10 SFCs para gestionar eventos de error síncrono
10.1 Enmascarar eventos de error síncrono
Reviewing the curatorial literature and trying to identify curatorial approaches and ways of work- ing which have developed as a response to changes in artistic practices, particularly those brought about by socially engaged and new media, a strong tendency towards collaborative ways of work- ing within contemporary curating is evident.There are various factors contributing to the growing significance of collaborative models of curatorial practice including the rise of large-scale exhibi- tions, new ways of working brought about by new media, as well as a wider turn to collaborative, participatory and self-organised models of artistic practices in contemporary art.143
Collaborative curatorial practice has become a characteristic of large-scale international exhibitions. On the one hand, as O’Neill notes, the large scale exhibitions, ‘continued to mobilize an expanded, centralized position for the figure of the curator’,on the other however, ‘there has been a shift away from the “single-author” curatorial model, gradually moving towards more collaborative, discursive and collective models of curating.’144 One of the reasons for the shift within large-scale exhibitions was the fact that they require ‘access to wider network of artistic and cultural practices’ in order to sustain an inclusive character of this presentation model.145
139 Ibid., pp. 84-86.
140 Frogget, L. at al. 2011. New Model Visual Arts Organisations & Social Engagement. Preston: University of Central Lancashire. p. 66.
141 Beech, D. 2012. ‘The Ideology of Duration in the Dematerialised Monument. Art, Sites, Publics and Time.’ In O’Neill, Doherty, Locating the Producers. p. 325.
142 Ibid., p. 325.
143 O’Neill, P. 2010. ‘Beyond the Group Practice’. Manifesta Journal. Vol. 8. p. 42. 144 Ibid., p. 43.
This attempt to democratise artistic production and presentation is a significant motivation behind the move towards a collaborative practice in general. As Arriola argues ‘the assumption was that a group of voices can both democratize the artists’ access to the so-called mainstream and pluralize the geographic, aesthetic and political points of view from which to put into perspective contem- porary artistic production’.146 Collective curatorial work allows for a pooling together of knowledge, expertise and ideas and it is also a good way of combining resources (financial, and manpower) in harder economic times. As such, collaboration between institutions on co-commissioning of new work is an increasingly common practice.
There are various different models of collaborative curatorial practice. O’Neill discusses three ap- proaches to group curating, especially within large-scale exhibitions. The first model, which O’Neil calls ‘curating curators’ is exemplified by the Documenta 11, in which artistic director, Okwui En- zewor invited a team of international curators, who together formed a curatorial ‘think tank [...] to develop the concept and content of the exhibition under his direction, and to provide contextual texts’.147 In contrast to this model O’Neill discusses an approach of ‘multiple authorship’ – exempli- fied by the curatorial model of Manifesta – in which a group of ‘high profile curators (generally from divergent locations and perspectives, often unknown to each other)’ is brought together to ‘work collaboratively on a single exhibition in a selected European city/region, with an overarching politi- cal agenda’.148 The third way of working is exemplified by the strategy of Francesco Bonami, curator of the 50th Venice Biennale (2003) who invited international curators to curate their own exhibitions within his ‘exhibition-event’.149 This concept of the exhibition, as Bonami argued, replaced an idea of an exhibition as a ‘single narrative’ and presented a ‘plurality of curatorial visions.’150
Curatorial collaborations not only involve curators working together, as discussed above, but can equal- ly involve curators working with artists, or artists working together as curators, as well as curators and/ or artists working with audiences, participants, or communities on the development of an exhibition or a project. Many examples of such collaborations can be cited. Artists collective Raqs Media Collective, invited to curate an exhibition (The Rest for Now) for Manifesta 7 (2008), worked not only as a curatorial team in developing ideas for the exhibition, but they also invited a number of artists to respond to the initial curatorial concepts and co-define, through collaborative exchanges, the exhibition framework.151 Grizedale Arts, discussed previously, is also as an example of a collaborative curatorial practice, in- volving artists and curators, as well as audiences, in which different projects are developed through ongoing curatorial discussions between Grizedale curators and the network of artists associated with the organisation. This cumulative collaborative model of working is underpinned by a sustained engagement with the local context and ongoing debates with the local community. Grizedale can be also used as an example of how collaborative curatorial models of working reflect a wider turn to collaborative and participatory practices in contemporary art, particularly – in case of Grizedale – process-oriented socially engaged practices.
146 Arriola, M. 2010. ‘Towards a Ghostly Agency: a Few Speculations on Collaborative and Collective Curat- ing’. Manifesta Journal. Vol. 8. p. 3.
147 O’Neill, The Culture of Curating. p. 79. 148 Ibid., p. 79.
149 Ibid., p. 80.
150 Bonami, F. quoted in O’Neill, The Culture of Curating. p. 80.
151 See Raqs Media Collective. 2010. ‘Additions, Subtractions: On Collectives and Collectivities’. Manifesta Journal. Vol. 8. pp. 5-13.
