Interview on Curating Yoshikaze Residency Programme

The below is an interview I (Goodwind Seiling/Sachiko Hayashi) did with Beta about curating Yoshikaze residency. The interview is part of Beta's research on SL curation.

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Beta (hereafter B): Thank you for agreeing in being interviewed for my research.... In regards to your work as a curator of ‘Up In The Air’ residency, do you usually work together with the artists throughout the process of developing the works, organizing the space and the opening of the exhibition?

Goodwind (hereafter G): Throughout the process of developing the works: No.  Organizing the space and the opening of the exhibition: Yes.

B: Is the residency the result of conversations and exchange of ideas between you as a curator and the artists?

G: No.

The procedure is that I select artists, either independently or after I receive requests by artists.  Prior to the start of their residency the artists will have to submit a brief description of what they would like to accomplish during their residency.  The residency can be used to create a specific work of art or to explore a specific subject matter relevant to their art practice.  By requesting the description prior to their residency, I signal to the artists that they are required to think about how they would be carrying out their work at our place. 

Each artist we have had has had a different objective for his/her residency:  some would like to carry on with what they have been doing, some have come to us with a specific theme to explore or with a specific work to complete.  My role here has been, apart from the selection of our artists, to make them aware of how they will be using their time as our artists without influencing the content of their work.

B: I ask the same question, but now in regards to your work as an artist. With "N00sphere Playground’, for instance, did Tagging Art or Humlab have any input on what was shown?
Was the installation the result of dialogues between you as an artist and the curator and organizers?

G: No. 

Tagging Art was the group that gave me the commission to create a work of art in Second Life and introduced me to Second Life.  (They have chosen their artists for their commission based on RL merits.)  So the medium (Second Life) was set from the beginning from their side.  However, they did not interfere with the process of actually deciding what I wanted to create in Second Life.  All I had to do was  to give them a presentation of my intended work during the course of creating one, with the understanding if the intended work was found to be unsuited for the intention of the organiser in regards to their scheduled exhibition, they would be able to bring up a discussion with me. 

Upon my request, HUMlab at Umeå University lent me a SL space to create the work I intended for Tagging Art.   HUMlab did not have anything to do with Tagging Art or the work I was creating. Their support was via availability of their virtual space, both during the time of creation of the work and for the period of the RL+SL exhibition by hosting the work for the exhibition. 

Another request I received in SL was from the organisers of the Japanese annual festival called "Jazz & Art Festival 2011."  For it, I received a gallery in Second Life and was asked to fill the gallery with my artworks.  Instead of filling the gallery space with my artworks as they requested, I created a site specific installation to suit the design and form of the gallery I received.  Here, although the condition was even more restricted than the commission work from Tagging Art, they also left me the freedom to realise the work I decided to create.  The same procedure as Tagging Art here applied: i.e. All I had to do was  to give them a presentation of my intended work during the course of creating one, with the understanding if the intended work was found to be unsuited for the intention of the organiser in regards to their scheduled exhibition, they would be able to bring up a discussion with me.  

B: Apart from providing space, what kind of resources does Umeå University offer to artists in residency?

G: The artists are free to ask us for any assistance they need for the pursuit of their residency activities.  We also offer unrestricted use of the space for the duration of the residency. Our artists are free to build a platform or platforms within the Yoshikaze residency spot as they see it fit for their work.  In addition, they are free to organise shows/performances/concerts/presentation, etc. using the spot during their residency. 

At the end of their residency, we offer a RL exhibition at HUMlab at Umeå University in Sweden.  In conjunction, we offer an opportunity for the artist to do a presentation/artist talk, alternatively an inworld performance, at the opening.  For the exhibition, we offer a venue at RL Humlab for the duration of one week (in practice 5 days as the university premise is closed during weekends), technical assistance,  equipments, posters, other PR, etc.

We also offer our blog and vimeo sites for our artist to document their activities during the course of their residency.  In fact, updating our blog and vimeo site is a requirement from our side to our artists. In addition, their presentations are recorded by HUMlab technicians. This documentation activity is an important component of Yoshikaze activity so that we will be able to serve future researchers with these archives.

B: In ‘real life’, artists, curators, critics, museum directors, etc, have all expressed their opinion on what the role of the curator is/should be. For example, John Cage said that curating should be ‘an utility’, Marcel Duchamp famously said that ‘a curator shouldn’t stand in the way’, Felix Feneon saw the curator as a pedestrian bridge (‘une passerelle’) between the artist and their public, Anne d’Harnoncourt saw a curator as an ‘enabler’.
How do you see the role of a curator in Second Life?

