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More questions for the Non-Verbal Engagement Project

Expectations:

Question: Do I need to submit complete artwork for this Call, how many pieces am I expected to submit? How much participation is expected of me in the 6-week program (in-person or online)?

Answer: You can submit up to 10 pieces – they do not need to be complete. You could share (a maximum of) 10 images, OR a 5-minute video/audio, or up to 7 pages of written content with easy to read font size of 14 pt or bigger. We do ask that you consider our team and if you are sharing any work that has triggering content that you label it for our jury/selection team!

We expect the accepted artists to attend at least:

  • 1 staff meeting
  • 1 Accessibility Committee meeting 
  • 6 weekly sessions with Kay and Shanna, 1-hour each
  • 2-hour participation in a closed Roundtable online
  • Participation in a video, interview, and/or other format production for grunt archives

Most of these sessions are virtual; however, we are flexible to host the 6 weekly sessions in-person. The way the video, interview, or product is made will determine where and how it will be filmed or created.


Question: I cannot meet all the deliverables. Is it mandatory for me to attend all sessions/meetings/roundtables?

Answer: No, you don’t have to attend all the sessions at grunt. We’re flexible about how you participate. However, we encourage accepted applicants to join our meetings to learn more about how grunt operates and to share feedback that helps us improve our support for non-verbal engagement. We also want to help artists grow and develop professionally by connecting them with our team. We will work around your schedule. Our greatest priority is that we pay you, and that we find a way to save something about your experience so that there are more examples of non-verbal artists and arts workers in our archives.


Question: What critical deadlines are there?

Answer: In 2025 the critical deadlines are as follows:

  • The deadline for AEP application is this Friday January 10th, 2025 end of day before 12am.
  • The program begins on Tuesday, February 4th and ends on Friday, March 14th, 2025 for a duration of 6 weeks.
  • The deadline for video/interview/etc. Production for grunt archives is Friday, March 7th, 2025.

2026 and 2027 deadlines will be the same general times.


Question: If it is not mandatory to create and submit complete works, how am I evaluated at the end of the program?

Answer: You won’t be formally evaluated, but being active in this engagement can help you prepare for your next opportunity and the more you ask questions or critically engage with the program, the better prepared you will be for future engagements. grunt gallery is seeking to support non-verbal artists and while we hope that artists will want to exchange knowledge, there is no minimum requirement for the selected artists beyond leaving something behind for the grunt archives to acknowledge the engagement (ex: video interview).


Question: Not including the works I have produced, how much work am I expected to produce during this residency?

Answer: The process is up to you as the artist. The directive is focused more on the learning engagement versus a completed piece or series of work. This is an opportunity to potentially make a simple work to be entered in grunt’s permanent archives, but this can be a video interview, or something you donate to the archives from your collections if you like. The fee is to be spent however you like so if you do not produce work during the residency and use the fee in another way, that is valid.


Question: Can I use this opportunity to develop a theme and/or idea that I am already working on?

Answer: Absolutely. This is an opportunity to develop new or old projects during the 6 weeks of the program. In fact, you can simply use the funds however you choose and spend the time chatting and learning from and with grunt – this is also part of a larger theme at grunt – co-learning.


Question: What is the end result expected of me at the end of the residency?

Answer: We ask you to showcase your work process in either film or other formats for grunt’s archives. We do not expect a completed piece at the end of the Accessible Engagement Project, nor are you expected to produce anything on your own.


Question: Am I expected to collaborate with other artists in this program?

Answer: During the closed Roundtable session, we expect our non-verbal and tactile artists to collaborate in discussion with our invited artists in the Roundtable. We will also host a weekly cohort meeting/check-in, but if the schedules don’t work for both artists in a year, we will host separate meetings.

You will be invited to join in grunt’s staff meeting and accessibility committee meeting, but you can simply observe or give feedback in the following week’s check-in. There is no pressure to produce or participate.

We don’t expect any production collaboration, and any project work you do will be self-directed and independent study for your learning engagement. We will hire a videographer for the archive video and work with you on what to film unless you want to do this yourself or you want to engage with the second artist in your cohort.


How long is the Selections Process:

Question: How long is the jury process?

