Dear Blueberries & Mixed Berries,
The MOOC that launched our 3 websites: .Re/act, .Re/search, and .Re/cipes plus our Slack chat space, Practice Based Research in the Arts, from Leslie Hill & Helen Paris at Stanford / NovoEd, ran from 9 Oct – 11 Dec 2013. At it’s end the Blueberry group decided to continue with once-a-month Google Hangouts. A few of us drifted off, others joined in, and Ciara rechristened our group Mixed Berry Shake.
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Ciara made an interesting comment at the end of today’s hangout, that since she wasn’t one of the “Original Blueberries” she always felt a sort of “imposter complex” (my word not hers) about her participation.
It reminded me of why Richard Stallman left his beloved MIT AI lab and founded the Free Software movement. It all started the day Passwords arrived at the MIT AI lab. He hated the idea that someone who sat at the computer yesterday could have control over what someone who sat there today could do with it.
Interesting, Vanessa. Ownership is a very powerful force in the American experience, isn’t it?
and had a physical meet up. It happened today at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Michael Masucci, Kate Johnson and I — Christa Forster — lunched at the outdoor cafe and loitered in the “Becoming Los Angeles” exhibit.
Michael Masucci, Christa Forster, Kate Johnson, July 13, 2014, Los Angeles
Ah, Christa, what a good idea to point one another toward residencies in our respective “hometowns”…
This Dutch website offers a fairly comprehensive list of residency opportunities in Europe and beyond:
http://www.transartists.org/
And, off the top of my head, a few others that spring to mind:
In Amsterdam:
http://www.de-ateliers.nl/en/
and a super one here:
http://www.rijksakademie.nl/NL/residency/
another great one in the southern part of the Netherlands:
http://www.janvaneyck.nl/en/home/
A really nice one in Belfast, N. Ireland:
http://flaxartstudios.com/international-residency/
and one in Dubin, Ireland:
http://www.imma.ie/en/subnav_13.htm
Thanks, Ciara! Great to have these resource links. xo
Hello. Just met up with the Mixed Berry Shake team for our June hangout, and Hugh and I (he showed up late Ciara!) promised to post here on .Re/act what we’re up to in a the six-week summer MOOC we’re undertaking: Understanding Research Methods via Coursera.
Here is a link to the question Hugh is developing and some discussion around it: How do Arabian women artists view the status of women within the Middle East?
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Our next monthly hangout is Monday 12 May. Click the read more tag for agenda & full details!
Hi All! I noticed that in addition to hangouts we have salons, mixed reality events, etc going on. So I created a “Berry Shake” Google Calendar and added the 10 of us addressed on this message with Read & Write permissions. Hopefully GCal sends you an email about it… if not… LMK!
Feel free to add anything relevant… whether it’s an event including several of us, or just your own solo activity. Hopefully a Google Calendar is the easiest way to do this, LMK if it isn’t. I thought about making another .Re site for the calender, but I .Re/sisted that temptation! I hope GCal will be easiest…
Katrina is our scheduled facilitator for Monday. I haven’t heard if she’s available yet, so here’s a tentative agenda if Katina is not facilitating. (If she is, then our agenda will be whatever she’d like to set.)
9-10am EZT on Monday 10 Feb (EZT = EZTV Time = PST or California Time)
sounds great! I have another video chat scheduled right before so I may be a minute late logging into Blueberries. It’s a lot on the agenda but I look forward to hearing updates about everyone’s projects. Talk to you monday!
Hi Molly, Michael & Christa… I’ve not heard from Katrina or Rebecca yet… so we may be short of our “6 Blueberries” this month… what do you think of inviting someone else to sit in with us? Like Ciara? Or Kate? Or?
That might be diluting the Blueberry “team.” Or it might be maintaining the team across natural evolution. Any thoughts or preferences?
Team Blueberry hangs out and discusses our PBRA mooc experience. We agree that
1) we’re missing a formal “farewell” video from our Professors Leslie Hill and Helen Paris,
and
2) we love each other.
Aww, yay, thanks Christa! Thanks everyone!
PS: you should drop by
http://en.gravatar.com/
& paste an image there, so your posts here can have your smiling face instead of your “waveatar”! 😀
I have a gravatar, but why is it not showing up here?!
Ah. I see it now.
