Month: July 2004

The Tate Gallery has sites in Britain, London, Liverpool and St Ives. So, when deciding the location for a new venue there was naturally only one place to go…Space.

In order to fulfil their mission to extend access to British and International modern and contemporary art, the Tate Trustees have been considering for some time how they could find new dimensions to Tate’s work. They have therefore determined that the next Tate site should be in space.

Tate in Space obviously has alot of planning to do, but they already have a satellite orbiting Earth every 92.56 minutes. So far all the satellite does is be visible when passing by your local country. It’s hard to see the detail on the landscape paintings, but gee, the next time you hear of a meteor plummeting to Earth, it just may be a valuable statue — so hold out your hands.

SPOILER WARNING: Stop reading now if you want to go to Tate in Space.

The site is part fact, part fiction. It is intended as an agent provocateur: a catalyst, structure and location that invites debate and reflection on the nature of art in space, cultural ambition, and an examination of the role of the institution and the individuals within. Tate in Space also works as interactive or immersive
fiction, where each visitor is encouraged to engage with their own extra-terrestrial cultural fantasies. Some aspects of the work – such as the satellite sightings data – rely on participants ‘wishing’ or ‘believing’ the narrative into existence, assuming a position of co-authorship; collaborating with both the artist and each other in a work of constantly expanding collective fiction.

Quote from interview between Jemima Rellie and Susan Collins ‘Tate in Space’, Rhizome Digest 5.21.04.

Had another look through the threads of my brother’s forum and found a funny (not the only funny thing I must say) joke: How many forum members does it take to change a light bulb? The post is of course from somewhere else, and now I’m posting it in my blog, I’ve commented on it, and you may read it and experience the whole journey yourself, and then may comment on it, and then…

At the same time (same place actually, different time unit) I’ve been reading about transclusion — Ted Nelson’s term for the inclusion of data in a document (webpage) that is only referenced by a hyperlink not actually copied and pasted. As a wiki contributor commented, what if links were copyrighted? What would the realworld (fleshworld) version of such copyrighting be? Perhaps the holding of a partner’s hand could be permitted only if in lawful relationship (de-facto, marriage)? What about telepathy, or knowing what someone is going to say beforehand? Could that be a crime? Would everyone have to script their own way of introducing someone — could conjunctions be outlawed? Would we no-longer be able to refer to something someone had said creating the need for a person you want to be present and say it themselves? If everyone only said and did things that were truly original then evolution would dictate that we only have 1 human as we know it and a whole lotta other types of (one-only) species…Link or Die.