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Creative Time Tweets Puts Public Art Both On And Offline

All you need is a #hashtag and a story.

How do we define “public space” in the age of the internet? No longer is it something that’s relegated to our parks and town squares. And while artists have been staging public interventions, exhibitions, and performances online for years, it’s quite another thing to see an arts organization commissioning “public art” works that are set to unfold on Twitter. That’s exactly what Creative Time, a NYC-based organization that commissions and presents public art projects, is doing with its Creative Time Tweets initiative, a series of three public performances that will take place both on- and off-line.

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Shane Brennan, the project’s curator, explains:

"In the age of Twitter, we can no longer see the physical public sphere and the virtual public sphere of online social engagement as distinct. One only has to look at the role of social media in organizing and documenting the popular revolutions that have swept across Northern Africa and the Middle East in recent months to see how these worlds are inextricably connected. To make, curate, and commission public art today and in the future requires thinking across this quickly eroding divide."

This isn’t the first time that Creative Time has attempted to bridge the physical and virtual worlds in an attempt to explore this new “hybrid” public space that exists in the gray area between the two. Last November, artist Marc Horowitz gave YouTube spectators a say in his personal decision-making process by taking the advice of strangers. This summer, three new artists will attempt to give heightened meaning to our 140-character contributions, one tweet at a time.

Tonight at 5 PM EST, Man Bartlett will kick off the series with his performance, #24hPort. No stranger to Twitter-sourced, collaborative performances, Bartlett will work on uniting the physical public sphere—NYC’s Port Authority bus terminal—and the Twitter sphere. Bartlett will spend 24 hours asking two questions: “Where are you going?” and “Where have you been?”, prompting participants to explore the delicate relationships between memory and geography. Online “spectators” will be able to get involved by using the hashtag after which the project is named (#24hPort).

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The series will continue through late July with projects from David Horvitz and Jill Magid. Horvitz plans to delve into electronic communication history with #5992: I Will, with Pleasure, Take Letters for You. He will transcribe tweets from his audience, then physically carry them along the path of the original US transcontinental telegraph line from San Francisco to Washington, DC. There he’ll submit the tweets to the Library of Congress, and donate them to a public archive. Magid’s project will have her exploring Twitter for the very first time, in both personal and professional contexts, and addressing issues of privacy and security.

We sent curator Shane Brennan and artist Man Bartlett a few questions to find out more about the project. Read their answers below and be sure to follow along with the performances on Twitter.

Interview With Shane Brennan:

The Creators Project: This series will certainly help solidify Twitter’s role as a platform for performance. What inspired you to create the series? Why do you think Twitter is culturally significant right now?
Shane Brennan: This series was inspired by the artists who are already embracing Twitter as an artistic tool and a site for performance within their practices. It is also inspired by the fact that, in just the last few years, Twitter has become a massive public space and thus an interesting place for artists to intervene. Beyond its sheer size and complexity, Twitter is also becoming increasingly significant within our culture through its uses in organizing and documenting popular revolutions, like those that have occurred in Northern Africa and the [Middle East](http://www.thecreatorsproject.com/blog/vj-um-amel-remixes-a-revolution ) recently, as well as the decision by the Library of Congress to save every tweet ever written. In addition, a growing number of artists are turning to Twitter to communicate with their audiences and speak out for causes—Ai Weiwei is a great example—or even to create artworks, like the artists in this series. In short, Twitter has become part of our public existence and culture to an extent that is impossible to ignore. This series will recognize that and support artists who are interested in exploring the potential of the medium in relationship to their own work.

The project description states that it aims to unite participants from Twitter and from the Port Authority, and to facilitate cultural exchange. Why base a Twitter performance in a physical space to begin with? In which of the two spaces do you anticipate the strongest response?
Twitter is designed to be a mobile technology that allows for a dispersed form of communication while people are on the move. I think this is what makes it such a powerful platform for discussion; you can be talking to people in the physical world and addressing your Twitter followers at the same time. Some of the artists in Creative Time Tweets will choose to do this within their projects, and hopefully this will make people think about the public sphere as more than just the environment they see around them—it also includes the public space of the internet.

