Waiting for Cargo

Del underground a las redes: Industrias Mikuerpo, 1994-199

Wed, 26 May 2010 06:57:20 +0200

Today I am taking part, together with Luis Navarro and Amador Fernández Savater, in the presentation of "Industrias Mikuerpo. Un proyecto de gestión cultural independiente (1994-1999)", in Madrid's Traficantes de Sueños bookshop.

The publication, a summary of the 5 years of activity of an initiative which moved on from the cultural agitation of independent publications and mail art to network activism, takes up the form of an anthology, following the "Industrias Mikuerpo" project chronologically from the founding of the legendary "Amano" fanzine, through its integration in activism networks, all the way through its becoming one of the Spanish nodes of the Luther Blissett Project, and culminating with the Art Strike 2000-2001 initiative. The chief historical value of the book is its role as a document of one of the few Spanish initiatives that managed to effect the transition between two distinct paradigms of non-conformist cultural action, a difficult and disconcerting drift, but one which has so far remained outside the body of literature about these movements from the second half of the 1990's.

Co·labor

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 03:05:54 +0200

Co·labor is a workgroup poised on designing and developing an independent study programme focused on experimenting with new educational methodologies in the realm of art education.

Co·labor is an initiative of Aula de Propulsión Escópica, a collective founded in 2007 with no fixed address. The interests of the collective lie in the field of art education, and, more specifically, on the intersection of the latter with technologocial innovation. In this sense, Co·labor is a project of research in the field of new technologies applied to the production of knowledge from the vantage point of art practices.

The initiave was triggered by an alarming lack of educational supply in the realm of art and cultural production in the city of Madrid, which reveals the need to re-think art education from the vantage point of structures with a non-affirmative stance.

Far from attempting to replace existing educational programmes, the aim of the project is to situate itself in already existing interstices, creating a catalogue of workshops and courses which can act as bridges across the abyss which separates university art training and the production of reflection and independent critical thought.

Thus, what the project puts forwars is a work plan articulated around the imagination of content and the design of structures of research, where the diverse realms of knowledge and the varied degrees of experience of its members will collaborate in the creation of non-affirmative fictions.

At the moment, Co·labor is integrated by Teresa Solar, Carlos Fernández Pello, Paloma Checa Gismero, Javier Noguerol, Javier Fresneda, Jesús Pedraza, Kamen Nedev, Antonio Ruiz Montesinos, and Alberto Franco Díaz. Its current workspace is located in Rampa.

Watch this space.

Kamen Nedev

Cartas de navegación urbana

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 17:54:56 +0200

A few days ago I was invited, as a member of El deseo de andar, to take part in "Cartas de navegación urbana. Utopías urbanas para el siglo XXI", an initiative of Paisaje Transversal where, last April the 8th and 9th, we shared a panel with Observatorio Metropolitano, Andrés Walliser, Carlos Verdaguer, and José Antonio Corraliza, among others, in Madrid's ETSAM.

The invitation was focused on presenting the El deseo de andar collective project from the vantage point of other methodologies and representation strategies, as well as other ways of dealing with information obtain from urban research, particularly so in relation to the very interesting workshop directed by Paisaje Transversal during the past week (see a pdf with the full programme), and which was driven by the idea of developing other means of obtaining, mapping, analysing and visualising the huge amount of data produced by contemporary cities.

For El deseo de andar, these sessions represented our first public activity since our participation in the "Aptitud para las armas" exhibition back in 2008, and, therefore, implied a proof of the continuing interest of the project. At the same time, it prompted us to review the past trajectory of El deseo de andar from November 2007 onwards, and to consider the possibility of other public initiatives in the future.

The final presentation of the "Cartas de navegación urbana" workshops took place last Friday 16th at Madrid's Patio Maravillas cultural centre.

Kamen Nedev

The End Is The Beginning Is The End Is... : MODIFI

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:10:04 +0200

"MODIFI - Models, Differences and Fictions in the Independent Production of Culture" is an international symposium organised by Liquidacion Total, with the Madrid Goethe-Institut, the Austrian Cultural Forum, and with the collaboration of the Madrid Independent Art Agents.

MODIFI is structured in three day-long sessions which will take place next October 22nd, 23rd and 24th 2009, and will consist in a workshop with non-profit contemporary art agents and spaces in which we will collectively engage the specific problematic of our local context, and an international symposium focussed on the axes of City Policies, Social Function and Aesthetics and Cultural Production.

As those of you who have been following us in the past year and a half might have noticed, this is the only project on our programme for 2009.

