In attendance – James Andrews, G.H. Hovagimyan, ThomasHutchison, Raphaele Shirley, Edita Zulic
Conflux festival has accepted our proposal for theirfestival Sept.11th-14th the proposal is on the A.M.Website http://artistsmeeting.orgunder the link Public Exhibition Space.James says that we should try and have some presence at the Center forArchitecture that will be the main meeting point for the exhibition.
Part of the proposal was to create a psycho-geographical mapsuperimposed on the map of publicly owned private spaces. Raphaele suggestedthat we select sites from the NYC gov map http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/priv/mndist1.shtml
And create placards that go next to the placards that are already on the site.
She suggested printing on silver paper and laminating tofoamcore and then attaching to the wall.The new placards would have phrases or sayings from the Artists Meetinggroup.The psycho-geographical mapwould then be placed at the festival galley space for people to look at and/orfollow to see the interventions we plan to do.The content of the placards can be stream of thought,psycho-geographical statements from the group.Here’s debords statement on psychogeography http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/urbgeog.htm
The brochure placed in the Center for Architecture can becalled a “library of concepts”
Division of Labor –
Since this is a large project we need to have severaldifferent people responsible for different sections of the project. If you wantto be involved in the projectplease sign up for a specific task and assume some responsibility.
printing
barricade tape and taping up areas- The suggestion is to print the phrase
“Public Exhibition Space and document via photo and video
produce
placards (conceptual psycogeographical statements)
office
temp interventions
Documentation
videos (shoot, burn dvd and take to Center for Architecture) set up tv
& player at architecture center, do daily “rushes”
Manufacture
of seating cushions
Raphaele
Finale “Melting City”
Do
psycho-geographical video interviews with people on the street in front of
chosen map places.
Since there is no money for thisproject we suggest that each member contribute $50.00 for materials.
GH says he will try and find outabout the materials for the arts to get some for the cushions.
Sign-up thus far.
Item 1.G.H.
Item 2. Raphaele
Item 3. James
Item 4.Raphaele
Item 5. Thomas
Item 6.Raphaele
Item 7.
It is important to have more than one person involved in each of these projects because they are each separate art works that should bearticulated as fully as possible.Also in the collaborative more than one person makes for better art !
In order to focus and facilitate the project we’ve decide toorganize a walkaround to the sites on Sunday July 13th.It’s probably best to meet at 11Harrison and plot our walking tour from there. Let’s meet at 11 am and perhapshave a brunch after a couple of hours someplace like the south street seaport.
Meeting Minutes – July 1, 2008
In attendance – James Andrews, G.H. Hovagimyan, ThomasHutchison, Raphaele Shirley, Edita Zulic
Conflux festival has accepted our proposal for theirfestival Sept.11th-14th the proposal is on the A.M.Website http://artistsmeeting.orgunder the link Public Exhibition Space.James says that we should try and have some presence at the Center forArchitecture that will be the main meeting point for the exhibition.
Part of the proposal was to create a psycho-geographical mapsuperimposed on the map of publicly owned private spaces. Raphaele suggestedthat we select sites from the NYC gov map http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/priv/mndist1.shtml
And createplacards that go next to the placards that are already on the site.
She suggested printing on silver paper and laminating tofoamcore and then attaching to the wall.The new placards would have phrases or sayings from the Artists Meetinggroup.The psycho-geographical mapwould then be placed at the festival galley space for people to look at and/orfollow to see the interventions we plan to do.The content of the placards can be stream of thought,psycho-geographical statements from the group.Here’s debords statement on psychogeography http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/urbgeog.htm
Also check google image search -> situationist maps
The brochure placed in the Center for Architecture can becalled a “library of concepts”
Division of Labor –
Since this is a large project we need to have severaldifferent people responsible for different sections of the project. If you wantto be involved in the projectplease sign up for a specific task and assume some responsibility.
printing
barricade tape and taping up areas- The suggestion is to print the phrase
“Public Exhibition Space and document via photo and video
produce
placards (conceptual psycogeographical statements)
office
temp interventions
Documentation
videos (shoot, burn dvd and take to Center for Architecture) set up tv
& player at architecture center, do daily “rushes”
Manufacture
of seating cushions
Raphaele
Finale “Melting City”
Do
psycho-geographical video interviews with people on the street in front of
chosen map places.
