the memelab is currently instigating a new project, entitled the Creative City Conversation, which will have its first performance as part of The Upgrade! series on January 14/09. The impetus for this project is the civic development and cultural planning consultation that has been occurring in Vancouver over the past two years. As the memelab, we have been directly involved in this process as the organizers of an alternative arts space, and as participants and advocates at several community consultations.
Intending to create a true conversation where the City of Vancouver and its Office of Cultural Affairs fails to, the project aims to engender cross-cultural collaboration, anti-authoritarian power relations, and to serve as an international project nexus. The improvisational structure of artistic creation and sharing will reflect upon the social and cultural spaces we inhabit, and act as a microcosm of the polis, though one in which we have enhanced agency and can engender change.
C.C.C will provide an alternate space for dialogue – a space of interdisciplinary collaboration – that will bring together sound, media and performance-based artists to creatively address issues to do with our experience of the urban environment and the civic development processes.
For our first installment, the memelab will call together familiar friends and allies, across artistic disciplines, to explore the theme centre and periphery. Through an open, improvisational staging that blends video, sound, and movement performance, we plan to lead a non-lateral, exploratory conversation that results in a 30-minute piece. The structure and content of the improvisation will stem from ideas collectively pooled within the group; the memelab (Jesse and Mirae) will act as facilitators working towards a smooth (as opposed to striated) gathering of collaborators, materials and ideas.
The Creative City Conversation will be an opportunity to discuss: concise ways to bring together complex systems of artists, methodologies, and gear; collaborative artistic process as a process of social dialogue; and current paradigms relating to city design and our experience of the urban environment.
We would like to invite you to participate as an artist in this dialogue. The Upgrade! is ‘a gathering on art, technology, and culture’ that brings together members of the media arts and other communities in Vancouver to discuss current ideas in new media, and connect to other artistic communities city- and world-wide.
For the January 14th installment of The Upgrade!, the memelab has been asked to discuss our practice and history, especially in relation to our former space and programming at 1814 Pandora Street. In addition, we have decided to perform the first installment of Creative City Conversation – with your assistance, as an artist who has been an integral part of the work we have done in Vancouver. We plan to stage this project in several cities across the continents in our coming travels, and are excited to work with all of you again…
Please let us know if you are interested – or have any further questions – and if you are able to attend the following rehearsals/jams. Note that at this time, there is no funding for this project, and as such we will not be able to pay artist fees. Nevertheless, we would be honored by your participation... Since we are leaving Vancouver a week after this event, we plan to make it our (final) going away party, and so encourage you to attend even if you cannot fully take part!!!
j&M
the memelab
