Skype notes 04 11 2015

Present LA, MS, RO
CN apologies

MS thanks Liz for recent run of excellent posts - RO seconds.

Liz accepts thanks and adds preface: thinking of these posts as encapsulating respect points for the project - respect points in the context and situation of AtCS making a public work in Christchurch/Manchester St.

We discuss the post homophobia-free-zones-kiss.html  - the 'Safe Zone' - touching on queer urbanism - is queerness often applied respectively to urban spaces? - retrospective logic? - thinking about how urban environments are specific, contemporary, an articulation of public/private space - provide opportunities for participation -

urbanism in fiction - interesting territory

Marnie references Douglas Crimp (great intersection of art history, theory and biography in his work).

Crimp discusses Gordon Matta-Clark in relation to urban space/emptiness and also Pier 52 - how Clark's work doesn't engage with or acknowledge the site as 'cruising zone'... thinking about what it means for queer bodies to be excluded i.e. from documentation of the art etc.

The below is excerpted from this essay by Crimp that covers Pier 52 and many other relevant musings: http://www.post-post.net/psychogeography/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/krimp_textonly.pdf

“An indoor park,” “joyous,” “dangerous,” “absurd,” “flirting with the abyss”: descriptions of Day’s End by Matta-Clark and others make it impossible for me not to think of the experiences of those other pier occupants, the ones from whom Matta-Clark seems in nearly all his statements about the work to want to differentiate himself—“you know, that whole S&M,” as he put it.18 Although in many instances Matta-Clark aligned his work with others who took over or otherwise made their mark on abandoned parts of cities, particularly workers, homeless people, and disenfranchised youth, in the case of Pier 52, Matta-Clark not only disavowed any bond with the gay men who were using the piers as cruising grounds but went so far as to lock them out:

After looking up and down the waterfront for a pier, I just happened on this one. And of all of them, it was the one that was least trafficked. It had been broken into and was continuing to be broken into when I was there. But it remained a kind of side step from their general haunt. So I went in and realized without very much effort I could secure it. And it then occurred to me that while I was closing up holes and barb-wiring various parts, I would also change the lock and have my own lock. It would make it so much easier.

Safe zone - recovery - experience, memory, light, people, public space - what the city of Christchurch might be trying to recover.

MS refers to LA's post 'Queer space' and the first quote around visibility/invisibility:

What is queer space? Aaron Betsky [author of the seemingly spurious textQueer Space: Architecture and Same-Sex Desire, 1997] has described queer space as “not built, only implied, and usually invisible,” and as “useless, amoral, and sensual space that lives only in and for experience.” 11 Can we envision a different kind of queer space — space that is more permanent, built and visible, even as we embrace the experiential and sensory?

Visibility in relation to rights - bureaucratic policy can make pathways for social movements that are inclusive
focus on generative/participation in public process
public opinion 
visibility - at the level of representation - and - being able to effect and influence structural decision-making

MS - lets also consider abstraction in relation to 'in/visibility' 

triangles - symbolism
black triangle signals alt/radical women 

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Making a film in a place that might not exist anymore - or soon won't exist - perfect termporary film 'set'

Posters - how interested are we - QUITE

Why?

Posters are provisional
take on the surface they're applied to
we can go for suites
repetition
zones of quietness and activity
windy parts
'straightness of the street'
Posters can have a funny public service function - stamp out homophobia (Kanye West says so) to Women's Weekly covers signed by gay hands...

Christchurch - MS last visit - the city seemed like a toothless mouth = becomes more and more residential the further out you go - roads but little traffic
the old ebb and flow of activity curtailed
Street that is built for a certain kind of activity that not longer takes place there

Flags?
Too close to the flag debate

Performance?
Keep in mind - an invitational aspect

Christchurch artists and queer activists 
Being part of the conversation - current and past generations
The ramifications of speaking of 'now' and a 'now' that's dominated by projections or uncertainties of the future - memory/amnesia

Punkfest - diy ethos and humour

Aesthetic conversations - image shower - images that are part of national/local vocabulary/collective memory - Liz's image shower - parker hulme image

Individual biographical assertions meet a four-person collaborative approach

Psycho-geography is interesting
Safe/Not safe spaces in relation to individual experience/memory
In a post-internet context this heads into navigating social media/chat rooms/cuber bullying
Diaristic - feminist - exposure method - 'opinion' that's thoughtfully contextualised

Psycho-geography can be limiting
Confessional mode can be powerful but also lonely

AtCS are often interested in abstraction outside of a drive for re/coherence within a single identity - we want to challenge and provoke understandings of who/what embodies enacts 'queer experience'

Un-broach-able relativity doesn't go far enough for us
be aware of the colonisation of isolation - the way isolation can be used to restrict and colonise thought and action
permit ourselves to form a connection/adopt a love or love of languages not our own
to break that isolation

Media

Women's Weekly
Press headlines 'man with axe arrested in hamilton' - images that play into national psyche - i.e. did we all picture a similar axe-man due to our familiarity with 'surreal/violent/masculine' imagery like that which proliferated in 70s/80s film...?

Art History in Christchurch

Canterbury regionalists
Party scene
Scenic grandeur
Settlement
Abstraction of landscape
in global tourism terms - the regional stands out

1977 Women's artist group / society exhibition - open exclusively to women in the first five days

Action plan - Clare input requested xxx

- Clare, what are your thoughts on heading in the direction of posters?

- Once we have a good sense of direction regarding the likely  'form' of project, update Mel to give heads up around materials/funding etc

- Continue to post and comment on blog

- Add and define Respect Points of project, including deepening/widening research

- RO to Christchurch on an AtCS research 'away-research-happy-time-site visit'? Clare what do you think? Keen to hear your thoughts on how we can best use this 'person in the field' opportunity? 

-  Discuss with Mel possibility of RO visiting ChCh for research purposes and confirm any funds available from budget for site visit

- RO to follow up with LAGANZ about access to lgbt archive materials relevant to this project

- Set our next skype time for when Clare is back home 

Skype notes transcribed with liberal margins of error of rainbow% by [RO]