Since there is no money for thisproject we suggest that each member contribute $50.00 for materials.
GH says he will try and find outabout the materials for the arts to get some for the cushions.
Sign-up thus far.
Item 1.G.H.
Item 2. Raphaele
Item 3. James
Item 4.Raphaele
Item 5. Thomas
Item 6.Raphaele
Item 7.
It is important to have more than one person involved ineach of these projects because they are each separate art works that should bearticulated as fully as possible.Also in the collaborative more than one person makes for better art !
In order to focus and facilitate the project we’ve decide toorganize a walkaround to the sites on Sunday July 13th.It’s probably best to meet at 11Harrison and plot our walking tour from there. Let’s meet at 11 am and perhapshave a brunch after a couple of hours someplace like the south street seaport.
In attendance, Daniel Blochwitz, Thomas Hutchison, G.H.
GH says that he has a streaming video server that can offer different
playlists of videos. The playlists can be set to random play so that
a piece such as the gumbo@dumbo can be streamed and all the separate
video will shuffle. He proposed that the group use his video server
in some project. One suggestion was to do the day in the life as a
video project. Each person can shoot video in short clips of say,
10sec, - 1min and put the on the video server. If this is random
select it would create interesting narratives.
Daniel had suggested a video exquisite corps. He proposed to have
each person shoot some video and then hand the camera to the next
person telling them only what the last shot was. This would create
the video equivalent of the exquisite corps. G.H. says he just got an
HD video camera and was willing to let the group use it to produce
this video project.
GH says that the group can exhibit a streamed video piece as an
installation in the Split Festival of New Film in Split, Croatia http://www.splitfilmfestival.hr/eng.htm
Sept.13th – 21st 2008.
The meeting then turned to discussing the LMCC Swing Space.
The group thought it would be good to ask for a Presentation Space
and write a proposal that would call for a series of artists meetings
that had 2 components, first, a private meeting for the group and
then later a public meeting/ presentation for other artists to
presents their work on a open call/ demo format.
The notion is a potluck artists’ presentation for one hour or so.
LMCC has some equipment such as data projectors that could make this
possible. The group would use the space as an ongoing workspace to
put up, drawings, photos, brainstorming, etc..
Daniel said that we could put up a notice/ open call on the NYFFA
list. GH said that this would attract a bunch of careerist painters
looking to plug into the art market and would be the opposite of the
groups intention.
The group then thought that organizing nights according to a theme
might be better such as:
Theoretical presentations, Performance art, software Demo party, Food
Event.
Daniel suggested we ask for 8 weeks for this and have a party/
exhibition at the end of the residency. Part of the proposal is to
create a pdf document/ catalog that can be online and also printed
out for the final exhibition. GH says that he has some sound
equipment, and speakers that can be used for [presentations as well
as an old laptop. The idea is to limit the presentations to CD slide
show, powerpoint presentation or dvd. If we have internet access we
can also do such things as a youTube jam or a mySpace jam session/party.
The proposal to LMCC is due by June 27th. The group should add
recommendations now so that GH can write the proposal.
In attendance - James Andrews, Daniel Blochwitz, G.H. Hovagimyan, Alan Moore
We continued the discussion of what to propose for the conflux festival. James said that he looked at the online form for conflux and that it asked for 250 word proposal and a website for the actual proposed work. (I just checked this and it's true)
We took up the proposal by Daniel to do something with the public/ private spaces downtown. Daniel said he had spoken with some city officials who were interested in a map of all the public spaces in New York.
G.H. noted that the conflux festival - (http://confluxfestival.org/conflux2008/ ) was focused on lower manhattan.
