C.CRED is a London based but very nomadic artist collective and members-run platform for the development of collaborative structures, projects, interventions and other initiatives seeking to link art and aesthetic practice to a wider socio-political context. Although maintained by a small group of people, it operates only through collaboration and through wider, continuously changing collective structures.
Largely our activities tend to be configured around two central concerns:
1. To enter into critical, non-institutional/academic dialogue about artistic strategies, tactics and contexts, and modes and conditions of artistic production and distribution, both as a critical engagement with existing conditions and as an attempt to open up towards the production of on-going, alternative modes of practice, production, exchange and distribution.
2. To establish a framework for the development of different forms of collaborative artistic practice, including direct intervention and interference practices, but also cartographical models, networking practices, processes of archiving and resource sharing, and self-organized modes of collective learning, etc.
C.CRED Blog
Counter.Cartographies: LIST AND LINK
[major cartography] a resource: Counter.Cartographies is a project initiated by CCRED in collaboration with NYC based collective the 16 Beaver Group. It is an attempt to make a map of artists, activists, collaborative frameworks, groups and collectives who work (or have worked) with different notions or ideas of resistance and social engagement, outlining the different tactics, strategies and approaches being employed as well. Initially in February 2003, we sent out an email asking people to reply giving us some basic information regarding their working practice and to, in their turn, forward the invitation to other potential participants. The replies we received have been listed as a number of links. Since then, we have modified this project to include not only information about the spaces we invited and the groups and collectives they invited in turn, but also about the wider networks of these spaces. Another invite was thus sent out asking participants to contribute to this expanded, and expanding, cartography by forwarding us links to projects, spaces, collectives, groups, and individuals that they have worked with or find interesting in terms of different strategies and tactics of social engagement and political resistance.
Counter.Cartographies: WALKS AND EVENTS
[minor cartographies] a walking practice: Through the initial meetings and dialogues that took place, virtually and physically, within the framework of the emerging Counter.Cartographies List and Link Resource, we found an emerging potential for the development of other, more specific, collaborative cartography projects, often involving the practico-methodological element of movement (walking, traveling, etc.) as a form of gathering, archiving, editing, remixing, and mapping of cartographical data. Since then the Counter.Cartographies initiative has come to function also as a platform for the development of semi-autonomous cartography and walking projects deriving from our dialogues and the concerns we share.
counter.cartographies / ccred links
counter.cartographies / 16beaver links
counter.cartographies / 16beaver in weimar & leipzig
About walk-talk-eat-talk some more
The event coincides with a multi-city event, organized by the London-based collectives C.Cred (Collective Creative Dissent) and the Bureau for Research into Post-Autonomy, St. Martin's School of Art, and by BaseKamp in Philadelphia.
There are simultaneous walks talking place in other cities with the participation of Ccred, Bureau for research into Post Autonomy, Basekamp, interactingarts, Signal, Mess Hall, Trebor Scholz, Bruce Barber, Anabela Zigova, Stefan Beck, Vareena Kuni, Detlev Fischer, 16 Beaver Group, Red 76, Tallin, Unwetter, 0009 and others.
There will be two other events as part of this series: a meal and a webcast. These will take place next week.
CCRED - Invite
CCRED – WALK-TALK-EAT-TALK SOME MORE – JOIN US!!!
CCRED were recently asked by the London based Bureau for Research into Post-Autonomy to collaborate on a number of events linking their interest in the concept post-autonomy with our various models of walking, exploring and interrogating space, contexts and artistic/critical practice. It is all very short notice but we agreed to try to work something out, and in collaboration with BaseKamp from Philadelphia we have come up with a program of events taking place in April/May, linking different cities and contexts in a dialogue around artistic practices, strategies and tactics within the context of the general notion of post-autonomy.
You can find some more information about the Bureau for Research into Post-Autonomy on http://www.postautonomy.co.uk and various texts dealing with the topic on: http://www.postautonomy.co.uk/blog/forum/12.
The idea behind this series of events is to link a number of different cities in a critical dialogue around the very lose notion of post-autonomy and the more specific theme: how can we construct a practice in the discursive space of post-autonomy?
The program includes three interlinked components: a collective counter.cartography walk through our different contexts; an alt.space meal (supper, dinner, luncheon) taking place in our different cities and linking us through the questions we pose to one another; and a concluding discussion taking the form of a web-cast linking us in real-time dialogue
Apart from CCRED, the Bureau for Research into Post-Autonomy, and BaseKamp, we have received positive replies from Signal in Malmo, Interacting Arts in Stockholm, and Mess Hall in Chicago. These spaces will take part in or organize events locally in their respective cities and contexts and in collaboration with their friends and allies, and link up with our events in London.
Now, we are aware this is VERY short notice. Yet, if anybody is interested in joining us here in London, in any of the other cities mentioned above (Philadelphia, Malmo, Stockholm, Chicago), or if you’re interested in organizing something in the another city, please contact us. It will all be very, very informal and it does not involve a large amount of work or commitment. We simply hope to generate a small-scale, informal discussion around the parameters for contemporary socially and politically engaged practice with some interesting friends and allies...
