VAULT

What strategies and experiences can you share related to digital or analog archiving and your current practice?

MANCC costume:

When I was a Mellon Arts Administration Fellow at MANCC from 2010–2012, it was the first time that I really started to become aware of many conversations about documentation and archiving—from total philosophical resistance to having any record whatsoever (come hell or highwater, as my mother would say) to capturing, manipulating (also called editing), and sharing every second almost as an existential proof of being alive—and being alive proving artistic effort. I wasn’t sure where I landed on it. No record at all seemed too stubborn, and to what good end? Sharing every second was inconsistent with my sense that discernment is important—having some say over the conditions of representation—and besides I wasn’t sure who would actually want access to every moment. I also became intensely aware of the organizational need to demonstrate activity via visual records. MANCC needed its own kind of work samples to demonstrate activity to funders, for example. Rather than expensive site visits, a program officer could get a sense of the activity taking place in Tallahassee based exclusively on Chris Cameron’s beautiful (edited) residency recordings. They weren’t false representations of what was happening, but they weren’t the full truth either. Frustrations and non-dramatic action could be edited out easily. As the person responsible for creating texts and organizing images from the residencies, I definitely had a naïve “we should share the gospel kind of feeling,” like “Look! See! This spectacular thing really happened—or this ‘movement-filled’ image really reflects something grand about work-in-progress. Doesn’t it make you want to care about artistic research and following the unknown?” There is something almost evangelical or apologetic (ancient sense of the word) about sharing digital records in this way – about trying to justify activity that someone else didn’t witness, especially as that potential convert needs to believe Something Worthwhile Happened in order to continue funding it / newly supporting it / etc. The biblical story of doubting Thomas comes to mind… what’s the phrase? “seeing is believing?”

MAP costume:

Digital documentation is absolutely ESSENTIAL to the funding process. It cannot be underscored enough. While the written word holds tremendous power, most evaluators look to the images or video to get a sense of what the work might be like to experience live. We know, the evaluators know, and the artists certainly know that the images or the 2-minute sample of something is vastly, vastly different than the kinetic experience of witnessing the work live, and yet… Video samples are particularly important for those folks who don’t know the artist and have never seen the work live. They describe it as their only way into imagining the concepts as having dimensionality beyond the page. I encourage artists to try to make sure they get great video of their work if they have interest in seeking those particular kinds of opportunities to resource their work. Trailers and work samples are not the same thing. At MAP we have what is not called—but what is in effect—a massive archive of words, images, and videos, from nearly 30 years of receiving proposals. That’s approximately 27,000 proposals with upwards of 81,000 samples. We’ve talked about how to make that archive public, or at least searchable and of utility to artists, presenters, producers who want to learn about works in development. I get stuck on things like labels and searchable key terms and the ethics of MAP staff imposing categories that the artists’ didn’t use to make their proposal “sortable”…What would the key terms be? Contemporary dance? Afro-futurism? Utopian / Dystopian devised ensemble theater? Could I act as a kind of proposal librarian helping presenters find, for example, contemporary dance artists who self-identify as non-gender conforming and who are working in Arkansas? Yes, I could... Is that something people would even find useful? I’ve also thought about writing a book—or several—about what’s present in this repository—an enormous record of incredible ideas, desires and budget fictions… a history of values, maybe?

Lauren artist costume—or the underlayer I’m always wearing beneath the rest:

In prior lives, I’ve shared images, writings, and video of my work pretty readily on a website and on social media, esp. Instagram. The complications of the MAP role make me feel much less inclined to share my creative life, even though, in some ways I also know that other artists appreciate finding out about the fact that I dance, hunt for studio space, pay collaborators, sweat through articulating my ideas in proposals, and receive rejection letters for opportunities. To share my dancing or creative life online is to assert an artistic point of view, and that feels as if it stands in stark contrast to my public administrative role, which requires a decidedly neutral opinion. I’m to facilitate other points of view, not advance my own. Sure, I’m not at [work] 24/7, but it is a strange kind of personae that goes with me everywhere. And so… There is something that feels closer to my late 90s DIY / post-punk origins when I actually decide to share my dancing work digitally (in contrast to live performance which I tend to have a little more control over who sees). Still, the vulnerability of trying to share multiple identities through my body live or recorded—in ways that don’t feel compromising to any of my roles in the field—has been paralyzing in many ways. One strategy I use to get past this kind of block is to photograph the work of other makers, capture portraits of people I admire, and practice composing space in the frame. Another strategy has been to create small books of writings, collaged images and found texts. I can both express my POV and play with making the voice of the narrator more or less reliable—is it Lauren making that statement? is it an observation? a fantasy? I like to play with the distortion of time and memory in this compact space. I also make them as small gifts for friends, intentionally choosing unique compilations and sequences of short pieces that I think might create a particular meaning for that person.

