PUMPS @ Proximos Festival in Tenerife

Jérôme and I are in Santa Cruz de Tenerife with Bonnie and Simone. They kindly invited us to their festival proximos.eu .

We're making an installation called PUMPS, a kind of interactive mechanical and electric sound(ok total noise!) mixer in the El-Pa-So bookshop. Here below are some photos of the first building day and today we're completing the installation. Tonight it will be open to the public and we will make a projection of films by Dominic Gagnon(ca) and Clémentine Lemaître(fr) and there will be performances by some local circuit benders. Find out more info on the proximos.eu website.

Team meeting at the juice shop. (Kyd, Simone, Jérôme)Suction cup sensor holder.
All the gear ready to move down to the bookshop for installation.

One of the new foot pumps.
The first balloon blown up.

We're building trhis project on the spot. Before we came we prepared some small motors and though about what kind of interaction we'd like to have. When we got here we found this great red air pump on Simone's roof and we thought it looked just like the kind of power button you'd like to stomp on. We then decided to stick the motors directly onto the glass, and to have them turn on and off by the visitors. So basically... in order to 'compose' some noise, you should keep pumping the pumps (5) which blow up balloons, which, as they rise touch the small switches and turn the motors on. Simple...silly...and funny for here because these pumps are really typical since everyone has all kinds of beach inflatables.





scattered, looking for the integrated

I'm in Brussels, working with OKNO.

I'm making some research now and realizing that most art centers and established groups are primarily organizational, not actually content producers. I'm making a huge research, looking into as many art groups/centers as possible. (I must say I am focused on a certain scale of group and generally non-commercially focused ones)

I don't mean to seems upset here about this, maybe it sounds a bit depressing. I'm just looking for groups working in a specific way right now.

And a lot of them stick to content and conversation that is related to organizational/structural issues.

I'm looking now trying to find groups that are well organized, working well and who are also producing content, dealing with some theory. I want to find the ones who are really integrating their organizational activities and production with their ideas and content.

sososo much curating/producing is simply too focused on politics and structure... not actually about inspired content. ( I know that statement is controversially stated, I lack vocabulary, sorry)

I must say of course that art orgs always discuss content a bit, but really it seems visible to me that this is not the forefront focus.

some groups in Europe I think might be working in the way I'm looking for (activity complements content):

= OKNO (Brussels)
= Monochrom (Vienna)
= Arduino/ tinker.it (Italy/USA)
= Time's Up (Linz)
= Amorphy (Athens)
= Koelse: Association of experimental electronics (Helsinki)
= WhiteLabel (Prague)
= Incident.org/RYBN (Paris)
= Binaural/Nodar (Portugal)

I am continuing my research and I know that today I am acting quite minimal with my list. I'll add more.
If you have any suggestions, let me know.

I'm also going to try a bit to define what I am looking for better. If you know these groups then maybe it already makes sense to you.

=====================

ok comments... Max said I better explain better...
I'll try harder here... (from a chat today)

max
mmm
very difficult
your list includes companies, artist run centers and artists collectives
not equal to compare
kyd
then I didn't explain well
i can compare them somehow on the basis of their wokring pace maybe
how much separation there is between organization/structuring and their content activities
for these groups there is not so much I feel
for example... studioxx
makes nothing, just is a platform
and only dicusses really the conditions for the artists, female artists and digital working methods...
this is of course valid content
but it remains on political and organizational level
and this is of course ok, its relevant
but
MOST art groups and spaces today are dialoging on that level...
and for me its too much!
i wanna see people living their ideas more, not just this pragmatic, structural stuff
make more sense?
max
refection and execution
first you understand and then you take action
in the case of studioxx
this would be that they do foster the discourse in the community
kyd
well it can still be very experimental in some ways
but studioxx is really typical, most art groups are organized just like that
max
and later the community would result in better artworks or whatever because of the discouse and reflection
kyd
yes of course they do, but they're really very disconnected then from the productions that come out of the discourse, there is a separation
and the people organizing the discourse and those actually speaking it and making the work after it are not the same in this case
they're simply a platform, empty somehow, (but that's the point of a platform, to give space)
i mean... they have a role
... the reason why i am NOT looking for that kind of group is because actually I don't think they make very good collaborators, there is only structure and not actually enough content there
all these art groups say they're there to be collaborative, especially internationally, but most of there are not actually good at it
they can all produce pretty well, and take good responsibility for the parts of projects they decide to take on
but when it comes ot collaboratively generating ideas, researching and generating works from them... they're not so capable (most don't attempt)
these groups I listed don't make much separation between the different bits of their activities, and since they're so into it all, they have more potential for deeper ongoing idea work, with other such groups and then they also have the tools and energy to produce the content
pweh... who knows, maybe its only about who has lots of energy....


I don't think I am being idealistic here or saying any way of working is greater than others... I'm just looking for something very specific right now.

Rainbows on Peruvian TV



TVPeru's show www.presenciacultural.com made this preportage on the projects at Interactivos. Tey came on that last day, right before the opening, that's why we all look so tired and sweaty!

http://www.presenciacultural.com/blog/

Interactivos?09 = Rainbows = gallery video 1

Here is justa first clip... I have more and will edit them in the next days!
I'm back in Berlin!