State of exceptional experimentation [updated with example]

Even after three, four days after leaving Seoul and the project space I am still too close to the situation and the workshop itself to be able to take a step back and with a deep breath analyze the situation we were in and to summarize it. With that said I doubt that this will ever be the case anyhow in the near future. I'm a bit lost in space. Erlend has though already identified many points of the process and has grasped them in his posting.

One of his points in his most recent blogpost is “The art product as excuse for setting up social relationships”. What a great deal many art councils and supporting foundations of arts has already grasped is that social relationships within the arts is the ground foundation towards a healthy, generous and flexible art world, and opening up the national borders for social relationships and exchanges with residencies and travel grants for artists and curators across borders encourages and generates new cross fertilizations. What art councils and foundations still not yet have grasped in its total is that this does not always come with a product of art that one is able to see or touch. Many national governments still finds the fact hard to comprehend that if you hand out cash to artists and curators that enable them to travel, drink, have fun and to engage in different relational situations, it actually increases the gross national product at the end of the day in a fruitful relationship as weird as it may seem. Culture hardly ever comes on the top priorities of governments unless it is about a “cultural revolution” or something (again with those communistic references…). Foundations are always looking into ready products and measurable results in a close knitted relationship; value for money.

Thankfully though (as strange as it seems to be writing this after complaining about bumps in my back from various hard floors) there are not so many founders to this project – which gave us the luxurious freedom to experiment. This is most likely the most intriguing result of our work shop and it needs to be emphasized. Had we had more obligations towards expecting foundations about measurable results there would have been less result when it comes to hard core experimentation and an increased process base. We would have been worried about the documentation images, how the texts were formulated and would not have been able to as freely engage and develop the project – which in one way was all about confusion or with uncertainty as well as a leveling of positions, art works and artists. A confusion about authorship, but also a generousity to pick up a thread in someone's piece and turn it into something else - in a joint collaboration. Who had done what in the end became both uninteresting and blurred.

The state of uncertainty and total confusion that in a sort of way we experienced can be transformed into a thought about “creative chaos”. I’m not yet altogether sure what went on for three weeks in Seoul really, but that it was creative is for sure, and chaotic with all certainty. A state of process and exception which was experimental to say the least. It really stirred up a lot of thoughts about hierarchies and powerstructures in a country where refined tones in the Korean launguage itself, developed over centuries, show awe and respect towards someone with higher "rank" than one self.

It is emblematic that we have not really written on the blog about the art pieces in the show - it has been a bit problematic since we have avoided to have singular art pieces in the show that could be mistaken for "masterpieces". I'll make use of an example that maybe will clearify a bit. While writing on this blog in Yeonhee-Dong 195 I also had my Skype-account up and my artist friend back in Stockholm, Allen Grubesic asked me how things went in Seoul. While explaining that we were constantly adding artists from Korea to the workshop I said it was an open call for anyone interested to participate and that the concept was about interference in other's work. Allen picked up on this and wanted to throw in something that might be picked up by someone. He sent a quickly made design with two golfers in the foreground about to scream fore, and a little man in the back ground who was either about to be hit by a ball or to be hit by the golf clubs. The style reminded me about the poster for antoher project that had come up the very same day for the video project by Eunji Cho. This project is about the so called "national gymnastic song" that all the Korean people are well acquainted with since all the school kids started the day by doing gymnastics to this very tune. Bjørn Kowalski Hansen made the lay-out for a poster and the musician Kyunghyun Min made a remake of the song that was played during the pre-opening and filmed by Eunji and for the opening the video was runned on a monitor. Visitors who didn't participate in the pre-opening were a bit confused since they wondered if the shot were taken during the opening or not, but it couldn't have since the wall behind the "gymnasts" were completely changed...

I printed Allen's contribution in blackanwhite and hung it temporarily next to the poster. Jooyoung asked about the new contribution and she picked up on it - she asked me out of the blue how the heck Allen could know so much about the Korean society - she obviously read more into the image than I could even begin to comprehend. I knew from Allen that Koreans are madly in love with golfing (which was why he decided to make this design), and I suspected that it was a sport done by the "upper class" much like in Europe but had no idea about Allen's deeper connections and told her that I knew nothing. Jooyoung triggered loads of thoughts - to a Korean film (that I forgot the name of, help me Jooyoung?) and she wanted to add a word that seems to be in a way knit to the National gymnastic song in a way, at least conceptually, namely the word 입신양명 that means "Rising in the world and gaining fame". This word is something that has been used as a kind of "slogan" for the Korean people for a long time, remembering them about what should be done in the future. She told me that a sociologist had made research about this word and how it was used and that he came to a conclusion about another "slogan" used in the old days (can't remember again here Jooyoung...), when Korea was a dynasty of emperors, which was a totally different, about being happy with the little things that maybe more to the point for Korean life. Quite the opposite of the "Rising-word". We talked about this for a while and I think I was the one who convinced her to in the end add the "Rising in the world-word" instead of the older slogan, making it a tad more ironic and quickly read. She decided to add the English translation too. Bjørn Kowalski again was called upon to add some layout - he added the colour and the ring around the image, and Jan Christensen made a layer on the text, making it a little more difficult to read and comprehend in its total. When the poster came two days later an art piece was made with multiple artists behind it. It is no longer important who made what in the singular piece - it was about a process that was successful in making a piece that we all agreed upon made perfect sense in this setting - putting a finger to exactly the hierarchy-issues, the "flat structure" within the project, the openness towards different interpretations and lastly putting a finger upon the reason why an artist would like to be the single "author" of an art piece - to go out into the world and rising fame, sometimes like a golfer swinging his/hers club towards the "little guy". It is also emblematic that the result is a poster lying in the gallery for people to take. "Low art" with a generous twist.

There is a radical force in the fact that even though every one was confused within the experiment, that no one really knew what the heck was happening and what would be the result of it but even so continued to work side by side without complains but instead cheerful enthusiasm. There are only two reasons for continuation when something like that happens: love or/and a curiosity and awareness for the fundamental interest the project in itself has the potentiality of producing in the end. I believe both reasons were manifest in this project with a double grip. Together we succeeded in creating an environment of love, respect, equality and creativeness within a bubble of our own. I.e.: without obligations towards an art product or a result able to be measured or weighed. (and NO, I did not just now have a spliff or anything, I really mean this!)

It would be truly intriguing to take this creative chaos to the next level in yet another step of the research project about how this work in progress is managed. To be able to make an exchange in yet another level, to host a continued workshop in Norway/Sweden/Germany with the same Korean group and with the same intentions as to interfere with each other, obtaining a “flat powerless structure” whatever that means and increase creative, artistic chaos into yet another tweaked situation for a deepened “result” for whatever that means. The outcome of the Seoul workshop are deep friendships, sense of belonging with each other, and a very long line of both missed and established and yet to come opportunities of interest, faith and future engagements – and not least importantly a taste of something completely different and quite new. I’d like to propose to warp it yet another round with 1000 ideas and 100.000 combinations if it would be possible. Not saying this would be resulting in something measurable at all – I doubt it – so the possibilities of getting funding for a project like this would be rather slim, unless there are some official out there with an exceptional open mind and true passion for art. Not sure my body, mind, soul and heart can take yet another round of confusion though, being the total control-freak I am. But I’m nore than willing to give it a shot because of the double grip of a love/passion and awareness about the serious state of exceptional experimentation that surprisingly enough (to a sceptic like myself) opened up before my eyes like a utopian abyss - unexplored and extremely fascinating.