An Open Letter to the City of Vancouver

Dear City of Vancouver,

My name is Jesse Scott, a former resident of Vancouver, and from 2004-06, I was one of the Co-producers of The Butchershop, a multi-functional art space that was the predecessor (and previous occupant of 195 E. 26th Avenue) of Little Mountain Studios/Gallery from 2002-2006.

It is with great concern that I am notified about increasing pressure from the City of Vancouver over the operations and legality of LMS. I had hoped that both sides had learned from previous mistakes and were able to step forward together.

___

First, I would like to provide a history of my civic involvement with the artistic and cultural scene in Vancouver... the ups and downs of my time years there, my hopes and disappointments...

I was, of course, privy to the entire, months-long dialogue between The Butchershop and the CoV in 2005/06 when we were forced to close our doors, after being delivered a $80,000 ultimatum on 'venue enhancements'. That was one of the worst days of my life, seeing something that myself and a dozen very close friends had poured YEARS of our life into, only to see it swept away.

During the 2005 Civic election campaign, Heather Deal, nominee for City Council for Vision Vancouver, visited The Butchershop and held a roundtable with our collective and other members of the community, expressing the importance of ground-level artistic enterprise to the economic and cultural makeup of Vancouver, and that things would 'change'... we believed her… of course, the NPA won that election.

During the 2005 edition of the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres (PAARC) SWARM Festival, The Butchershop held a series of roundtable discussions with directors, producers, and artists from diverse backgrounds, from former directors of underground spaces that had been shut down by the CoV in the 80s and 90, to members from the Board of Directors of other 'legit' spaces that receive funding from City/Provincial/National Art Councils, to name a few.

During this time we had already begun to be pressured by the CoV, in particular the Zoning office, and categorically shunned by the Office of Cultural Affairs (as we didn't fall into their qualifications of a cultural space), and this was our attempt to decide how to move forward with developing and sustaining a community-orientated, multi-faceted, and accessible/non-commercial arts space, to learn best practices as deciphered from the rich history of our city.

Though we took on this initiative, it wasn't enough... we faced too wide of a divide with the CoV, and we lost the battle.

After The Butchershop was closed, I was one of the core founders of Underground Network of Artist Run Culture (UNARC), alongside members of the Seamrippers, WRKS DVSN, 69 Pender, and other spaces that had been shut down by the CoV around the same time.

During the 2006 edition of SWARM, UNARC held a 'wake' for Artist Run Centres at Main and Broadway, with spaces as old as Misanthropy, the (sugar refinery), and the Church of Pointless Hysteria, contributing poster art to the event; we proceeded to cover the dozen-or-so civic poster poles around that intersection with commissioned posters from 12 closed-down art spaces as a form of cultural protest, and received media coverage in the Vancouver Sun and the Globe and Mail. Out of this press, I was invited to speak at a conference in St. John's, Newfoundland, on the state of artist-run culture, and ground-level strategies.

In 2006-07, I was an active participant in the Creative City Conversation held by the OCA, and met many of it's Officers personally, while continually advocating for the development of a framework for addressing the substantial gaps in dealing with underground/ground-level arts spaces that have merely possessed will and passion, but not the financial and/or organizational wherewithal to achieve long-term sustainability, let alone afford a consultant or qualify for a Canada Council Flying Squad grant.

In 2006, I was contractually employed by Gallery Gachet, and indirectly the Down Town East Side Community Arts Network (DTES CAN), and was privy to some of the cultural mapping of the DTES that they were performing with North Sky Consulting, and had a chance to address NSC about the overlooked and (sometimes intentionally-) hidden spaces, and what this meant for an enterprise such as cultural mapping, which was paving the way for the Provincial Cultural District plans, as well as the CCC.

From 2006-07 I was invited for publishing and spoken engagements by the Centre for Expertise on Culture and Communities (CECC), a project run in part by Simon Fraser University at their Harbourfront Campus; again, I was able to have long, detailed conversations by several cultural planners, architects, and academics as to the importance of recognizing the difficulties of ground-level spaces, and how problematic it was to not have a civic engagement strategy for them, the disastrous history of this neglect, and received overwhelming support and commendations for championing this cause.

