itinerant studio No. 19

"Things are Odd" which took place at the Goethe Institut project space in Johannesburg was the nineteenth iteration of my Itinerant Studio. It evolved over 3 weeks [March 14th - April 7th 2013], some days were better than others. This project confirmed, for me, that things are odd only until they become familiar - thing turns into Thing and then returns to thing? The unacceptable becomes acceptable, the unusual the usual, the unspeakable speakable, unthinkable thinkable...

To whom it may concern…

Thinking is a good idea. I strive to create works and situations that encourage us (not only us as in the art community but also the public at large) to think again and think ahead. I try to be thoughtful, to be human and to make public these insights and ways of dealing with living in the now.

For me, working through art is a way and a place to interrogate and reveal the idea of Truth. It is not only about hard facts but also the poetry of time, life, death, transformation, desire, rebellion, freedom and conscious and unconscious choice. The Truth is more erratic than we care to know. Fortunately works of art are expected to say what they have to say and also accommodate multiple interpretations.

I have spent the past decade working with others, primarily in Johannesburg and Cape Town, in an intense collaborative learning exercise of my own making. Aside from learning how to make and represent things I have been privy to diverse conceptual practices that have enabled me to tackle life from a nonjudgmental and paraconsistent stance. I have also come to know the value of what can come from relinquishing myself to the relationship knowing that our combination would conjure up a third voice; this peculiar voice that whispers ‘unnecessary solutions’. I have been surprised, endured growing pains and been empowered by these and other co-operative actions which in turn have helped me to move on from being merely a white South African male; I am not myself and this is a good thing. If you are a chancer, as I am, this is the place you want to be. Knowing I will emerge loving my neighbour in ways I never expected. Stripped bare by all the stumbling I grow a more able, more considerate, more thoughtful if not slightly bent self. All I need is courage and the willingness to forget everything.

My work encourages me to be not merely innovative and build on what exists but to be inventive and to be open to ‘uncalled-for newness’. I can only assume that what I share inspires others to open up. If not, it is at least a series of examples of mindful artistic experimentation, and proof that one needs neither deadlines nor a belief system to make and do things.

Recently I was asked what I bring to a collaboration and I responded that I bring nothing. Let me elaborate: to bring nothing allows for anything to happen, something unpredictable perhaps, versus an outcome anticipated by virtue of the combined skills of the participants. This is imperative as I attempt to find, engage with and expose that which dwells in the blind spots.

My projects revolve around ideas, specifically those which make you and I confront what makes us inconsiderate. I work with materials, platforms and people that are most effective for the specific project, with what speaks the most succinctly for the ideas to be transferred and a conversation to occur. I am not shy to develop a new skill to achieve a project and have been working with moving and still images, wood and metal work, printmaking and live theatre, ‘wordsmithing’ and ‘soundscaping’. I am currently preoccupied with drawing and testing its ability to be a lawless territory. It is not unusual for an installation or performance of mine to employ a multitude of means.

Thus far in my career I have avoided working through art galleries and have primarily exhibited in non-commercial spaces such as museums, project rooms and academic institutions. I will end off with saying that I enjoy being taught a lesson and am willing to go to great lengths to engage with and work with those in the know.

Looking forward…

Christian Nerf

Artist Profile,

text by Kathryn Smith

There are many adjectives that describe Christian Nerf’s practice and each does so accurately: maverick, agitprop, mythic, absurdist, astute, formal, conceptual, secular, profane, playful, serious. That these adjectives appear to contradict each other is a good thing: binaries shut down and confine, and Nerf's practice is characterised by a radical multivalency that extends through concept and material.

He describes himself as a 'public investigator', a phrase which captures both the banality of workaday activities and the serious focus of social research. As Damien Hirst has pointed out, artists are always 'on their way to work'.

Coming of age at the apex of Apartheid's darkest moments, Nerf attempted formal tertiary education but ultimately chose the freedom of a practice-led education before the phrase became fashionable. At this mercurial political moment, the streets became both studio and gallery, shaping a practice in which long-term projects that rely on nurturing relationships with artists and non-artists alike, develop alongside a form of visual thinking that produces rather iconic formal objects, including prints, sculptures and drawings. His Working with Tom (1999), in which a homeless panhandler used a novelty beercan-shaped camera to photograph passing motorists doing their best to ignore him, is an arresting portrait of prejudice. It also evidences Nerf's approach to collaboration and authorship, and his critical awareness of the ethics embedded in working with others.

But it is Polite Force (2002 - ongoing) that remains his most celebrated work thus far. Inspired by a high school English teacher who was an advocate of passive resistance, and who carried a bucket of bricks instead of a rifle during his enforced conscription, Polite Force members represent a range of policing services from a riot squad of one lone officer to a street patrol unit, all wearing uniforms modified to read ‘Polite’ instead of ‘Police’. Training includes the art of complimenting strangers, finding parking spots and informing people what time it is. The documentation of this project, in various locations and iterations, reveals the possibility of genuine public interaction, effectively debunking the myth of the artist as hermetic egoist, commenting on society but not engaging with it.

