Learning Site

Learning Site pays attention to the local conditions it finds in the place where it chooses to work. In the past years Learning Site has mainly worked with resource materials and economies related to the specific situations where work has been carried out. Economic, environmental, labor, property rights, and many other issues are investigated in tandem to produce a variety of perspectives.

Learning Site takes part of a discussion of how knowledge is distributed and produced.

Learning Site is comprised of Rikke Luther (DK) and Cecilia Wendt (S), co-founders of N55 (download N55 BOOK as PDF), Julio Castro (MEX), co-founder of Tercerunquinto, and Brett Bloom (US), co-founder of Temporary Services. The different backgrounds are the basis for expanding the language they built up through sharing and mixing.

http://learningsite.info/

Sundown Schoolhouse

Sundown Schoolhouse is a geodesic home based educational environment with an activist mission. In the classic model of the schoolhouse, students of many ages {18 and up} come together to study a diversity of disciplines. It is a school for the gently radical design, literary, performing & visual arts. We foster models for active creative practices that engage with the messy realities of the world around us, from our relationships with the diverse peoples in our city to the eroding natural and urban environments we inhabit.

Schoolhouse studies take many forms, dictated by the inspirations and interests of the visiting teachers, and the response and desires of the students. This may include anything related to the design, literary, performing & visual arts, and tangentially beyond into the sciences and the humanities. Detailed information on the specific curricula and schedule for the Autumn 2006 season is now posted. The Autumn 2007 schedule will be posted in late summer.

http://www.fritzhaeg.com/schoolhouse.html

unitednationsplaza

unitednationsplaza is exhibition as school. Structured as a seminar/residency program in the city of Berlin, it will involve collaboration with approximately 60 artists, writers, theorists and a wide range of audiences for a period of one year. In the tradition of Free Universities, most of its events will be open to all those interested to take part.

unitednationsplaza is organized by Anton Vidokle in collaboration with Liam Gillick, Boris Groys, Martha Rosler, Walid Raad, Jalal Toufic, Nikolaus Hirsch, Natascha Sadr Haghighian and Tirdad Zolghadr.

http://www.unitednationsplaza.org

Colourschool

colourschool is a school within a school dedicated to the speculative research and exploration of five colours: black, white, brown, yellow, and red. Located in a studio at the University of British Columbia, colourschool provides a free and open space for critical inquiry as an alternative to institutional participation in the knowledge economy.

Inspired by the history of experimental education, colourschool draws from the pedagogical precedents of Black Mountain College and Joseph Beuys' Free International University as well as the Colour Research project undertaken by Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov.

colourschool facilitates an open and transdisciplinary approach to colour consciousness in the form of lectures, screenings, colloquia, research, residencies, exhibitions, workshops, and performances. colourschool sessions will take place over the course of one academic year between November 2006 and August 2007.

http://www.colourschool.org/wiki

University of Sodan Art

(VIA GOOGLE TRANSLATION)
[Initiated by artist Tsuyoshi Ozawa in 1995, the University of Sodan Art,] directs the creation of a new self, and removes the fence between student teacher what compared to roughly it is with the pioneer where one by one does not have a possibility thing as the curriculum itself which does prerequisite, first it exists as the place where “the person encounters truly”. The symbol tower of the Mito art mansion which is established, like the triple spiral which is seen there, those which do not have the times never to be piled up, in spite big vector it is bearing, with the image which is done is there. Already various informations and as for us who exist in related to with human and society, as for each one not being possible independently it probably is widely known thing. Rather than saying that it is independent, while much, to influence mutually, above existing, it is self-explanatory for the other person to be required there. While dressing up [deisukomiyunikeshiyon], furthermore, we assume that the fact itself that already is not possibility, it has coexisted, if is, does symbiosis probably mean just being what?

http://www.soum.co.jp/mito/soudan/guide/guide.html

Arbour Lake Sghool

Living in a monotonous suburban community is an experience which begs to have its social limitations challenged. Activities which break the pattern of uniformity and shatter the austere tranquility of the cul-de-sac form a politic of exception, an accursed remainder within an otherwise perfect world. Re-enactments of World War One with water balloons and trenches, the construction of giant cardboard volcanoes in backyards and public robot fights dissolve the hegemony of the “new community” aesthetic into a provocative and ambiguous social milieu. It is with this “we’ll do what we want” attitude that the Arbour Lake Sghool was conceived and now thrives.