Discussion continued on the idea of public/ private ownership and maintenance of parks and public spaces and the what that means for public spaces in the city in general. The discussion shifted to the homeless who use the public spaces. Obviously there are efforts by private managers of public spaces to ban the homeless from using public spaces. Alan said that there is an organization called Picture the Homeless that tries to clean-up the homeless, give them clean clothing etc.. He also said that this organization works with artists to change the perception of homeless people. James talked about the traffic barriers in the meatpacking district to create pedestrian space and the proposal to put a restaurant on union square park parade ground.
The discussion continued with the idea of Psychogeography. The call from Conflux for proposals specifically asked for works to reflect the idea of psychogeography -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogeography
There was a wide reaching discussion on types of art works that focus on real estate and critiqued usage and psychogeography. G.H. talked about Hans Haacke slumlords piece. Daniel & James talked about Ester Partegas. She did a series of performances about trying to eat on the street such as sitting on a fireplug with a plate of spaghetti in her lap.
It was agreed that the park tape up was not the direction for the group to pursue for the conflux festival. G.H. said that based on the number of public/ private spaces and the number of days for the conflux festival, it should be possible to do a number of different projects engaging each of the spaces on the map.
James talked about working downtown during his LMCC residency. G.H. Talked about living on Fulton Street. After the workday the area shuts down. It's actually a depressed neighborhood. Alan said that Lower Manhattan is a world Heritage Site.
The group decided to create a proposal for multiple perfomance/ intervention in the public/ private spaces of lower manhattan. G.H. said that this needs to be done in the next two days because he is traveling for the next two weeks and the deadline is May 31st.
Here's the suggestions for interventions at the public/ private spaces.
1. Tape up benches with tape that says "closed to the public"
2. Go to each space wit ha group & a video camera and start critiquing the architecture or simply start laughing at the space and encourage passersby to join in the laughter.
3. make additional benches to put downtown for people to sit.
4. do special actions for the office temps who may also be artists such as;
a. office temp yoga
b. capitalism de-programming session
c. office temp lunch time hook-up
d. temp T.A.Z.
e. interview temps and podcast the videos
5. Make pillow cushions for public benches that have reproductions of the commemorative plaques for each of the public/ private spaces. These would be used to make people (especially homeless) feel more comfortable.
James suggested wording of the proposal would include - "each project will engage specific micro-communities from downtown such as office temps, homeless, immigrants, DMV clients, 9/11 tourists, Stone Street restaurant patrons etc..
Because to time constraints it is important to create the proposal and website within the next few days before the deadline.
Artists Meeting – minutes April, 8, 2008
In attendance –James Andrews, Daniel Blochwitz, Eliza Fernbach, G.H. Hovagimyan, Thomas Hutchison,
The group discusses moving ahead with the project of putting warning tape across the entrances of Madison Square Park (23rd & Madison Ave). Thomas had visited the site as had Eliza Fernbach. Thomas had drawn a map of the park and counted eight entrances.
The discussion was the sequencing – Each taper gets 2 entrances, one to tape up and then walk to the another entrance and take down the tape. There was another level of philosophical discussion about public space/ private space. Also the notion of Dérive , a situationist technique, originally conceived to disrupt the flow of consumerism. Daniel talked about the idea of free cities in Germany and G.H. talked about Hakim Bey’s book T.A.Z
(temporary autonomous zone as being inspired by the idea of pirate democracies in the Caribbean in the 18th century.
The discussion of how to proceed with the Madison Square Park was discussed. Thomas said there is an arts organization. He had researched getting a film permit but thought it was too costly. He said a parks permit was much easier and more appropriate. GH said when they met the British guy doing the gorilla projections on Union Square Park, didn’t even have a parks department permit. The park manager told him he couldn’t have loudspeakers but he could project on the facades of the buildings.