As part of this week’s Gretchen Schiller activity Katrina and I did a Google Hangout today. We had a really great conversation. Like last week’s Spatula & Barcode activity, Gretchen’s activity was so wonderfully engaging and inclusive. More on it later, but I wanted to drop a quick note. Yay! We decided our team should do these every week!
This is delightful 🙂 Katrina looks both charmed and bemused – the image certainly supports the idea that you are sharing a great conversation!
Totally! One topic was Street Art / Youth Culture / Culture Studies — we have a cool classmate, Adelina Ong, who’s doing interesting work there. Here’s my mini-profile:
http://blog.virtualpublicart.com/post/68002078650/adelina-ong
yay, ’twas so fun! 🙂
Yay! BTW, one of the nicest experiences you can have online is filling out Katrina’s “contact” form! Everyone should go try it!
http://katrinaschaag.wordpress.com/contact/
Aero Bigboots
AlexandreLois1
Ananda Crystal
Andrea Foenander
astrid
Aunt Renie
Aurelia Scheppers
Christa Forster
Ciara Finnegan
Bird on a Cyber Twig
Diptheria
Donnie Archer
Edie
Elle
Emma
Elizabeth Taylor Swift
Fanny
FeelsEmpty
Glad Kidd
Izzy
Jade Ravenheart
Kate Nova
Ken Doll
Mary Anning
Meg O'Ryan
Michael Masucci
Mireille
Molly Ross
Monerda Skute
Myra
Neeva
Newton
Michel Nostradamus
Oona
Oscar
Owen
Patrick J. Sweetman
Paypabak Writer
Pearl Grey
Rebecca Narum
rmarie
Ryan
Scarlett Luv
Sello Tape
Serra Qendra
Teresa of Avila
The Knight
Tiffany Mosienko
TrilbyM
Tullia Aragona
Vanessa
veyot
wendz tempest
Xue
Yellow Fever
Ysidora Pico
Yves
Zsophia
Ciara Finnegan, 
Christa Forster is discussing. 
xtaforster 12:16 on 13/11/2014 Permalink |
Hi Vanessa, Thanks for getting the conversation started. I’m thinking about it, mulling it over while I eat my lunch here in Houston, and I will post more shortly. However, I heard that you have a performance this weekend in Virtual London, and I’m wondering where I can read more about THAT! LMK. (I couldn’t find info easily about it on your blog). TTYL. xta
Michael J Masucci 16:23 on 13/11/2014 Permalink |
I think that continuing the monthly meetups is a good idea, even though the attendence is sporatic, and people understandably come and go.
In time, I hope that more on-going collaboratibve teams are formed from within the group, and that a number of single project collaborations are tried as well.
It’s been a great learning experience for me to meet you all, and the few things that we’ve done together, like ONE Night and the LACMA proposal have shown me the way to even better such collaborations in the future.
But I also understand how precious time is fro everyone, and that some may not see the same benefits I’ve seen. So perhaps a number of options, allowing to some to keep meeting regulatly, others to come and go as thier time and interests dictate and others to simply float away is a way to go.
For 2015, my New Year’s resolution will be to go back and writing regular short essays for PBR and to look to find more ways for us to collaboarte from our differnt regions. I think there is something important going on here, even if it is still after one years, in its infancy. I hope that together we can find a way to make it grow.
And I do think another LACMA proposal is a good idea.
Vanessa Blaylock 18:55 on 25/11/2014 Permalink |
SHOW ME THE MONEY
I know artists who believe that teaching is an unwise distraction from their work. That artists should focus on production, make, show, and sell work, and earn enough to support yourself.
I know artists who believe that sales are corrupting and that your career is better served by having an income from an activity like teaching, and they your art work isn’t beholden to some revenue stream.
For sure both choices have legitimacy. Personally, I favor Choice #2.
HOWEVER…
In thinking about all the great work, ideas and charisma in Mixed Berries, to say nothing of our many amazing PB-RITA classmates
http://blog.virtualpublicart.com/tagged/classmates
I wonder if seeking funding for our work might not be the Magic Dust, the Glue, the Catalyst, we need. Christa has written about the power of deadlines, and getting someone somewhere to believe in your creativity enough to fund it can also be challenging and valuable.
In a busy world we’re all challenged with focus and priorities. Collaborating on funded projects might give both internal and external legitimacy to our work. It might give us a chance to bring more of our PB-RITA classmates in on projects.
Michael has the LACMA Art+Technology grant proposal, and Christa’s threatening to look some up in the next week. What if we tried to identify a slate of 6 grants to apply for in 2015? And let that work, applying and hopefully executing these projects, be the focus of our Hangouts?
