Spring Conference 2010 (Process/Product)
Apr 14th 2010
The Experimental Inquiry Methodology Conference
(Spring Edition)
The Spring 2010 Conference was held on Saturday April 17th at Chasama (112 W 44th St. Manhattan). We (being a group of about 10 folks) had quite a lovely time. The theme was process/product and we explored this theme through a variety of questions and experiential explorations.
The first presentation was Abraham Nowitz (Untitled (a work in process)) who spoke of process/product as it relates to artistic practice. New and old paradigms of product/process were expounded, explored, questioned. Abe invited us to take a product- the bible- and erase letters to form a new product of our own- a piece of poetry.
Lucia Mooney-Martin (Puzzle) was the next presenter who brought out a whole assortment of handmade 3-d puzzle pieces each shape with a specific childhood memory or association. We were invited to collaboratively build our own design with the puzzle pieces and infuse them with new meaning.
Next was myself, Aaron Finbloom (From Events to Selfhood- a Tale of Flux). I explored the idea of an event which shapes ourselves. I was curious how this process of contextualizing an event works and how the event and our identity change or remain the same. We explored this by developing a story connecting an event of the past to ourselves as we are now.
We had a short break in which we made some lovely sidewalk art (see photos).
The next presentation was by Dan Phiffer. Daniel introduced us to his own techno-graffiti neo-communicative artistic process. We engaged in this process ourselves by thinking of important questions. These questions were placed in public places around us (Time Square) with a phone number to call in and give responses. We then went on a short walk and engaged in this communicative process which we helped set-up.
Next was Klara Kuutmann (The Semiotics of Brown Bread). Klara presented us with a product- 2 pieces of lovely brown bread that she had baked the night before. We were presented with a whole series of semiotic questions about the meaning of this object. Then we were given tools to change this object to something new. Some of the results were flour used as face paint, anthropomorphized bread puppets and caged-free bread with chicken wire.
The last presentation was by Paul D’Agostino (Vestigial Phantoms: A Reprocessing). Paul spoke to us of his gallery/living room space/salon in which he had an event with a very similiar theme to ours (process/product). We took the products of this show and reappropriated them by cutting them up and gluing them to a large piece of paper thereby making a new product.
Below
is a writeup of the event before it occured.
(Come by for the next EIM scheduled for this summer.)
Process/Product will be the topic of the Spring 2010 E.I.M. Conference. Process and Product represent two fundamental aspects of creation. Process is when we are in the moment, making, creating, building, thinking. Product is the end, the goal, the finished result. The wide linguistic usage of process/product shows the breadth of what can count as a creation. Products can be art, industrial commodities, paychecks, books, etc. Processes can relate to the activity required to attain any of the aforementioned creations. But also there are a number of ambiguous creations that seem to occupy both product and process like humans, communities, ideas, perhaps art as well.
How are we to understand the significance and nuance of these two states? How do we relate differently to products vs. processes? Does one bring us in differently than the other? Can these states of creation be divorced from each other? Can you be involved in a process without focusing on a product (i.e. without purposiveness) or can you perceive a product without being confronted with its process? And if these two parts of creation are inextricably linked and form a cycle, then how exactly does this cycle work? Furthermore, doesn’t the nature of a cycle favor process, rather than a product?
The conference will be composed of six, twenty-minute presentations. Each presentation will be focused around a specific product (examples include a product of industry, a creative product, an intellectual product of thought, etc). Presenters will explain their product and then guide us through an activity which recontextualizes their product into an environment of process/product. The product will collaboratively be worked on, thought about, acted out, drawn on, etc so that in the end we will have some new product. Somewhere in midst of this activity there will lie somethings compelling, unresolved, persistent, critical, curious. Sometime in the mix of this activity of process/product we will question, think, converse about these specific curious aspect(s) of process/product which relate to its instantiation.