Eliza Fernbach talked about her project Rushing to Your Death? And there was some free association on the idea of pausing or reflecting. The discussion was about what to print on the warning tape and also the title of the project.
Some suggestions were;
Special Bulletin
Pause
Faire La Pause
Piano Piano
Fünfzehm
Break time
Closed for Surveillance
The idea of pausing the park was proposed and the idea of having various languages on the tapes was discussed.
James said we should have a “fake construction” billboard that said “future site of “ and have a picture of the park cover by a mammoth skyscraper with the park on the top!
Tomas said he would meet with the Madison Square Arts committee and propose our project.
Meeting Minute March 30, 08 SCOPE Art Fair & [PAM]
Written by Administrator
Monday, 31 March 2008
Artists Meeting minutes -- Sunday March 30th, 2008
The Meeting took place at the SCOPE Art Fair at the [PAM] installation and VIP lounge.
In attendance were Lee Wells, Raphaele Shirley, Chris Borkowski, Edita Zulic, Thomas Hutchison, James Andrews, Bethany Fancher, G.H. Hovagimyan.
The meeting had two parts, one was a walk through the art fair by GH, James, & Bethany critiquing and discussing the art fair. the second part was a group discussion. Both parts were documented with video and still images. The video camera was passed around so that various people took turns as cameraperson.
The group agreed to pursue the project proposed by Thomas involving taping off the entrances to a park. GH suggested Madison Square Park and thought that getting a film permit would keep police from being to aggressive towards the project. Thomas said he would try and get a permit for May 1st.
The meeting discussion was rather lively. Part of the realization was that simply meeting and talking was quite a creative event. Raphaele and James decided that a large scale artwork/theme park was the next step past the art fairs.
GH said he will digitize the videos shot at SCOPE. The group decided to have a formal meeting on April 8th at GH's
Artists Meeting at SCOPE Art Fair [PAM] installation March, 2008
The potluck was great.
An abundance of ethnic treats such as Bosnian "Pita" and “shredded salad”
along with two yummy Quiches, Chicken and a Chicken-rice concoction, and
many flasks of red wine were provided by Edita, Raphaele, Lee, Chris
,Bethany, Thomas, Mookie (nsumi), Maureen, James, and Lara – who was
sporting a memorable flying hamburger T-shirt.
(did I forget anyone?)
The evening was more about frolicking and opulence than digesting the
various proposals up for consideration, however some time was spent
looking over and discussing the Creative Capital grant app in progress.
As this discussion occurred after a hunk of the group had already left
(..blame the wine), and with out GH and Daniel not in attendance, it might
be wise to have the discussion spill over into email. The big ideas were:
- the text in progress still needs work. There was question as to what CC
would and would not fund.
- a new idea from Maureen: launch an artists’ think tank. (which is also,
an old unrealized nsumi idea). To this Lee added in the idea of a lobbying
service; and to this James added that we draft up a set of proposals on
what we think the feds should doing in support of the arts, create a
serious proposal, and set up a meeting with the Obama cultural
representative in NY (hedging our bets that Obama will win), in the hopes
that he/she would take the ideas to heart and remember us next year.
- Chris provided some sage advice regarding the way that grant panels
operate and the nuance of writing project descriptions.
- Bethany noted that we might not actually need a grant to do any of this
and that our time and energies might well be better spent developing the
project rather than engaging yet another bureaucracy.
Many more things were discussed! As I had not planned to be the scribe,
this is all from memory. Additional recollections are welcome!
In attendance – James Andrews, Daniel Blochwitz, Bethany Fancher, G.H. Hovagimyan, Joao Salema.
Daniel is working on developing his Common Sense project in a WIKI form. GH has put up the wiki at http://nujus.net/mediawiki
The project is perfect of a rhizome commission. Daniel needs the help of some members to write the rhizome grant and also maye Chris can help with the layout of the WIKI. James mentioned that the Langlois Foundation is interested in both creating digital archives and having their archive used for research. The common sense project could be the reason to apply to Langlois for a research residency. James has suggested that there be a panel discussion along with the launch of the final project. (common sense wiki) .
