06/16/2008: "Ship of Hope... On a Sea of Fools."

The image you see here is something Rui, Fernando and I worked on together and shipped off to Australia for an exhibition at the Yarra Sculpture Centre in Melbourne. I mention this because it is one of the things I find challenging about these new internet times: the new forms and possibilities of interaction between artists.

The way I see it, more and more, these are hard times for individual shows but favourable for artists to come together and organize interesting things, sharing the costs, burdens and laurels. Times for being artists for the love of art, in the hope that we attract some attention to what we are doing; and that eventually one or two things will sell and we can move on to the next project.

The present momentum started back in March when fellow aa artist Roxanne Brousseau-Félio responded to one of my blogs and invited me to take part in a project she was working on and join a network of artists she has set up called SpreadArt.net [ http://www.SpreadArt.net ]. Up until then I used to be overly cautious regarding things arranged over the internet but after visiting her site on aa - especially her videos - and a brief exchange of e-mails, my fears were washed aside. Roxanne planned to collect video footage from 38 artists in 16 countries and edit them into a video for Earth Day, and organize a live video-conference with the artists involved in cooperation with project _8_0_8_.

All artists were given guidelines for the intended project and on Earth Day I set out looking for my pothole in the middle of a busy road in which to plant my flower, complete with soil, and film the whole proceedings and reactions thereto. I missed the video-conference a few days later due to my own clumsiness and miscalculation of the time zones, waking up at 4am anticipating a connection that had happened earlier that day. But it turned out a success and Roxanne’s expedient efforts got the project aired on CNN [ http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/ireports/2008/06/02/ireport.for.cnn.blk.c.cnn ].

The connection for the Ship of Hope / Ship of Fools - One World project arrived in my in-box a few days later, again thanks to Roxanne’s generosity and ability to bring artists together. Upon her suggestion those of us who felt up to the challenge were to contact the curator of the project, Julie Collins-John, who would then send us a model of the ship plus additional instructions. We had to move fast, the ship had to be sent from Australia, assembled and worked on and sent back in time for the opening this coming Wednesday 18 June.

Working on a similar project with my studio companions I didn’t feel too good about going solo on this one and so I wrote Roxanne and Julie Collins-John if it would be OK to bring them in. The ship was on its way and we were like three little children waiting for a new toy to arrive. There was a brief brainstorming session and we agreed to start off from my original plan to do both a Ship of Hope and a Ship of Fools, all in one - one half would be riddled with holes, the other would have knots tied in. But by the time we received the envelope with the pieces for the 30cm long boat we had moved beyond that.

The ship could be tied on to a sea of transparent acrylic riddled with holes, but as we worked on that we felt that it wouldn’t gain sufficient power as an object and so we decided to tie knots into the holes - some of these would be long and undulating, others would be cut short - the knots that tied the boat and all the knots spurting out of the boat would be even longer and would be painted bright green. Very simplistic, really: as the ship sails ahead on a sea full of obstacles hope springs forth from it, and that’s when the final idea came to us of painting the knots on the acrylic plate black. A Ship of Hope on a Sea of Fools. Naturally I got most of the action on video for future use: One of the things we want to have in our own show in December is a video projection on one of the four walls in the gallery, clips from this collaboration will find their way into that and hopefully we can find other ways to link these two projects.

This time I hope not to get the time zones all mixed up and join in the video-conference fun with Rui and Fernando. If I got it right this time 8pm Australian Eastern Standard time should be 12 noon, when we’re all together at the studio.

You can see all the ships and read more about this project at http://shipoffools-shipofhope.blogspot.com/

Replies: 10 Comments

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on Monday, June 23rd, Andrew said

I hooked right up to the part about not knowing how everything worked, that it was all new to you, and how you couldn't fully explore everything without worrying about losing something else that was important. This feeling takes me back to what felt like a much more creative time...late high school, early college, where new experiences abounded, and new people to experience them with, too. In that sense, its a resource for creativity when people organize events like these, and you never know what's going to happen. Love it when they do!

on Friday, June 20th, Jennifer Moore said

I loved your article about artists coming together and using the medium to do it. I believe artists should collaborate more and use this medium to express their ideas and the things that we see which should be changed in our societies. We need to make the world ONE with art.

on Friday, June 20th, Jennifer Moore said

on Thursday, June 19th, josé said

Brad, Barney, don’t know where this will lead, but what a ride it is – for the first time ever I think I am game for the challenges and capable of contributing meaningfully to broader projects than simply my own. Funny you mention it Brad, I had a sentence I wiped out from the text about wishing to go beyond the ‘Me’ scope of things. These are interesting times indeed.