For the better part of his adult life, Nerf has simply been working, steadily and with the sparest of means. And for the most part, completely invisibly to the mainstream art world. It has taken several observant artists and curators - Brad Hammond, myself, Tumelo Mosaka, Bettina Malcomess, Clare Butcher - to draw him out and provide a critical space for what he has described as 'scenarios, interactive events and situations that break the so-called natural rhythm allowing for time out, a time for reflecting.'

An artist’s artist, his innately experimental and 'otherwise' position is clearly evident in the work of younger artists like Anthea Moys, Francis Burger, and Josh and Jared Ginsburg, and senior figures like Barend de Wet, Penny Siopis and Willem Boshoff have also recognised and acknowledged Nerf's quiet but incontrovertible demand for ‘uncalled-for newness' and ‘unnecessary solutions’. What artist, with no theatre experience whatsoever, can decide to enter a theatre performance event (I Didn’t Like It When I Was There But Now I Recall It Fondly) and then win it, to the disgruntlement of more seasoned practitioners?

In the late capitalist quandary in which we find ourselves, cash may still be king, but in Nerf's world, barter has always been smarter. This ability to operate from the margins is his greatest asset, and has provided the mental space in which witty word play and mathematical puns (The Thing in Breathing, /+\=X) sit alongside his visual aphorisms, whose often apparently simple form belies real complexity; of concept, process and method.

Things are odd ?SCRIPT? THIN GSAR EODD Narrator: What is he going to do? Where is his dog? Why is that dancer not dancing? When is it going to start? When did it start? Damn, that is some fine fine ass! Is the dancer going to dance? Back on your mark. Geography. Why is that dancer not dancing? When is it going to start? When did it start? Damn, that is a fine ass! Is the dancer going to dance? Did he really do those things? He doesn’t look like such a bad guy. Has he got any of that free cash left over? I feel like someone is staring at my ass. How shitty was that scene where you can see the murdered teen was still breathing. Gotta wake up early sometime to catch the dawn. I wonder if he is here yet? Fuck, if only I hadn’t said… fuck fuck fuck Back on your mark. Why is that dancer not dancing? When is it going to start? When did it start? Isn’t he… Back on your mark. Why is that dancer not dancing? When is it going to start?

“Heurisms”.

Common sense has gotten the world in debt and facilitated hunger, poverty, ignorance of ecological issues and general thoughtlessness. Rather than thinking so hard, how about we think soft and often. If we can’t trust in common sense perhaps we need to forget the prevailing logic and invest in a less predictable and more experimental (non)stance? If you were to choose a style of fucking that best described Johannesburg what would it be? Having spent an intense three weeks reacquainting myself with my hometown I have a portrait of sorts that I can share. For the performance “Heurisms” I am offering a balancing act: part premeditated and manipulative, part intuitive and impulsive. Sound familiar?

republished with permission...

Collaboration: The Dark Site of the Multitude

Florian Schneider

Collaboration is one of the guiding terms of an emergent political sensibility in which certain collectivities and mutalities are being redefined as modes of affectual politics. Collaboration, literally, means working together with others, especially in an intellectual endeavour.

The term is widely used to describe new forms of labour relations within the realm of immaterial production of varying areas, but though significantly present there is very little research and theortical reflection on it. What is at stake is the very notion of establishing a new understanding of the term ‘together’ within a dynamic of ‘working together’.

The problem is, that most often collaboration is used as a synonym for cooperation, although etymologically, historically and politically it seems to make more sense to elaborate the actual differences that shift between the various coexisting layers of meaning.

In contrast to cooperation, collaboration is driven by complex realities rather than romantic notions of a common ground or commonality. It is an ambivalent process constituted by a set of paradoxical relationships between co-producers who affect each others.

1. An indecent proposal

As a pejorative term, collaboration stands for willingly assisting an enemy of one's country and especially an occupying force or a malevolent power. It means to work together with an agency or instrumentality with which one is not immediately connected -- for instance the French Vichy regime in the 1940s, which collaborated with the German occupiers.

Collaboration as a traitorous cooperation with the enemy provides a counter to what management theory since the 80s has been promoting as team-work: The act of subjugation of one's own subjectivity under the omnipresent control regime of a group which has conceptually replaced the classical role of the "foreman" as the disciplying force. Rather than by repression, efficiency is increased by the collective identification of small groups of co-workers.

Meanwhile various research studies have shown that often teams make the wrong decisions, especially when the task involves solving rather complex problems. This insight is even more staggering since rapid technological development and global availability of intellectual resources increase the pressure on individuals to exchange knowledge within and between groups.

Teamwork often fails because of the banal fact that the internalized modes of cooperation are characterized by the opposite of sharing knowledge: In order to pursue a career, one has to hide the relevant information from others. On the other hand it also refers to the fact that joining forces in a group or team increases the likelihood of failure much more than the likelihood of success. Awkward group dynamics, harmful externalities, bad management practices are responsible for the rest.

