Wooloo

Wooloo has been invited by the Chamber of Public Secrets to examine their curatorial interest in the history of media production and visuality. With billions of images constantly being produced, the history of visuality is also a history of consumption. An uncontrollable consumption of styles and products that are not only threatening to destroy our biosphere, but have also become an exclusionary force throughout every society. Images are a way of establishing difference. If the present is a fiction of distraction and consumerism, let us for a moment imagine a future that is something else. A fiction – where in order to prevent new visual forms of separatist identification, all newborns will be born blind.

NEW LIFE RESIDENCY is the world’s first non-visual residency program for artists. For one week each, five selected artist will live and work in a dark, visually distorted exhibition space. To support the resident in her/his life and work during the week, each artist will collaborate with a local Murcian guide who is visually impaired. In cooperation with her/his guide, the artist will use the one-week residency to create a tour of the non-visual space and experience in which s/he is living. On the last day of each residency, the blacked-out space will be opened to visitors in the form of a guided tour.

Additional to the guided tour, the five selected concept proposals will furthermore be exhibited at the MURAM (Regional Museum of Modern Art) in Cartagena, and will be on view throughout Manifesta 8 from October 7th, 2010 (preview) to January 9th, 2011.

The five selected residency artists are:

Helidon Gjergji (Albania) who aims to to realize an olfactory installation comprised of the spices traditionally cultivated, consumed and relished by the five predominant ethnic groups of Murcia: the Spanish, the Ecuadorians, Moroccans, Britons and Bolivians. Resident from October 4th to October 9th, 2010.

Clarinda Mac Low (USA) who will collaborate with her blind assistant to explore their surroundings through touch and proprioception only. Together they will create an internalized tour of the residency space for the general public through simple guided movement scores. Resident from October 11th to October 16th, 2010.

Matthias Neumann (Germany) who proposes an investigation of architectural thinking that excludes the visual element. The work will be conducted in complete darkness and in close collaboration with the assistant who will partially assume a client’s role. Resident from October 18th to October 23th, 2010.

Pedro Guirao (Spain), who was born in Murcia, aims to remap his home city. Together with his assistant – also a local Murcian – he will create walks of sounds and memories that will act as a filter of non-visual life in the city. Resident from October 25th to October 30th, 2010.

Gema Alava (Spain) who aims to develop verbal descriptions of artworks on view in Manifesta 8 for her blind collaborator. Descriptions that will then be passed on to the general public by the collaborator inside the physically empty and dark space. Resident from November 1st to November 6th, 2010

Each residency begins on a Monday and the final guided tour happens the following Saturday.

Saturday, November 6^th

NEW LIFE RESIDENCY is the world’s first non-visual residency program for artists. The residency is organized as part of Manifesta 8, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, and will take place this fall in the Region of Murcia, Spain.For one week each, five artists will be selected to live and work in a dark, visually distorted exhibition space. To support them in their life and work for the week, the artist will collaborate with a local Murcian assistant who is blind. In cooperation with her/his assistant, the artist will use the one-week residency to create a guided tour of the non-visual space and experience in which s/he is living. The blind assistant will be the guide of this tour in darkness and the tour will be open to the biennial audience.All applicants must apply with their precise concept for this guided tour. A tour of a social sculpture, so to speak.Apart from the guided tour, the five selected concept proposals will furthermore be exhibited in one of the main museum locations of Manifesta 8 and will be on view throughout the biennial from September 30th, 2010 (preview) to January 9th, 2011.

Art collective Wooloo.org (Denmark) will organize the residency at Antiguo Cuartel de Artilleria, Murcia.