Answer: The jury process will take 2 weeks after submissions close.


Question: How many spots are available? How many are you accepting?

Answer: There are 2 open spots available for local, non-verbal guest artists.


Question: When will I find out the results of the selections?

Answer: Kay and Shanna will reach out to you through aep@grunt.ca or access@grunt.ca with the results of your application by the end of day on Friday January 24th.


Question: What are your criteria for evaluation?

Answer: We are specifically looking for artists who are interested in knowledge sharing with the gallery towards creating spaces for other non-verbal artists. We want to see artists who are proud of their work and practice, and are looking to find spaces that will respect and support their practice.

Rather than a minimum education or experience level, we are excited to welcome outsider (or untrained) artists, as well as self-trained artists. However, we are seeking artists that have been engaged in their practice seriously for at least one year and can challenge the art world with self-confidence. Artists do not need to be established (be recognized or have a lot of experience) but we are looking for artists who are excited to share, talk, or break down barriers!

There is no formal rubric or scoring that is planned for intake unless grunt gallery receives an overwhelming response. If so, we will use the grunt gallery curatorial scoring system that reviews artists based on their artistic merit, feasibility (how possible it is for grunt to support the work or care for the artist), and impact (how will this program affect the artist’s path at this point in their career). For more information, visit grunt gallery’s submissions page.


Question: I am not d/Deaf/HoH, but I am interested in applying. Am I suitable for the program?

Answer: This opportunity is for artists who identify with having a non-verbal artistic practice. This includes Neurodiverse, Autistic, Disabled, and medically non-verbal artists. Priority will be given to artists of diverse d/Deaf/Hard of Hearing and disabled communities and/or BIPOC artists. Non-verbal Queer artists who may be temporarily non-verbal during their transition are also encouraged to apply.

This engagement program focuses on non-verbal participation and communication – not non-auditory or hearing loss or deafness. However, a participant may be Deaf, deaf, or hard of hearing and have a non-verbal art process and practice.

All artists must live within the colonial borders of the Lower Mainland/Metro Vancouver area, including adjacent Coast Salish territory and lands.


Question: Does my work have to be focused on my disability identity?

Answer: We do not require you to disclose your disability identity. Your artistic practice also does not need to reflect it. However, this opportunity is focused on non-verbal engagement within your artistic practice, so we encourage your application to reflect the non-verbal forms of engagement and challenge the verbal-centric/oral-prioritized approach.


Question: Is this an in-person program or remote opportunity?

Answer: It is a hybrid opportunity. grunt gallery does not have a maker space and is a public gallery, but artists are welcome to use the space to host meetings, or to work during their 6-week engagement. Weekly meetings will be hosted online, and staff meetings are also hosted online. Please note that all meetings are conducted with a digital transcript tool recording voice to produce transcripts. In the case of digital meetings without voice, the chat transcript is saved.

If safe and accessible, artists are asked to visit the gallery at least once.


Question: Can folks outside of Metro Vancouver/Lower Mainland apply to this program?

Answer: No. Because of our grant funding, we are limited to the local area near grunt. However, we are working to try and find funds to expand this outside of the province. That you want to work with us is important – and if you know of a local gallery or service that could replicate this program in your local area, tell them to contact us! Also, we hope to add programs to this base engagement that will allow us to pay people out of province to join in other programs in future years. Please write us an email at aep@grunt.ca so we know you’re interested!


Fees, Compensation, and Accomodation

Question: What access accommodations will be provided through grunt?

Answer: Relaxed participation and voice-off/silence throughout the engagement.

Option to sign, chat, text, write, or otherwise non-verbally communicate with staff and program facilitators.

Auto transcripts are a minimum at all grunt meetings (using a voice-recording AI tool, Otter.ai). There is a budget for CART or ASL Interpretation at meetings with verbal/hearing staff, and the project facilitators are open to discussing other service solutions with the selected artists.


Question: I require additional services. Can grunt support?

Answer: Describers, CART, ASL interpreters, Interveners, or Support Care will be provided for any in-person or online meetings where there is speaking or visuals. Support will be discussed with the accepted participants but there is a budget to support access.