2. In Praise of mutuality

There is more and more evidence that shows that working together may also happen in unexpected ways. Instead of exerting an alleged generosity of a group, where individuals are supposed to pursue solidarity, it may be the reverse: a brusque, in principle, ungenerous mode, where individuals are relying on each other the more they go after their own interests, mutually dependent through following their own agendas.

Such a paradox of "friendship without friends", as Derrida pointed out in a different context, characterizes contemporary forms of collaboration. Collaborations are black holes within knowledge regimes. Collaboration produces nothingness, opulence or ill-behavior. It does not happen for sentimental reasons, charity nor for the sake of efficiency, but for pure self interest.

For instance claiming transparency within what is called "information society" reveils as hypocrisy: the emerged and yet emerging new information and communication technologies replace conventional strategies of walling off knowledge from the public by intellectual property regimes and digital rights management that grant or refuse access to immaterial resources through operations in realtime. The concept of individual rights has vanished as well as the logics of inclusion and exclusion. It applies to both, the so called real and virtual space, knowledge as well as border regimes.

Against the background of a postmodern control society collaborations are all about exchanging knowledge secretely and apart of borders. The escape agent, human trafficker or "coyote" - as it is called at the US-mexican border - supports undocumented bordercrossings that want to make it from one nation state to the other without the usual paperwork. The "coyote" as an allegory of collaboration is permanently on the move, only temporarily employed, nameless and anonymous, constantly changing faces and sides.

The "coyotes" motivations remain unclear or do not matter at all. It is a postmodern service provider par excellence: There is no trust whatsoever and this does not even create a problem. The conceptual insecurity overrules the eventual financial aspects of the collaboration and triggers a redundancy of affects and percepts, feelings and reactions: Those who do not need the coyote's support are hunting and demonizing it; those who depend on the coyote's secret knowledge and skills are longing desparetely for it.

Nevertheless the collaboration between the "coyote" and the clandestine immigrant refers to the certain amount of illegitimacy that is inherent to any form of collaboration. It stands for the attempt to regain autonomy amidst a society of control.

3. Singularities

While cooperation happens between identifiable individuals within and between organizations, collaboration expresses a differential relationship that is composed by heterogenous parts which are defined as singularities: out of the ordinary, in a way that produces a kind of discontinuity and marks a point of unpredictability, even if deterministic.

This is revealed in post-fordist production, "affect industries" as well as networking environments in general. People have to work together in settings where their efficency, performance and labor power cannot be singled out and measured on its own, but in each case refers to the specific work of somebody else. One's own producing is very peculiar but generated and often also multiplied in networks that are composed of countless distinct dependencies constituted by the power to affect and to be affected.

In respect of such excessivity that is essentially beyond measure, collaboration relates to the mathematical definition of singularity as the point where a function goes to infinity or is in certain other ways ill-behaved. The concept of singularity once more distinguishes collaboration from cooperation. Furthermore it refers to a notion of precariousness that is emerging these days and that can been seen as the crisis that goes along with this rupture or the transition of modes of working together from cooperation and collaboration.

The nettings of voluntariness, enthusiasm, creativity, immense pressure, ever increasing self-doubt and desparation are temporary, fluid and appear in multiple forms, but refer to a permanent state of insecurity and precariousness that becomes the blue print for widespread forms of occupation and employment within the rest of the society. It reveals the other face of immaterial labor that is hidden behind the rhetoric of cooperation, networking, and clustering.

In contrast to cooperation, which always implicates an organic model and some transcendent function, collaboration is a strictly immananent, wild and illegitimate praxis. Every collaborative activity begins and ends within the framework of the collaboration. It has no external goal and cannot be decreed; it is strict intransitivity, it happens, so to say, for its own sake.

Cooperation necessarily takes place in a client-server architecture. It follows a metaphorical narrative structure, in which there is a coherent assignment of every part and its relation to another. Collaboration on the contrary presumes rhizomatic structures where knowledge grows exuberantly and proliferates in a rather unforseeable fashion.

The relationships between collaborators can be understood as from peer to peer. Peer-to-peer computer systems or "P2P-networks" appeared on the internet in the 1990s and created a revolution of the conventional distribution model. Such networks are designed to enable people, who do not know each other and probably prefer not to know each other, to exchange immaterial resources like computing time or bandwidth as well as relevant content. Their anonymous relationships are based on an irony of sharing even in a strict mathematical sense: due to lossless and costfree digital copying the object of desire is not divided but multiplied.

Finally, collaborations are the sites of revolutionary potential. In the last instance collaborations are driven by the desire to create difference and refuse against the absolutistic power of organization. Collaboration means to overcome scarcity and inequality, as well as to struggle for a freedom to produce. It carries an immense social potential, as actualization and experience of the unlimited creativity of the multiplicity of all productive practices.

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