Both for me, personally (this will be my last stand with Liquidación Total) as for the collective as a whole, MODIFI represents a turning point, a highly necessary reflection we want to share with everyone, and a reflection we want to undertake in public. It is a case of a re-evaluation of a way of understanding independent cultural practice, forced by the deep transformations in the productive and cultural realm of the last two decades.

For this purpose, we have opted for a multi-voice, open and public format. We have programmed a series of discussion sessions in which we have attempted to involve the largest possible number of fellow cultural agents from Spain or abroad, not so much with the intention of a descriptive task of pointing out certain negative tendencies in the cultural realm, but, rather, so that our own crisis can allow an opening up of the gaze and launch a series of thoughts/actions which can reinvigorate the sense of the scenario of social and cultural conflict as a scenario loaded with potentiality and restlessness.

For full info on MODIFI, please visit http://www.modifi.es

Kamen Nedev

P.S. This time, seriously, I plan to keep a day-by-day log of the goings-on.

Zig-Bee: Encuentro de espacios artísticos autogestionados

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:40:37 +0200

Zig-Bee attempts to be that background buzz emitted by the totality of cultural agents whose constant activity motivates the current cultural scene and its configuration, far removed form linear systems and following the movement of spontaneous creation.

Zig-Bee, organised by El Hervidero, proposes a summit of different agents from the cultural sector in order to analyse, reflect upon and posit the possibilities of design and setting in course of self-managed and independent art spaces. It is a platform for the exchange and circulation among creators, agents, and spaces, which makes possible an active relationship of artistic collaboration.

During the event, there will be conferences, presentations of art spaces, and debates and creation. Furthermore, Zig-Bee will present the exhibition “X,Y, Lugares”, on the new configuration of art spaces. The exhibition will take over two spaces in the city of Gijón: El Hervidero’s exhibition hall, and the Celestino Solar Citadel.

Liquidación Total will take part with a presentation on October the 1st and a conference on October 2nd. It will be a good opportunity to revise our six-year long life-span and to present in public our forthcoming project: MODIFI.

Other participating projects and collectives include Espacio Abisal, Otro Espacio, Aulabierta, and Espacio Tangente, among others.

1st, 2nd and 3rd of October, 2009.
Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto, 21 Jovellanos Street, Gijón.

For further info, the full programme can be downloaded here.

Kamen Nedev

PLAZA 09: Producción e investigación en arte

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 20:41:50 +0200

PLAZA is a project by Paloma Checa Gismero, Carlos Fernández Pello, and Fernando Baños Fidalgo. It consists in an interactive initiative for debate and reflection on education and art production, in which the traditional exhibition space will be used as a heterodox place for exchange and learning.

PLAZA proposes a series of formats which attempt to prompt participation and unblock the traditional hierarchy among attendands. The sessions will take place through discussion groups, informal talks, correspondence conferences, round tables, pecha-kuchas, breakfasts and afternoon snacks, as well as presentations of projects and art artifacts. All of this will be articulated around the following three areas:

MAKING DO: Strategies for Art Production and Management

"Making Do" will approach the figure of the artist as a cultural producer in an expanded field of work. It is increasingly common for artists to also work in production and the process aspect of the work while at the same time they manage the economic, political, theory and formal context of their production.

RECOVERING AESTHETICS: The Image As An Element of Dissent

"Recovering Aesthetics" takes up as a starting point the critique of the use, in the art realm, of "the aesthetic" as that which is "artistic, with a beautiful and elegant aspect" [Dictionary of the Spanish Royal Academy of Language]. This understanding of the term, which is fully integrated in everyday speech, and keep appearing, disturbingly, in the disourse of culture industry professionals, producers and managers alike.

ON THE SIDELINES: Other Spaces for Artistic Research

"On The Sidelines" adds to the debate the need to strive for new spaces, methodologies and parametres of interpretation, which can allow the reflection on the image and its production to aquire a true meaning through their practice.

I have been invited to participate in the last session of PLAZA'09, next Friday
September 11th 2009, starting at 17:00.

For further information, list of participants, and programme details, see here.

Kamen Nedev

Especies de Espacios: Taller de Liquidación Total en EACC

Wed, 13 May 2009 23:25:08 +0200

“Especies de espacios: Esquemas abiertos de producción cultural” is a workshop by Liquidación Total for the Espai d’Art de Castelló, organised by Barra Diagonal, which I will direct next Friday the 15th and Saturday 16th of May.

