www.e-cart.ro Interview:
Simona Nastac*, co-editor of Romanian web magazine "e-cart" interviewed Sam and Lynn about the project:
SN:The Unrealised Projects archive collects submitted project proposals from artists, designers, curators and writers, which are - as you have stated - "unrecognised", "unfinished", "and unfulfilled" or which remain "unwritten". What is the goal of the project and how it operates?
SE:The main reasons for devising this work were an interest in the potential of the unrealised, the value of production that has no tangible and finite end, how in a world of hyper achievement qualitative comments of success and failure usually ape recognition of this process and how the reading of a (visual) work is an active and personally engaging form of communication.
So one our goals with the project is to highlight these moments of production for both the artist and the audience.
For the artist, loads of good ideas never see the light of day for so many reasons. This platform allows those good ideas a public viewing and offers a platform for ideas, which have not found placement otherwise.
LH:And As an audience member reading through the projects, a different type of criticality is employed than when looking at a finite and finished work, a criticality that is driven by imagining a potential outcome instead of responding to specific expectations for a work. In this state, the viewer is personally engaged and does in fact become a type of co-author through the nature of the building of meaning in the mind that is a characteristic of reading but most importantly that this meaning is not fixed and openly allows the audience to intellectually actualise an outcome.
So the reader is essentially finishing off the work through the reading, actualising it as well as inherently working towards a resolution of the work, whether that's just in placing it in the mind's eye or making decisions about how it could be realised or should be realised. This is when an audience's curiosity or imagination can be fulfilled or met; through an exploration of the works potential.
SE:We initially spent a lot of time talking to and enlisting artists to participate. Those participants then nominate as many artists/curators/writers/designers that they think might be interested. We contact them and try to meet to have a discussion about how they might want to proceed with an unrealised project. We like meeting and talking. We're trying to work through ideas that we find fascinating and when meeting other people that are interested, want to talk to them about how they interpret these ideas and how that might manifest itself through their own practice. We want to engage with a network of ways of working that are not limited to the lone artist in the studio and to explore these ideas in a collective manner, in a manner that reflects a community working towards something.
SN:Apparently, there is no hierarchy in the archive between "unrecognised", "unfinished" and "unfulfilled". However, there is certainly a distinction. "Unrecognised" implies, inherently, a failure. "Unfinished" could mean both in progress or abandoned. And "unfulfilled" presuppose the existence of an idea, but not necessarily the intention to transfer it into practice, to make it visible. Why is it important to acknowledge all of the projects as having an equal significance?
SE:These variations represent the various ways in which different individuals will interpret, consume, market and make work. Our intention was to create a fairly generic structure that could be used by anyone, but still remained bound within a specific context.
SN:One of the main concerns of your initiative seems to be the idea of failure. Valorising the failure involves, necessarily, an attempt to relativize the notion of 'success'. But both can be defined as such only in relation with a certain context, so that the try to distinguish between them becomes almost redundant. What is your understanding of failure? Within the context, could the archive be seen as a mean of critique to the address of social or institutional working concepts such as "power" and "prestige"?
LH:Absolutely. Success and failure can only be understood in context to one another. Both categorisations are terminally bound to one another for meaning and reference and have no relevance outside of momentary and specifically regulated judgement. And while we have not set out to focus on failure, the implication is inherently bound up with the idea of the unrealised. We're trying to create a space where, through the reading of the work, these qualitative statements are not necessary to access the work. Through the nature of reading and of the open-ended nature of the project, an audience member will immediately find ways to visualise those projects that interested them. How do you read a story without imagining the characters and scenes? At that point, the question of a project's failure or success is not a being asked, this reflective state is being replaced by the activation of the work.
SE:In some ways, the use of this open submission archive is a reaction to the market and authorative/arbitrary influences that determine the relevance of work or a body of works, which often demean the relevance of alternative influences on that market. It also reflects a browser mentality that empowers the user in their own home to quickly decide what information to access and for how long.
SN:To me, the archive seems to have a paradoxical dimension. Once the ideas or the projects become visible through the Unrealised Projects' website, they reach to a certain achievement, losing their very raison d'être. How do you keep the balance between "unrecognised", "unwritten" etc. and their (re)presentation?
SE:The whole project is interpretable. Of course, the projects have technically been realised once consigned to text, but some would say that even speaking about these ideas would be considered a realisation. So we are left with a debatable, philosophical enquiry into ideas raised by the proposition of the unrealised. We like that. To begin and end with questions. It means that the participants and the viewer must take responsibility for their own interpretation. We do not pre-suppose a finite, ideological conclusion.
SN:If withdrawal can be a creative act, I would like to let this interview remain unfinished.
LH: And we would like to extend an invitation to anyone who is interested in participating...
*In 2006, Simona will be co-ordinating a volume of Unrealised Projects through her local contacts in Romania.