Chris Craig
Virtual Geographies was as a project for nine Fine Art students at the University the West of England. It was a residency project that ran at the Watershed Media centre in Bristol (UK) that gave the students the opportunity to work artists, Yasser Rashid, Annie Lovejoy, Mac Dunlop and the Art group Mongrel.
The project focussed on mapping the social and political context of a chosen environment, a geography that exists as a virtual layer on a physical location, from cultural identity to geography in cyberspace. The students had to negotiate a territory or site for the work and translate it into an exhibition, at the Watershed ,in January 2000.
Jacky Puzey , the Watershed Exhibitions officer along with the university project tutor Nick Lowe, discussed the residency program, outlining the project, with all interested students. Those wishing to participate were booked onto a seminar for the following evening.
Wednesday October 13th 1999
The students attended a seminar at the Watershed. With the group Mongrel.
Simon Tune
Mongrel is a mixed bunch of people and machines working to celebrate the methods of street culture. Composed of a core group of four members, they dedicate themselves to learning technological methods of engagement and pride themselves on being able to programme, engineer and build their own software and custom hardware. Mongrel works with communities and groups, helping them to gain strength and recognition without getting locked into power struggles. The"Invisible Geographies" project explored the social geographies of two cities - Bristol and London. This showed the cities from a social and cultural perspective rather than from the objective view point of cartography.
Wednesday 20th October
The group meet Annie Lovejoy, Mac Dunlop and Yasser Rashid.
Mac, Annie and Yasser, showed us work they had previously done. Mac and Annie were at the time involved in the '.......here nor there......' project, and we were lucky enough to take part in an online discussion with Koka Ramshvili in Georgia.
Here nor there...... was an artist led initiative which celebrated the twinning of Bristol and Tbilisi. This was a collaboration between Mac Dunlop, Annie Lovejoy(Bristol UK) and Koka Ramishvili and Georgi Sumbadse(Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia).The collaboration explored the 'in-between' of 'in flight' separating the two countries. Drawing on previous work by all the artists.
Matthew Hearn
Created "from the Interior" in 1999 as part as a summer residency at the Watershed. It is an Interactive experience, taking the user on a Journey through aspects of Palestinian life. It is a journey of real people, war, love, family, pain, dreams, oppression, heartache and tragedy.
The Students had access to the Watershed's facilities, which included a suite of 5 power Applemacs and software which included, Dreamweaver, Director, Premiere, Photoshop. Also available were digital editing equipment, photographic equipment and access to a darkroom and stock of frames. Access to Hi8 cameras and editing equipment were done through the University of the West of England Media department.
Maria Barcelos Gemal
"Being able to speak to these artists was a great advantage"
Janice Ashworth
Wednesday 17th November
All nine students, Janice Ashworth, Maria Barcelos Gemal, Chris Craig, Matthew Hearn, Mary Longford, Conn Osbourne,Adam Pinfold Markus Soukup and Simon Tune, presented work to Jacky Puzey(Watershed) Nick Lowe(uwe) , Annie Lovejoy and Yasser Rashid.
Simon Tune
Wednesday November 17th 1999
All the students are allocated jobs to do in the run up to the exhibition, Mary, Matthew and Conn volunteered to coordinate publicity, Janice, Chris and Maria organizing space within the gallery and Markus, Adam and Simon agree to become experts in the editing, coordinating all the video tapes into all the appropriate places.
Maria Barcelos Gemal
All the project collaborators are asked to formalism the site in which they want to show , by the next meeting.
Equipment that the students required for the exhibition needed to be sorted.
Janice required the 5 linked monitors throughout the Watershed complex.
Mary needed access to show her film in Cinema 2 and also to combine her video with others for a showing in the Gallery space.
Chris needed 2 slide projectors with timers and a material that allowed him to project onto the windows.
Conn used an applemac set up in the Gallery and a screen.
Simon, Marcus and Matt all needed to have shared time with a video projector and screen
Adam and Marcus required stereo sound equipment.
Maria had many photos to frame so needed frames of varying sizes.
"A double wammy - a steep learning curve and to be out in public"
Mary Longford
Wednesday December 8th 1999
A final briefing session and a chance to view each others work. The work was nearly finished at this stage. Final arraignments and access to editing equipment were arranged. The Christmas period was a very stressful time and many of the students worked to complete there work over the break.
January 10th - 12th
All work needed to be completed and installed in these two days. Everyone helped with the painting of walls and blocks . Final editing work together and putting on credits was the completed.
"The group as a whole was an assett......you were able to observe people as they go mad!!"
Conn Osbourne.
Conn Osbourne
January 13th
All the Students work was accessed with Marc Dunhill and Nicholas Lowe from UWE and Annie Lovejoy. Theory were accessed on an ability to evaluate there own work, research and document art practices. To develop an awareness of theoretical contexts in relationship to their work and an ability to engage in discussions in tutorials and seminars.
The exhibition was launched at a party on the same evening and opened to the public the following day at 11am. The exhibition ran for three days and then the students returned to clear it and to evaluate the project.
" A huge leap.......very professional and very serious"
Simon Tune
Mary longford
All the students developed an understanding of the range of processional roles and locations in which professional art practice takes place. An ability to communicate and present their work in an appropriate manner in an exhibition and public context. The skills they obtained included organization, administration, social skills and the ability to document work both written and visual.
Janice Ashworth
"It worked really well"
Jacky Puzey
Markus Soukup
As a continuation of this project, Janice Ashworth and Chris Craig undertook a work experience placement to design this web site and would like to thank Yasser Rashid for all his help.
All of the Students would like to thank the Watershed especially Jacky Puzey, for allowing them to participate in this project.