Lauren—friend & colleague costume / where are my people?:

I have several friends who are professional makers who do not live where I do and who are not seeking grants or trying to tour or any of the other “career-defining” markers artists seek/need to make their work. Much of my friends’ work exists solely online, and they use digital platforms to encourage each other to keep going. If they / I don’t live in places where they / I have communities to offer useful critique or to simply give each other a welcome push into more making, online sharing is a way to “show work,” “receive feedback,” and stay connected to colleagues who they / I admire. I’m not sure what kind of archive this is, but it seems like one. A friend of mine recently moved to Knoxville and founded an online platform called The Iteration Project on Instagram, which is essentially a mechanism to connect her to other makers worldwide, share creative prompts to encourage the act of making, and to draw new followers / digital audiences to each participants’ work. It’s free to do. There are no barriers to participation unless you don’t have a digital device which has the Instagram app. If it requires anything, it’s the willingness to spend a fair amount of time on social media connecting with folks through emojis and limited character counts (which could have otherwise been time devoted to interacting with people live or making more work?)… I certainly feel compelled to participate, and really enjoy it, although I also get into strange conversations with myself about “proving” to friends that I’m doing something. Is this the ultimate democratization of access to making / sharing work? Is it an “unmediated” performance space?

How has (your) dance making been affected (or not) by the virtual/digital availability of your work?

When I perform...I am recording what I do live to have it as a record, and to express myself through the act of editing digital materials, but I mostly do not share those with anyone else—particular other “field” someone else’s. There is something satisfying about retaining that control—sharing only what I want to, in the way I think it should be seen, and inviting specific individuals to witness it. The virtual availability of my work is most certainly not a factor right now in whether I attract additional opportunities to make or share, but I would also say that any self-imposed restrictions on access to my work is definitely affecting my ability to relate to others through it. All of this makes me ask myself whether or not it’s important to me right now to relate to others through my virtual work at all. People in Buzzfeed circles that like lists of things to do for your career might say with enthusiasm, “If it’s not a Hell Yes!, it’s a Hell No!” … I’m not sure my ambivalence is equal to a hell no, but I’m also not sure what else to do about it either.

What do you assume (in the best sense of the word) about audience and your practice?

MAP practice: I understand that work to be artistic practice, and therefore, one could say it is witnessed by colleagues, funders, and applicants as a kind of audience. In terms of outputs, I assume that my audiences demand that the work is rehearsed (meaning tested and functioning), that the work is public (transparent and available for feedback / critique), available online, and that I can stand behind compositional decisions I have made (whether as facilitator of review processes, designing the application itself, updating programmatic language, etc.). I also think I assume (or maybe hope is more appropriate) that folks are comfortable letting me know what doesn’t work.

