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Ilona Sagar, Co-, cum-, col-, video still.

All Our Games

– curated by Borbála Soós and Joseph Liam Murthaugh

O FLUXO, Marlene Haring, The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Ilona Sagar

22 until 26 January 2013

Throughout the week each artist or artist group took over the gallery space for one day only.

Fabrik (noun, German): factory, a building where articles are manufactured or assembled, chiefly by machine.Fabric (noun, English): 1 cloth, often produced by weaving or knitting fibers. 2 the walls, floor, and roof of a building. 3 (figurative) the essential structure of anything, particularly a society or culture.Fabrication (verb, English):A false but thoughtfully constructed story in which some truth is often interwoven.

‘Well building hath three conditions: firmness, commodity, and delight.’
– Vitruvius, De Architectura (c. 15 BC)

‘In structural design, as in all human work, the fundamental thing is man himself. No rules can be enunciated which, if followed, will yield the best possible structure. Hence everything depends, far more than on anything else, on the personal criterion and imagination of the designer. […It] is an error to suppose that with all the knowledge acquired through learning, we are to solve the structural problems encountered. It is one thing to sketch a structure and to corroborate its strength; it is quite another to find the best possible solution and to design the structure with all the skill that a master might attain. This latter is possible only after years of work and specialization, and the maintenance of this continuous effort for improvement requires, above all, strength of character.’
– Eduardo Torroja y Miret, Philosophy of Structure (1958)

‘To be useful, projects must
1 Propose new uses for art within society
2 Challenge the field within which it operates (civic, legislative, pedagogical, scientific, economic etc)
3 Be ‘timing specific’, responding to the urgencies of the moment,
4 Be implemented in the real and actually work!
5 Replace authors with initiators and spectators with users
6 Have practical, beneficial outcomes for its users
7 Pursue sustainability whilst adapting to changing conditions
8 Re-establish aesthetics as an ecosystem of transformative fields.’
– Tania Bruguera, The Criteria of Arte Útil (2010)

‘Sooner or later, all our games turn into Calvinball.’
– Calvin, Calvin and Hobbes: It’s a Magical World (1997)

It is hardly presumptuous to say that the creation of specific, personal working environments is a standard form of operation–no matter one’s career or professional interest. However, it’s possible that doing so while using the methodologies of art may result in something more than just increased commodity value.

For All Our Games, a varied group of artists and institutions were selected based on their contrasting relationships to this concept. Each have been invited to partake in a discussion about the construction of their working methods, then are each given control of the gallery space for one day to demonstrate some otherwise intangible aspect of this process. These case studies into the motives of activities categorised as art production provide personal insights into the adaptations artists have made to enable their practices to thrive, even as fields of specialisation dissolve into one another.

Events

Tuesday 22 January from 7pm
The four participants give a short presentation on their working methods and their plans for using the gallery space over the following days.

Wednesday 23 January from 2 until 6pm
O FLUXO, a Portuguese art and design publication originally exclusive to the internet, exhibits their visual manifesto to the public for the first time.

Thursday 24 January from 2 until 6pm
The Fourth Wall–Marlene Haring stages the work of the gallery in the shop window during regular work hours. ‘Business as usual, please come in.’

Friday 25 January at 7pm
Following a full day using the gallery as a production studio, IMS presents a film featuring the working hypotheses of each its members in advance of a forthcoming residency at Flat Time House in Peckham.

Saturday 26 January from 3 until 7pm
British artist Ilona Sagar conducts Co-, cum-, col-: Make things happen, a performance process and spatial flux. There will also be an all-day screening of her film Aphasic materials (2012).

Tuesday, 22 January, Presentation by The Institute of Mathematical Sciences.

Wednesday, 23 January, O FLUXO, Installation shot.

Thursday, 24 January, Marlene Haring, The Fourth Wall.

Thursday, 24 January, Marlene Haring, The Fourth Wall.

Thursday, 24 January, Marlene Haring, The Fourth Wall.

Friday, 25 January, Screening by The Institute of Mathematical Sciences.

