Me? Nope. I never get distracte
Tag: creativity
Make S P A C E with us
Designers, artists, and writers in Vietnam are invited to send pieces to editors at S P A C E for publication consideration. The topics we are publishing relate to food, culture, and emotion. There are subcategories but these are the big themes for our Vietnam segment. Are you interested in being published or co-creating works with us? There are these opportunities.
- 1 paid opportunity for a professional working translator, with native Vietnamese language skills, a flair for language, and reliability
- Opportunities to be published in S P A C E are by invitation, only. We seek to work with people who are serious about their craft, gel with our local team in Saigon, and who are reliable.
Get in touch with us through this form to ask about our projects and how you can be part of them.
S P A C E | Vietnam is funded by new support for #spacethezine #newcuizines, see http://chuffed.org/project/spacethezine
Photo: Hoang Thanh
The more things change [the more they stay the same]
A party. A good party. Fun. If it wasn’t fun, what was the point? That’s the philosophy around here. Let’s play.
And now, something I found, to share with you.
Source: https://hyperallergic.com/18426/wtf-is-relational-aesthetics/
Art critic, curator, and historian Nicolas Bourriaud coined the term “relational aesthetics” in his 1998 book of the same name. He’s pretty much inseparable from the concept itself, so chances are you’ll see his name attached (or quoted) wherever you see relational aesthetics pop up. In the book, he defines the term as:
A set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space.
Relational aesthetics is still redolent of the 1990s that it came of age in — the beginnings of internet culture, instant communication, and the instantaneous gain and loss of celebrity, but without the same cynicism we’ve developed today. Relational aesthetics pits the artist as experience curator and, I think, has contributed to the destabilization and popularization of the term. Relational aesthetics also carries the baggage of artist-as-celebrity. [Editor notes that it’s not important really what art critics say]
Art critic Hal Foster pointed out in the 1990s that with relational aesthetics, “the institution may overshadow the work that it otherwise highlights: it becomes the spectacle, it collects the cultural capital, and the director-curator becomes the star.”[Editor notes that it’s nice to cite people named ‘Claire’ thus leaves this citation unstricken] Claire Bishop, Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics, pg. 54-55).
Nicholas Bourriaud’s “Relational Aesthetics” (1998)
I love this stuff, like what’s in the picture, just above. So fun! The movie ‘Reality Bites’ comes up sometimes when I read about the academics talking away about ‘relational art’. Dunno why. Or the movie ‘The Wall.’ Or.. well. I’ll talk about it in the series of S P A C E that I’m working on right now, set to be published in the autumn.
Almost all of my events and workshops have places like this embedded in them, for people to engage and interact and connect… with themselves, and the objects that are just… there. I could put some pictures here now to prove that? Maybe I’ll put a few below, whatever’s already been uploaded, okay here they go. Pasted. Also I could point you to the list of all my favorite such ‘installations’, at dipikakohli.com. I called them ‘conversation installations’ sometimes, or ‘salons’ or ‘workshops’ or ‘experiential learning workshops’ or ‘opportunities’ or whatever. I just think they’re fun, though, and when I feel like doing them, I try. I invite. I invite and include widely until the time comes to start. Then the doors close and latecomers will not be admitted. A guest once said that was what was unique, to her, about this stuff. ‘You include a lot of people at hte start of something and then, when it begins, it’s very exclusive.’ Well, yes.
How many emails have I sent to people now inviting them to something in S P A C E? The ratio of the number of people who I’ve invited to become members, a subset of that large group, is very very small. I mean I’m talking less than 1%. Maybe less than 0.1%. I send a hell of a lot of email, as anyone who reads this blog and gets my emails and is like, What is this for?, might wonder. about why, sure. You are included at the start, but not later. Because it takes showing up, for me, to make it be a good moment for the people who make the time and effort to be there, with me, and with each other. For me ‘N’ was about that. Watching the filters do their job and people self-select to be at ‘N’. I love ‘N’.
Okay here are a few pics, below. Excellent. Now, let me get back to writing this week’s issue, working on a sequence for the fall, on ‘Relational Aesthetics.’ See editorial calendar here. Accepting submissions, but from members of S P A C E, which includes anyone who took part in Papers in 2020-21. Cool. See you in S P A C E.