Travel to and from the gallery for a singular visit can be covered by the gallery.

Meetings or program subscriptions will be covered by grunt (Ex: Otter.ai, speechify, google meet, Zoom).


Question: Is my supplies budget included in the $2,000 artist fees?

Answer: Yes. Supplies and materials come out of the $2,000 artist fees at the artist’s discretion. This can include renting tools, buying tools, and purchasing materials. It is worth noting that this fee counts as income when you are doing your taxes—please be advised!


Question: Can my $2,000 artist fees be used towards caregiver support etc.?

Answer: Yes, your artist fees can be used at your discretion (meaning, there are no restrictions on how you use your funds). It is worth noting that this fee counts as income when you are doing your taxes—please be advised!


Question: Are there other funding sources that can support my project outside of the $2,000?

Answer: Not immediately. grunt staff facilitators will work with artists to create support letters or to co-author grants should the artist wish to seek additional funds. There are no additional funds available from grunt beyond the $2,000 per artist during the engagement, but grunt will work to support the artist in locating additional funds for ongoing projects if that is the support they want during the engagement.


Question: Can I get paid in increments/installments instead of a lump sum?

Answer: Yes. Artists can receive incremental payment and can dictate the sum. grunt gallery can pay out the sum over an extended period of time, but it must be fully paid out by June 30th, 2027.


Question: I don’t have a space to work out of. Can grunt support in providing space or rentals?

Answer: The $2,000 fee can be used towards renting a space, but grunt gallery does not have specific studio/making space available for our artists. grunt gallery does have an office space where the artist is welcome to work during their engagement as long as their production does not interfere with daily office operations. Access to the gallery will be limited to staff hours (Tu-F, Noon-5PM).


Question: Can I use the $2,000 towards studio rental in another location or studio membership?

Answer: Yes, you can use the $2,000 towards studio rental in another location or studio membership. There is no restriction on how you use the funds. It is worth noting that this fee counts as income when you are doing your taxes—please be advised!


Question: My medium requires [x amount of work and equipment]. Can Grunt provide funding for those supplies? Example: ceramic kiln, clay wheel, woodworking tools.

Answer: You can use your fee ($2,000) to fund these supplies. grunt gallery does not have an extra materials budget but can assist the artist in writing a letter to seek sponsorship or donations if they want that support. We do not have a studio, we have limited production equipment, and we do not have an additional materials budget.


Beyond the Engagement Project

Question: Are there future opportunities with grunt?

Answer: Artists who complete the non-verbal engagement program can’t join it again, but they are encouraged to apply for grunt gallery’s annual curatorial submissions in July or take part in the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen (MPCAS). While participation doesn’t guarantee future selection, it helps artists build a connection with grunt. This makes it easier for the team to understand and support their work in the future.

In 2027, grunt gallery is planning to host a symposium that will welcome back past non-verbal and non-visual participants in the Accessible Engagement Program. More information will be shared on this soon.


Question: What additional support does the grunt team provide for the Non-Verbal Program? What is the grunt capacity?

Answer: During the engagement, artists are encouraged to discuss their practice and share their portfolios, goals, and barriers they have experienced, as well as ideas to better serve non-verbal artists in Contemporary art. Artists will have access to our staff, including our curator, archivist, and exhibition managers.

The two program facilitators will have up to 4 hours of weekly help to the selected artists. This time needs to be split between the artists and has to allow time for setup, meetings, roundtables, and final filming or creation of the archive object, but schedules will be discussed and transparently shared when the engagement is accepted.

Engagement artists are considered team members during the 6-week engagement and are encouraged to attend events or participate in learning opportunities if they so desire. If an installation is happening during the engagement, artists are welcome to support and shadow staff and exhibiting artists.


Question: I want to show my works in an exhibition. Will I have an opportunity to showcase my work publicly at the end of my program if not at Grunt?

Answer: Selected artists will either be interviewed or create something, like a video, that shows their experience with grunt. This will be added to grunt’s public archives and shared online when possible.

Artists can apply for an exhibition at grunt gallery by submitting a proposal in July through the regular submission process. During the program, artists can share their ideas with grunt staff to get feedback. If the submission process isn’t accessible, artists can also reach out to staff after the program for help with their proposal.

