Neal White (Office of Experiments and Media School, Bournemouth University) works across media, and in no particular medium at all – creating projects with the Office of Experiments that develop collaborative, social and critical spaces using art methods and art materials. His work operates along the fine line between how art thinks and the effect that art has as a social practice. Neal White has been associated with 0+1, formerly APG, Artists' Placement Group, for several years. Maintaining that art has always pushed the boundaries of the possible in terms of models of social collaboration and networking, Neal White's work looks at how these models can engage with other kinds of knowledge producing structure. The Office of Experiments is a structure for experimental cultural practices. Their work is based on the need for new forms of cultural practice, forms of contemporary artistic production that draw on critical lessons of former experimental movements, artists, thinkers and structures - and that seeks to disentangle these modes and systems of approach from the value systems that underline mass media, financial systems and contemporary art markets.
Rod Dickinson (School of Creative Arts, University of the West of England) opened his presentation arguing that from the artistic perspective the idea of an experiment is interesting precisely because it requires participants rather than viewers. Dickinson explained how engagement was a key to the idea of Milgram experiment as well. He proceeded in explaining that he wants to introduce workshop participants to two examples (looking at some short video clips) of an attempt at reformulation of the idea of an audience.
Join us at the opening by Tony McEnery, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, of an exciting new exhibition at the Storey Gallery, Storey Creative Industries Centre, Meeting House Lane, this Friday (29 January) at 7.30pm.
What happens if ... ? has been curated by Storey Gallery and is presented in collaboration with the Experimentality programme. It shows experimental objects and actions by a number of UK and international artists and designers. They conduct witty low-tech experiments that uncover the enchantment hidden within everyday utilitarian objects, and subject familiar objects to unexpected treatments. The exhibition continues until 3 April (Tuesdays-Saturdays 11am-5pm, Thursdays 11am-8.30pm).
Piotr Woycicki, Flash Flood, 2009Join the artists for a glass of bubbly tonight at 6pm as the Peter Scott Gallery and Experimentality launch an exhibition of photographic responses by local artists to the title ‘The Experiment’. The work ranges from photography as one might traditionally understand it, through work that experiments with the process of photography, to the depiction of the un-photographable.
Exhibition continues 13 January - 6 February 2010, Mon–Fri 11am-5pm, Sat 11am-4pm.