Liquidación Total is a non-profit cultural association which supports, develops and exhibits international contemporary art projects in its exhibtion space in Madrid’s quarter of Malasaña.

http://www.liquidaciontotal.org

Workshop Structure

The proposal consists in opening up a space for discussion which can allow the Liquidación Total team to disseminate the knowledge and know-how it has acquired in the past six years. The aim is an open discussion with the participants which can allow a look forward into the future, formulating a set of curatorial and management guides for independent cultural producers who are setting out on their task in the present.

In order to generate a truly productive work environment, not to limit the work sessions to a single-lane transmission of data and information which is already available online, and to allow for a process of true exchange and production of knowledge in the context of Processos I.
Producción 1.3, the workshop will be structured around a case study: conceiving and proto-typing an independent cultural project in the context of a fictional city neighbourhood. This methodology will allow us to engage our work from the standpoint of the definition and proposed solution of specific problemas, and will allow the know-how of Liquidación Total to be presented in the adequate context for each situation.

Session I: Friday 15th, 16:00 - 20:00

What is Liquidación Total. What we do, what we’re attempting to do here. Work methodology. Defining the problem. On the notions of “project” and “prototype”.

Session II: Saturday 16th, 10:00 - 14:00

The social production of space. High art, grassroots culture, and access points to cultural production. The aesthetics of social relations. Spaces and places. The problem of the public. Species of spaces.

Session III: Saturday 16th, 16:00 - 20:00

The institutional eco-system and independent cultural production. Again with the public: mediation. Other forms of producing public space.

We will outline and discuss these issues, among others:

Coexistence with cultural institutions in the era of city marketing and the production of symbolic capital.
Art mediation in the independent realm.
Think globally, act locally: international collaboration in a global culture.
Working from the roots: independent art spaces as tools for cultural agency of local communities.

The workshop is mainly targeted at cultural agents such as artists, independent managers, and members of social collectives.

More information at the Barra Diagonal website and in this leaflet.

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Kamen Nedev

Top-Down & Bottom-Up: Antonio R. Montesinos

Thu, 7 May 2009 19:51:40 +0200

This is definitely going to be a busy weekend. Tomorrow, May the 9th, practically at the same time as this other show, Antonio R. Montesinos presents his exhibition “Top-Down & Bottom-Up” at Espacio Emergente, Málaga.

Ese extraño lugar. Regina de Miguel & Diego del Pozo Barriuso

Thu, 7 May 2009 14:53:41 +0200

Here, Regina de Miguel and Diego del Pozo Barriuso’s creative processes find tangential lines along which to reflect on the spaces of consciousness, memory and some symptoms of pain in the spaces we inhabit. As usual in their respective creative work, fictions allow us to emphasise other potential constructions of the real.

Circo Interior Bruto, 1999-2005

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 14:08:46 +0200

Today is the 10th Anniversary of the first production meeting of a project which was presented in public two months later, in June 1999, under the name Circo Interior Bruto. It was a collective creative research project articulated by a group which included former members of the late Zona de Acción Temporal team (Rafael Lamata, Jaime Vallaure and François Winberg) as well as an amalgam of artists and cultural producers from the emerging art scene of Madrid (Jesús Acevedo, Belén Cueto, Marta de Gonzalo y Publio Pérez Prieto, Rafael Suárez, Teresa del Pozo, Kamen Nedev, Eduardo Navarro and Luis Naranjo).

The project adopted the allegorical image of a circus and, even though it was initially designed to be a nomadic project, it soon moved into its studio in Jesús y María street, in the Madrid quarter of Lavapiés; a space which would become both the production studio and the space of public presentation of the future shows of the Circo Interior Bruto. The initial proposal, deeply rooted in the production strategies of the Spanish parallel art scene of that decade, included its own sell-by date: it was considered that the project would require twleve months for its production, after which it would close down and open up the space for new initiatives. Of course, that's not how things worked out, and the initial propsal, entitled "The Creation of the World in 11 Circus Shows", was followed by another four years of creative work and research.

Although its members were coming from very diverse fields of cultural production modes and aesthetic and artistic philosophies, the Circo Interior Bruto soon centred its reseach on the exploration of presence and real-time production in art. Its idiosyncrratic aesthetic presence (these were no "projects", these were cirsus "shows", and each was directed by one or two "masters of ceremonies") soon opened up a hybrid realm of exploration, which situated the initiative within a space of permanent instability, somewhere between the fields of contemporary art, theatre, and live art. This not only helped put the Circo Interior Bruto on the map of independent art production in Madrid, but it also allowed it to generate its own audience, posing a point of access to art production which avoided the channels established for that purpose.