Themes of autonomy, countercultural experiments and the eco-aspirations of communes are central to the next installation at 55 Sydenham Rd, a Temporary Autonomous Library – Weird Heavy Issue 01 Publication Launch.
What?
“Our Concept – to present a temporary autonomous zone. A library type situation in which the publication is to be utilized for the means of research within the space”. The structure to house the library and launch, built in parts in the studio, then installed at 55, provides a platform for free thinking & research derived from a DIY punk ethos. Following instructions given in How To Build Your Own Living Structures by Ken Isaacs, published in 1974, the artists re-assemble the design as a library platform, employing anarchist Hakim Bey’s sociopolitical tactics to create temporary spaces/structures that elude from formal structures of control. Footnote
Why?
Libraries social function is to archive, circulate and distribute information. On the one hand it serves to collect information and on the other to create dialogue through the communal consumption of ideas. In this case the temporal nature of the installation means no fixed function and therefore like the internet a reduction in copyfight and authorship.
“Circulating and Distributing libraries provide two different platforms with some different possibilities. But when you’re trying to optimize how the information is used, it’s possible to be platform independent” Footnote
We are currently considering a reaction to the following statement:
“Copyright law was architected for a world where copies were the exception. […] In the digital age, every single thing we do with creative work on a digital network produces a copy, so that the act of reading on a digital network produces a copy. The act of sharing my book with my mother produces a copy. Any of these activities which in real space don’t produce a copy, in cyberspace produce a copy. ” Footnote
In consideration we have discussed the idea of sourcing the digital copy of the object ‘pdf book’ producing it as a printed copy and questioning the concepts of Circulating and Distributing libraries. We would present these on the living structures and invite the public, artists & even our mothers to utilize the space over the period as a temporary autonomous zone of knowledge and questioning of the understanding’s and interaction’s of publishing.
Temporary Autonomous Library / Weird Heavy Launch
Jesse Hogan / Nick Briggs
29/3 – 8/4/12