For works showcased outside of grunt, we can support accepted artists in creating a support letter for their application to other galleries and granting opportunities.

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Low-Sensory & Voice-off Gallery Hours (with Masking)

We are offering and experimenting with low-sensory and voice-off exhibition visiting hours.

On Thursdays from 12-7 pm, our exhibition Manager, Kay Slater, will offer a low-sensory and/or voice-off experience to visitors wishing to visit the space and our exhibitions.

What this will mean:

  • We will ask visitors to come scent-free on Thursdays (no perfume or scented body products—paint your nails a few days before visiting!) Please try not to smoke before your visit.
  • Masks are mandatory* (required) on Thursdays (masks are not required but always encouraged during other visiting hours).
  • You will not be approached by staff unless you approach us (or if you are in need of assistance).
  • We ask that you try to be “voice-off” or practice silence and not converse with our gallery staff or other visitors while you are on site. Kay is hard of hearing and will require mask-wearing (mandatory)* visitors to communicate by writing, ASL, English sign, or to step outside and remove masks so they can lip read (English or French). Staff will not engage you in conversation and will ask you to step outside if you need to use your voice.
  • Any sound or media pieces will be sound off or low-volume for visitors. Transcripts and captions will be available for all works.
  • Overhead, exhibition lights will be dimmed, still providing safe passage through the space.
  • Any works with strong scents will be removed, or the show will have considerable signage to advise visitors before entering the space.

We acknowledge that masks are not accessible to everyone and if you are unable to wear a mask during your visit, please let the attendant know. We will be prioritizing mask-wearing visitors, but depending on the time of your visit, we will do our best to accommodate you! You are also welcome to book specific times for your visit and we will limit visitors during your scheduled visit.

If you have any suggestions, additional requests for a low-sensory day, or would like us to anticipate your visit with additional consideration, please email us at access@grunt.ca – we welcome your feedback!

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Job: MPCAS Curator

Position: MPCAS Curator 

Project: Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen

Reporting to: Programming Team

Hours: 15 hours per week. Occasional evening and weekend work. Flexible schedule. This is a 1 year contract position.

Remuneration: $27.00/hr

Start date: July 1, 2023

About the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen and grunt gallery:
The Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen (MPCAS) is a 7m x 4m outdoor urban screen located at the intersection of Kingsway and Broadway in Vancouver on the side of the Independant building, a mixed use commercial and residential tower. The screen is maintained and programmed by grunt gallery, and aspires to enrich and engage the public through the presentation of media art that reflects the diversity, historical richness and creative capacity of the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood.

Through an annual submission call, commissions, co-productions and partnerships, the screen features works for and about Mount Pleasant and the people who live here alongside programming that connects these local issues to global practices, ideas and concerns. The MPCAS is a place for media and interactive content both home-grown and far-flung, presented through the distinctive lens of the neighbourhood.

grunt gallery has been a part of the Mount Pleasant community since 1984 and has seen tremendous changes over this period. During the past 40 years the area has gone from one of Vancouver’s poorest neighbourhoods to one of its richest. This transition hasn’t been easy and the social costs of thirty years of gentrification have been intensifying, particularly with the Broadway Plan and incoming skytrain stations reshaping the area. MPCAS has been born of this tension and we seek to acknowledge both the Mount Pleasant that is being forced out and the new communities coming into being.

General Description of the Position: 

The MPCAS Curator works with the grunt programming team and Program Director, as well as  community partners to develop contacts and strengthen relationships between the MPCAS and its partners in the community.

The MPCAS Curator is a planner, implementer, and relationship builder who is responsible for maintaining existing programming and developing new initiatives that reflect the multiple and diverse communities in Mount Pleasant. They will take the lead in the curatorial vision of the screen, coordinating our annual submission call while cultivating partnerships with other art organizations and local festivals year-round. We expect this to take the shape of developing new projects and applying for funding opportunities to support them and in in-kind exchanges with community partners.

We are looking for a candidate who prioritizes developing local relationships and familiarizing themselves with the neighbourhood’s history, businesses, community organizations and art communities. They will work with grunt staff to develop strategies that bring community content to the screen, promote visibility and encourage broad access.

