Open Studio Photos!!!

Hey everyone, here are some of the artworks from the DIS Open Studio! Everyone was so talented! Throughout the Summer Institute, Marco's mantra was, "energy over quality", but I personally think quality matched the energy! Thanks so much for the packed weeks, it was so wonderful getting to know everyone. Take a look at some of the photos of the artwork below. I would also like to apologize in advance about the lost documentation. If the photos are found, I'll be sure to update!

Chris Andrews, heel concept and untitled text, sculpture & text.

Chris Andrews, untitled text, text.

Chris Andrews, Performance for Hermès, sculpture & text.

Steph Berrington, untitled, installation.

Steph Berrington, untitled, installation. Details.

Steph Berrington, untitled, installation. Details.

Ibai Gorriti, Dr. Money and the Boy with No Penis, install.

Ibai Gorriti, Dr. Money and the Boy with No Penis, install. Details.

Ibai Gorriti, Dr. Money and the Boy with No Penis, install. Details.

Ibai Gorriti, Soft Architectures, manifesto. Details.

Brian Hunter, untitled, installation.

Brian Hunter, untitled, installation. Details.

Instant Coffee (Jinhan Ko & Sunny Lee), Winnipeg Special Cocktail Dispenser, sculpture and installation.
55 PinkNoise Posters, wheatepaste (background).

Instant Coffee (Jinhan Ko & Sunny Lee), Winnipeg Special Cocktail Dispenser, zine. Details.

Instant Coffee (Jinhan Ko & Sunny Lee), Winnipeg Special Cocktail Dispenser, animation. Details

Instant Coffee (Jinhan Ko & Sunny Lee), Winnipeg Special Cocktail Dispenser, sculpture and installation. Details.

Instant Coffee (Jinhan Ko & Sunny Lee), Winnipeg Special Cocktail Dispenser, sculpture and installation. Details.

Ryan Josey, TalkingToMyself.mov, video installation. 

Ryan Josey, TalkingToMyself.mov, video installation. 

Ryan Josey, TalkingToMyself.mov, archival inkjet prints.

John Patterson, How to Be Important, sculpture, found objects.

John Patterson, How to Be Important, sculpture, found objects. Details.

John Patterson, How to Be Important, sculpture, found objects. Details.

Shaylyn Plett, Pale Horses, publication/zine.

Erica Stocking, YES MOTHER, sculpture.

Erica Stocking, YES MOTHER, sculpture. Details.

Xin Xin, Falling Rehearsals, video installation.

Xin Xin, Falling Rehearsals, video installation.

Hangouts: Instant Coffee (Jinhan Ko and Sunny Lee)

Sunny Lee in Studio.

Instant Coffee

I was able to sit down with Instant Coffee members Jinhan Ko and Sunny Lee where we talked about their practices individually and working as a collective.

A bit about the collective:

Instant Coffee: Get Social or Get Lost.

Instant Coffee is a service-oriented artist collective based in Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver (Canada), and Seoul (South Korea). Through formal installations and event-based activities, we build a public place to practice where ideas, materials, and actions can be explored outside of the isolated studio and in a manner that renegotiates traditional exhibition structures, but is still supported by them.

Instant Coffee's frequent practice is to build architectural installations, which become venues for a series of organized events from formal lectures and screenings to informal gatherings and workshops. Each installation requires hosts who initiate some form of social interaction through the presentation and performance of ideas that pertain to artistic production and discourse.

Instant Coffee has an extensive art practice, spanning over fifteen years. As an artist collective we have been invested in combining the social with the aesthetic, and as such have worked in public spaces to engage expanded audiences. We have shown extensively nationally and internationally, and have exhibited in many prominent art institutions as well as have produced numerous permanent and temporary public art projects.

Together we have developed a multi-disciplinary practice that culminates in bringing together large numbers of artists, designers, musicians, architects, writers and other cultural producers. We offer networking services that promote local, national and international activities through weekly listing in Halifax, Toronto and Vancouver to over 9000 subscribers. In conjunction with our exhibitions and events, we also publish book-works, posters and artist multiples.

