How should I explain the idea of agonism to my neighbor across the street?
Pro+agonist: The Art of Opposition A new book and deck of cards by Marisa Jahn explores the productive possibilities of agonism, a relationship built on mutual incitement and struggle.
Warren Sack: “Agonism” is the ancient Greek word for a contest with a prize. In the sense we are using it, is a way of understanding life and politics as a game or contest.
Marisa Jahn: My neighbors do in fact ask me what agonism is. But then I like to throw it back on them. I say, “ok, let’s play a game. When I say agonism, you say…” I’ve gotten all sorts of answers. One person said, “Paradise Lost.” Lucifer wrestling the angels. A physiologist responded that the agonist is a contracting muscle; the antagonist is the muscle that returns the limb to its natural state. A techie person was reminded of the symbiotic relationship between the fig wasp and the sycamore tree. A musician likened agonism to noise. As in, harmony is control, order. Noise is the sum of sounds; it fluctuates between harmony and cacaphony. Noise is difference, polyphony, epistemological and political pluralism.
Mark Shepard: I don’t think you should explain agonism to your neighbor – better to enact it through engaging her – with empathy and respect – on an issue you disagree.
Carl Skelton: There is a variant of agonism, which most people think of as how open-source software happens: an idea gets proposed in an initial form to the widest possible group. Of the many who find fault with it, a small minority will actually propose an improvement, which is then subjected to the same process, except that the original proponent gets to weigh in as a critic. Anybody who cares enough to keep the idea moving owns it. Over time, competing variants and improvements are adopted and discarded by ad hoc groups which themselves persist, peter out or mutate over time.
Carl DiSalvo: Agonism is the truth that your neighbor already knows – legislation doesn’t *solve* anything, the conflicts continue regardless, it’s just the nature of politics.
How does agonism express itself in your practice as an artist?
Mark Shepard, artist comp, structures for dischord
Marisa: If agonism merely describes a condition in the world, then expressing agonism through artwork in fact paints reality more aptly and with greater complexity. Agon makes things fun! Agonistic art practices “work” by coming in through the backdoor to solve problems and intrigue using a different kind of logic.
Carl D: My practice is about creating spaces for an agonistic pluralism to flourish, for creating spaces where we can participate in conflicting values and practices towards the composition of new social conditions and structures.
Mark: As an artist I maintain an agonistic relationship to the discipline of architecture. My work exploits the tensions between architecture and media art with respect to how space is conceived, constructed, organized and interpreted within technologically mediated environments.
Warren: Much of my work as an artist is concerned with politics and publics, and I consider what would it mean to make political metaphors material. For example, we talk about debates as though they are scored like boxing or wrestling contests, but of course they are not. What would happen if we devised a scoring system for debates?
Warren Sack, Agonistics: A Language Game
Carl S: Nothing ever gets finished, but you never run out of room for improvement.
We’re clearly living in a fractious time. How can agonism help us?
Courtesy Carl DiSalvo
Carl D: Like any theory, agonism is a tool to think with. So it gives us a way to understand what we mean when we use terms like democracy and politics. From this, we might begin not just “think about” but also “do” democracy differently.
Marisa: Paying attention to agonism helps us reframe how we see struggle. Instead of regarding it as a symptom of a bad or messy or contentious situation, we can instead see agonism as a symptom of an environment that is strong enough to withstand difference and adversity.
Warren: As many theorists have pointed out, our culture is increasingly “gamified.” People tend to think of many everyday actions as moves in a game. For instance, what does it mean “to make a move,” “to make a play,” “to play around,” “to call someone a loser”? If indeed, all the world’s a game and all the men and women merely players, then what is this game we are playing and how could it be otherwise?
Mark: One would hope that agonism offers a way to come to terms with extreme ideological differences – not resolving them, but at least making the debate more tolerable.
How do we foster a space for dissensus, critical dialogue, and debate?
Marisa: Promote and commit to diversity! This may mean doing the work to figure out how you are going to outreach to people from a different point of view or ilk, subjecting ourselves to uncomfortable situations; and building conditions to foster a sense of tolerance and difference. Listen to who’s not speaking and see why not; create a space where this differential is foregrounded. Understand that you can hold difference; understand when compromise sacrifices particular points of view and when compromise strengthens alliances.