G: As for curation, not only within Second Life but in general, I am a firm believer of "a curator shouldn't stand in the way." Although as an artist in RL I have taken several commissions to work in an environment strictly defined by curators, I do not believe in curation that will dictate the artists what to do or what and how to think.  I see curation not as a steering act but a complementary role to help support artists to realise their vision: an "enabler" for the vision of the artist and a "bridge" between the artist and the organisation/institution where the artist has to materialise his/her vision.  I believe the vision has to come from artists themselves through their own history of explorations and investigations in their art practice.

As for my own curation in general, though I occasionally play a role of curator, I do not see myself a curator in a general sense.  Where I have played a role of curator are within the fields I am familiar with as an artist - screenings of single channel videos from the tradition of electronic art, netart, and Second Life art including Machinimas from Second Life.  I see my curation activity as raising awareness and broadening interest and understanding of those art practices.  I take up this role only when I see the lack of connection between a certain art practice and opportunities to publicly show the artworks produced in that particular discipline. I see this lack of connection also translates to, for the side of the public, the lack of opportunity to experience those works.  As such, I try to include in my curation diversity of the field in question, within certain boundaries I set up for myself.  My interest is not to define what those art practices should be or promote what I consider to be good art, but rather to introduce those fields of art activities to the public who are not even aware of their existence.  My intention as a curator has always been "sharing" my knowledge.

For Yoshikaze curation, the following specific tasks have been involved: 1) outlining the aim of Yoshikaze activity within the context of HUMlab 2) designing the residency form to suit the aim 3) selection of artists 4) being a link between our artists and HUMlab (the director, the sim manager, the art director, and the technicians) 5) supervision over the residency 6) supervision over our exhibitions with our sim manager/researcher at HUMlab.

B: What criteria are applied in the process of selecting artists who apply for the ‘Up In The Air’ residency?

G: Either the artist has produced a significant body of work in Second Life to ensure that he/she can carry on working independently with his/her own set of inquiries in relation to his/her own SL art practice.

Or he/she can present me a specific inquiry he/she would like to carry out during his/her Yoshikaze residency.

B: One of a museum or art gallery’s main tasks is to create a public – not only to do great shows, but to create a solid audience. How does Yoshikaze or Humlab itself go on about creating an audience for SL shows?

G: Our aim with Yoshikaze from the beginning has been 1) to provide a space for SL artists in their pursuit of art activity (which translates to a 1-3 months' residency) 2) to introduce SL art activity to the  HUMlab's audience by presenting and acknowledging the accomplishment of their residency activities at the end of each residency period.

HUMlab is a well-established experimental meeting place at Umeå University for researchers and students, whose main areas of concerns are the cross fields between humanities and technology, including, but not limited to, various subjects and aspects of online and virtual phenomena. Its activity encompasses a much wider range than both art and Second Life.  HUMlab sim in Second Life reflects RL HUMlab with its broad scope of activities, of which Yoshikaze is only one part. In short HUMlab, both in RL and SL, is neither an art gallery nor an art institution. Yoshikaze, as being part of that HUMlab activity, works within the contextual framework set by HUMlab as well as by the university itself.  We do not run an art gallery.  Nor do we run an art space. Our main activity is to provide virtual artist residency in Second Life to SL artists.

As such, we organise our shows only in conjunction with our residencies.  Though we open our SL studio in conjunction with our RL exhibitions to our SL public, our main concern with our shows is to create a meeting point between our artists and the RL HUMlab audience in RL setting. Our shows are to be seen as equal to opportunities for our artists to share with our HUMlab audience what they have achieved as well as what they gone through in their pursuit of artistic activity during the course of their Yoshikaze residency.  Equally, our shows are to be seen as providing opportunities to our RL audience, which consists mostly of our fellow researchers and university and art students, in order for them to discover, explore, investigate, and engage in dialogues, often with the artists themselves, about art activities and their discourses within Second Life/Virtual World. 

This context within which Yoshikaze's activity is placed creates a different set of concerns from those stated in your question.

B: Would you agree that artists in SL can easily show their work and be their own mediator bypassing the structure of an art institution (e.g. universities that provide space, museums, galleries and other alternative spaces?) 

G:  Both yes and no.

SL has a freedom of bypassing art institutions with much less cost than RL.  Whereas having your own gallery would be a very expensive endeavour in RL, in SL the cost is minimum and it requires no qualification to run it and establish it.  Also I have a feeling that, because of the inexpensive nature of SL as well as the fact that there are less active artists in SL than in RL, connections and opportunities for making a show in SL comes somewhat easier than in RL.

However, how much of your art activities in SL is to be seen by others as "proper" art practice is another matter.  I think it is safe to say that there is a tendency outside the informed SL circles to regard SL art practice as "hobby" and not consider it as serious as other art practices.  Yoshikaze through HUMlab, with the intention of introducing SL art activities to the public outside SL, aims to counter that tendency. 

