A Creative (Un)commonsIn September 2006 the Amsterdam organisation Virtual Platform acted as a catalyst for a small group of artists, designers and researchers to organize a small meeting (of about 50 people) designed to take a closer look at the dynamics and wider implications in the growth of multi-dimensional interdisciplinary collaboration.
The meeting was a process of comparative analysis between a small spectrum of case studies. Presenters of the case studies were encouraged (begged) to avoid the usual parade of success stories and bring us problems and loose ends-that might even be tied up across projects!-. Presentations were short and most of the meeting was spent with each case study being unpicked by our invited interlocutors made up of practitioners, organizers and thinkers (even a few policy wonks were allowed in).
The case studies we identified represented different categories of collaborative practice from pragmatic projects with pre-defined outcomes through to individual artist's placements with open ended expectations. We looked at new educational models, lab cultures -innovation or media labs- and of course the ubiquitous profession of the cultural broker, mediator, connector, translator. In short those whose practices which involves finding the 'structural hole or gaps between social clusters with complementary resources'. Later on, once the book (below) was in pre-production, we drew on a wider spectrum of categories with more critical perspectives.
Why (Un)common Ground The term (Un)common Ground emerged during the early planning stages. We had been working on the lazy assumption that when very different (apparently irreconcilable) cultures succeed in connecting it was as a result of identifying 'common ground'. But actually far more frequently we found the opposite to be the case. The most successful encounters were in fact founded on a willingness (in fact a desire) to occupy 'uncommon ground'. The generally unexpressed need was for a kind of creative estrangement from the assumptions that underpinned the usual networks and rituals. Creative energy actually flowed fro being able to dramatize differences and allowing for the dissonances that attend genuine pluralism. We found that many were happy to dwell in uncommonness, and we enjoyed imagining a 'creative un- commons'.
The notion of uncommon ground helped to bring many hybrid practices, professions and organizations into a new kind of focus, for example the ubiquitous and hard to define phenomenon of the media lab suddenly seemed to have a clearer function of either bridging or 'being' uncommon ground, triggering and supporting conversations to occur across difference. The term offered an appealing heuristic suggesting ways of avoiding many of the risks of 'common ground' as a default setting, with its implicit reductiveness and presumptions of convergence of either interests or outcomes.
Later
The meeting last September generated enough interest (and critique) to make a book possible. So we moved quickly to widen our network and enter into multiple dialogues with possible contributors (the book has four editors). Currently with continuing institutional support we will continue to track our early case studies whilst continuing to widen our network. On the 26th of April (this Thursday as I write) we will develop the discussion to begin with at the Enter Unknown Territories Festival in Cambridge (UK) www.enternet.org.uk with both a panel discussion, informal planning sessions and the book launch. These small sessions will be the basis from which to plan the more substantial (Un)common Ground expert meeting planned in Amsterdam for September 2007, as a partner event at Picnic 07.
Below (for those interested) is a more formal announcement about the book and its contents and its contributors.
David Garcia
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Announcing the publication on April 25th 2007 of the book,
---(Un)common Ground ---
Creative Encounters Across Sectors and Disciplines
Editors: Cathy Brickwood, Bronac Ferran, David Garcia, Tim Putnam
About (Un)common Ground
This book investigates the new culture of collaboration which emerged from recent developments in which areas of art and design have creatively fused with media and technology. This fusion of disciplines has given rise to powerful new industries, cultures, and social movements. In all sectors, important concepts no longer come into existence as 'isolated products, devices or websites. They rather exist in a system, or network, of both tangible and intangible elements’. These developments extend and intensify the need for knowledge sharing across a broader combination of disciplines and sectors. (Un)common Ground emphasizes the fact that collaboration for competitive advantage is matched in importance by the an equally urgent need for a deeper and more responsible understanding of what is at stake when we work together across disciplinary boundaries. The desire for deeper understanding is aligned to the fact that the era of networks not only makes us more interconnected but also heightens the awareness of our interdependence.