What are you most looking forward to about the Discourse and Discord symposium?
Carl D: The opportunity to have these conversations in public, and to disagree about them.
Mark: The opportunity to encounter and test different ideas on agonism through the various formats planned.
Carl S: The chance to try a few things I’ve been working on, and to find out what might be possible in re-making Hennepin avenue, which seems to have a lot in common with a lot of other urban environments that need some love in North America and Europe.
I often say that the 01SJ Biennial – I’m the artistic director – is multidisciplinary and medium agnostic. I’m not sure I ever thought that meant we would be programming at a mariachi festival.
Pilar and Dio are San Jose-based artists, and based on the Mariachi Festival’s thematic focus on the Mexican village, I asked them to construct out of recycled materials a tri-partite, temporary “home” for ZER01 and its artists during the festival.
I have always admired Pilar’s structures, such as her Homework House, exhibited at MACLA as part of Beyond Child’s Play or this balloon-filled tent during SubZERO earlier this year or this 2005 doll-ish house at Works/San Jose, and she wanted to work with Dio, a recent grad of the Yale MFA program on this commission, which I’m looking forward to seeing.
Pilar Aguero-Esparza and H. Dio Mendoza. Drawing of temporary home constructed out of recycled materials for ZER01 at the Mariachi Festival.
The structure consists of three parts: a courtyard, a cyberlounge, and a “Lost Time Refund Office.”
CANCIONE Courtyard Dedicaciones Gratis
In the center of the structure, Pilar and Dio proposed the following project:
A papel picado “awning” (Mexican traditional decorative cut tissue paper streamers) connects two house structures and canopies a “courtyard” space between them. This courtyard space serves as a social area where visitors take a break and have the opportunity to request a song played in the tradition of the mariachi bands and trio groups strolling through the courtyards of the historic Plaza de Garibaldi in Mexico City. But instead of live musicians playing requests, visitors request their song to a DJ equipped with a digital music library showcasing Mexican ballads, canciones roma¡nticas, mariachi favorites along with other contemporary Spanish language music. An open-mic will be available for visitors to dedicate their songs for free dedicaciones gratis. If a visitor’s requested song is not on the DJ’s digital library, the DJ will search for the song on-line. As the day goes on, a type of public playlist develops and the requested songs along with the dedications are written down in permanent marker on a vinyl banner that will be hung up against an outside wall of one of the house structures. This banner then remains as evidence of the day’s songs and personal honoring of loved ones.
Gustavo Romano, Lost Time Refund Office
Gustavo Romano, Lost Time Refund Office. Courtesy the artist.
On one side of the courtyard is a project by Buenos Aires-based artist Gustavo Romano, Lost Time Refund Office, where you can exchange stories of your wasted time from 1 minute to 10 years for some artist-designed currency.
Gustavo Romano, Lost Time Refund Office - un minuto. "Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend." - Theophrastus
According to Romano:
The main idea is to collect reasons of time loss. Odd reasons are welcome.
When a person comes to the “office,” the officer explains like this:
“This is a lost time refund office. You tell us how you lost your time, whether because of a wrong decision or something you had to do and you did not want to do, and we refund it with our bills. We have 1 minute, 1 day, 1 year… “
Gustavo Romano, Lost Time Refund Office - diez anos. "Money is institutionalized mistrust." - Michael Hussey
When the person tells his or her reason and the corresponding amount of time needed, the officer enters the information into the computer database and put the bill (or bills) in the printer and presses the “print the reason†button. The printed bill is then stamped with the Time Notes Stamp.
Gustavo Romano lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a director of “Fin del Mundo,â€a virtual platform for circulating net art projects, curator of the Virtual Space of the Cultural Center of Spain in Buenos Aires, and a featured artist on the Museo Tamayo cyberlounge.
Cyberlounge
On the other side of the courtyard, I invited Arcangel Constantini from Mexico City to curate a selection of video games and Internet projects, for a “cyberlounge.”
