Letters to the Art System

Looking for the Impossible Artist

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Art Contract

I need to clarify a few very important points about my art project  A characterístic element of my work is the non-credit/signature for the production of the evidence of  my being alive. It means that nobody  signs the work I produce. That implies that no organization/individual or any of its sponsors can use their corporate logo  when any of my concepts and/or images are exhibited, including lectures, since this would be a breach of  the concept of the work.

Thus, if any organization/individual /space  or any of its sponsors were to use their  corporate logo in association with the registers of my being alive, that would imply that this organization/individual/space were the "author" of these registers, receiving credit for its production.

 

Therefore an organization/individual/space or any of its sponsors can make my data available exclusively for cultural purposes in the media, press  providing nobody uses their corporate logo or any of their sponsor's corporate logos to do so, and at the same time the media and press cannot use their corporate logos or any of their sponsor's  corporate logos when promoting my work for the reasons stated above. An organization/individual or any of their sponsors can make the details of my biography and curriculum available for catalogues and text information for exhibition pieces, providing that these catalogues and entries do not contain their corporate logo or any of their sponsor's  corporate logos. My artistic production can be made available on the Internet for promotion of events and exhibitions, in the press and electronic media providing no  corporate logo or any sponsor's  corporate logos are used to do so. Finally my work can be exhibited publicly providing the corporate logo of the space or or any of their sponsor's  corporate logos not be present in the exhibition space, as well as the facade of the space.

 

Further I would like to emphasize that my work is always distributed freely. I do not sell my registers and the evidence of my daily movements and since 1994 I refuse to present the work where fees are charged. The work also cannot  be exhibited in spaces that aim towards the commercialization of the concepts/objects presented.

 

This work can be freely reproduced, adapted even without mentioning the source providing no profit is earned  or corporate image promoted from doing so.

Project List 2008

Performance Project

In 1988, I decided that my living was "Art", and that my task from then on would be to create evidence of being alive in the world.

*I am going to describe briefly the most important projects of the period that have shaped my way of "art making".

Project 1: “10 Year Performance Project”  (01/Jan//88 – 31/Dec/97)

From 1988 to 1997 I collected evidence of being alive, documenting my daily movements during the day in the format of mental maps.

•  The maps were registered in 5½” x 8½” (13,4x 21,3cm) black books and later transferred to various supports for public display. They were the result of a search for a line that did not copy an image seen; or captured and action, but rather, were intrinsically related to my living. Documenting my daily movements I was working on something known and experienced.

-Aims:

•  Bring the production of art objects to a bare minimum.

             The number was determined by the minimum necessary 365/6 works a year from January 1st

             to December 31st.

•  Make my art production a product of my living.                                                              

            I chose documenting my daily movements as a response to Richard Long's project, which I considered an interruption of living.

 

• Use the minimum amount of time producing the artwork and the maximum time living.

             a) Produce mental maps very quickly at the end of the day.

             b) Counting the seconds of my life, in response to Borofsky's number counting piece.

During the process I discovered that the project involved a very important element: the incorporation of a routine - to register the mental map every night.

  I decided then to incorporate other behaviours.

    -using a pedometer to record daily the number of miles I had walked during the day (3 years)

    -collect an object from the immediate environment at the end of the day (1989).

    -collect a small flat element at the end of the day (1990).

    -counting seconds every day for an hour. This was a merge between the documentation process and       the experience, making the act of documenting a present experience (1991).

    -collect small pieces of my personal clothes, labels, sheets, towels, etc at the end of the day (1992).

    -count seconds for one hour in my own time (1992).

    -pile up 7 maps  (A4 book) covering each map with liquid paper (sculpture book.(1988-1991)

From 1993 onwards I concentrated my art making solely in registering the maps in the books at the end of the day and in long public performances counting seconds (Counting Time).

The 10 year Performance Project ended in 1997.

(47 books)

After the 10 year Performance Project ended I slowly switched the focus of my attention from the icons around me to a much oader view of the world at large. I have moved from the simple collection of an element from my environment, purely because it was part of my environment, to the reading of it in terms of its possible meaning in society.

    *see anti-logo contract

Projects developed to date:

Impossible Artist in dating site and development of the project

Impossibleartist

Another World is Possible

Why should you get to know Impossibleartist

(First Profile)

Why should you get to know Impossibleartist

"Technologically mediated interaction leads to a fluid, detached relationship to real life-others." (Ben Davis)

I have been doing research for my PhD in Brazil for the last 4 years and now I am getting ready to go back to the UK. I am a Performance Artist and I do a lot of work with grassroots movements - this work has taken me to remote areas and has given me the opportunity to get a new insight about other ways of living, planting, trading, relating to one another...