I <3 New Cuizines
Today we share an update about #NewCuizines..
I told you about it? About #newcuizines? I’ll be curating here and there some of my favorite food-related [various media pieces] and original stories from the kitchen-atelier of our studio itself. Atelier S P A C E, because. Cooking. Is happening. It has to. There are no take-aways allowed and so, um, you have to prepare things.
I’m glad I have a kitchen, to do that. I’ve made some [deleted]… but these look pretty good…
Yes, you know I am not a foodie. But I do like good food. I mean, eating it. How could I not after three years in the gastronomic paradise of West Cork, Ireland (thank you lads). Well. After all that, I am in Vietnam, one of the most brilliant places to be for food especially if you want to see how creative everything can get with texture, color, composition. Style. I’m enjoying it. Continue reading “I <3 New Cuizines”
New Cuizines
There are 40 views already on this page about our next project, Zines & Cuisines.
Make that 41. I just checked it again.
Forty-one is more views on that page than for any other portfolio page I’ve ever posted on that platform. And I mean I’ve been kind of ambiently on there since 2017, not really seriously, though, not like now. I guess I just want to show people the context of S P A C E instead of just pointing them to my store. Ha, oh, I just pointed you to my store. Well, it’s a nice little collection, I feel:)…
But back to our story. About connexion, conversation, spacemaking, and now, food.
It’s exciting to me that it’s kind of interactive, too. It’s not just a ‘look at what I did’ thing but a co-created, on the spot, in real time, synched conversation space, too. With those who browse and read all the way through to the ends of paragraphs with links, then click the links, something happens. A conversation. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the entire raison d’être of S P A C E. To connect. To converse. To make that exchange… It’s starting to happen more and more, digitally, now, because… well, you know why. But yeah. Let me reflect now for a moment. On perhaps why the other projects for Atelier S P A C E were less interesting to view.
Maybe the earlier stuff I had posted, for example, stuff like this..
… was too…. er. Abstract? Hm.
[moment of insight slooowwwwlly dawns on DK, as the penny drops]
Wow. Quite possibly, eh.
I can see it now.
I guess I was caught up in the thing itself and forgetting to communicate about it, clearly, but that is natural when a thing is starting and it doesn’t know what it is yet. It rolls along and gathers momentum, rounds up, becomes more wheel-y and not as clunky as a square wheel. Ooh. More abstractness. Sorry, lads.
Let me try to articulate it simply. I guess, I just wanted to do it. Atelier S P A C E popups around the world, to co-create. I did this for a few years. You know, I really did. For 2017-2020 I was very interested in gathering people in remarkable moments for connexion. But I don’t think I knew exactly how to communicate what that looked like, in actual fact. Somehow people meeting and talking together over a meal is easier to digest. Haha, see what I did there, digest.
So let me change gears.
Instead of zines. Something else. Something new.
New cuizines..
‘Và có lẽ ta nên dành ít thời giờ ở trường đại học làm đầy đầu óc của học sinh với các nội dung qua các bài giảng, và nhiều thời gian hơn thắp lên sự sáng tạo của họ, sư tưởng tượng và khả năng giải quyết vấn đề của họ bằng cách thật sự nói chuyện với họ.’
//
‘And maybe we should spend less time at universities filling our students’ minds with content by lecturing at them, and more time igniting their creativity, their imagination and their problem-solving skills by actually talking with them.’
Let’s make S P A C E for just such conversations. Check out ‘Zines & Cuisines,’ a project of Atelier S P A C E, in Vietnam. Here’s a link. https://www.behance.net/gallery/120909493/Zines-Cuisines.
‘Don’t just document: make art’: photographer Benjamin Nwaneampeh
One of my favorite photographers in the world agreed to talk with me about the art of making street photos, back in 2018. I loved that conversation. It was so, so fun and delightful.
S P A C E makes space for that kind of conversation–it meanders, flows, and is a sort of exchange that you wouldn’t have any way of guessing what the outcome would be, from the start. I met the artist whom I got to know over instagram then in person, then I asked if I could talk with him for a bit and maybe even record it. It was my first foray into ‘podcasting’. I didn’t get too far, to be honest. I felt less and less interested in hearing my own voice but yeah, the people that I’m lucky enough to get to meet, wherever I go in the world (or surf online) are quite fascinating, at moments like the one in this conversation you can see… how… artists… think. Wait. Think is the wrong word. Feel. [deleted]
In this frank conversation between Design Kompany’s Dipika Kohli and portrait photographer Benjamin Nwaneampeh, we talk about how to get started, the culture of wanting things *now*, equipment, style, the city, and the art of peoplewatching.