I attended several presentations of the 'DeSacco Report', authored by renowned Cultural Economist Luigi DeSacco of Milan, and commissioned by Vancity to address the cultural health of the city (it was found wanting, as you well know), and presented my case at their open meetings.

From 2002-08, I worked for New Forms Festival, and was able to work alongside dozens of venues, producers, and organizations, and gained an appreciation for attempting to do cultural production above ground within Vancouver and Canada.

From 2005-08, I co-ran another space, the memelab, and along with UNARC, we held an open-format potluck/roundtable series, entitled 'The Tipping Point', which garnered immense interest from diverse communities; a frequent guest was, of course, a sense of growing frustration at the inaccessibility of the CoV, due to bureaucracy, cryptic language, archaic laws, and, of course, fear of reprisal. We attempted to map out possible strategic paths for spaces to choose various levels of organization and legality. Some participants were able to secure funding. Some chose a viable business model, and have thrived. Some suffered from burnout, lack of funds, and organizational overhead. Some vanished, yet again.

In 2008, the memelab produced a project, named, in jest at the OCA, the 'Creative City Conversation' (first imagined as a noise band) aimed at forming a conversation-in-action, where the CCC of the OCA had let us down. We invited several artists who re-imagined the city and its spaces, with both hope and nostalgia.

___

In 2008, I moved to Toronto; after years of investment in the artistic/cultural scene of Vancouver, I had become frustrated and jaded. During my time in Toronto, I had the opportunity to present work at the City-funded and -produced 'Nuit Blanche' Festival, and, while not perfect, I found their Cultural Affairs Department to be energetic, accessible, and understanding. I currently live and work in Berlin, Germany and Trondheim, Norway.

___

I realize rather that I am subject to the angle that I experienced their personnel and policies of the CoV from. I have spoken with many of your staff personally, and have found them to be open, with the best of the city at heart. But as Government, you play a game where you dictate the rules, and few others can play this game, without resources at hand, without a particular logic...

Again, I know first-hand the infrastructural issues that 195 E. 26th Ave faces. I lived that struggle. I talked to those people whole lived on that street, and surrounding businesses. I continually asked our patrons mind our neighbours. I dealt with police, and building inspectors. And I understand the trepidation of a gallery owner who is about to receive a visit from you. But let's make a framework where they don't have to be afraid, to hide facts, thoughts, or even dreams about how they can run their business.

I am not advocating for overlooking or abolishing zoning, health, or fire regulations. I am not asking you to look the other way. I am asking that - after decades of heavy-handed dealings with under-powered arts spaces - that you approach this open-handed and open-minded. Find a way through; there has been too much damage already.

I am asking that you engage in a recorded, open, and published conversation with the organizers at LMS. The entire city would benefit from a transparent, documented process.

We need to know what you say, how you think. We need to see your case, point-by-point, and have time to analyze the details and consequences. We need to understand the paradigms that you are operating under. We need to see you are not just committed to high-profile, mega-projects (not that I don't love W2).

You need to understand the limitations we throw ourselves against, the divide between our languages, organizational capacity, and the unique challenges we face. You need to understand our culture, and that we do this for love, not profit, that we don't have investors or patrons, and we do this while holding down other jobs or careers. You need to understand how much we want this, and how tired we are.

Other cultural producers, artists, and citizens need to see both of our points, to understand the scope and arrangement of this problem. For it is one that has reached a breaking point in Vancouver, after decades... Keith Wallace wrote 'A Particular History of ARC's in Vancouver' in the 90s, and that was already an old story...

Vancouver has for too long been subject to a reputation as 'No-Fun City', something that Vision Vancouver and the current administration has pledged to address. For over a decade, the artistic community has been subject to an intense form of 'brain-drain' to other, more permissive cities, within Canada and abroad.

Vision, the OCA, the zoning department, etc. all need to come forward with a single voice. For too long have different arms of the Civic structure played good-cop, bad-cop with us.