B: Or would you say that institutions, such as  Umeå University, are of fundamental importance for SL artists and their audiences?

G: My answer is no.  I believe art activities in SL would continue even if there were no RL institutions that would take up their art, provided, of course, SL be a medium artists find attractive enough to remain active in.  Activities like Yoshikaze with the link to RL institutions are additional, the hopeful outcome of which is broadening the interest in and acceptance of what artists are doing in SL. 

B:  SL’s interactive and social nature would suggest a strong collective spirit among SL artists and great solidarity among them. Even though there is a lot of collaboration going on, art communities in SL seem widely disparate and appear not to interact much with each other.
Do you agree with this? And if so, what would you say it is the main driver behind having those separate communities?

G: Interesting point.  Unfortunately, I lack overall insights sufficient to state if I agree or disagree with the statement.

B: Exhibiting virtual-based artworks in the physical space of a gallery is possible by either reducing the work of art to a form of documentation (such as, in the case of ‘Up in the Air’ residency, Alan Sondheim works were shown at the Umeå University in monitors in form of machinimia, audio files and still images) or by offering the audience computer access to a virtual viewing platform (such as with Cao Fei’s ‘RMB City’ exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in London in 2009). Alternatively, 3D virtual sculptures can be materialized via physical re-creation, such as in ‘Objects of Virtual Desire’, the 2005 off-world exhibition which explored the physical reproduction of immaterial objects originally created in SL.  However, recreating a virtual art installation outside the online world poses a more complex task, as the experience is meant to be lived within the context of the cyberspace, and may not translate well into the physical space of a gallery. Still, 3D immersive installation art may be simulated in a gallery space with the aid of hardware configuration, head mounted display (HMD), interactive sound, motion-tracking clothing and gloves filled with sensors.
Additionally, real life museums, art galleries and other institutions (such as the Umeå University, the UWA, the University of Kentucky, the Smithsonian’s Latino Centre –, and maybe others) can enter SL itself and build an exhibition space in-world.
How important do you believe it is for ‘real life’ art institutions to enter SL and display virtual art in its native land? Why?

G: Let me first clarify, to make sure that you have understood our situation correctly, that it is not the case that our exhibitions are done with documentations only.  We have used our SL platform for each exhibition in the past, including RL exhibitions with access to our SL platform (thus direct access to the SL installation inworld) on one or two of our monitors (Selavy Oh, Fau Ferdinand), as well as an inworld mixed reality performance at the opening of a RL exhibition (Garrett Lynch).  Even with Alan Sondheim's exhibition, we kept his installation at our SL space for the SL public for the duration of the RL exhibition so that the work can be experienced in its original form in SL.   As for our RL exhibitions, as stated earlier, we work within a very strict contextual environment, which differs from that of art institutions and galleries.  Our primary concern here is to create a meeting point between our artists and our RL audience, for which incorporating the virtual setting has not always turned out to be the best suited format. As stated earlier, the way our exhibitions are organised comes out of our discussions with the artists. Once we receive the information from the artists of their vision over how to utilise our RL space, equipments, as well as how to carry out their presentation/artist-talk, we try to accommodate the need of each artist within the context and capability of Yoshikaze. In practice this has resulted in each of our artists forming his/her exhibition and presentation differently.

Going back to your question:

Interpreting your question as the intention of RL art institutions to establish themselves in SL to display SL art on their own SL platforms is whether or not important, I am not sure if I consider this to be of any primal importance for SL art activities.  It may provide certain legitimation to the art practice in SL but I see this to be secondary to the creative energy that comes from the artists themselves. There is of course economic concern since SL space is not free of charge.  Here I believe RL institutions can be instrumental in supporting various art activities. 

Interpreting your question as whether or not organising solely SL based art exhibitions is important compared to RL based exhibitions, my reply is as follows:  for RL art institutions I prefer they show the virtual platform not only within Second Life but also in their RL exhibitions. The reasons are 1) as art institutions/art galleries, their pursuit should be to present the artwork in the medium in which the artwork is intended to be experienced  2) with the link to RL art institutions, they have resources which SL based art communities do not posses, i.e. opportunities to organise SL art exhibitions in RL setting.  Though there are complications in showing virtual art in RL setting, I believe this form broadens the interest in, the knowledge of, and the understanding of what artists are doing in Second Life in the domain of general public and art circles outside SL. In addition, by addressing the complications that arise from entering SL as its base format in RL setting, various forms of displaying the virtual art in RL exhibitions, such as mixed reality, can and should be investigated further by the institutions as well as by the artists themselves.  Here it is of utmost importance that the financial support for those endeavours be secured from the side of those art institutions.

B: Thanks again for your participation.

G: You are welcome.