Jinhan Ko in studio.

Jinhan spoke to the value of working in a collective, how working with a group of people gave him more confidence in his practice.  Instant coffee started out as originally eight people, now four. Together, they create public installations that become sites for interaction and public engagement as a means of exploring public space and private space. The collective has been practicing for over fifteen year, and Jinhan described the practice as not necessarily changing, but rather transforming in order to accommodate to new technologies. This is also partly reflects how Jinhan is having to adjust to living in Korea where he has begun to spend most months of the year. He says that accommodating to new lifestyles and technologies are an extensions of his anxieties about change.

The Conversation quickly turned into a talk about, his, Sunny, and my own diasporas and asian/asian immigrant histories, leading to Jinhan showing Sunny and I a photo of his cousin's extended family in California. The photo was wholesome, trust me!

At the DIS Summer Institute, they wanted to broaden their scope and explore new technologies and tools for living. They would be exploring new lifestyle technologies. When they originally heard about the Summer Institute, they originally weren't sure what to expect from the program, when fellow collective member, Jenifer Papararro invited them to apply. They were working on pink noise pop up in Seoul, Korea this past spring and Jinhan and Sunny took a chance. Jinhan and Sunny used Winnipeg as the site for developing their new lifestyle technologies. To them, these are ways of living and existing. They both made work about the time spent in and around Winnipeg including homemade rice wine, a road trip video, and crafting practical objects for their lifestyles.

Sunny has a background in animation, hand drawing, and crafting. Throughout the Summer Institute, Sunny has been thinking about her role as an artist: what you can do, what you should do, and why you are able to do it.  She has been watching, listening, and learning. Sunny is interested in sharing stories, and drawing from life (pun not intended unless you thought it was funny).

Throughout the Summer Institute Jinhan and Sunny have created sculptures, zines, and other mixed media and handmade items. Thanks for the Winnipeg Special Cocktail Sunny and Jinhan! It was very sweet, but very delicious!

Sun Sign:

Jinhan Ko: Virgo

Sunny Lee: Scorpio
Links:
www.pinknoisepopup.com

www.instantcoffee.org

Sunny Lee in studio.

Hangouts: Erica Stocking

Erica Stocking during Hannah Black artist Talk.

Erica Stocking

Erica's practice is interdisciplinary and has the tendency to physically and conceptually exist between geographic spaces. She has a history of creating permanent and public work with a background in sculpture and textiles. Though her work isn't always sculpture, she operates from the lens of sculpture.  Materiality, process, and ethos is essential to her work. Erica explained that for her, ethos is the product's personal histories and the state of the artist which participates in determining the output, the quality of the work, and how it engages the space. Erica describes her method of working as a constellation of processes. (!! we LOVE astrology !!)

During the DIS Summer Institute Erica has been able to use her ongoing research to focus on working in the studio. She's been hard at work completing three projects, one of which has been ongoing. In 2010, she had been thinking about layers, materials, and their uses. Erica created sculptures for her home with materials from her house as a means of manipulating day to day life with these objects.  She was informed by architect Eileen Gray and integrated media and performance artist Yvonne Rainer, specifically thinking about how intentionality of material translates to the product.  Her practice is rooted in DIY and zeitgeist. Zeitgeist seeks to reflect the spirit/mood of a particular point in history in a given geographical location. For Erica, the zeitgeist that informs her current practice was the recession in 2008, which translated into a concern for how to produce in such a way that would result in more self-made objects that were crafted by hand and practical.

Along with her interests in material, Erica embraces duality and existing in transitional space. She is constantly negotiating with dualities and cycles. With her work at the Summer Institute titled, YES MOTHER (2018), she is examining the generational duality between mothers and daughters. Duality will not necessarily mean opposites, but rather duality as two aspects of a whole. For Erica, transitional space refers more to transformation rather than in between. I brought up the structure of haiku's and how the lines and syllables will move from five, seven, to five (transitional) but requires a seminal moment in nature where something is transforming and can not return to it's previous form (amongst other requirements).