‘Forget what people are telling you what street photography *is*,’ says Nwaneampeh. ‘Just go out and take photographs. If you like your pictures, and you feel you’re maturing, you’re growing in it, then just keep doing it. Just keep shooting.’
[deleted] … and then I think… yeah. It’s mostly about that. Mostly about art, itself. Why it isn’t just documenting whatever. Why it’s about seeing. Seeing seeing. And what that means, to each of us. In conversation: that’s where you find things out. At least, that’s where I do.
This one, we recorded together.
You can listen to it.
Here’s a link.
https://soundcloud.com/designkompany/make-art-1
Thanks;)
Protected: How to avoid ‘boreout’: engage with actual creative people doing actually creative things
Atelier S P A C E: ‘Sâu sắc, không hời hợt’
… Và có lẽ ta nên dành ít thời giờ ở trường đại học làm đầy đầu óc của sinh viên với các nội dung qua các bài giảng, và nhiều thời gian hơn thắp lên sự sáng tạo của họ, sư tưởng tượng và khả năng giải quyết vấn đề của họ bằng cách thật sự nói chuyện với họ.
Mục tiêu của bất sự phát triển của bản thân cũng nên tập trung vào tăng trường bền vững dài hạn chứ không phải lợi ích ngắn hạn. Trong kinh doanh chẳng hạn, ‘hack tăng trưởng’ tập trung vào tối ưu hóa tài nguyên cũng như tạo ra khách hàng tiềm năng. Nếu hoạt động kinh doanh của bạn là một cái xô và khách hàng tiềm năng là nước, bạn sẽ không muốn lãng phí tài nguyên bằng cách đổ nước vào một cái xô bị rò rỉ.
Phương pháp? Atelier S P A C E:)) Đây là những gì chúng ta làm…
‘Giải quyết vấn đề, khả năng đối phó với sự phức tạp và giao tiếp. Nhiều chuyên gia trẻ thiếu các kỹ năng mềm và cứng cần thiết để quản lý và thực hiện các dự án một cách độc lập. Tại Atelier S P A C E, mục tiêu của chúng tôi là giúp thu hẹp khoảng cách kỹ năng đó.’
Xem thêm: chuffed.org/project/spacethezine
3 May | Call for Papers
Papers is a way for people to explore ideas together, in a nonjudgmental safe space with a seasoned editorial team headed by Dipika Kohli at DK, to guide.
What is Papers?
An online writing-and-design-and-generally-creative circle for community. Ambient community that is. International and asynchronous: ‘Papers.’
Here’s how it works.
How does it work?
No meetings. Just email: asynchronous, international. Four prompts, sent on Mondays at 7AM USEST. Email converstaions follow with your group, in order to develop your ideas, push past the edges of your creative thining, and link you to our international community.
Why?
Because we are tired of superficial, inane chatter and want some actual depth, progression and substance in our online converations. That’s why. Four weeks of amazing online conversations with a max of 4 hosted by DK. More than 120 issues of our zine have been created through ongoing conversations with our guests and collaborators.
Writing. Sharing. Making. New stories. Together. In S P A C E.
Advance bookings only.
Register online.
Here is a link:
http://call4papers.eventbrite.com/
Thanks.
Issue #120
DK | Introduction to Cojournaling
A two-year roving popup ‘zinemaking’ program, Atelier S P A C E, is currently parked in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. From here we are co-creating zines with our new friends and acquaintances in this city who are interested in writing, design, art, graphic design, illustration, and photography. The idea isn’t for us to ‘teach’ these skills. It’s for guests to have a chance to truly collaborate, in the fashion that is uniquely DK’s. In S P A C E.
WHO THIS IS FOR. It takes a very specific sort of personality to show up for our style of collaborations, in our studio’s ateliers. We started in Seattle in 2006 and are heavily influenced by the agile design methods we learned there, mosty by osmosis, at a time when ideas and enterprise and thinking together with our clients and teammates was working really well. Things change, shift, and here we are.
