chance: explorations in collaboration
Explorations in Collaboration
Betty Jo Costanzo and Mary C Wilson
Like many artistic collaborations, ours began by simply offering one another assistance and critique on individual projects. The dialogues that were taking place, during these sessions, eventually superseded the projects that initially sparked them. Recognizing the potential of these exchanges, we shifted our attention to the mechanics of how they developed, where they took us and what was required to maintain their fluidity. We wanted to understand and to make explicit a fascinating process that is often implicitly practiced and since 1999, we have been developing a working model for collaboration.
To better understand what each of us could offer the collective process, we began a series of exercises we called Identifying the Parts, one of which was a daily video confessional. Without script or forethought, we faced the camera and confessed one strength and one weakness. Some days the results were mundane, on others they were profoundly revealing; more often than not, our strengths turned out to be weaknesses, and vice versa.
In 2004, we authored an interdisciplinary studio course for the California College of the Arts, which was taught as a studies abroad class in Ireland. The assignments and projects for this class were designed to explore the various forms collaborations can take and how to negotiate issues like authorship, ownership and identity. The Strengths & Weaknesses confessionals on the accompanying DVD, along with Master Slave and Hello My Name Is represent our collaboration within the context of the class.
The idea of proposing a guide to or model for collaboration is (only slightly) tongue-in-cheek. The nature of this practice demands genuine respect for trial, error, and failure. For us, collaboration is the act of suspending expectation and ceding control.
As Douglas Gordon once said, art is "an excuse to have a dialogue."
2008
Betty Jo Costanzo and Mary C Wilson
Like many artistic collaborations, ours began by simply offering one another assistance and critique on individual projects. The dialogues that were taking place, during these sessions, eventually superseded the projects that initially sparked them. Recognizing the potential of these exchanges, we shifted our attention to the mechanics of how they developed, where they took us and what was required to maintain their fluidity. We wanted to understand and to make explicit a fascinating process that is often implicitly practiced and since 1999, we have been developing a working model for collaboration.
To better understand what each of us could offer the collective process, we began a series of exercises we called Identifying the Parts, one of which was a daily video confessional. Without script or forethought, we faced the camera and confessed one strength and one weakness. Some days the results were mundane, on others they were profoundly revealing; more often than not, our strengths turned out to be weaknesses, and vice versa.
In 2004, we authored an interdisciplinary studio course for the California College of the Arts, which was taught as a studies abroad class in Ireland. The assignments and projects for this class were designed to explore the various forms collaborations can take and how to negotiate issues like authorship, ownership and identity. The Strengths & Weaknesses confessionals on the accompanying DVD, along with Master Slave and Hello My Name Is represent our collaboration within the context of the class.
The idea of proposing a guide to or model for collaboration is (only slightly) tongue-in-cheek. The nature of this practice demands genuine respect for trial, error, and failure. For us, collaboration is the act of suspending expectation and ceding control.
As Douglas Gordon once said, art is "an excuse to have a dialogue."
2008
Collaboration: A Practical Guide
A California College of the Arts three week interdisciplinary study-abroad course and art exhibition at the Burren College of Art, Newtown Castle, Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare, Ireland in the summer of 2004.
A California College of the Arts three week interdisciplinary study-abroad course and art exhibition at the Burren College of Art, Newtown Castle, Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare, Ireland in the summer of 2004.
mapping balance (hello my name is) betty jo costanzo Co. Clare, Ireland 00:54 ©2004-2010 |
pinned (master/slave) betty jo costanzo Co. Clare, Ireland 00:28 ©2004-2010 |
jump from the instructional series mary c wilson and betty jo costanzo San Francisco, CA 00:21 ©2006 |