The Butchershop was a vitally important platform for the artistic community of Vancouver, and it is solely missed worldwide, by artists, musicians, theatre performers, and more. As is Seamrippers. As is WRKS DVSN. As is 69 Pender. As is The Underwear Farm. As is The Meatball. As is Misanthropy. As is Local 156. As is The Church of Pointless Hysteria. As is the Lux Theatre. As is the (sugar refinery). As is… well, that's just off the top of my head, but there's more…. as Little Mountain would be, should you we both not learn from our mistakes.

Let's fix this now.

Regards,

Jesse Scott

Former-resident, City of Vancouver

Artist, Curator, Organizer, Writer

Trondheim, Norway

July 25th, 2010

Tactical Architecture

a funny personal anecdote was related to me the other day, over some 4-Star Vegan, and it got me thinking...

My uncle, who is a Psychology Professor at York University in Toronto, was telling me about an exchange term where he taught at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil around the turn of the decade. For the first week, there was excessive winds tearing through the campus, and he was complaining that all the buildings are excessively spread out, built an estimated minimum of 2km away from each other, requiring him to walk through the wind and not just causeway from building to building. He asked one of his colleagues why this was, and was greeted with the reply that the University had redesigned it that way during upgrades and expansion in the early 60's at the behest of the Government and Military, so that in the case of a student uprising, the army would be able to isolate each building with ease.

Now this entire story is just hearsay, and I haven't been able to back it up visually or factually, but it triggered a firestorm of thoughts about the integration of architecture and urban geography with the powers of the state; that they are almost always working at their behest, that our environments are increasingly being shaped and designed against us, and that we are increasingly left to the marginal options of reacting to those spaces... the essence of Molar/Molecular.

This is more of a signpost than a manifesto, and this topic has been covered with far more grace and depth elsewhere, but it seemed prescient...

~ J

PS - Speaking of York U, I heard a similar rumour that the causeway in the centre of campus was designed so that you could drive a tank up it...

Tactical Media, Meta-Tags, and Open Sourcery: a discussion of the theoretical implications of the GRL Project

(Note: this was originally created for and posted on Artengine's blog during my residency there in the Summer of 2009)

Tactical Media, Meta-Tags, and Open Sourcery: a discussion of the theoretical implications of the GRL project

Agent Scott, Graffiti Research Lab - Canada

INTRO

The Graffiti Research Lab (GRL) project has a simple mission - to outfit graffiti writers and street artists with open source tools for urban communication. Our projects combine creative coding and public space intervention that are designed to be tactical exposés masked in populism, simultaneously spectacular and subversive. Here in this text I hope to explore several tropes within the project, using Critical Art Ensemble's framework of Digital Resistance as a lodestone, and to discuss possible avenues for our further development.

FRAMEWORK

Though the individual members of GRL act as artists and producers, the project's strength comes from its frameworks facilitating the self-expression of others - a model that grows out of the organization's open source mandate. It extends beyond the technical collaborations at the heart of GRL's development to the interventions designed to open up public space for more democratic and creative expression.

GRL makes use of the viral potential of new technologies; a powerful set of simple ideas is replicated by loosely associated, autonomous cells distributed throughout the world. Each action expands the reach of the concept and gives birth to new presentations, methodologies and software. From the initial emergence of GRL from Eyebeam in NYC we have seen a proliferation of cells contributing to the development of the project, alongside referential work using the original software and techniques, but not created by the original members.

During a formal GRL event, the practical application of the groups ideals becomes challenging. While we provide tools and the framework for expression, we must also take responsibility for its output. We partly address this duality by extolling the virtues of amateur practice alongside more formal graffiti taxonomies. Amateur practices have "the ability to see through dominant paradigms, are freer to recombine elements of paradigms thought long dead, and can apply everyday life to their deliberations... eliminating the privileged position of the director, auteur, genius, or any other reductive, privatizing category."1 Despite our embrace of the amateur we make no apologies for enabling formal graffiti practitioners, seeing their work as a valid form of aesthetic and political expression. Though these graffiti artists form an active core of the development of our tools, we are also constantly expanding the interdisciplinary nature of the project to include graphic novelists, manga artists, muralists, and designers, as well as using the software to provide video design for dance and club performances.

