The public is a network. The public is an artwork.
The network is not always active. The public is dispersed. The public is connected. Communities are connected. Networks are communities. Mapping networks makes connections.
Ideas are distributed across multiple modes.
Flows of people and goods travel on roads, cables, waterways, railways. New vehicles are designed for old roads. New ideas are designed for old media. Vested interests hijack social media to distribute a commercial message.
Provocative, important, timely ideas hijack any and every distribution system to activate the new. The network moves, responds, accommodates.
The public is activated. The public makes the public.
STEP 1: SURVEY THE SCENE
STEP 2: DEVELOP THE WORK
STEP 3: PRESENT THE WORK, ENGAGE THE COMMUNITY
STEP 1: SURVEY THE SCENE
SATURDAY, 4 DECEMBER / 1:00PM-3:00PM / THE WEST WING
This workshop catalogues the public activation potential of the 2010 South Project’s immediate environment: the commercial space outside of the West Wing. Melbourne Central is a retail and transport hub, a highly regulated space that accommodates the movements of tens of thousands of people each day. With each individual embodying the flow of countless networks as they come and go, what opportunities exist for artistic intervention? How can a network activate a mass of individuals?
Our first step is to survey the scene.
With forensic care, we will set upon the entire survey area with a range of tools and perspectives. Our aim will be to observe repeated movements, and identify and record the elements that compose them – such that these elements can be understood as the activation points of a network. These are the system’s moving parts, and their distribution fabricates a public that has common interests, common tastes and moves in a common direction.
We will then return to the West Wing to analyse our findings as a group, determining the sets of conditions for step 2, in which projects of artistic co-option will hijack these distribution points and activate a public by engaging a community.
(Participants should note that only Step 1 of the work will be attempted via this workshop.)
Esther Anatolitis presented Step 1: Survey the scene as part of The South Project’s 2010 international gathering How does a network activate a public? Our location was the West Wing, a temporary art space within the Melbourne Central Shopping Centre.