WORKNET: Labor video games and Internet projects curated by Arcangel Constantini
Inspired by activist Cesar Chavez and the values of integrity, innovation, and empowerment that he championed throughout his lifetime, the ZER01 Cyberlounge invites you to interact with computer-based works by contemporary artists from Mexico, Argentina, and the United States that explore contemporary labor issues.
Mejor Vida Corporation isan Internet-based project that offers a catalog of free products and services such as international student ID cards, subway passes, lottery tickets and barcode stickers that reduce the price of food at supermarkets throughout Mexico City. Using the structure of a corporation, Cuevas investigates social and economic issues and then develops a set of free products that solve everyday problems in her community and beyond.
Minerva Cuevas is a conceptual artist who lives and works in Mexico City, Mexico.
Birgit Eschenlor and Art Vega, Retrofame, 2001
Retrofame is a video game that looks at the illegal second-hand clothing market in Mexico by asking players to direct a worker as they sort and select clothing from a fast moving manufacturing line. The game is a playful attempt to call attention to the large and informal population of workers who labor in this industry on a daily basis.
Fran Ilich and Blas Valdez, Beaner, 2000
Beaner is a computer-based game that appropriates the classic arcade game Frogger, where players must direct a frog across a treacherous road and swiftly moving river to reach an area of safety at the top of the screen. In Ilich and Valdez’s version, players navigate a sombrero through a river, a desert, and a freeway—all critical barriers related to illegal border crossings—to reach the land of opportunity. The reward for a successful crossing is the same fate faced by many migrant workers without papers—backbreaking and poorly paid clandestine work.
Fran Ilich is a Tijuana-based activist and media artist and Blas Valdez is a Mexican-American writer.
Txema Novelo, Playing for Money / Working for Free, 2006
In Playing for Money / Working for Free Txema Novela recasts Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian-born anarchist labor activists who were executed in Massachusetts in 1927, as the Mario Brothers from the classic video game Super Mario Bros. The playful retelling relates the actions within a video game to the reality of the working class.
Txema Novelo is an artist based in Mexico City, Mexico.
In Outsource Me! artist Leonardo Salaas reverses the practice of outsourcing. Typically, companies from developed countries attempt to decrease costs by hiring foreign workers at a lower wage than their U.S. counterparts. But in this project, Solaas issued an open call for ideas and hired the person who submitted the winning proposal to be his employer. Then, he acted as an outsourced worker by creating a special website according to the specifications of the submitted idea. Outsource Me! is the result of the collaboration.
Leonardo Solaas is an artist and computer programmer who lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Vagamundo: A Migrant’s Taleis an online game that uses stereotypes to parallel the plight of undocumented immigrant labor in New York City. Users play the role of a new immigrant and must bag groceries and wait tables to advance through levels. The online game is based on interviews Zúñiga conducted with new immigrants as well as the experience of his parents, who emigrated from Nicaragua to the United States.
Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga is an artist who approaches art as a social practice that seeks to establish dialogue in public spaces. He grew up between Nicaragua and San Francisco.
Dentimundo is a web-based art and research project that serves as an information portal for “border dentistry,†a type of medical tourism that has been steadily growing in popularity along the Mexico-U.S. border. The website documents labor practices along the border while commenting on this very specific example of globalization, where Mexican dentists are increasingly moving their practices to border towns to attract U.S. citizens who are unable or unwilling to pay the skyrocketing health costs on the other side of the border.
Arcangel Constantini, icpiticayotl. Photo: festival transitio ( sintesis libre ) alameda central mexico df 2007
Improvising on an old Mexican tradition, Constantini will also audio-electrocute volunteers with his mobile icpiticayotl box. Náhuatl for electricity, Icpiticayotl uses electroshock to involuntarily contract users’ muscles in sync with sound oscillations to establish synaesthesia, a condition that exists when the stimulation in one sense causes involuntary experiences in a second sense. Constantini’s artistic experiment is designed to give visitors the same adrenalin rush los señores de los toques have been giving cantina patrons as a chaser to their cerveza for centuries. Icpiticayotl is harmless, fun and appropriate for all ages.
