Iterations
What is the future of collective digital practices ?

Description:  
Iterations  is a travelling expo by a temporary art-group consisting of artists  from Brussels and Graz. Together they create one collective work.  
  
The work is multi-authored and will first be exhibited in esc in 2015. A next version of the work that will be re-itterated by a new version of the group, will be exhibited in 2016 in Brussels. We are considering a third iteration with a partner in Italy or Spain.

On  many levels artists using digital tools collaborate, exchange, work  together or implement collectively developed technologies.  
* They exchange content / ideas
*  Set up and use online resources, repositories, libraries for sharing  code, manuals, they provide work and sources that are re-usable under  free licenses.
* Co-develop software, engage in digital artivism

The aim of the expo is to create visibility for collective digital creative processes. 
The  project wants to give attention to these processes and to the motives  that drive artists to engage in collaborative models and Free digital  tools. Ideology plays an important role: many artists feel ethics and  aesthetics are connected especially when it comes to software and the  internet. Their are also practical reasons for engaging in free  software: adapting code / tools to the specifics of your project,  reliability, price, licensing issues (schools). The final art work often  does not show the shared and collective work that has gone into it  which is often a considerable part of the work-process.

Now  that ubiquous connectivity and blackboxed computing are in many peoples  pockets, it is important to revisit the power of coupling free software  with free society projects to help create sustainable digital ecologies  of exchange.  
Let's  face it: which world do you want to be part of: A) your digital tools  are rented to you as service, your works are hosted under commercial  terms, your creative work is part of Googles business plan ?  B) humans  exchange, learn, invent and discover together through technology. ?
The  temporary group is an attempt to create a real live case study in  collective creation, a learning situation that outputs art and knowledge  to a large number of people who can connect to it in different  intensities of engagement and different registers of collaboration.  

Constant and esc,  the two organisations that initiate Iterations exist since times that  the semantic web and Web 2.0 were notions that still sounded innocent  and even potentially utopian, untainted by the current corporate and state control and data abuse. Since then open source and free software have been widely embrased by tech savy activists and corporate multinationals alike: Free software has moved from a promissing alternative to becoming integrated in the digital mainstream.  
 In  advertising, fluent terminology has always been a violent money making  tool. One result of entering the meanstream is the commercialisation of  concepts and vocabulary. Among many others, the words 'open', 'sharing',  'collaboration' have been assimilated into the contexts of online  bussiness. No longer do they only belong to the scope of well mannered  good willing idealists. One mission of this project is to reboot words  into praxis and rethink our use of terms.

This experience with early digital collectives, free software art collaborations, can be an important resource  for a younger generation of tech artists. That is why the concepts and  practices, inspirations, tools and outputs in this project are  'iterating' over a multi-generational group of artists. Some remember the beginning of the net, some are 'born web 2.0': who grew up with a web that generates incredible capital for a few, and  proposes exploitational models of distributed work for multitides of  others.  
The  project acknowledges the powers of repetion. Doing things several times  allows for building up experiences from which can be learned, we  improve our skills, and strengthen our insights by going over viewing  and reviewing, again and again.  

The  'work' that we speak of here is the visual component of a  workingprocess that created it. To draw a comparisson: Mushrooms are the  visual exponents of a rhizomatic fungus rootstructure that hides in the  soil. No root structure: no mushroom. No creative process: no art  work.  

The  project can be seen as a labarotory with fuzzy edges. An art based  situation that bleeds into many other sectors and disciplines:  informatics, sociology, privacy studies, network-theory, copy-left  studies etc.

The project wants to provide for a discursive media-work that  can feed thinking about collective aspects of digital culture: how do the tools that artists use relate to the reality we help shape into existence?  
Therefore  the expo is set up in two parts: a front room in which the work is  shown, and a backroom, that contains sources and elements that played a role in the construction of the work.  
*  Software tools are available and described, context is given on the  groupmembers, their work and the reason why they are invited in the  group.  
*  A documentation section on influencial or relevant artists,  artmovements, socio-technological developments, network and media theory  and other references are presented.
* Resources used (or not) in the work are available.

The artists coming together in the group work with free libre open source tools. Their skills, medium, working methods are complementary. They come from  various media and artistic disciplines: some are programmers, some work  online, some of them are audio / video makers, some are into scenography, spatial design. Some are experienced group workers, others  work as individual artists on their own individual works, using open  licensed, collectively generated digital tools.  
They can commit for a clearly defined time.  
A specific question to the artist group is to not underchallenge the audience. :-) 
Technologic  art projects have a tendency to fetish the permanent state of being  unfinished, being in development. Iterations wants to be explicit on two  levels: While the work speaks to audio-visual, touch and other cognitive senses,  the intellectual, methodological process and sources are fully available. No compromises on either side.  

Set up
For the first exhibition in Graz  that will open in the weekend of 15 may 2015, 6 artists will be invited. 3 are proposed by Constant, three are proposed by esc.  
Considered artists / projects: , Ushi Reiter, Heidrun Primas, IOhannes m zmölnig, Margarethe Maierhofer-Lischka (not sure if she joins, don't think ), julien deswaef, pascale barret, annie abrahams

We aim for a second Iteration in the spring of 2016. We look for a place in Italy. For this: 3 new people are proposed by the Italian partner, 2 from the people that were proposed by Esc join from the first Iteration. 1 proposed by Constant for the first Iteration joins.
  
Then a third Iteration is prepared in Brussels, september 2016.  
For this 2 people from Italy, and 1 from Graz from the previous Iterations will join a new team of three people from Brussels, proposed by Constant and the partner in Brussels together.  

Over three Iterations: 14 artists participate.  

Artists work 10 days together before the expo opens.  They start preparing remotely to optimise the working period. The discussion and exhange on how to work is more or less done at the moment the working period starts.

The choice for artists is done by the organisers.  

FINANCES
we reserve 700 per participant
travel, hosting and food is covered