Lee has invited A.M to do a project for scope. The group will have access to a data projector & screen. Chris has said that he will set up the same computer set-up as we used for dumbo. There has been some discussion online about using wifi webcams to set up a market surveillance of the art fair. GH says that we can set up a text messaging app using a cellphone and sms this can be input into the patch.
There is also the possiblility of having two or more people doing live audio discussions/interviews and feeding that into the patch. This would function as an overview/critique of the market. James remarked that the text and the general imagery for the patch should be slowed down because it flashed by too fast at dumbo. The date for SCOPE is March 27th.
The group talked about proposing to the Kunsthalle Exnergasse in Vienna Daniel suggests picking 3 projects from the Whitney proposal and developing a proposal. There is a 1500 euro stipend, plus a technicien. http://kunsthalle.wuk.at/5e/frame.htm
The Deadline is March 1st. This is an excellent opportunity.
Maria Joao talked about making the AM site more image friendly. GH said that Chris’s new editor and database is excellent and should be used. The group talked about a new common project like and exqusite corp where everyone could add images. Bethany Fancher came up with the name NO PURPOSE. GH remarked that that was a situationist method. He said he would put up a page on the AM site that everyone could add to and that it would be a good way to exercise using the JCE editor. Note: the page is up and it can be added to with separate layers. The boxes are already in place. Read Chris’s howTo upload images tutorial.
There was some discussion on email etiquette. James had suggested doing a stealth email loop. GH said that would result in our IP being banned as a spam server.
There was a discussion about the eviction of artists from 475 Kent Ave. The discussion was very lively and was a starting point for an analysis of art production and the use of artists to gentrify a neighborhood. James had suggested the group do something but there was not any consensus on what to do. GH said that artist need to seek different ways to make art that don’t fit into the same old production model. Note: Bethany posted a blog on AM enlarging on this discussion. She remarked that one of the reasons she was riding a horse across the country was that she had lost here studio.
There was also a discussion about whether to add a political action section to the AM site.
GH had also said that he had installed a project management module for the website called Hydra but had not configured it yet.
In attendance, Daniel Blochwitz, Chris Borkowski, Bethany Fancher, G.H. Hovagimyan, Raphaele Shirley, Lee Wells, Helena Winston
GH talks about the new mediawiki page- http://nujus.net/mediawiki Daniel is excited by the possibility of creating a project he has proposed for the group using the mediawiki. He suggests a one day workshop where the group learns the mediawiki interface and starts the project. GH suggests that we use Eyebeam as a place for a workshop. Lee Talks about wikipedia and suggests that each person starts a page about someone else in the group.
GH has a rough edit of the documentary footage for the gumbo@dumbo. He showed it during the informal cocktail part of the beginning of the meeting. He will bring copies for everyone for the next meeting. Lee suggests that the whole group get involved in editing the video. GH says that a great idea.
The Whitney Highline schedule is discussed. Lee suggests March 27th as a start date for the project. There is a question about when the pier show and the Whitney Bienniel is occurring, maybe at the same time? Everyone thinks it’s better to have an April, May, June & July time frame for the project. There is some discussion about David Little and what exactly was COLAB about and it’s organizing principles. The discussion then went to expanding the meaning of art and not letting the marketplace dictate the form and structure of art. It was pointed out that the Whitney is part of the marketplace but the education department is the part we would be operating under. There was a discussion of the idea of the artists patron, in this case the Whitney Museum, and what that meant. It was understood that with the more or less fringe nature of our groups activities, the Whitney would be supporting that type of loose, semi-curated experimental art event.
Raphaele suggested that if the Whitney didn’t happen we should look for different venues. Daniel suggested two trees in dumbo may have spaces and gh said LMCC. He also suggested the New York Cocoa Exchange as a possible site for an intervention. The building is at the corner of Fulton and Front Street and has NYU dorms in part of it.