YES MOTHER, is an emblem of intergenerational matriarchy through clothing. Erica describes the feeling of life attributed to objects (such as clothing). She recalls trying on her mother's clothing and it being too big for her, then finally fitting into her mother's clothing, and then it not feeling like her own clothing. These unnamed feeling also manifests when she sees her own daughters trying on her clothing. My own interest in how memory functions has lead me to describe Erica's feelings towards these objects as haunted.

YES MOTHER, is informed by avante garde writer, Gertrude Stein, who wrote Yes is For a Very Young Man, and Mother of Us All. These two works of theatre are examined by Erica as dual with each other. Yes is For a Very Young Man as a tale of optimism written at the beginning of Stein's career, and Mother of Us All was written at the end of her life with the intention of asking for life to move forward. Mother of Us All is a work that informs Erica and supports the role of transformation in her work. Erica  continues to look backward, but move forward with her practice.

Thank you for the layers, Erica!

Sun Sign: Cancer

Hangouts: Chris Andrews

Chris Andrews in studio.

Last year the Summer Institute blog brought you Bite Sizes - mini interviews with the visiting artists - and I thought I'd bring those back as artist Hangouts. There weren't specific questions, but rather just sitting down and talking about their practices and what they worked on during the Summer Institute.

Chris Andrews

At the Summer Institute, Chris is continuing research on the art market, toxic assets, and care, and how these concepts become entangled. Chris has established a platform lois which is a web-based curatorial platform and network for contemporary artwork, facilitating the sale of work from artists internationally." (from http://loisprojects.info/) Chris is particularly interested in supporting underrepresented artists, and helping to grow their market through this new contemporary art platform. Lois embodies an alternative to the contemporary commercial gallery model, and works to bring care into the art market, through the redistribution of wealth within these systems and the and the acknowledgement of artistic labour. Lois is showing contemporary artwork showing and selling work on the behalf of artists as well as commissioning for new work thus helping grow the contemporary art market. This platform is for professional artists who aren't financially supported in the contemporary market. Lois chooses to be an alternative to traditional gallery systems and is working to transform the way wealth and labour is distributed for contemporary artists with an emphasis on care.

DIS aligned really well with Chris' investigations of contemporary art. The programming centring around alternative streams of living (libertarian futures, crypto currency, etc) mirroring Chris' own intentions of providing an alternate to art galleries for contemporary artists. The seminars focus on existing outside of traditional spheres of working has been great for his research and providing peer to peer learning to help absorb the content provided. For Chris, the seminars made him want to engage and interact with alternative modes of disseminating contemporary art, such as DIS.art. The DIS Summer Institute is a positive and collaborative learning experience for Chris.

Sun Sign: Aquarius
Website: http://chrisandrewsstudio.info/
lois project: http://loisprojects.info/

Thank you for the care, Chris!

Chris Andrews in studio.

Hangouts: Jaz Papadopoulos

Just as we (Jaz and I), head to the rooftop for another interview, another man is trying to catch the elevator up. Jaz presses the button that holds the door open and lets the man enter. I'm not really paying attention, looking over my notes for the day, when I hear the man drop, "Well maybe you should just give me your number". [eyes emoji...] He exits the elevator and as we get settled in on the roof, he comes running toward us and Jaz lets him have their number. His name is Gavin :•) from tech :•) For the record, Jaz is a water sign.

Jaz Papadopoulos in Studio.

