I’m giving a paper on Saturday in the Session: Dark Matter of the Art World II, which is in the Trianon Ballroom from 2.30 – 5.00pm. My paper is called Furtherfield Inside Out, here’s the abstract:
This paper will present and theorise the work of the UK-based arts community Furtherfield.org with reference to the session’s proposed notion that such work ‘performs aesthetic anarchy outside designated art domains and embeds itself in social conflict’. It will focus on three Furtherfield.org projects: Visitor’s Studio, DIWO and Zero Dollar Laptop, describing how they instigate an alternate artistic activity rich with meaning and the capacity for social and cultural change – without ever making it onto the mainstream art radar. It will closely examine the way such projects empower participants, challenge conventions for artistic engagement, and set out a cohesive and transformative critical practice. It will contrast this stance with naturalised systems of art discourse, making a strong case for how this type of ‘phenomena’ redevelops the creative and critical landscape.
This paper was partly inspired by a new short video by Pete Gomes on the work of Furtherfield. Due to time constraints, I can’t show the video with my paper, but it’s exactly how I would illustrate what I’m going to talk about, if I could, so I’m including the video here as as an appropriately online demonstration of my topic and indeed the field of arts I specialise in. Enjoy!
Furtherfield – a Short Film by Pete Gomes from Furtherfield on Vimeo.