There is another challenging hurdle to the realization of GRL ideals. The internet, and technology access in general, is still culturally and politically bordered. Although GRL artists, and its audience, operate within a level of the technological elite, by occupying this space we develop new forms of digital resistance. We also recognize that we exist in a symbiotic relationship with consumer culture, and benefit from the cheapening of technology within the marketplace, particularly the planned democratization of media according to the special timeline of market forces. But we attempt to exert influence on this process by creating forward-thinking digital tools that resist franchised market and intellectual forces, and thus broaden the creative playing field for artists (graffiti or otherwise).

FREE LIBRE OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE

We know that "once named and defined, any movement is open to co-optation"2 .... this is precisely where the structure of an open source, federated cluster of cells comes in. Having a decentralized multiplicity of voices means that because other interests will ultimately appropriate us (as we have re-appropriated other interests), we don't waste energy in fighting this, and thus are able to stay free of representation or association. There are faint, gestural blockages, to be sure. For instance our license that explains 'software may not be used for advertising, marketing, or promotion', though there is confirmation that it already has. But this is little more than a hand put up to stop a tank: possibly effective, but easily steamrolled if some power has the will.

Being open source is not just having an idealistic organizational mode that we mean to push on social development, though we understand that information should not be privatized... "experimentation and invention would be hindered by lack of access to the building blocks of culture"3 Open Source is a strategy; we realize, from whichever viewpoint we use - the avant-garde, the collective, or the technologist - that we will not be around for much longer... too many factors are involved in us being subverted, surpassed, and self-destructed. Yes, we are adamant that information should be free, but also that the GRL project is particularly relevant at this moment, and by freely distributing our software - hence having it used and developed by others - is the best manner with which to preserve the core message and concern of GRL.

TACTICAL MEDIA, SEMIOTICS, AND THE THEATRE OF EVERYDAY LIFE

GRL is a tactical media project in that "... it is a form of digital intervention. It challenges the existing semiotic regime by replicating and redeploying it in a manner that offers participants in the projects a new way of seeing, understanding and interacting with a given system."4

Urban projection can be thought of as a system of parallel intervention upon architectures and a molecular irruption upon the regime of signs. "Tactical media is ephemeral. It leaves few material traces. As the action comes to an end, what is left is primarily living memory... Monumental works are the great territorializers—they refuse to ever surrender space. Instead they inscribe their imperatives upon it and disallow anything other than passive viewing."5 GRL places the trace directly upon the surface of the monument - literally - and as such re-codes and re-signifies it, temporarily and permanently. It is a 'maximal' screen and 'maximal' surface - eschewing traditional tactical media concerns of being underground and out of the gaze of the media. It is easily shrugged aside by those in power (though just as likely causes irrational concern), but truly resplendent for those participating in the event.

The GRL project can also be classified as a form of recombinant theatre, or the theatre of everyday life - "performances that invent ephemeral, autonomous situations from which temporary public relationships emerge that can make possible critical dialogue on a given issue."6 At its best the ephemeral nature focuses the participants on creative play, both in the direct expression and the environment around it... nowhere is this seen better than when participants play a 150-ft version of tic-tac-toe on the side of a building.

"When the process functions properly, the instigators of the event immediately fall into a mode of deterritorialization, and the process drifts into a multiplicity of unknown directions. No real intentionality exists, since the interaction is process-oriented and thereby subject to many unforeseeable causalities and accidents. Only aesthetic products can be fully intentionalized and their quality controlled."7 We have been criticized for oscillating between being process and goal-oriented in our urban projections, and it is true. There is a conflict between the ideas of tactical media and recombinant theatre that has not yet been resolved. But graffiti itself is diverse, and pursuant to the open-source goals of the project as a whole, we think there is space for multiple orientations and aesthetics within a GRL presentation.