Jaz Papadopoulos

Jaz doesn't have an art background, they received their undergrad in conflict resolution. They are interested in non-violent action which has led them to feminism and art which further pushed them to study clowning. Jaz also interest in critical theory, especially post structural theory and post-colonial theories – the likes of Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, Edward Said, and Gloria Anzaldua. Judith Butler is an american philosopher and gender theorist whose work has informed political philosophy, ethics, and third wave feminism, queer, and literary praxis.  Michel Foucault (already mentioned in a previous blog post is a french philosopher and social thinker whose work mainly examines the relationship between knowledge and power. Edward Said examines colonialism, imperialism, orientalism, and the role of the intellectual. Gloria Anzaldua is an american scholar of queer theory, feminist theory, and chicana cultural theory who has done significant work on the mestiza. These theorists inform Jaz' own practice in attempts to understand how bodies navigate diaspora, gender, place, memory, grief, and ritual as well as how these ideas operate on their own.

After school, they were inspired by Anzaldua's dialects of writing. Gloria Anzaldua had challenged the norm of language which is what led to Jaz studying clowning. Clowning was used as a tool for subverting language resulting in their interdisciplinary practice of experimental poetry, installation, video, and performance.

At the DIS Summer Institute, Jaz is looking to do more research on emotional labour and anti capitalism organizing. They ask the question, "Is getting paid for emotional labour feminist? Is it possible under capitalism?" In their research they've been looking at feminism, money, and capitalism. So far, they have been critical of the libertarian ideas being presented by some of the speakers and in conversation with peers. Specifically, the topic of accelerationism has sparked their interest in capitalist futures. There is a film, In Time dir. Andrew Niccol. 2011., starring Justin Timberlake where instead of using the material made up value of money, they use minutes.  This examination of a capitalist future removes material currency and replaces it with non-material value that also determines your life's value. Jaz relates In Time to the role and existence of bitcoin and data mining. They were so flabbergasted at the idea of bitcoin and data mining using such an unsustainable amount of energy (why your battery life runs out so fast when you illegally stream video on your browser vs. youtube streaming; adblocker only does so much unfortunately). Though they see the value in crypto currency, they can't help but draw the comparison between crypto currencies and life minutes. How are intangibles measured/given value under capitalism? How does this compromise or expand Jaz' own research and understanding on payment for emotional labour?

Sun Sign: Cancer
Website: http://vimeo.com/jazpapadopoulos

In Time film poster. dir. Andrew Niccol. 2011.

Hangouts: Ryan Josey

I'm so pleased to bring you another artist hangout. Ryan wanted to sit on the rooftop where Dan Graham's permanent installation sits. It was beautiful outside and acted as a quiet and private space to sit and talk with artists who chose to be interviewed up there. (It's been sunny during the entire Summer Institute, we're so lucky not to have had any prairie storms!)

Ryan Josey

At Plug In ICA, Ryan has been thinking about labour in the art world, mediation of the self and participation in social technology, and how all the parts of himself can reconcile. Labour in the art world pertaining to Ryan's experience working as a camboy to pay for an unpaid internship in NYC in 2015 (don't @ me about unpaid internships, they're all types of evil :*| ) and how webcam modelling has been used to support him and his practice. It is through these multi-facets of himself that Ryan has shown interest in the way our "selves" are presented materially and intentionally includes digital presence as a material yet ephemeral form. Engaging with social technologies (such as social media, emailing, phone calls, cam work, etc.) has presented Ryan with different ways of gazing. He talks about it as a method of arranging one's self for consumption. For Ryan social technologies expand the capacity to control the ways in which we are gazed upon and creates more room for active decision making. These are thoughts that we further explore in the interview:

Ryan explained in more detail his interest in the self and self representation by talking about Michel Foucault, a French philosopher and social theorist whose work primarily examined the relationship between knowledge and power. (we LOVE Michel Foucault!) During a previous artist residency in Finland, Ryan read all three volumes of The History of Sexuality and noticed how often Foucault had written the words "silence" and "death". For those who didn't know, Foucault was one of the first queer theorists and talked about queerness, love, and sexuality; he also died of AIDs. After Ryan noted the number of times Foucault wrote "silence" and "death", he made the connection with the use of "SILENCE=DEATH" as part of Gran Fury's campaigns during the AIDs crisis (Gran Fury was a gay design collective working with ACT UP).  With this we had a mini rant on the erasure of queer histories, and the liberalizing and white washing of radical thought.  I specifically brought up how the Combahee River Collective had coined, for example, identity politics as a way to navigate the way people with structural power have identified marginalized communities and people in order to discriminate, and how Mark Lilla decided to mistranslate it's use and meaning. (article in response to Lilla's op-ed https://newrepublic.com/article/144739/liberals-get-wrong-identity-politics)