The Sghool’s mandate is to provide a stage for the creation and display of artistic or critical projects in a way which explores and engages our suburban setting. Activities under this mandate excite, entertain, and often serve as comic interlude in the not-so-secret game of suburban one-upmanship. A loose association of artists, athletes, musicians, trades-people and students form the core group of project participants. Membership in the group is not determined by any specific criteria other than a desire and willingness to collaborate in a diverse and open-minded atmosphere.

Since the Sghool’s inception as an entity (November 2003) the most active participating members (and those responsible for maintaining the group as a distinct concept) have been Andrew and John Frosst, Wayne Garrett, Ben Jacques, Justin Patterson, Scott Rogers and Stacey Watson. Outside of this group numerous other artists/producers have contributed to the Sghool’s critical and entertaining projects. These projects have taken place within recognized arts institutions such as galleries and universities, in public spaces such as parks and backyards as well as within the private atmosphere of the Sghool. One of the essential features of the Arbour Lake Sghool is a willingness to engage in creative (and controversial) dialogue within our community while also addressing the role of educational, governmental and business institutions in the development of our daily lives. The various freedoms and restrictions which are produced by these overbearing and ubiquitous social forces are the subject of our examinations and critiques. In creating bodies of work which defy popular institutional themes and incite panic amongst busybody neighbours, the Arbour Lake Sghool aligns itself with a certain disobedient spirit which seeks to dissect the world it lives in, while presenting possible alternatives. The supposed sub-cultures to which our members belong are necessarily just as susceptible to this critical interpretive stance.

Toronto School of Creativity & Inquiry

TSCI designs education events inquiring into the new enclosures: enclosures on time, space, creativity, thought, ecology, love... We seek to understand how these enclosures work. But combating against cynicism, we also inquire into creative pathways within, against, and beyond the enclosures: pathways of thinking, collaboration, organization, experimentation...

Independent School of Art

Initated by artists Jon Rubin, The Independent School of Art is an experimental art school that operates without external resources, accreditation, or a physical site. Run solely through the labor and efforts of its participants, the school fosters an action-based approach to college-level arts education, a real-world model where students are challenged to determine and create their own artistic realities. The school’s barter-based tuition system makes explicit the social contract between students and teachers and honors their collective labor as a vital form of cultural production. Locating nomadically, the school prioritizes social over physical architecture, and asks all involved to imagine how their practice might intersect and respond to a larger set of physical situations and cultural possibilities.

The ISA complements its curricular offerings with student and faculty designed exhibitions, fundraisers, lectures, grants, publications and now a play. These multi-disciplinary public actions are a central part of the school’s pedagogy, and serve a vital function by engaging the students in the direct creation of public culture. The ISA is designed for continual reinvention and experimentation, changing each season to reflect the ambitions, personalities and abilities of those in its community.

http://www.independentschoolofart.org/

Momentary Academy

Ted Purves' Momentary Academy is a free public education program, which will run throughout the duration of the exhibition. Embracing the gift economy, Purves has created this elaborate project as a true skill exchange: class offerings range from a creative writing workshop, to an experimental fashion design course, to a seminar on geometry. Also see Purves' recently published book: What We Want is Free: Generosity and Exchange in Recent Art (SUNY Press, 2005).

The School of Panamerican Unrest

The School of Panamerican Unrest is an artist-led, not-for -profit public art project that seeks to generate connections between the different regions of the Americas through discussions, performances, screenings, and short-term and long-term collaborations between organizations and individuals. Its main component will be a nomadic forum or think-tank that will cross the hemisphere by land, from Anchorage, Alaska, to Ushuaia, Argentina, in Tierra del Fuego. This hybrid project will include a collapsible and movable architectural structure in the form of a schoolhouse, as well as a video collection component inside a van that will make the journey. The project, which seeks to involve a wide range of audiences and engage them at different levels, offers alternative ways to understand the history, ideology, and lines of thought that have significantly impacted political, social and cultural events in the Americas.

After its official launch in New York, the SPU will initiate its road trip in Anchorage. From May 19 through September 15, the SPU will make 30 official stops. The journey will be documented in video footage that will result in a documentary to be launched in 2007. Daily updates of the trip will be available at www.panamericanismo.org. A virtual bilingual forum discussing aspects of this trip was initiated in January of this year and can be accessed at http://espanol.groups.yahoo.com/group/forovirtualpanamericano

