As an artist, or someone who is called an artist, there are many opportunities to apply for or you are offered. It is difficult to say when something stops being art and becomes something other, as in the boundary to what you are doing. A recent work for an opportunity has set me thinking. This was to find a creative manner in which to work with Doncaster council and Doncaster Creates on a research project called Doncaster Talks. This is a survey the council are carrying out what the people of the town wish for the future of the area. This is an interesting route for an artist, as it is not only about converting data into some kind of artistic artefact but also how can you engage with the people, and all the stakeholders and become part of the survey. So I guess this can be a kind of embedded artist. I have an interest in games and their structure and how these can operate in art. It was here that some kind of interface as an object, might come in handy to create a kind of artistic form for people to use. I think for artists, making working that is interactive or participatory especially in relation to a specific brief is hard. I think though an interface or thinking on the interface is an interesting manner to address this. An interface, extends the abilities of the person using it into the activity. An interface can though be an artwork in itself. There are I found many interfaces I had come across just not thought of them as such till now. For this project I adopted the use of an origami chatterbox. In participatory art, or other forms of interactive endeavour, it is about what is the effort that the person coming across will do in order to make the artwork, or be part of it. Here I created a template, with the survey question on, that when folded up made the origami shape. This was a way to bring some kind of interactive and transformative quality to the survey itself. Is this in some manner a way that artists can work with the public and with this kind of brief? Is there many more interactive interfaces buried in childhood endeavours? I have developed these by placing the photos of the people on the top. So each chatterbox is a person and their views. they are seductive to play with. I have been around the town now getting people to have a go with them. The end work will be an install and give away of them all. Be good to know how others would have responded, or if other artists have had to handle such a brief, to work with the public and survey. It would be interesting to know how others respond when asked to think creatively as a response to a practical endeavour of a council or other such an organisation. What is a creative response really, and how far can it go before it becomes irrelevant or uncreative?
A face on a chatterbox
Inside an origami chatterbox