The MPCAS Curator is expected to work independently, but will play a key role in the grunt programming team, alongside the Program Director, curatorial staff and the technical manager.

Required Competencies:

Collaborative
Reliable
Committed
Independent
Community Minded
Resourceful
Creative
Flexible
Social
Communication

General Responsibilities: 

  • Work with staff and committees to develop strategies and enhance contacts within the Mount Pleasant community in conjunction with the MPCAS’s vision for programming and the neighbourhood.
  • Design and implement a curatorial vision that builds strong, long-term, and loyal relationships with audience members, supporters and communities.
  • Develop programming for the MPCAS engaging heritage and cultural communities as well as community groups, seniors, youth and more.
  • Continue to develop relationships with partners and collaborators from the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as well as the wider Indigenous communities of Vancouver.
  • Collaborate and communicate with neighbourhood organizations to develop activities that promote the MPCAS’s presence (eg. community events and festivals such as Car Free Day, and organizations such as the Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House, Tonari Gumi, the Native Education College and many others). Previous partnerships have included limited run screenings with the Capture Photography Festival, VQFF, Room Magazine and other community based programming.
  • Create content around programming and community engagement for the MPCAS’s social media and website. Collaborate with grunt’s Communications Manager as required.
  • Update the MPCAS website and internal content management system.

Required Skills and Education: 

  • Awareness of and experience working within the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood.
  • Strong knowledge and commitment to bridge-building within diverse community frameworks.
  • Strong written and oral communication skills; ability to target outreach materials to varying audiences and age groups; ability to listen, and bring strong awareness of interpersonal/ intercultural dynamics.
  • Good understanding of artist-run culture.
  • Ability to (or interest in developing skills to) write grants, and find alternative funding support for innovation.
  • Post-secondary education or experience in community engagement, public programming, communications, activist organizing or arts-related disciplines is an asset.
  • Some knowledge of media art practices and production requirements.
  • Familiarity with Media and Video Arts.
  • Some knowledge of public art (and public messaging in relation to art in the public realm) an asset.
  • Some experience with social media content creation and CMS/Wordpress.
  • Familiarity or interest in project development and management.
  • Ability to perform well in a team environment and collaborate with others.
  • Strong organizational skills, able to identify and prioritize tasks with minimal supervision, work independently, and take initiative.
  • Resourceful, hands-on and pro-active.
  • Proven ability to act in an assertive but professional manner and to represent oneself and an organization in a positive manner.
  • Ability to work flexible hours.

Ethics and the Workplace: 

  • The MPCAS curator must be invested in open communication and collaboration.
  • Acknowledging that most accepted definitions of professionalism have racist origins, the MPCAS curator will be able to be present and engage in their work in a manner that is dedicated and as consistent as possible.
  • We envision this role as one best served by working artists and creatives with their own on-going practices to consider this role; we hope to develop a working relationship wherein artists can exist both as artists and arts workers, and will be in conversation with the successful applicant on what grunt can do to support their on-going career.
  • As a junior position, we strongly encourage emerging artists and curators to apply.

To apply: Please send cover letter and resume to Whess Harman by email at whess@grunt.ca

Application Deadline: May 26, 2023 @ 5:00 pm PDT

 

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Hillary Wood Memorial

You are invited to grunt gallery’s memorial for Hillary Wood (December 25, 1948 – March 2, 2023), a dear friend, founding member, and beloved presence in the Vancouver arts community. All are welcome.  

The memorial will take place at grunt gallery located at 350 East 2nd Ave, Unit 116 in Vancouver (street parking available) on Sunday April 30th, 2023, from 1pm – 4pm. Remarks at 1:30pm, open to all. Drinks and light refreshments provided.

There will be a virtual gathering option as well. Please click here to join via Zoom, and enter the passcode 156732 for access.

grunt will prepare a slideshow presentation with images of Hillary and her artwork. If you have any digital images you would like to contribute please email them to Dan Pon, dan@grunt.ca. If you have any hard copy images you would like digitized and included please email Dan to make arrangements as soon as possible. You are also welcome to send quotes, memories, or other written tributes which will be included as text slides to the email above.