Initiated by Mexican artist Pablo Helguera, and with the support of more than 40 organizations and more than 100 affiliated artists, curators, and cultural promoters in the Americas, The School of Panamerican Unrest responds to the need to support inter-regional communication amongst English, Spanish and Portuguese speaking America, as well as its other communities in the Caribbean and elsewhere, making connections outside its regular commercial and economic links. In contrast to Europe, which over the years has been orchestrating its cultural integration through an open flux of dialogue, many Latin American countries still have a limited cultural exchange amongst one another, and often limited to the connections offered by the hegemonic points such as New York, Miami, or even Madrid. Many years after the initial impulses by various Latin American intellectuals such as José Vasconcelos, Simón Bolívar, José Martí, who once envisioned a unified cultural region in the Americas, this project seeks to revisit and evaluate the meaning of those ideas during the time of the Internet and post-globalization. In the debates, programs and roundtable discussions, the project will seek to articulate and debate issues that pertain to local concerns around culture and society. We will also seek to discuss ways through which artistic practice in the Americas can acquire an influential role in public life, political, cultural and social discourse, enriching their respective communities in a productive and proactive manner.

http://panamericanismo.org/

Mountain School of Art

MSA^ is not to be considered an ‘art project’ but a real, fully functioning school. Although the school is small in size, the program as well as its collective ambition is substantial. It is important to understand the intentions of developing as a serious contender in the field of education and culture while maintaining a position as a supportive element in relation to other institutions. MSA^ members often liken their pursuits to those of 18th century European revolutionists. Our present location at the back rooms of the Mountain Bar, one of LA’s hippest ‘Art’ bars and hottest nightlife spots, provides a pungent metaphor for this as these revolutionists held court in the back rooms of bakeries, printshops, etc. The culture undercurrent is perpetually condemned to the backroom of the establishment. It is the intention of MSA^ to continue this tradition while holding onto a more orthodox notion of educational impetus.

http://www.themountainschoolofarts.org/

Prospectus for New Marlborough Centre for Arts

by George Maciunas
The Centre is being created in recognition of the great contribution made by Bauhaus and Black Mountain as a think-tank and training ground for the future avant-garde. The acquisition of a beautiful “village” of a group of some 12 buildings in the township of New Marlborough presents the possibility of creating a similar center that could devote itself to:

1. study, research, experimentation and development of various advanced ideas and forms in art, history of art, design & documentation,

2. teaching small groups of apprentices in subjects and through procedures not found in colleges,

3. production and marketing of various products, objects and events developed at the centre,

4. organization of events and performances by residents and visitors of the centre.

The Centre would be structured as follows:
1. Studios, workshops and residencies for permanent and visiting members of the community would be housed in buildings 3 to 12, the tentative list of members is as follows:
(a) permanent residents
(b) visiting members
[for full list of artists see Vidokle publication]

2. School-workshop. Students will be accepted on a part time basis. For most part instruction will be individual. Students will maintain a working relationship with the staff. When appropriate, students will assist the staff in their ongoing research. At all times students shall be considered part of the learning community on an equal basis. Students will be introduced to a wide range of experience not ordinarily found in conventional schools and art programs.

3. Library, archives and exhibit space (buildings 1a, 2, 13). It would contain reference material on past & present avant-garde, original documents, prototypes, possibly contain archives of photo-documentation (Peter Moore’s), exhibit new work in sound, graphics, objects, video etc. and would contain the “learning machine” being developed by G. Maciunas.

4. Performance space (chamber music room in 1b, theatre in building 2) & lawn bandstand. Music room to be used for small scale, solo events, music, lectures, video presentations, suitable for audiences up to 40. Theatre with audiences up in balconies and a 30ft ×60ft performance space in the middle, for multi-media, inter-media performances, events, theatre, music, dance, cinema, new sports, gamesetc.Suitable for audiencesup to 100.

5. Technical workshops (located in basements of building 2 & 3) to contain equipment for electronic music, video, machine shop, wood working shop, ceramic workshop, photo darkroom, film editing & processing, recording studio, chemical laboratory.

included in "Exhibition As School in a Divided City" by Anton Vidokle
http://www.manifesta6.org.cy/MEDIA/NOTESFORANARTSCHOOL/02.pdf

The Copenhagen Free University

The Copenhagen Free University was opened in May 2001 by Henriette Heise and Jakob Jakobsen. "The Free University is an artist run institution dedicated to the production of critical consciousness and poetic language. We do not accept the so-called new knowledge economy as the framing understanding of knowledge. We work with forms of knowledge that are fleeting, fluid, schizophrenic, uncompromising subjective, uneconomic, acapitalist, produced in the kitchen, produced when asleep or arisen on a social excursion - collectively."

http://www.copenhagenfreeuniversity.dk/

Umeå School

École Temporaire, run by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno from 1998 to 1999, was a series of workshops conducted at several universities and schools in Europe. In one, the artists rented a cinema for a day and screened a feature film, while narrating potential alternative scenarios before the start of each scene. Another workshop was a seminar held at the top of a mountain, a location only accessible by dogsled. In yet another, the artists interviewed the participants in the middle of a frozen lake. Each workshop was a situation filmed and edited by participants and addressed directly to the students at the beginning of the next class session, creating a chain of connections and continuity, and in this way constituting a school that stretched over a range of times, spaces and institutions.