Lee talked about the In Transition Show in Yektarinasburg Russia. He said that the patch Chris created with files for the gumbo@dumbo could be presented as a project by Artists Meeting. There was some discussion about whether to create new work and add more video clips to the database. This may be worth pursuing and enlarging on. The Exhibition is scheduled for October 15th .
GH also talked about possibly presenting Artists Meeting for Ars Electronica and the Split new film festival. GH also said that he was going to be in Europe from February 5th thru March 17th. If the Whitney started to happen the other members of the group would need to engage with David Little. Also Ther was agreement to have a meeting in two weeks instead of three because GH was leaving for Europe in 3 weeks.
Next meeting Scheduled for Tuesday January 29th at 7pm, GH’s place.
In Attendance – James Andrews, Chris Borkowski, Bethany Fancher, Thomas Hutchison, G.H. Hovagimyan, Lara Star Martini, Maria Joao Salema, Lee Wells Edita Zulic.
The discussion was about the design and uses of the website. The notion of total transparency of the creative process was discussed. The group asked that the email archive that was public be moved to the private section of the site. James suggested that revealing the whole process was getting to be an art world cliché. The group wrestled with the idea of what the site should be. Should it be a promo site for the group or a wide-open site to the public? Lee maintained that putting it all out there was a good thing while others thought that holding something back was appropriate. The discussion continued with the idea of a private internal section for project development and discussion that could be later edited and made public. Lee, G.H. & Chris said that everyone needed to register and start using the site in order to activate it and suggest how to make it into what they want.
James said that he felt that just making another artists website was not very interesting. G.H. talked about having the site be project driven and not open to a wide audience lke youTube. James said he’d like to follow up on gh’s idea of a “logo show.” GH also that the Whitney project was coming along and the brochures look very professional. Edita said that when people google her name the artists meeting site popped up with the santa dildos. Chris discussed metadata and how it affected search engines. Raphaele had photographed some of the bad santa pictures and they were uploaded onto the site by the time the meeting started.
Everyone talked about the party Saturday at Raphaeles.
Please log onto the AM site and add your thoughts to these minutes by using the comment section for registered users.
In attendance, James Andrews, Daniel Blochwitz, Chris Borkowski, Bethany Fancher, G.H. Hovagimyan, Bill? (NSUMI), Lara Star Martini, Raphaele Shirley, Lee Wells
The group talked about the Whitney Highline proposals. Everyone agrees to read or put their proposals online at the artists meeting list. The list archive to view back proposals is http://nujus.net/pipermail/artistsmeeting/
Please put your proposals up on the list ASAP <artistsmeeting(AT)nujus.net>
Chris suggested that a venture capitalist site called the funded might be a place to pitch the artists meeting fund. http://thefunded.com/
The Whitney proposals are the top concern for the group. Raphaele suggested we all read each other proposals and critique them in some manner. Lee suggested a winnowing down of proposals. GH said he thinks we should give them all the proposals as an example of the amount of energy the group has.
GH says that he will try and write an overview essay over the holidays that everyone can add to.
Lee suggests that we have a Table of Contents with a two sentence description for each proposal. One idea was to make the evolution of proposals ongoing. This can be done on the AM joomla site. It was suggested that this process of an ongoing evolution of proposals should be part of our methodology.
Daniel suggested that the idea of working together as an investigation is another viable strategy and overall theme.
The group talked about the idea of engagement in each others’ processes and also engaging the public. There was some discussion about including the public in the creative process as for instance a painting party and then the group re-packaging and presenting the finished product. GH pointed out that that’s a strategy similar to web 2.0. The group takes the position of privileged artist and aesthetic gatekeepers.
Raphaele unrolled the anti xmas mural and there was quite a bit of oohs and ahs! The final decision was that we would take separate photos of each rendition and use give them to the group as e-cards for xmas.
Finally it was agreed to meet at GH’s again in one week to finalize the Whitney proposals.
Meeting Minutes 