Masks are encouraged and provided on request.

 

Image: Hillary Wood with Joe Haag, Aiyyana Maracle, Edmund Melynchuk, Kempton Dexter, Barbara Seamon, Polly Bak, Phillip Beeman, and Glenn Alteen, For the Life of Art March/Arts Awareness Day, 1993. Photo by Pat Beaton.

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Annual General Meeting 2022

NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Visible Art Society (dba grunt gallery)

 

DATE: Thursday September 29, 2022
TIME: 6:30pm
LOCATION: Online
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86067695351

Meeting ID: 860 6769 5351

ADDRESS: #116 – 350 East 2nd Avenue, Vancouver, BC, V5T 4R8, Mainspace Building

Please join us for a fast and fun Annual General Meeting of the Visible Art Society (dba grunt gallery) by Zoom.  We will be meeting for the following purposes:

  1. Presentation of the 2021 – 2022 audited financial statements
  2. Board of Directors’ report
  3. Program Director and Operations Director reports
  4. Election of the society’s officers

Click here to access the 2022 AGM package. 

As a member, you are invited to attend virtually and vote.  If you are not a member, please go to grunt.ca and sign up for our newsletter by 5:00pm on September 28, 2022. There is no cost to membership.

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Cree & D

After many trials and several travels in the great iron birds that skim across the skies and over the canopy towns in the realm of Ministik—wait, wherefore and what-now is Ministik? We’re thrilled to invite you into a new project written by Jessica and Ben Johns. Cree & D has been percolating in the background like the healing tonic of a strong, home-brewed yarrow kombucha. Written in the style of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, this is a story of love, family, and of course adventure, as these aunties work to preserve the hard won and tenuous peace treaty between the six nations. There’s also Butterball, Auntie Darlene’s werepug familiar.

The first episode of Cree & D launched in August 2022! This campaign follows the story of three cuzzins—Auntie Vera, Auntie Darlene and Auntie Mac—as they search for Kokum Cardinal’s stolen staff and work to preserve the peace in the realm of Ministik. Listen on the player below or follow our channel on PodBean: click here!

Cree & D is produced by These Ones (formerly known as Together Apart) and supported by grunt gallery on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. We record on Treaty 6 at FAVA studios. Art by Abbey Riddle. Music by Matthew Cardinal. Voices by Ben and Jessica with Emily Riddle and Matt Ward.

Image by Abbey Riddle.

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Call for Submissions: Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen

We are currently accepting submissions for the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen, until February 7th, 2022! We welcome contributions from artists, collectives, curators and other community members, organizations and community festivals. Generally speaking, submitted works should be 10 minutes or less and could include (but are not limited to) still images, time-based media, animations, performance works, archival video, interactive pieces, GIFs, experimental video, and curatorial/screening proposals.

The curatorial vision for the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen is centralized on the broader theme of PLACE. Initially, this focused on the literal geographical perimeters on the stolen, unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations, as a part of one of so-called Vancouver’s earliest neighbourhoods. This theme has also evolved to encompass a continuing community and network of makers holding deep knowledge of the area’s histories, holding visions of the future, and holding ground as the landscape rapidly shifts in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood. Topics have included identity, language, housing, city streets, food, neighbourhoods, landmarks, loss, memories, narratives of the past, and potential futures.

The MPCAS will continue to honour it’s initial framing of PLACE; as a community screen we are beholden to how we are on the land and how we wish to reflect the communities we envision this screen to be for. We also invite and encourage submissions which speak towards the ambiguity of place–of displacement, diaspora, digital and contested space, as well as artists whose work has been inextricably shaped by their time in the communities of this PLACE.

Click here for details and submission forms!

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Interview with Ben Bogart

Ben Bogart’s new work, A diffraction of past/stability and present/dynamism, will be featured on the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen from December 17th—26th, 2021. This beautifully complex work will screen for 7.5 hours/day, you can read more about the project here. We will also be presenting Ben’s work in our gallery, with an artist talk in January, 2022. We’re excited to share this work with you, and wanted to introduce you to Ben’s practice — read on for a mini interview with Ben Bogart!