Saturday, 26 January, Ilona Sagar, Co-, cum-, col-, performance.

Saturday, 26 January, Ilona Sagar, Co-, cum-, col-, performance props.

O FLUXO (The Flow) started life in 2011 as a blog about multidisciplinary visual context, in their words ‘a source of daily inspiration to get rid of mediocrity’. In 2012, on the urging of its devoted fanbase, it published its first print edition, Circulating Forms of Reality. Their website and physical publication function both as a compendium of contemporary cultural production and a catalyst for emerging practitioners. Its founders, Nuno Patrício and André Moreira, are based in Lisbon. ofluxo.net

The Institute of Mathematical Sciences was formed in 2009 as a collaborative enterprise between scientists and mathematicians at Imperial College London. Artists affiliated to Goldsmiths College were invited by the Institute soon thereafter to participate in collective research and exhibition projects. In 2011 the Institute was dissolved by the Imperial College and later that year reformed as an independent institution. Past projects include IMS Continuum, V22 (2012); The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Guest Projects (2012) and Uncertain Ratio, Imperial College (2009). The Institute will be resident at Flat Time House, London in February 2013.

Marlene Haring (b 1978 Austria): In her performances, interventions and installations, Marlene Haring deals with the social construction of places and events. She reflects and intervenes on the site-specific regulations and conventions which govern relationships and behaviours. Some recent exhibitions include Show Me Yours, I’ll Show You Mine, a performance at Casino Luxembourg Forum d’art contemporain (2012); Beziehungsarbeit: Kunst und Institution (Relationship Work: Art and Institution), Künstlerhaus, Vienna AT (2011); Night and Day, Modern Art Oxford (2010); Berlin Biennale (2010); Where Do We Go From Here, Secession, Vienna AT (2010) and Wegen Schaambehaarung geschlossen (Closed Because of Pubic Hair): solo show in lieu of a lecture, Secession, Vienna AT (2009).

Ilona Sagar (b 1985), lives and works in London. She received a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College in 2008 and completed an MFA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art in 2012. She is currently a TECHNE, AHRC research funded MPhil/Phd by practice candidate at the Royal College of Art in London. In 2018 she won the The Arts and Humanities Research Council Film Award with her project Correspondence O.


Recent projects include Living with Buildings, group exhibition, Wellcome Collection, London, UK (2018/2019); Self Service, publication and event series, CCA Glasgow as part of Glasgow International (2018); Correspondence O, solo exhibition at South London Gallery, London UK (2017/2018), HereAfter: Outcome Project as part of the SPACE HereAfter residency, The White Building, London UK (2017); a solo project at Pump House Gallery, London as part of The Ground We Tread (2016); solo exhibition For Acquiring Lungs and Walking on Dry Land, DKUK, London (2016); solo show with performances Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye Tenderpixel, London UK (2015); solo show with performance Mute Rehearsal, Vitrine Gallery, London UK (2015); Art Rotterdam, Main Section, Rotterdam NL with Tenderpixel (2015); solo show and performances  PROSOPOPOEIA : MANUAL : HAND : BOOK, Assembly Passage Project, London UK (2014); performance I fell backwards and you were there at Hayward Gallery Project Space, London UK (2014); group exhibition What Love has to do with it, Hayward Gallery Project Space, London UK (2014); exhibition and performance Soft Addictions Embassy Gallery, Edinburgh UK (2014); exhibition Eupnea, Saturated Space research cluster, Architecture Association, London UK (2014); screening of Human Factors at Caroll/Fletcher, London UK (2014); performance Human Factors at Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London UK (2014); solo show Human Factors, Tenderpixel, London UK (2014); exhibition The Ballad of Peckham Rye, Bussey Building, London, Peckham UK (2013); performance Human Factors, Art on the Underground as part of Art Licks Weekend, London UK (2013); performance Heart of Darkness, Le Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Nice FR (2012); exhibition The Visionary Trading Project, Guest Projects, London UK (2012); solo exhibition and performance States of Matter, the Swiss Church, London UK (2011); and performance Architectural Playgrounds, Barbican, London UK (2010).