Arcangel Constantini is an artist and curator based in Mexico City, Mexico. His artistic practice explores the dynamics of visual and sound works, low-tech installations, propaganda action, performance, hardware hacking, installation, and sound. Constantini is a curator for the cyberlounge at the Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo in Mexico City, and has exhibited his work throughout the world.
[Cyberlounge and Icpiticayotl descriptions, Jaime Austin.]
Over 100 Incredible Examples of Cargotecture Exhibited At NRW Forum in Düsseldorf Read more: Over 100 Incredible Examples of Cargotecture Exhibited At NRW Forum in Düsseldorf | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World. Via Inhabitat
"This beautiful sunset observatory made from recycled shipping containers was recently constructed in the harbor of Songdo New City in Incheon, South Korea. Designed and built by AnL Studio, “OceanScope” is a composed of five recycled containers, each one angled at a different height to provide 3 distinct views of the harbor."
The existing service ramp will be repurposed as an open-air, studio-lined corridor. Courtesy LOT-EK. via Architects Newspaper
“The Hudson River Park Trust announced a winning plan for Pier 57, the brooding hulk at West 15th Street: a rooftop park crowning a small city of local artisans working out of shipping containers, the vision of developer YoungWoo & Associates with New York architects LOT-EK.“
Danish architects MAPT have erected a striking pavilion composed of a set of old shipping containers stacked up like building blocks.
“As COP15 delegations continue in Copenhagen, Danish architects MAPT have erected a striking pavilion composed of a set of old shipping containers stacked up like building blocks. The recycled pavilion will host an interactive exhibit focusing on urban sustainability, and the interior of the structure is constructed entirely of materials salvaged from the wood and wind turbine industries.” – via Inhabitat
C02 Cube. Image via Obscura Digital via Curbed LA.
“Is there anything shipping containers can’t do? Here they are arranged on a barge in St. Jørgens Lake in Copenhagen to visually represent one metric ton of carbon dioxide stored at standard atmospheric pressure. An average person in an industrialized country puts that amount out monthly.” via Curbed LA
“Pulsing with a dramatic lighting that signals S-O-S in morse code, this towering installation stands thirty-five feet high. Constructed out of shipping containers it addresses the trauma of migration, displacement and change. Influenced by Moshe Safdie’s utopic Habitat housing scheme produced for the 1967 Montreal Exposition and designed to include all people regardless of class, race or gender, this monumental structure reflects on the failure of this ideology and the susceptibility of these social projects to capitalist forces. Future (· · · – – – · · ·) Perfect has a local relevance, reflecting on the politics of gentrification and the displacements inherent to the project of urban renewal.”
Storybox is a site-specific video and music installation that uses two 20ft shipping containers stacked on top of each other. Screens are placed in the frame of the container with imagery back projected from inside the box. The installation is weather proof and secure.
Architects Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano (Lot-ek) talk about their work transforming shipping containers into livable homes at the Postopolis event in NYC.
WPS1 at Art Basel Miami
A striking example of shipping container architecture, Platoon Kunsthalle serves as an exciting and inspiring new exhibit hall and art center in Seoul, Korea. Built from standard shipping containers by Graft Lab Architects,
LiD Architecture wins Dublin’s Parlour Design Competition. LiD Architecture’s winning submission’s simple, strong, clear idea effortlessly addressed the brief. The central concept is to use shipping containers as basic building blocks which will be configured in creative ways to address challenges of containment, movement, art, lighting and art performance. The jury felt that this solution displayed high levels of flexibility, adaptability and toughness in use. The design resonates powerfully with docklands and embraces the temporary nature of the challenge.
"After finding an affordable and convenient warehouse space in the industrial section of Santa Ana, Orange County, local printing company MVP decided to turn part of their premises into an office space. The warehouse wasn’t equipped to accommodate private offices, and the company felt that keeping the whole space climate-controlled would be wasteful, so they decided to group 10 20-foot shipping containers inside the warehouse to act as offices. " via Inhabitat
The boxes were developed by the architecture firm Lo-Tek to create flexible office space in Bohen’s Chelsea gallery. Come summer 2009, the containers will be situated in the newly accessible south Island picnic area with unmatched views of the Statue of Liberty and the New York Harbor.
