Today on the Skype meeting we discussed more in detail the curation of virtual spaces. I am still not so sure how this will pan out. The collaboration offers some challenges in that there are very distinct paradigms coming together in one virtual space. How one will affect the other is still to be seen.
It is difficult to visualise how the show will work when I do not even know how the space will be designed. I am making some sketches on paper to send to Aristotle. This is very much a one step at a time process of heuristic feedback.
Challenges
- Lighting – I have no experience of working in this way. How does ‘Unity’ function; how will virtual lighting affect the work? It is difficult to envisage and design a space with no knowledge of the software, little or no experience of this sort of thing, and without real control of the aesthetic/curatorial process. At least with the show in Camberwell, I knew what the spaces were like and what was and was not possible. This is not the case with the online show. I hope this does not prove too much work for Aristotle.
- Dimensions and Numbers – With respect to the physical show, I had a good idea of what I was exhibiting. The online show has thrown everything up in the air. I feel well adapted to the change but I have no idea of how work will behave in the virtual space and how it will be perceived. What are the characteristics and properties of the space; how ‘large’ can it be without loosing sense? Is it one space or can there be several interconnected chambers? This latter point is something that I am not yet clear about: in Skype chats, things can get a bit muddled. All should become clearer once the process of preparing spaces begins with a few one to ones.
Jonathan did hint that the online show could also be a simple, elegant website in the style of a gallery site. I have this in mind for after the MA as a website. For the show, this solution would be much simpler but essentially it would put everyone’s work together cheek by jowl so to speak. Curatorially that would be a bit of a mess. I think Aristotle’s idea at least gives each one of us a degree of curatorial individuality within the constraints of keeping the whole thing together by means of, as Jonathan put it, small things. Things such as the consistent use of a single font to describing the work.