Collective curatorial models of working have also been developed as a response to the new ways of working brought about by new media. Collaboration is a common means of operation for new me- dia artists, often for pragmatic reasons due to the variety of skills sets required to produce techno- logically complex work.152 The models of working developed in media labs, festivals, or new media institutions are usually very collaborative, including curators and artists, programmers, technicians working together on the different aspects of a project in development and in production.153
Sarah Cook discussed three models of curatorial practice within new media and corresponding mod- els of exhibitions which have developed to accommodate the characteristics of new media art pro- duction. These models are the ‘iterative’, (within the ‘iterative’ exhibition, a travelling exhibition which changes with each iteration); the ‘modular’ (within the ‘modular’ exhibition, consisting of different elements and ‘modules’, including workshops, talks, performances as well as exhibition) and the ‘dis- tributed’ curatorial model (within the ‘exhibition as broadcast’, requiring durational viewing or sched- uled broadcast, often online-based).154 Those ways of working are not unique to new media art and, as Cook notes, may also be found in the wider contemporary art context, although predominantly within practices ‘that seek to locate the experience of work outside of the traditional gallery space’.155 However, these categories also effectively encapsulate both the specific nature of new media art proj- ects and the collaborative models of working, which are at the core of new media curating.
Two of those models, described by Cook: the ‘iterative’ and the ‘modular’ imply strongly collabora- tive ways of working. In the ‘iterative’ model, the exhibition or a project is a work-in progress, which changes with each iteration of the show, accommodating the variable and dynamic nature of many new media art projects. The exhibition generates a network of gallery spaces – nodes, each of which adapts and modifies the content displaying different aspects and outcomes of each project. In this model the curator collaborates not only with a network of galleries but also with the artists, allow- ing for a subsequent developments of their projects ‘over longer periods of time and in response to changes in technology as well as location.’156
Collaboration is also at the core of the ‘modular’ curatorial model. In this model an exhibition consists of different elements and modules such as performances, talks, presentations, workshops, as well as more traditional presentation formats, thus reflecting the multifaceted nature of new media art production. The exhibition ‘might be just one incarnation of a multistring or multilevel interpretational event struc- ture (a platforms) with “guides on the side” or local projects or managers at each location’.157 The modu- lar curatorial model is often based on collaborations between curators and network of institutions, or exhibition venues with the curator acting as a project manager, a part of a global team, working with different groups of people who are producing the work in each location.158 ‘The resulting project often has the benefit of developing cumulatively (growing from one international venue to the next) and responsively (informed by and created in reaction to a local context by the respective partners).’159 152 Cook, Graham, Rethinking Curating. p. 274.
153 Ibid., p. 247.
154 Cook, S. 2008. ‘Immateriality and Its Discontents. An Overview of Main Models and Issues for Curating New Media.’ In Paul, New Media in the White Cube. pp. 26-49.
155 Ibid., p. 44. 156 Ibid., p. 40.
157 Cook, Graham, Rethinking Curating, p. 155. 158 Cook, ‘Immateriality and Its Discontents’, p. 41. 159 Ibid., p. 42.
All the above collaborative curatorial models of working have been developed predominantly out- side of traditional institutions, in large-scale exhibitions, biennales, festivals and alternative forms of exhibitions associated with new media art. However, those ways of working have also influenced the curatorial approaches within more traditional art institutions. As already noted in the first part of the contextual review (Section 1.1.2.) based on the example of exhibition 010101. Art in Technological Times in SFMOMA, analysed by Beryl Graham, new media exhibitions requiring close collaborations between different departments of the museum, necessitated an exchange of knowledge across dif- ferent curatorial departments as well as those not usually involved in the production of exhibitions (e.g. Systems and Service) and facilitated new cross-departmental working frameworks.
Similarly, new models of institutional practice proposed by new institutionalism have also relied on close collaborations between traditionally separated departments, such as Exhibitions and Educa- tion. Institutions developed frameworks and ways of working, which would allow for a closer in- tegration of the work of different departments, especially education into the main programming activities. Sally Tallant, formerly curator of the Serpentine Gallery and currently director of Liverpool Biennale has described integrated models of programming, characteristic for the new institutions based on examples from the Serpentine.160 Integrated programming, as discussed by Tallant, implies a close collaboration between the different programming teams. Exhibitions, Education and Public programmes are all considered as part of one overall programme of activities. Projects are often multifaceted, develop through various timeframes, result in different outputs and are presented in various formats, across the traditional programming strands (e.g. educational projects can become part of an exhibition). Curators and other members of programming teams work together on dif- ferent aspects of projects, which results in a blurring of the boundaries between different roles (e.g. educational officers are working as curators and vice versa), as well as exchange of expertise across programming teams.161
1.2.4. Summary
This part of the contextual review described a selection of new curatorial approaches and ways of working which have been developed in response to changes in contemporary artistic practice as engendered by a range of socially engaged, place based practices as well as new media, but also reflecting wider changes in curatorial practice, brought by the proliferation of new presentation for- mats such as the international large-scale exhibitions. The review focused specifically on context-re- sponsive, durational and collaborative curatorial approaches, which were developed predominantly outside of traditional institutional context; in commissioning agencies, biennials, festivals or new media presentation platforms, and have begun to influence institutional curatorial praxis, especially when trying to respond to and deal with the challenges of changing artistic formats and models of working. These curatorial approaches can be found in new models of art institutions proposed by the New Institutionalism as well as new media institutions, and as such provide points of reference for the examination of FACT’s curatorial praxis.
160 Tallant, S. 2009. ‘Experiments in Integrated Programming’. Tate’s Online Research Journal. [PDF]. Online. Avaliable at: http://www.tate.org.uk/download/file/fid/7285. Accessed: March 14, 2012.