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Application text for <5k grant:
1] working title: exquisite_code
2] 50 word description:
exquisite_code interrogates notions of read/run in a radical experiment hothousing a collaborative novel. Participants work 8 hours/day for 5 days generating text-prompts, text and edit-software in unrelenting micro-sessions. Rendered text chunks will elaborate the exquisite_code life novel in a continuous public display. A POD publication with Mute will follow.
3] 1000 word description, headings as ACE suggest 875 wds so far
1 You and your work
Description:
exquisite_code interrogates notions of read/run in a radical experiment hothousing a collaborative novel to be published using Mute's print-on-demand services.
8/9 writers will work relentlessly eight hours daily for five days, in an event hosted by E:vent Gallery in London's East End.
Text chunks will be produced, written over six minute sessions in response to a set of prompts generated by participants at the beginning of each day.
At the end of each six minutes bespoke and reconfigurable edit-software will worm through the chunks, adding to the text repository to elaborate the exquisite_code life novel.
The edit-software is interrogated and re-written in scheduled code writing sprints by participants, and all materials will be on live display at all times [projectors, crt monitors] and as hardcopy continuously extruded by line printers.
The event will culminate in a final night launch of the novel and will include performances/detournments made by participants from the accumulated materials.
Publication of all code, prompts and text making the novel will be by way of print-on-demand publication in collaboration with Mute.
Outcomes:
The project continues recent work with xxxxx [http://1010.co.uk] that examines how to exploit the read-run collapse of code, where notation that simultaneously performs itself, in an expanded and material notion of software as a means of production for new artistic works.
Such a theatrical design premise will create speculative, intense, playful mechanisms for a new and necessarily decentralized and collaborative artistic environment for all those involved.
A range of participants have been invited, including:
Pippa Buchanan[de/aus] writer/coder/artist http://schoolofeverything.com/teacher/pippabuchanan
Leif Elggren [SWE], writer/mystic/artist http://www.leifelggren.org
Dave Griffiths [uk/be] writer/coder http://www.pawfal.org/dave/
Stewart Home [UK], writer/neoist http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/
Brendan Howell [US/DE], write/coder/artist http://fritzing.org/
Jonathan Kemp [UK], writer/artist http://xxn.org.uk
Olga Panades Massanet [uk/es] writer/artist http://www.ungravitational.net
Eleanora Oreggia [it] writer/coder/artist http://xname.cc/
Sabrina Small [US], writer
A technical manager/co-ordinator will also be appointed.
2 How the public engage with the work
All materials will be on live display at all times via projectors and a crt monitor, and all writers will be available for public scrutiny interrogation and interaction. Hardcopy will also be available for inspection as it is to be continuously extruded by line printers.
The event will culminate in a final night launch, with extracts of the novel presented to the public through human-machine readings, performances and detournments by participants made from the weeks accumulated materials..
Publication of all code, prompts and text making the novel will be by way of print-on-demand publication in collaboration with Mute.
Information and publicity leading up to the event and about the release of the book will be distributed across various online newsgroups and litservs, promoted from the dedicated website, http://www.exquisite-code.com, as well as through associated partner/participants sites. The book will also be added to Mute's roster of publications available to the public.
3 Making it happen
Participants have been identified and invited; discussions and an agreement has been made with E:vent Gallery to host the event and launch. Simon Worthington of Mute has been very keen to support the event and discussions on implementing the print-on-demand (pod) technology are ongoing, with the possibility of an instant publication via an on-site pod station being actively pursued. A dedicated website has been set up both for disseminating project information and, in part, for use as a text dump for the event, and for which convergence with the available Mute templates for the pod publication is being implemented.
An organisational wiki has been established for use by all those involved. Information on the project and the publication will be scheduled for dissemination throughout various online communities and listservs, both locally, nationally and internationally.
This event follows on from previously acclaimed work including the xxxxx season of nine events as a part of node.London in March 2006 http://1010.co.uk/xxxxx_as_event.html; Crash at Shoreditch Town Hall and the ICA, London, in 2005 http://crash.1010.co.uk/post_crash.html; and more recently, Real Code at Piksel 2008, Bergen Norway http://1010.co.uk/org/piksel2008.html.
4 Finance
The proposed budget has been kept low by the agreement of all participants to arrange their own accommodation for the duration of the event. This in-kind financing has greatly helped keep the budget on-target for <£5k. This allows for an adequate subsistence payment (£25/day) and a nominal fee of £250 (£50/day) for the ten participants (nine artists and one co-ordinator/manager).
Budgets and accounts will be available for scrutiny on the organisational wiki and all receipts will be kept and available for audit as required.
5 Evaluation
Evaluation will take the form of monitoring three identifiable staging posts within the projects development:
a) the projects marketing and publicity campaign is widespread and effective
Criteria: significant project presence registered online listings and to include statistical monitoring of hits on host site and associated partner sites (eg. E:vent Gallery site) throughout period of project.
b) the project's planning, as detailed on the organisational wiki, is successfully completed, with all its components executed.
Criteria: that the projects described aims and their means of production are in place, the event is executed successfully and delivers all described outcomes, including a well attended launch event
c) completion and distribution of publication within one month of event completion
Criteria: that publication quality, design and layout are agreed and publication goes to print in a batch of 50 for distribution via online and Uk/Europe outlets.