GEOGRAPHY AND THE TAG

Tagging, within the context of graffiti, is pervasive and contested. Rapid, microscopic, and immediate, the tag is of the lowest hierarchy within the graffiti taxonomy, often indicative of a more childish, naive, or less accomplished style. It is easily covered and resurfaced, but correspondingly, much more mobile and malleable to multiple environments and architectures.

Whereas the physical landscape is marked by graffiti tags, the information landscape is marked increasingly by the XML tag, a meta-level markup technology allowing information to be categorized in ways according to the predilections of the user. Systems like Flickr and Twitter are presented as 'social' systems because of the levels of social interaction encouraged by user participation and the new kinds of arrangements of information they encourage. Tagging is lauded as a horizontal, bottom-up canon of information, allowing for two-way, subjective participation, whereas previous systems were entirely passive and objective.

The XML tag and the graffiti tag are becoming alike in function as well as in name. With GRL software, one is not just tagging a wall, but actively revolting against proscribed social structures. Both Flickr and Google allow for systems of 'memory maps', where users comment and provide enriched content upon monumental architectures. In both cases the tag is a user-defined and dictated act against a rigid social order, but to an extent, this level of benign commentating only reinforces and proscribes a limited map of autonomy that we have in our daily lives. As has been shown by thinkers from Proudhon to Reich to Deleuze, internalizations of power structures likely mean that we will replicate the same dynamics and hierarchies onto new systems. The meta-tag however, still has inescapable radical potential for individuals to create agency.

With this in mind, will the GRL project have reached its logical conclusion when projection-bombing occurs in real space, and subsequently is tagged and mapped in virtual space? Or is there more to be done here? If we consider the tagging practice combined with locative media possibilities, a rich range of possibilities emerges. Indeed, GRL is currently working to hack Google Maps Street View, allowing for community-generated maps of tag-able locales. The more we are able to articulate our parallel concerns with the field of urban geography, the more we are able to mimic and subvert information architectures, and the larger the field of play for GRL will become.

FOOTNOTES

1. Critical Art Ensemble, Digital Resistance, Autonomedia, p. 8

2. Ibid, p. 5

3. Ibid, p. 150

4. Ibid, p. 7

5. Ibid, p. 9

6. Ibid, p. 87

7. Ibid, p. 89

Liminal Screen / bombIR

I was able to go back to the BNMI in February and March of 2009, alongside my Graffiti Research Lab partner NomIg, in order to develop a new open-source tool for digital graffiti, bombIR.

bombIR consists of an infrared pen (we hacked the circuit inside a spray-pant can!), a rear projection setup, a computer, and a Nintendo Wiimote. Using the Wiimote as an IR camera, the nozzle of the IR Can triggers the momentary switch, effectively transforming the can into a mouse device. From there, we used WiiFlash Server to communicate the Wii values to Flash, as we had written a graf-specific drawing program, with the help of the BNMI staff.

Just had our first public presentation at the founding of the GRL Ottawa event at the end of July '09. Upcoming presentations include Nuit Blanche, Toronto, Oct 3rd, '09.

This is all just Beta-testing... keep your eye on the GRL_ca site for full release...

nomads in a dangerous time

mirae and i are officially leaving you Vancouver.

Banff is up next, with a string of residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts, then Toronto (we think) for the summer.

Then across the pond ...??

EDIT:

we have been in Toronto for some weeks, since April 1st, to be exact... (no, we weren't sure that it wasn't a joke at first either...)

fascinating city. we have been house-sitting/pet-sitting for three months now, which is a great way to force yourself to understand a new locale - especially one as neighbourhood-driven as Toronto... forcing yourself to identify local coffee shops, vegan restaurants, hardware stores, print houses...

We stayed in Cabbagetown, moved successively north along Ossington, from Queen to Bloor to St. Claire, lived just outside of Kensington Market, about to move into Parkdale...

We had this fantastic moment at the 'Right Here, Right Now' conference where a slew of the experimental theatre/dance crowd drew us up a homemade community map on 6ft of butcher paper, complete with a legend showing good porches, free wifi, bike routes, restaurants, galleries, etc....

Creative City Conversation

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

GRL in Banff

Video here