Tactic discussion on Amateurism

dublin | arts and media | feature

Friday March 13, 2009 16:54

by Arts Correspondent - Indymedia.ie

Review

There: Snow Business; like Snow Business

Last night at the Lab on Foley Street there was a good turn out of artists, political activists and interested individuals for a discussion around the notion of amateurism.

It was billed that “four artists and designers would describe their various relationships to 'Amateurism' - DIY art and technology production, designing with found materials, and design in the developing world”.

Who/What is Tactic?

Tactic is a cross national laboratory for tactical art making: Investigation, intervention, discovery, testing and application. It is a space for artists and activists to meet, inform each others practice, develop projects and engage a public.

The website: Tactic

Ralph Borland opened, showing us various texts and images about amateurism. It was fitting that he mentioned a wikipedia definition of amateur that he liked: “Translated from its French origin to the English "lover of", the term "amateur" reflects a voluntary motivation to work as a result of personal passion for a particular activity.”

Looking at that wiki page one can see a few other definitions too, all of which were raised in discussions by the audience: “An amateur is generally considered a person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science, without formal training or pay. Conversely, an expert is generally considered a person with extensive knowledge, ability, and/or training in a particular area of study, while a professional is someone who also makes a living from it.”
Click here for more

One or two of the books we were shown seemed to glorify the aesthetic of the design, by presenting images of them on white glossy pages devoid of their function. The better texts contextualised innovative DIY designs, giving insight into their creation. If this sparks your interest I would recommend the book “Home-Made: Contemporary Russian Folk Artifacts” by Vladimir Arkhipov. The book gives interesting documentary-style accounts of a variety of homemade alternatives to factory designs created by people during the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The next three speakers didn’t even mention the word amateur in their discussions and I found myself thinking that perhaps this was more of a discussion around DIY innovation, than amateurism. All three seemed to be driven by passion, but also showed a considerable amount of expertise in their fields.

Ian Williamson showed us his design prototypes for a portable low-energy data projector for the developing world. He hopes this could be used in rural schools. There was an interesting Q&A afterwards, raising questions of access to energy sources, as well as the long-term access to new digital data.

Sam Russell has spent much of his time recently designing life jackets in Uganda. Although this is a land locked country he estimates that about 5000 people a year die from drowning along the shores of the 2 lakes there. With advice and input from the local fishermen and tailors, and after trying a few different designs, he has come up with an innovative idea that incorporates hollow plastic floats as the key floatation device. These have the added function of being able to work as fishing net floats in the jackets' second life.

Both Ian and Sam looked to local DIY designs for inspiration, and ideally would like to use local materials and skills to make their designs sustainable in the long term.

The final speaker was Paddy Bloomer who shared anecdotes and showed us designs in his ongoing quest to creatively subvert public infrastructure. From sound systems powered by cycling, to floating sofas on Belfast’s drinking water, to a 20ft boat made of found materials we learned among other things that the front of a washing machine makes a great porthole, and that the Portuguese police don’t like informal street parties.

He finished off by showing us a DIY funfair they had at the studio on Belfast. The video is on another website that is a homage to the amateur – You Tube.

In the last decade with the recent advances in Web 2.0 technology our culture is shifting rapidly from a READ ONLY culture (listening to the radio, reading newspapers, watching tv and so on) to a READ/WRITE culture (uploading and viewing our photos; creating, sharing and watching our videos; writing and reading our blogs). In these creative times we are all amateurs in some way. We are all becoming aware of the copyright/ownership issues one faces when using sites like YouTube and Facebook.

But what happens with the sharing of creative ideas? On Wednesday the Wed 18 March at 6pm there will be a debate called: You stole my idea! Debates around intellectual property often centre on patents and copyrights - less often discussed are artists' attitudes towards the sharing of ideas. Come along and share your idea too.

The Tactic events and discussions at the Lab continue for the next 2 weeks. They are hosted by Tactic, and are coordinated by Ralph Borland and Seoidin O’Sullivan. Tactic is a cross national laboratory for tactical art making: Investigation, intervention, discovery, testing and application. It is a space for artists and activists to meet, inform each others practice, develop projects and engage a public.

For more information please go to http://tacticproject.blogspot.com