In Heraklion, the scores were written on a big paper roll. The roll travelled from the ceiling, along the floor, out a window. It was hanging, folded, ripped, seperated, changing with the accumulationg scores and traces from the sculpture built on and around it. The ARTwork took place nearby the school, in a building that had been abandoned – an old raison factory turned art school, which in itself enriched the ARTwork significantly through its very visible layers of local history.
I N D E X
score – a set of instructions, often in chronological order, for engagement with artistic materials
sculpture – an assemblage of objects and bodies, including what they do
time capsule – a distilled version of the sculpture;
in a suitcase, time capsules were sent from one LTT to the other. after the final meeting in Heraklion, the suitcase was buried at a beach
distilling – to reduce something to its most essential components;
in relation to the time capsules this meant a process of finding objects and assemblages that are small enough for the container and carry the most important aspects of the sculpture
letters – the final form of the sculpture;
small assemblages of objects from the sculpture with a personal note from a participant → you can order one home here -- LINK ---
The ARTwork is one of the two outcomes of the RELAY project – next to the ARTicle. It revolves around a sculpture that is made collaboratively by all project participants; never by all at once, but at least once by every person involved. It is constantly changing and travelled from one LTTA event to the next via a time capsule; to fit a sculpture that filled a room into a suitcase.
The sculpture is a space in which the students were introduced to forms of collaboration that don’t depend on consensus, but that function through a direct engagement with different artistic materials including objects, sound and movement. Maia Means and Max Wallmeier, responsible for the facilitation of the ARTwork, provided frames for collaboration and artistic exploration while minimizing their own influence on content, leaving that open to the participants’ interests and desires.
At the start of each LTTA event, the time capsule from the previous event was opened and laid out in the sculpture room by the group travelling with it, in an opening ritual. All students were then presented with scores for gathering both local and generic materials – local materials being something specific to the institution/building/neighbourhood/city of the event, and generic materials being the things you might find at any of the four places. With the found materials, the participants started to build a sculpture. During the entire duration of each event the sculpture continuously morphed as the participants added, changed and activated the sculpture, informed by the other work and information they took part of during the week.
At the end of each event there was a closing ceremony that distilled the sculpture into a Time Capsule, which was then opened at the next event. At the end of the last LTTA event in Heraklion, the sculpture took its final shape – for the time being - in the form of small assemblages placed in letters. A last Time Capsule was packed and buried in the sand of an urban Cretan beach.
For every iteration of the ARTwork, the main mode of instructions were hand-written scores. Underneath you find the scores from Bucharest, originally written on big papers to be hung on a wall during the week. The scores proposed a reflection of the differences and overlaps between "local" and "generic" materials, which we encouraged the participants to find during walks and the other activities of the LTTA.
In Cologne, daily scores slowly fillied one wall of the studio where the time capsule was opened and the sculpture was built and activated throughout the week – the scores are pictured underneath aproximately like they were placed at teh end of the week. The intention of the ARTwork in Cologne was to provide scores and structures but let the contents come entirely from the students. The activities, methods and materials that constituted the ARTwork suggested sustainability by creating a structure for non-linear entanglements, with a focus on tasks for re-tracing, recycling and listening, as well as incorporating local and seasonal materials.