Ryan used these examples to describe the need for framing our own and other people's experiences. During the artists presentation, he noted how, "There was so much work [that went] into developing our framework, pressure to select a version of yourself to present to [other] artists", and how this mirror's Foucalt's own struggle for himself, and our own struggles with self identification, how it seems that there is a desire to move beyond this impact and move beyond historical context.

The DIS Summer Institute has been full of interesting and new ideas for Ryan with the lectures, artist talks, and the research he has involved himself in. He thinks about the presented ideas in the seminars and talks about how separated they are from lived experiences. For example the ideas presented by Armen Avanessian and Mahan Moalemi of alternates to time and its linear quality has already existed in societies all around the world pre-contact. He is critical of the presentation of this as new thinking when these ideas have already existed outside of the academic sphere. 

Ryan is questioning how the "self" can, if ever be translated through social technology under corporate rule. Thank you for your thoughtfulness, Ryan!

Sun Sign: Pisces 
Website:www.ryanjosey.com

Introductions! A Party?!

Hi everyone! You may have noticed from the past few posts that Luther wasn't writing for the blog anymore. This is because Plug In has a couple of new interns this summer and I have specifically been put in charge of updating the blog! I love what Luther has done already and I'm so excited to bring you all of that with my own personality.  I'm here to bring you updates as well as document what's been going on with the Summer Institute.

Photo of me thinking about dim sum and taiwanese breakfast literally 365 days a week.

A bit about me: My name is Natalie Mark and I am an illustration student specializing in publications, comics, and a bit of editorial. I'm a libra sun, sagittarius moon, and virgo rising  (don't ask about the rest of my natal chart, you don't want to see it). I have experience with community/public programming and I'm so excited to be sharing the Summer Institute with you all! I've been able to see the artists working first hand and there's so much to share. It's been so wonderful to see folks in the studio and think about my own practice in comparison.  Coming from a contemporary design practice, I'm learning so much about the ways in which fine art and contemporary art intersect with design. My design and community based practice has translated really well into the space. I'm glad to be here!


Speaking of design...............I designed a poster for a party Plug In ICA is hosting this Saturday, July 7, 2018! We'll be having an open studio with the Summer Institute folks along with a party on the Buhler building's rooftop. If your available on Saturday, this Saturday, you should come say hi and check out some amazing artists this Saturday, if you are available this Sat-
You should definitely show up on Saturday!!

More info: HERE
My website (shameless plug) HERE

Poster design by Natalie Mark.

Ilana, Hannah, and Astrology.

Ilana Harris-Babou Reparations Hardware. Video still.

So wonderful to have had speakers Ilana Harris-Babou and Hannah Black invited as guests for the Summer Institute. The day before we had Ilana Harris-Babou and a screening of Reparations Hardware as well as some of her other films. Something wonderful that Ilana brought up about the choice of making films was the ephemeral quality of seeing images that would disappear and the integration of motion that the screen suggests. In particular, the ephemeral quality of cultivating space through film and the sites which viewing the screen exists. It was so lovely to sit in on Ilana Harris-Babou and listen to them talk about writers like James Baldwin and Audre Lorde and how they've influenced their mode of thinking and processing.  (They also happen to be two of my favourite writers! I recommend Giovanni's Room, Ilana mentions Sister Outsider). Unfortunately, we weren't able to get footage even though we had the camera set up. Our SD card was locked, I swear this cancer season* has us out there :*| Reparations Hardware is screening along with other films as part of Thumbs that Type and Swipe: The Dis Edutainment Network in the main gallery at Plug In ICA.