Michael’s multi-city interaction projects seem idea in some ways. And Rebecca’s City project seems like it or aspects of it could fit with some of Michael’s ideas.
Funding might be the cohesive core around which our hangouts could develop more focus around specific projects. Michael and Andrea have talked about the bias of Art History. Getting institutional validation would help to move our ideas and work a little closer to official narratives.
What do you think?
Do you know about any funding opportunities we might apply for?
xtaforster 17:56 on 13/11/2014 Permalink |
I agree that meeting monthly and continuing to pursue ways to collaborate is a valuable practice in and of itself. I was thinking that perhaps a group of us could commit to individually writing something for a future issue of MOOC magazine, and we could give ourselves a specific deadline (I love deadlines, as you all know) to make this happen.
Van do you have any content on your mind that you’d like written for a current or future issue? If not, then perhaps we could brainstorm for a theme that we could all write toward.
I also want to continue to add content to our websites and keep in touch and share resources through slack chat. Furthermore, in addition to LACMA, we might be able to search for some other RFPs and work with deadlines to try and come together around an idea for (potentially) funded projects.
Over thanksgiving break, I’ll do a bit of research for some other RFPs so that I have something to share at our holiday party on the 8th.
Thanks a million to Vanessa for keeping us going and organized and motivated. I suspect she’s got lots of other projects that are driving her harder than this one, and I really do appreciate the energy she continues to share with us. Furthermore, I really want to hear more about her Avatar Field Guide — what IS the difference between the avatar classifications — af̱toportréta and fo̱tográfos móda and fo̱tográfos koultoúra? I looked at a couple of the different examples, and I am too uneducated to discern the differences at this point. I want to learn more. Is the performance in Virtual London related to this project? How can we attend?
xoxoxoxo xta
Vanessa Blaylock 18:02 on 14/11/2014 Permalink |
Thanks Xta! Actually “Vaneeesacam!” is a different project from “Avatar Field Guide”. You can attend “in person” by having Ysidora login to SL and hangout… or you can watch live at
http://twitch.tv/vaneeesab
The scoop is here:
http://virtualpublicart.com/events/activities/11
BTW Michael, this broadcast formula I finally came up with using XSplit Gamecaster to feed 1080p HD video to the Twitch.tv streaming service looks pretty good. If we ever did something like ONE Night again, it might be a nice way for you to project HD video without having to have a “cameraperson” (logged in, in-world user) on site.
Rebecca Longworth 15:13 on 20/11/2014 Permalink |
I’m torn — I definitely would like to keep our chats and our contact going. It often seems that the chats are a little too short, so longer hangouts less often might be nice… on the other hand, I know that the fact that they’re monthly has made it easier for me to join when I can.
Perhaps it would help to keep the one-hour every-month schedule, but to hold ourselves to a schedule within the hour. For example, we could spend 10 minutes per topic, or give each participant the floor for a set time to let us know what they’re up to, and for others to ask questions. One of those timeslots could be free-form conversation; and those who are available can always stay past the hour mark to chat further. It might sound very formal, but a time pressure also might help us each think of what we most want to impart to the group, and ask questions of each other.
In other news, I’ve started a dedicated site for my project, City Creature:
http://www.citycreature.wordpress.com. And I’m looking at word-cloud software to help display/interpret the answers to my questionnaire. Let me know if you have suggestions! Fun times.
Best
Rebecca
Ciara Finnegan 04:55 on 24/11/2014 Permalink |
I’ve really enjoyed the dialogue and interactions .re/act has supported over the past year and, while the Hangouts do present a challenge in terms of scheduling, I believe they also add value to our exchanges. I quite like Rebecca’s suggestion that we occupy 10 minute slots during a hangout and think that structuring the format in this way is worth experimenting with in 2015.
Vanessa, thank you for all the work you’ve put into creating this space and for your generosity toward the group. I mentioned to Michael that I affectionately refer to the Berries as my “semi-imaginary” friends:-) – thank you all for keeping the energy flowing this year – being involved has meant a lot to me. I also think that Michael and Kate have been instrumental in bringing others to the conversation and in orchestrating (directly and indirectly) meetings in Real Life. For this I am hugely grateful.
I’m looking forward to the December 8th party!! Have been practising my disco moves;-) Or maybe it’ll be more Mardi Gras…where’s that feather boa I started off with????