A VIRTUAL PROGRAM. Discover our process, by taking part in a short-run version of our explorations in collaborative writing: the Cojournal Project.
Issue #112
Partly inspired by this song. Mosly by real life. Lots of things.
Inside.
Art and copy by Dipika Kohli.
Issue #108
Protected: Innovation spacemaking and the architecture of S P A C E
Issue #105
‘Festival of the Photocopier 2021’ | ‘Open to zinesters located anywhere in the world’
update: 29 December 2020
Here’s a quick update with some more information that we gathered via email in a conversation with Beck, one of the three coordinators of the Festival of the Photocopier. The three coordinators and twelve volunteers together make this program. Beck told us about the history with the festival and the way it grew. ‘I started visiting Sticky in high school, back in 2002, and when I hit university there was an opening in the volunteer line-up, so I’ve been with Sticky for about 12 years, since 2008!’
New opportunities in a virtual setting..
A. Spaice talks with Beck, one of the organizers of Sticky Institute’s Festival of the Photocopier..
A. Spaice: What’s cool about the festival, to you?
Beck: The cool thing about FotP is that the growth has been very organic. Every year we offer the same thing – a free table to sell your zines on – and people come and they sell their zines and make some friends and have a nice time. So the next year when the fair rolls around again, those seasoned individuals want to come back which means we have to add on some new tables for people who have never been a part of the fair before. The community has really made the event what it is, 2020 was our 10th FotP, if no one wanted to come to the zine fair it wouldn’t be a two-day event held across two huge rooms. 2021 FotP will be our first online zine fair so it will be a different kind of fair, but we’re hoping people are as into it as the IRL fair.
A. Spaice: Any opportunities you foresee?
Beck: I think being able to open up the fair to zinesters globally, in a realistic way, has been a really nice side-effect. Normally we’re happy to take applications from people from outside of Melbourne if they’re happy to travel, but travelling from Adelaide or Perth to Melbourne is way more affordable than traveling from New Zealand or Japan.
The further away you are from Melbourne the more expensive that trip gets, so it’s unrealistic to expect people to spend thousands of dollars to attend a two-day event to sell a $2 zine. If they want to, and can afford to make that trip, then we’re extremely happy to have them, but it’s not feasible for a lot of people.
We’re seeing a couple of names we don’t recognise submit applications, so I think we might be getting a few more international entries.
A. Spaice: Yes! That was our situation, exactly! When we applied from Cambodia. I seriously thought about going there [in February 2020] but ike you said, a $2 zine doesn’t cover the cost of flights, and staying there.
Beck: We were glad to hear that you were able to find someone to table for you…! But yeah, we totally get the financial side of it. We get invites from interstate fairs and often it’s a matter of who is available to go and also can afford to? We’re all really aware that you aren’t really making money with zines, you make zines for the love of it, not to turn a huge profit.
So sometimes you can make a go of an out of town zine fair and sometimes you can’t, the good news for Australians is that there are more and more zine fairs popping up all over.
A. Spaice: And… Covid?
Beck: There was no resistance to making the FotP digital in 2021 because of the pandemic situation. As I’m sure you would have seen in the news, Melbourne has been through a pretty intense lockdown this year because of COVID-19, so for us it wasn’t really something that needed to be debated.
Our top priority is the health and safety of our community, so moving the fair online seemed like the best way to keep FotP alive and not have to cancel it or push it back to an undetermined point in the future.
Moving the fair online will also make it more accessible to people who might not have been able to make it down to the physical fair, so in a way it’s allowed us to open up applications to people= who wouldn’t otherwise have been able to participate.
We start planning FotP around September normally, so this year we were doing that while we were still in the hard lockdown here in Melbourne.
With the way things were changing for us at that time, we weren’t sure if we could legally have a 500-person indoor event in February. Even if we could have it, we didn’t know if our state borders would be open, or if the transmission in the community would still be in such a way that no one would want to risk the chance of exposure to come. The good news is that the lockdown worked and Melbourne is well on the way back to regular programming. But we know this isn’t the case everywhere, and that we could hit a third wave and go back into heavy restrictions if something were to go wrong.