Lauren practice: I’m confident that my mother, my cats, my partner, and a select group of close friends are my audience. I assume that they will provide at least a brief window of unconditional attention, meaning that when I ask them to look at or share in creative work with me that they will do their best to show up to encounter it. I try not to expect any kind of reaction to the work, though. I also try not to expect any kind of acknowledgment that it was actually witnessed (like “oh Lauren—I got that clip you sent—super awesome!”) I assume that people are inundated with media, ads, information, other artists asking for their time and attention, other Kickstarter campaigns, etc. and by inundated, I really mean under a non-stop tsunami of creative output. Whereas I used to think, maybe people would care about my finished products (i.e. performances) if they really understood everything that goes into making them from minute one to five years of discovery later. Now I think only a special few people want to take in process and product, and want to go on the journey with me. Those people must have insane email filters and the discipline to not refresh The New York Times app on their phone all day. I’ve been trying to set as a mantra that my practice cannot be contingent upon having an audience or not. And yet, it’s still hard not to crave the relationality with others. I do appreciate the speed of digital transmission—I can get a one minute idea to hundreds of people in the time it takes the clip to load. They may or may not watch it, but at least it’s floating out there—and sometimes that feels like enough. That speed is nice in comparison to the speed of getting that one night only live gig, which is 3 years away—and even though your best friend already has the save the date for it—she still might not make it to that one night when 2021 finally rolls around. She is, on the other hand, very likely to show up to her own phone every few minutes that I post a digital record of what I’m doing. As shallow as it is, sometimes that quick like or heart emoji on an image is enough to feel like what I’m doing was noticed. As I’m typing this, I’m thinking about a tattoo artist who I know and admire. Her name is Virginia Elwood. She’s amazing, the artist who created my backpiece, and the co-owner of a shop in Brooklyn called Saved. While she was working on my back, she told me a story about a client that really inspired her. When Virginia was tattooing her, she asked, “Are you sure you want the cat head oriented this way? It will look upside down to anyone else who sees your arm hanging normally.” The client replied, “Yes! When I lift my hand the cat head is actually right-side up. It’s for me, after all.” Every time I start my practice now – when worries start to creep in about who it’s for and why I’m not “building demand” for my work – I try to whisper “It’s for me!” to myself. Every time MAP Lauren gives Lauren artist advice about “career,” “getting my work out there,” “making that database of people to send clever email updates to”—Lauren artist tells MAP Lauren, “It’s for me!”

What are some changes imaginable regarding company/independent artist strategies, audiences, funding and presenting structures?

• Moves towards hybrid producing structures
• Moves away from intermediaries (direct artist support)
• Participatory budgeting strategies may seep into arts philanthropy—those who apply (artists) would be the arbiters of where resources go, rather than producers, presenters, etc.
• Audience moves towards only going to see what they know—and much of what they know comes from online sources
• I have friends who say, “I’m never reading or seeing work by men again.” I consider that kind of “identity marker filtering” a particularly current strategy for limiting the information flood.
• I’d like to imagine funders playing a large role supporting quality documentation, archiving and digital distribution strategies… don’t seem to be able to understand the priority as a line item, esp. as creating the work that would be documented is—for the most part—completely under-resourced…
• Risk-taking (meaning presenters bringing artists to their town that they and their audiences don’t know) is less and less likely. Hometown pride is on the rise. I hear many artists and audience members in Columbus say, “Why would I see work from an artist who isn’t from Columbus? We have lots of talent already here. I don’t need to leave my town (go nearby to Cleveland), etc. to see great work either.” I hear this in Seattle. I hear it in St. Pete, FL. I hear it in NYC.
• Similarly, risk-taking (meaning panelists and evaluators getting behind artists they have not seen and do not know) is also less likely. They tend—without any prompting—to Google artists outside of the application materials. If an artist has no website, an old, out-of-date website, etc. it is considered sort of suspect.
• I think we might continue to move farther and farther away from single figure as arbiter of opportunity (curator / producer / presenter creating a season or a festival). Moves away from singular perspective curation at institutions. Maybe shared, community-sourced, or at the very least, much more frequent rotation in terms of who decides.
• I’m not sure the idea of “organizational sustainability” will stay in vogue. I see moves towards Nassim Taleb’s conception of “anti-fragility.” He talks about a spectrum with three markers:

1. Fragile—major, unpredictable (and inevitable) events will be absolutely detrimental or cause significant losses
2. Robust / Sustainable—major, unpredictable (and inevitable) events will neither cause irrevocable loss nor substantial benefit
3. Anti-fragile—major, unpredictable (and inevitable) events will cause substantial benefit
• While he places artists and artisans on the robust and/or anti-fragile end of the range, arts organizations, generally, are categorized as fragile.