Uncommon Ground is based around case studies involving both major institutions and companies along with smaller independent experimental networks. Examinations of case studies are interspersed in this volume with reflective essays by some of today’s leading thinkers and practitioners. By juxtaposing the concrete and the reflective with the tangible and the intangible, this volume begins a process of mapping the varieties of experimental forms that are emerging as the various actors attempt to navigate the opportunities and balance the contradictory forces and values at work. Sometimes these experiments have been designed, planned and orchestrated but more often they have evolved through countless improvisations. This is the complex ecology we have begun to map. The result is a range of practical and inspiring examples providing insight into the complex rewards and challenges of both interdisciplinary and cross sector collaboration.
This book is the first published outcome of a programme of research on collaborative practice that began with an expert meeting in Amsterdam in September 2006. In this meeting a group of researchers, artists and designers examined a number of concrete case studies from multiple perspectives. The Uncommon Ground research process combines the empirical, comparative analysis based on tracking a number of case studies whilst regularly opening up the findings for a wider process of reflection and theorization. In the future we will continue this approach, tracking our key case studies whilst periodically introducing new examples, platforms and partners. A new Uncommon Ground expert meeting is planned in Amsterdam for September 2007, as a partner event at Picnic 07.
The UK launch takes place at the ENTER Festival in Cambridge on 25
April 2007. www.enternet.org.uk
Uncommon Ground will be launched in the Netherlands at the Cultuur 2.0 Conference, on 30 May 2007 at Felix Meritis in Amsterdam. The conference, organized by Virtueel Platform, is a 2-day international conference & lab designed to introduce a web 2.0 mindset into the creative processes and strategies of cultural & art institutions and artists. Keynote speaker at the conference is Charles Leadbeater, one of the contributors to Uncommon Ground www.virtueelplatform.nl
(Un)common Ground is the result of a collaboration between: Virtueel Platform, Utrecht School of the Arts and Arts Council England
Editors:
Contributors
David Garcia, Professor of Design for Digital Cultures: University of
Portsmouth/School of the Arts Utrecht; Garrick Jones, Senior Research Fellow LSE, senior lecturer of Industrial Design and Engineering Royal College of Art & Design, partner Ludic Group; Geke van Dijk, director of STBY, doctor in computing science with a specialization in Human Computer Interaction; Yanki Lee, Helen Hamlyn Centre; Sam Bucolo, Research and Development Director for the Australian CRC for Interaction Design International Design, ACID; Tim Putnam, Professor Material Cultures at Middlesex University and University of Portsmouth; John Thackara, Doors of Perception and Programme Director of Design of the Times or DOTT07; Andrew Bullen, Direct of Media Guild; Gerard Hollemans, senior scientist on user-system interaction research, Phillips Research Eindhoven; Simon Robertshaw, formerly Head of Research, International Center for Digital Content at Liverpool John Moores University, currently director of the Centre for Digital Creative Industries at the University of Central Lancashire; Charles Leadbeater, senior government advisor and writer; Anne Galloway, lecturer and SSHRC Doctoral Fellow in Anthropology and
Sociology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada; Caroline Nevejan, independent researcher and designer with a focus on the implications of technology on society; Sher Doruff, Head of the Research Programme at Waag Society, Amsterdam; Rob van Kranenburg, freelance thinker in the triangle of new technologies, policy and bottom-up initiatives, head HKU BA Experience Design from September 07; Samuelle Carlson, social anthropologist, evaluator Artists' Insights: Interact project for Arts Council England; Anne Nigten, manager V2_Lab, the aRt&D department of V2_, Institute for the Unstable Media, Rotterdam; Matt Ratto, founding member of the Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences (VKS) in Amsterdam; Bronac Ferran, researcher and cultural producer, previously Director of Interdisciplinary Arts at Arts Council England.
Design: Novak Ontwerp
Publisher: Bis Publishers, Amsterdam
To order printed copies please contact:
Virtueel Platform
Keizersgracht 264
1016 EV Amsterdam
Tel. +31 (0)20 6273758
email: info@virtueelplatform.nl
ISBN: 978-90-6369-166-D
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http://www.virtueelplatform.nl/set-3970-nl.html