It also means that people with physical or health restrictions are able to attend as well as people who are located interstate or overseas who can’t travel.
FotP is the largest zine fair in the southern hemisphere, and while it’s always free to table at the fair we know that if you’re traveling to Melbourne you’ve got those associated costs to cover while you’re in town. fotp.online is removing those costs for a lot of people so they can attend without having to worry about travel and accommodation and everything that goes with it.
Success, for us, would be to see people excited about the digital fair, come to the virtual events we have planned, and return to the site throughout the year to keep checking back in on artists they were interested in!
A. Spaice: Does it cost ?
Beck: The online nature of the event means that it’s literally cost-free for people to sign up from other locations now, so we’re hoping to see a few applications from people a little further out than usual.
All you need to do is visit www.fotp.online to apply!
A. Spaice: Thank you for the time you’ve taken to help us learn more. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we close?
Beck: How do we pay for the fair? We get funding from the City of Melbourne! We were just approved for a two year grant, starting 2021, via the City of Melbourne’s Arts Creative Investment Partnerships so we are both appreciative and grateful to them for their support of us and zine culture!!
A. Spaice: Great! Thanks !!
//
A virtual zine fair..
We just got this really cool piece of news. The Festival of the Photocopier, which is run by the Melbourne group Sticky Institute, will be online in 2021.
DK had participated in this festival in 2020, which was a cool moment for us as it was our debut with S P A C E in real life. We’ve since also been at the San Francisco Zine Festival, which took place in September of this year, as it was virtual. Was cool. HT MB.
Now, we just learned, Festival of the Photocopier 2021, will be virtual.
So I wanted to let you know about this, because anyone anywhere can join for next time. Very excited about this.
I just submitted my application–sent!
Here’s my idea, for if we are accepted. I am going to angle the next few issues of S P A C E’s December collection, ‘Trust’, to an international audience. Of course they will be co-created with our friends and guests in Atelier S P A C E popups here in HCMC, so look out for some cool new bilingual issues to share in real life here, and also, hopefully, on the virtual international stage at FOTP 2021.
Excited!
So, our agenda for December is this..
- Discover new voices here in Vietnam to make S P A C E with
- Design and publish 4 new issues of S P A C E in Vietnamese & English
- Distribute them virtually to everyone who contributes to our crowdfunding campaign in the month of January.
- Tell the world about our S P A C E programs in Vietnam if we get selected to participate in Festival of the Photocopier in 2021’s virtual event
- On the same day as the festival, we’ll host a real life event. A reading. It will be from the issues we make here in HCMC this month. We’ll have an Atelier S P A C E // HCMC launch party. It’ll be a chance to share our printed zines with the friends here who are creative, imaginative, able to think out of the box, and ready to try new things who have helped us so far to make some cool and fun issues already. I have a good feeling about the series to come.
I’m excited about the potential to launch the Atelier S P A C E // HCMC creations at the Festival of the Photocopier in Melbourne next year. Hopefully we’ll get ‘in’ and get to put on a great exhibit for people to see just how unique a hyperlocal perspective on ‘art from Vietnam’ can really look. [Aside: Ask us about ‘decolonization sometime!’. No, wait, ask AD! A zine about that, being art directed by AD, a member of ‘Papers‘.]
Cool.
Here is a pic of our Phnom Penh reading from issues of S P A C E. I hosted this on the same day as our debut at the Festival of the Photocopier 2020:
Memories!… <3
And here’s the bit about how you can apply to be in the Festival of the Photocopier in 2021…..
If you make zines
Apply for the Festival of the Photocopier! It’s free to apply, so I just wanted to share this with those out there who might be wondering if they qualify. If you make zines, you qualify, is my understanding. Here, I’ll just paste in what I got in the email from Sticky Institute earlier this week…
Our digital fair will be hosted at http://www.fotp.online and applications are currently open for stallholders … facilitated by Sticky Institute!!!
As this is a digital fair, applications are open to zinesters located anywhere in the world. If you have a pen pal located outside of Australia, feel free to forward them the link so they can apply! There is no cost to have a digital stall on fotp.online and the website will be live for at least a year.
…This has been a bit of a spiel but we’d really love for you to check out fotp.online and submit an application to be a stallholder or join FotP-Swap!. Applications will close on the 10th of January, 2021 and we don’t want anyone to miss out!