CCRED – Invite Details
PART I: THE WALK
The walk should take place at some point between the 3d and the 7th of April in the different participating cities. Our intention is to link the notion of post-autonomy, which claims that art is in fact lodged in various contexts, to a collective and critical interrogation of the local contexts in which our practices are situated. This interrogation will take the form of a counter.cartography collective walk. To participate you simply have to:
(1) Get one or more person(s) to join you.
(2) Set an itinerary based on two or more sites that hold some particular contextual, cultural, socio-political significance within your local terrain.
(3) Start walking.
(4) At each site on your itinerary, make a stop (maybe for a coffee or a drink, or just to rest) and open up to discussion of the contextual, cultural and socio-political meanings and implications of the site you visit and/or the space you have traversed in order to get there.
(5) Before you leave, take a photograph of the site and try to somehow document the discussion/dialogue you’ve had – perhaps by articulating one or more question interrogating the site where you stopped.
(6) Upload the documentation generated (the photographs and the questions and/or brief outlines of your discussion) onto the project forum on http://www.post-autonomy.co.uk. These photos and texts will then serve as a basis for a potential discussion between us taking place on the forum.
PART II: THE MEAL / SUPPER / DINNER / LUNCHEON
The meal should take place at some point between the 14th and 18th of April. It can be anything from a snack and coffee to a Sunday dinner. The intended purpose of the meal is to give us all an opportunity to: (1) Engage with each other’s walks. Everyone involved will be invited to pose questions in response to walks taking place in other cities (for instance, the London group can pose a question to the Philadelphia group, the Malmo group to the Chicago group, and so on and so forth); (2) Ask questions of each other and each other’s practices (for instance, CCRED can ask a question of BaseKamp, Signal can ask a question of Mess Hall, and so on and so forth). The questions will have to be submitted to the forum beforehand and should be read out and responded to during the dinner. All responses should be recorded and uploaded as MP3’s onto the forum following the meals.
PART III: THE WEBCAST
The final component of the event is a real-time concluding web-cast / video conference. This will take place on the evening of May 3, 6pm – 9pm (GMT) – NB this time will be confirmed asap. All you need to take part is a computer and a web-cam. Technical details and on-line assistance will be provided to contributors before the event. This will be an occasion to meet ‘virtually’ in our different groups and discuss the project, and more specifically, the various potentials, problems and limits of the notion of post-autonomy. It will also offer an opportunity to come back to previous issues and questions.
We look forward to meeting and talking. If not this time, then at some point in the near future.
About Post Autonomy (from wikipedia)
Post-autonomous art describes a mode of making art at a time when the artist's presumed autonomy has become rather problematic. A post-autonomous mode of production is no longer concerned with creating singular works of art attributable to a particular artist or author. Instead, a post-autonomous art practice employs a collaborative or dialogical mode of production, for example, via face-to-face or online dialogues, conversations or events, wikis, salons, bulletin boards, chat rooms, or collaborative visual editing environments.
The German Conceptual artist Michael Lingner proposed the notion of Post Autonomy. The aim of post-autonomous artistic production is not (or not primarily) to create objects (electronic or physical) or to document the traces of the productive process. Rather, it is to support and embody a political transformation whereby the human participants subscribe to an open ended mutual learning process and define and activate a productive space outside capitalism and its competitive mode of production.
16 Beaver / Counter.Cartography Walk / New York City
Wednesday Afternoon - 04.05.06 @ 2:00
1. About this Wednesday afternoon
What: walk-talk-eat-talk some more
Where: Harlem Courthouse, 121th St., between Lexington and 3rd Ave.
When: Wednesday afternoon 04.05.2006 @ 2 pm
Who: Open To All
This walk is part of a larger Counter Cartography walk taking place in many cities around this time.
We will be walking from north to south along the island of Manhattan. Starting at Harlem Courthouse (121th St., between Lexington and 3rd Ave.) and ending at 16beaver. You can stay as long or as short as you are able to. Decisions about what route to take, what sites or landmarks to visit, will be made collectively by everyone participating.
Please come with ideas about places to visit or talk about along the north south axis. We know there are many ways to head downtown.
The question is which way(s) would enable us to perceive the biggest social transformation of the different neighborhoods along the axis.
“Our intention is to link the notion of post-autonomy, which claims that art is in fact lodged in various contexts, to a collective and critical interrogation of the local contexts in which our practices are situated.”
1. About our starting point
we thought starting at New York’s first female detention center would be suitable for this walk. Harlem Courthouse (121th St., between Lexington and 3rd Ave.)
Below some links.
http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/nycdoc/html/distjail.html
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcas/html/resources/man_harlemcourthouse.shtml
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0122,lobbia,25154,5.html
http://www.courts.state.ny.us/press/pr2001_11.shtml
2. About our ending point / Dinner
In case you are not able to make it to the walk, you are welcome to join us for a communal dinner at the end of the walk. Please bring some drinks or your favorite food.
We are planning to be at 16Beaver at around 7:00 PM.
About 16Beaver
16Beaver is the address of a space initiated/run by artists to create and maintain an ongoing platform for the presentation, production, and discussion of a variety of artistic/cultural/economic/political projects. It is the point of many departures/arrivals.
