the Groups & Spaces platform a catalyst for plausible artworlds? Or is a federating initiative such as this a plausible artworld in and of itself?

The following day, Wednesday March 17th at 7-9pm, Basekamp will also host a community dinner for members of groups and spaces in Philadelphia and anyone who would like to connect with this community! During the dinner, Janette Kim of Columbia University’s Urban Landscape Lab will share renderings of a physical archiving unit and library that will accompany the Groups & Spaces site to provide a physical interface for the information gathered through the site. Bring some beer, something green and let’s talk about groups and spaces!