We know this is going to be a very different kind of zine fair but we’re hoping you’ll be there with us, on the other side of the screen!
Stay safe,
Sticky
Protected: QN writes it
Mike Dynamo on S P A C E.. here’s a clip
Something cool happened. This was at the virtual event, SF Zine Festival. This was on Tuesday.
Michael Bridgett, Jr., aka ‘Mike Dynamo,’ talked about making S P A C E. And what it is. And why we do it.
I loved watching it live-streaming and ‘being there’, ambiently, to admire his wittiness and eloquence. Cool that we could do this, from our distant perches in Southeast Asia’s Cambodia and Vietnam. Yeah. Quite neat. Seeing Mike sharing about S P A C E—and especially the Book of Feelings project, something that he, me and a few others I’m working with are exploring together now, was cool. I love working with Mike in S P A C E. I feel lucky that I get to. Check out one of his written pieces, it’s called ‘Continuous Partial Attention’, and it’s over at this page.
Below is the segment of the recording where you can hear him.
Some things that friends of S P A C E both near and far have said about the above…
-
Awesome! he did a great presentation of S P A C E 🙂 —CS
- Thanks for sharing Michael’s presentation. I love the way he talked about your process in the development of mak[ing] S P A C E. This is wonderful. —DM
-
This is great! Definitely put a smile on my face. —ND
***
About Michael Bridgett, Jr.
Michael “Mike Dynamo” Bridgett is a vocalist/emcee and charismatic currently performing with live hip hop band, Hypnotic Fist Technique and 90’s cover project 99 Boyz in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Mike also writes about media and cultural analysis for fun as well as playing and connecting over video games. Read more, including links to his works in music and writing, at this post.
***
About SF Zine Festival
‘Cyber Fest will run for three weeks in September, from the 6th through the 26th. We have selected 150 exhibitors for Cyber Fest who represent diverse communities, perspectives, genres, skills, and experiences. Learn more about exhibitors here. You’ll be able to watch live broadcasts of festival programs on our YouTube and Facebook pages. Check out our full schedule!’ –Organizers of SF Zine Festival
DK | The Charette
About this Event
DK | The Charette is a new series of conversation-starting for online connexion. New and different others can find meaningful discovery and co-discovery opportunities, in ‘The Charette.’ It’s asynchronous, international, small in scale, highly curated, and open-ended. We are exploring. Together, in S P A C E.
The signup information will be shared in September with those who register here to indicate interest. Learn more when you register; we’ll share where to find out the who, what, where, and why. Note: there is a fee to participate.
Hosted by DK’s creative directors, Akira Morita and Dipika Kohli. DK is a studio that focuses on design, design thinking, and innovation since moving to Phnom Penh in 2014. Prior to this, DK specialized in concepting and brand identity design. The studio was started by the directors in Seattle in 2006.
Dear L & C
I sent you email today; a joint email. I like a good conversation circle, as you both well know. It occurs to me: do you know each other? Probably. The town where we met each other is indeed a small one. Journeying very many miles and days since then, those moments when we met, I mean, and also, those when we connected, loosely, in the cloud, through the e-circle style I mentioned, well, those things happened, didn’t they, and here we are. I’ve been good here.
A lot of updates to share, and I’m going to look forward to it.
On the off chance you happen to get my mail (things go to filters a lot now, owing to spam bots and other ‘nefarious’ mechanisms, I thought it was funny someone put it that way… ‘nefarious’…)… So yeah.
If you get it, and if you read it in time, and if you reply, and if you see my note here, somehow, all those ‘ifs’, if they line up… then let’s do it. Start another party, in the cloud. Just us three.
I’m certain we have many, many things to discover and co-discover, from here. Check your inbox, like.
My Irish accent, um, is on these days, thanks to the writing of End of the Rainbow (Sept. 15 / Kismuth Books). Wow, long story, but yeah. West Cork, that is to say. Grand stuff, so. Mostly I just really wanna know how you’re doing but I don’t want to send more 1:N notes. Too much work, too little reward, and far less personalized. What’s the point of that? I don’t know. See you in the up, maybe, L & C?
I’ll be waiting for you, here.
DK
PS Miss you.