From Exhibition as School in a Divided City by Anton Vidokle
http://www.manifesta6.org.cy/MEDIA/NOTESFORANARTSCHOOL/02.pdf

Projects Class

The Nova Scotia College of Art and Design "Projects Classes" were initiated by David Askevold. Askevold commissioned New York based conceptual artists to send written instructions for works in which the students would collaborate.

In the Fall of 1969, Robert Barry proposed that the students get together and "decide on a single common idea. The idea can be of any nature, simple or complex..." Sol LeWitt presented a "to do" list for the class which included: "1. A work that uses the idea of error 2. A work that uses the idea of incompleteness 3. A work that uses the idea of infinity...." Robert Smithson suggested a work that would involve mud being dumped over a cliff. Lawrence Weiner asked students to "remove" some unspecified thing "Halfway Between the Equator and the North Pole."

Manifesta 6 School

Manifesta 6 School is the central location and activity of this year's edition of Manifesta (European biennial of contemporary art). Taking place in Nicosia from September 23 - December 17 th, 2006, this trans-disciplinary, nonacademic School aims to enable creative intellectual scholarship and production in dialogue with the current social and political context of Cyprus and beyond.

Developed by curators Anton Vidokle, Mai Abu ElDahab and Florian Waldvogel collaboratively with advisors, Manifesta 6 School will produce and disseminate content rather then be discursive. Located in the old centre of Nicosia with its main hub at the Nicosia Municipal Art Centre and its various resources and activities spread around several sites, the School will set out to: facilitate research, experimentation and development of new ideas in contemporary culture and society, encourage new frameworks for engagement and production, produce and disseminate content developed at and by the school and present events and activities by resident and guest participants.

Manifesta 6 School will have three departments running nine thematic programs related to diverse areas of contemporary culture, each comprising ten international participants (selected through an open call). The School will host a broad range of trans-disciplinary cultural producers who will present lectures, screenings, performances and workshops some of which will be made available online: http://www.manifesta6.org.cy . Concurrently, six selected artists will be invited to Nicosia for a three month residency and will work alongside the Manifesta 6 School.

The three month long semester will launch with Orientation Days, 23 - 25 September, 2006, during which participants and audience will meet through a special program of events including new commissioned site specific works, performances and other activities.

During their stay in Nicosia, Manifesta 6 School participants will have use of resources including: publications and video library, computer and media lab, screening room, conference hall, theatre, radio station, print workshop, offices, workspaces, auxiliary spaces for temporary projects and cafeteria/bar.

At the end of the semester, each of the nine departments will generate a publication which together will make up the Manifesta 6 catalogue, published by the Manifesta School Books - the imprint of the school.

http://www.manifesta6.org.cy/

Playshop

Playshop can be described as an open-access laboratory which encourages the free flow of ideas. It presents projects, workshops, seminars, art installations and a web site that collectively question or challenge the role of technology and propose alternatives to the cultural social and economic systems we live in. Playshop is where the energy of art production, education, curatorial practice and social interaction fuse to create a vital public space and an environment of exchange.

Organized by Futurefarmers, Playshop is an extension of their studio practice. Through their Artist in Residency program, Futurefarmers have collaborated with a wide range of talents since 1995 to explore the relationship of concept and creative process in the development of work in new media. Futurefarmers artists and friends; Amy Franceschini, Michael Swaine, Elmar Trefz, Stijn Schiffeleers and Richard Mortimer will be on hand in the Playshop several days a week to host a series of projects and workshops. The projects include: the Fingerprint Maze, a physical interface turns individual fingerprints into a 3D maze to wander through on screen; Community Connectivity, a workshop which presents instructions for building one's own wireless antennae; Botanical Gameboy, an installation of custom Nintendo gameboys powered by a network of lemon trees; and an interactive installation centered on the video game paradigm created by the student collective Artech. Transport, the online component of Playshop, will serve as a resource and window to the events and projects within the space consisting of a mailing list, database and gallery.

Futurefarmers use the metaphor of a mothership to characterize Playshop as a free-floating and open-source system of activities. The mothership has landed at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts [in the former cafe space] from January 17 through April 4, and will seek out another destination in which to open shop after this date.

http://www.futurefarmers.com/playshop/