*This Cancer season (June 22-July 21) is especially :*| because we have six planets in retrograde. The internal emotions beneath the shell that was maybe hiding during Gemini season is finally showing face. Perhaps we are all a bit more sentimental, or maybe it's a call for us to be more sentimental, but Cancer season has us emotionally distracted and scattered. A challenge that the folks at Plug In have finally overcome (look at me finally posting!).

For Hannah Black's artist talk, we got a hold of them via live video feed on our gallery monitors. We started off with a screening and then Hannah began speaking.  Listening to them talk about all of their ideas and how intentional their work was made for a really thoughtful conversation. They would go on tangents of their experience navigating different spaces (predominantly white man marxist organizing), histories of love and abandon, the limitations of technology to enact care through human and robotic affection (the technologies of care), as well as astrology (they mentioned being a scorpio :*| which I guessed from their elusiveness. It was especially interesting to find out that either their moon or rising was also scorpio :*| ). It was so lovely to hear Hannah talk in a way that didn't make the audience feel alienated from the theory, though still filled with depth, and research. One of the artists at the Summer Institute (Jaz) asked some thoughtful questions on Hannah's relationship with shame which sparked discussion on how self interested emotions like guilt and shame could act as tools for change and improvement.

Thank you Ilana Haris Babou for the tenderness and transformation.
Thank you Hannah Black for notions of affection and emotional potentials.

For those wondering: Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Pluto If we're being honest, I have no clue what half of this planetary stuff means, but I'm just so worried for all of us right now :*| Watch out Geminis.

Hannah Black. All My Love All My Love, 2015 screening.

Audience (left to right): Erica Stocking, Stephanie Berrington, Jinhan Kho, Sunny Lee

Question Period: Erica Stocking and Marco Roso

Question Period: Jaz Papadopoulos and Marco Roso

Summer Institute Session I: DIS, Thumbs That Type and Swipe: The DIS Edutainment Network

We are so pleased to have another installment of Summer Institute at Plug In ICA! With the session starting on the 25th, we welcomed representative Marco Roso of DIS as the faculty member along with twelve amazing artists. As part of this ongoing blog, we'll be presenting you with interviews, photos, and updates on what we've been up to. We are already onto the second (and last) week before we finish the Summer Institute and we'll be ending the session with an open studio to see what the artists have accomplished on Saturday, July 7,  2018. In the meantime, the accompanying exhibition Thumbs that Type and Swipe: The DIS Edutainment Network is running until Sunday, July 29, 2018.

We kicked off the Summer Institute with basic introductions and administrative things.  On the very first day we already had one screening of The Seasteaders and a video call with creators, Daniel Keller and Jacob Hurwitz Goodman.  The interest in anarcho-futurist and libertarian society and the pursuit of new, self sustaining nation in isolation from the rest of the world made for a darker examination of the cost of freedom.

For the second day, artists were asked to make short 10-15 minute presentations about themselves, their practice, and what they would be working on during the Summer Institute (Yes, everyone did go over their time, but it was worth it!) Presentations took place in one of the classrooms in the University of Winnipeg building and the gallery space that Plug In has converted to a shared studio space for the Summer Institute. I had the opportunity to sit in on most of the presentations and learn about everyone's practices. It was interesting to see the different ways people present information, in particular, about themselves. We have such a wide variety of artists coming from different backgrounds and practices, all exploring ideas from their unique perspectives. We've had folks exploring the nuances of colour, exploring the self and how the body navigates as a technology, interest in the ways technology responds to being used as a tool, etc. There's so much information and ideas that the artists are sharing with us, I can't wait to post about the chats I've had with them!

Here are some photos from the presentations, captions will include the artist presenting:

Chris Andrews

Stephanie Berrington

Ibai Gorriti

Ryan Josey

Ryan Josey

Jaz Papadopoulos

John Patterson

Erica Stocking