Arrived at the studio shortly before 9am yesterday and set things up: turn on computer, adjust camera, access the stage. Entering _8_0_8_ was like entering a space ship travelling at warp speed, merging together artists from across the globe. There was a screen on the left where you could see 4 video feeds, but they still weren’t active, they each had a fixed image of a different ship. There was a wonderful drone in the background, not music, but a drone from some synthesiser and sounds of people moving about and the occasional voice, getting things ready for initial presentation I deduced. And then we were off, the presentation seemed to me to be a mesh of the four cameras working together and coming up with constantly renewed images accompanied to poetry and recitation of texts. It was rather amazing and awe inspiring to me and to Rui who joined in later, we didn’t quite know what to do and didn’t want to press any buttons lest we interrupt the presentation, but I sensed that after it was over there were two other slots available for whoever wished to join in with images of their own and comments… we didn’t dare use them, we just watched and it was interesting enough. On the right hand side there was a chat-room style interface where people came and went, but I don’t really go for those, we said our good days and concentrated on the imagery. Unfortunately we had to miss the interaction amongst visiting artists that went on air after the presentation, students started to trickle in for their lessons at OD and we had to get things ready. I look forward to the next event and will try to be better informed about how to behave, what to press and when, once within the actual space. But all in all it was a very positive experience and it has triggered a lot of interesting connections and ideas for new avenues to explore.

I think I forgot to express my thanks in the blog, hope it’s not too late: Thank you Roxanne for hooking me up for this, Thank you Julie and Derek for taking us on Board, wish you the greatest success for the show and for your Solo in August, and Thanks to _8_0_8_ for the great presentation and the unforgettable experience of coming together live in an actual event with artists from so many different parts of the world.

on Wednesday, June 18th, Brad Michael Moore said

I hear you all.
In older times, with your closest friends - while we were free-flowing - collaborating, then, it was more like a group effort where - "With all of us trying - could we accomplish one cohesive expression with all the energy we could muster..."

Nowadays, we can come together without guessing so much what we can offer - we now know ourselves pretty well, in what we can offer. It is more the question of, "where will our particular sets of chemistry possible take us we haven't considered before. This should our new focus, these days... Lets find new partners, groups, and make the efforts to see what new grounds we can break... Perhaps, the wave of the future is collaborative art - and less, "Me" art!
Sincerely, Brad

on Wednesday, June 18th, Barney Davey said

Jose,

Thanks for the report on this wonderful project. That artists from around the globe are collaborating in this way to create awareness for worthy projects. Aside from World Peace, it doesn't get much broader in terms of challenges and consequences than Earth Day.

I didn't go into it in my post on Convergent Media, but I feel more and more visual artists who have been primarily 2D or sculpture are realizing the power of moving pictures and video as a way to further express themselves. Not that all will move away from paper or canvas, but some certainly will embrace technology and learn to harness it for artistic achievement and collaborative undertakings such as the Ship of Hope / Ship of Fools - One World projects brought to us by Jose.

Well done! Can't wait to see more.

on Tuesday, June 17th, jose said

Great to hear that Ellen, and I wish you much fun and success on that venture and the many more that will surely follow, I have found that once you start to pull on that thread there are many opportunities to be had. I find it funny though that being somehwt of a hermit and the computer being known to deepen such tendencies it is precisely through the computer that I'm getting out of my shell more and more these days. Only yesterday I was contacted by someone on another forum who lives near by and we agreed to go for a coffee by the river and discuss video art and a possible project later this year. It's like a parallel circuit is opening up.

Brad, I followed the previous blog but was a bit busy to post a comment. Convergent-Media is a good lable, things are still a bit raw but these are definitely interesting times if we decide to open up to different media, are they not? Oh, and I got the time wrong again - show is on from 6pm to 8pm [Oz] so I'll have to be at the studio at 9 tomorrow morning if I want to participate in that live video-conference. Will post a comment on how that goes.

on Tuesday, June 17th, Ellen said

How wonderful, Jose! The project sounds great! Interacting through the internet can be a great cure for stagnation or feeling down. I look forward to aa and the ideas of the bloggers from whom I've learned so much. I feel as if I personally know many of the participents and have actually met several of aa's artists in person. Although I have not collaborated with anyone recently, now I'm planning a joint show with a friend I met at an Art Expo some years ago. It was a five minute meeting and through emails, eventual telephone calls and later visits we became fast friends. Her name is Inga Poslitur and she is an exceptional illustrator. Inga proposed a great joint project a few months ago and we marveled at how in sinc we are...all from a five minute chance meeting in a hallway. I find myself more and more open to other artists and to sharing concepts, resources and time. Great blog, Jose!!

on Tuesday, June 17th, Brad Michael Moore said

Collaborations may always be filled with unknowns a'plenty - that's part of the excitement. Painters collaborating must be different from computer artists - or artists of mixed-media, and the recently coined, Convergent-Media. The common thread is humans interacting with humans. Their common thread is their creativity intermingled... Mediums, in the end, are second fiddle. Human interaction is metamorphosis! This is what we need to gather towards... The more distance between us we cover - to merge our divergent ideologies, the more singular the vision of our futures...

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06/16/2008: "Ship of Hope... On a Sea of Fools."