"Modern Manifesto House Made From Wood Pallets and Shipping Containers" via inhabitat
“The Manifesto House by Infiniski utilizes pre-made materials like shipping containers and wooden pallets to create a totally rad modern house. Infiniski’s mission is to build homes cheaply and quickly using sustainable materials while incorporating renewable energy systems.”
Overcrowded jails and prisons are a growing issue in the US and also globally. This demand can now be filled instantly with modular jail and prison cells made from recycled ISBU shipping containers. via ISBU News
Ars Electronica Center on the bank of the Danube River. Photo: Courtesy City of Linz
It rained Friday in Linz, so it was a good day to go indoors. I headed for the new Ars Electronica Center for my longest visit so far. The glass and steel extension to the original building, designed by Treusch Architecture of Vienna, was opened earlier this year. Inside the building are extensive exhibition areas for contemporary and historical new media work. The Future Lab facilities contain laboratories and workshops for media art research, with offices and recreation rooms above. The main building also has a restaurant, bar and lecture rooms on its Sky Deck.
Ars Electronica Center. Photo: Rupert Steiner
The Ars Electronica Center has a sculptural presence. It is meant to be viewed at various distances from diverse vantage points and is easy to traverse on foot. Set alongside the Danube River, its shape evokes a cargo ship. The long prow serves as a public performance or gathering space with raked stairs for seating. The building’s overall grid of glass and its double facade give it a crystalline appearance.
Ars Electronica Center, Linz, Austria. Photo: Bruce Charlesworth
The glass exterior is part transparent and part translucent. At night, LED panels installed between the two layers of the facade illuminate the building. Each panel contains nine sets of four LEDs: red, green, blue and white. These are set vertically, one in each window, alternately facing left and right. Each window functions much like a pixel in a digital image and can be individually controlled to allow infinite variations in color, intensity and duration.
Ars Electronica Center, Linz, Austria. Photo: Bruce Charlesworth
I attended a lecture on the facade and learned that there are 40,000 LEDS, 2,000 meters of cable and 5,100 square meters of glass comprising 1,085 windows. An average window contains 36 LEDs. The building also has a powerful sound system.
Ars Electronica Center, Linz, Austria. Photo: Bruce Charlesworth
Both sound and lighting can be programmed to create unique artworks on the facade, utilizing blended color, patterns, text and imagery. 84 artists have already created programs for the building, only three of which were commissioned works. AEC makes proposing and designing for the building fairly easy. Artists can construct their work using a 3D rendering of the facade, available on the Center’s Future Lab website, without ever having to visit the site in Linz.
Here’s a test visualization of the building lighting done last year.
The Bridge Homeless Assistance Center with public art by Gordon Huether receives an American Institute Of Architects (AIA) 2009 Housing Award.
The Bridge Homeless Assistance Center in Dallas, Texas was developed from a reclaimed industrial warehouse opened in May 2008.
It is a multi-purpose facility dedicated to serving homeless men, women and children, with a primary focus on the chronically homeless. The artist worked with the homeless to create seven art glass windows incorporating brightly colored mouth-blown glass, etched and silk-screened with text from writings of the shelter’s clients. The text is superimposed over the glass panels.
Centenarian Swiss artist Hans Erni created a 60-mitre-long ceramic tile mural entitled “Tu panta reiâ€, which adorns the security entrance of the United Nations building in Geneva, Switzerland.
June 20, 2009—Forty of the best public art works in the United States, including projects from 32 cities in 15 states, were recognized at the 2009 Americans for the Arts annual convention held in Seattle from June 18–20. The works were chosen from more than 300 entries across the country. More here or download pdf .
Nancy Ann Coyne, Speaking of Home. IDS-Macy’s skyway over Nicollet Mall, between 7th and 8th Streets in downtown Minneapolis, MN. Co-presented by Forecast Public Art, Family Housing Fund and the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota. http://www.speakingofhome.org/