Please tell us a bit about yourself and your creative practice!

I’m a non-binary agender adisciplinary conceptual artist and as I write this I’m constantly distracted by hummingbirds coming to visit my new feeder and delighted watching their tongues as they flick them out of their beaks after each sip of nectar. For over two decades I’ve focused on computational processes as artistic material; I think of the use of computational processes as following from the instruction works of 1960s conceptual art onward. In my artistic practice I’ve engaged with methods including physical modelling, chaotic equations, feedback systems, evolutionary algorithms, computer vision, and machine learning. I’ve diffracted these methods through bodies of knowledge in computational creativity, cognitive neuroscience, psychology of creativity, and quantum physics, and see continuity between my artistic and scholarly practices. Through these disparate methods and disciplines, my work engages with fundamental questions regarding subjectivity, objectivity, knowledge, meaning, emergence, complexity, autonomy, creativity, and thought. In recent years I’ve been thinking through Karen Barad’s Agential Realism and the ways in which boundary-making is fundamental to natural-cultural (physical-conceptual) processes. I’ve come to realize that my professional practice has always troubled and reworked physical and conceptual boundaries.

How did you become engaged with the technology used in your piece for the MPCAS?

My dad worked with computers his entire professional life, from a thesis written using punch cards, through magnetic reel-to-reel tape, to hard disks. He is also a photographer and for nearly as long as I can remember photography and digital imaging were available to me, but I’m not sure I thought of myself as an artist then. It wasn’t until moving to Toronto in 1999 that I was exposed to the “Electronic Media Art” scene that gave me a precedent for thinking about computation and technology as artistic materials. One of the first people I met outside of university was Camille Turner at the Subtle Technologies Conference in 1999 and it was her who introduced me to Jim Ruxton and InterAccess. I owe so much to artists such as David Rokeby and Norman White for expanding my boundaries of artistic practice and imagining a role for technology in it.

In 2001, I made a work using an evolutionary algorithm inspired by Karl Sims—who made a lot of formative computational art in the 1990s. My ongoing use of the Self-Organizing Map—a simple artificial neural network that rearranges pixels according to colour used in the MPCAS piece—started in 2006. My inspiration for using machine learning in art was George Legrady’s Pockets Full of Memories from 2001 which also uses the Self-Organizing Map. It’s hard to demarcate where machine learning differs from other computational methods such as feedback loops, chaos mathematics, or physical models. In all of my engagements with technology I’m looking to develop processes that have the capacity to surprise me. This surprise could be due to my misunderstanding—or the complexity—of the process. I see machine learning as just another engagement with complexity resulting from a process built up from the interactions of many simple components. From this high-level perspective, there is no difference between a physical model made up of many small mass-spring-damper components and artificial neural networks. I provide this short ~20 year personal history because while the tech industry is very good at emphasizing novelty, it is imperative for artists using tech to see their relation with—and situate their work in—the ~70 year history of artists working with electronic and computational technologies.

What interests you about the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen?

Having lived in East Van for a decade now I’ve spent a lot of time on the 10th and Ontario bike routes. Walking and cycling to go shopping at the old MEC store, or just to spend time on Main Street, I’ve seen a lot of changes in Mount Pleasant. I can hardly remember what used to be where The Independent now stands. How long will Kingsgate Mall stay around? What changes will we see in the next 10 years? My interest in public art is situated in a preoccupation with the ways an artwork can relate to its site—not only conceptually but also in terms of structure. My approach to public art involves using technologies that allow the structure of artworks to be created in dialogue with place. I see this as a natural extension of my interest in surprise and emergence where the site itself becomes a collaborator and the form of a work emerges from interactions between algorithms, the site, and my intention. Our city is changing so much and so quickly; there is so much potential for public art that literally (re)structures itself through these changes and reflects the city back to itself through an ongoing and evolving relationship. I hope there will be opportunities for even more ambitious multi-year permanent projects where artworks evolve ‘live’ as the city changes around them. Vancouver seems like an ideal place for this kind of work as we embark on large density projects to make staying here more viable.

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Fire Flower Artist Talk: Phone Access

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