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Inevitably, there will be many more people following these projects online than who will encounter it in person. The main way to experience and participate in the projects is to visit the website and tweet using the dedicated hashtag for each project. Those people the artists encounter in the physical world while making their projects will be mainly passers-by.

How do you, as the curator, guide a public project without influencing its direction too much?
I try to set out a clear framework and context for artists to react to, and ideally this framework leaves open enough room for experimentation and the unexpected without being too expansive to remain cohesive as a series or exhibition. Then, artists are invited to respond to this set of constraints. For this series, the primary constraint was Twitter itself and its limit of 140 characters. While this can seem incredibly confining, it can also, like the rules of haiku, serve to focus rather than hinder creativity. As the artists develop their projects, moving from an initial proposal towards realization, I attempt to facilitate the process on both a conceptual and practical level—working with them on the ideas within the work while also paying attention to logistical concerns and practicalities. Ultimately, the entire journey is one long, constantly evolving conversation.

What are the challenges of curating a performance that takes place both on and offline?
The major challenge that Creative Time and the artists in the series will come up against is that we are dealing with multiple audiences. People who see the projects online will have a completely different experience than those who happen upon it in person, and yet these divergent experiences together form the legacy of the work. These two audiences also behave very differently—strategies for engaging people online might not work in person, and vice versa. It’s also extremely difficult for these artists to be in two places at once, to perform on Twitter while they are also performing in a physical place. From a curatorial standpoint, it’s a challenge to develop a series that uses a very specific technology with lots of idiosyncrasies and which still holds its own as a group of thought-provoking, public commissions. In other words, can you make a series of Twitter projects that isn’t just about Twitter, but instead about what it means to produce public art in the twenty-first century? Ultimately, it’s about finding the right balance so that the series is medium-specific while still being universal enough to appeal to a wide audience.

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Later events in the series acknowledge electronic communication’s history and what Twitter is like to a newcomer. How do you think Man’s project will work as the first project in the series? What does each individual project bring to the series as a whole?
I think Man’s project will set the stage, so to speak, for the rest of the series. He is an experienced Twitter interventionist, having created several durational performances in the past that make prominent use of the technology. In many ways, the series is indebted to the work that he is already doing, and his project for Creative Time Tweets will push him to take things to a new level. I think #24hPort will also be a good introduction for our audiences to how a performance can move seamlessly between on- and off-line spaces. Each performance will take on different ideas and make use of Twitter in different ways. David Horvitz’ project is much more invested in exploring the links between Twitter and some of its technological precursors, and looking at what might have been lost as our messages to one another have become increasingly dematerialized and instantaneous. Last but certainly not least, Jill Magid’s project will offer the perspective of an artist using Twitter for the first time and suggest how it might be used to investigate some of her longstanding interests in a new way.

#24hPort asks participants, “Where have you been? Where are you going?” How do you think Creative Time as an institution would answer that prompt? And how will interacting with Twitter shape the organization’s direction?
The questions that Man Bartlett is posing within his project are meant to be conversation starters, to open a dialogue between the artist and the people he encounters online and in Port Authority Bus Terminal. Some people will interpret them more literally, and others might take a more metaphorical approach in explaining where they are “going.” Creative Time might say that we’ve been involved with helping artists create their dream projects in many landmark and lesser-known spaces across New York City over the last 37 years. And in the future, we’re heading in the direction of presenting public projects in more international locations. I think this series will deepen Creative Time’s commitment to helping artists delve into new sectors of our expanding public sphere, including virtual ones, and also broaden our online community interested in the work that we’re doing.

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Interview With Man Bartlett:

The Creators Project: How did you start using Twitter in your performances? Why have you continued to use it as your platform?
Man Bartlett: My first performance took place in a Best Buy. It was conceived as a very solitary action. I published the announcement on Tumblr the same day I had the idea, and only a week before it was to take place. A day or two after the initial post I realized that using Twitter to share my experience was a logical extension of the work. I honestly didn’t anticipate many people taking interest, let alone contributing and participating, but they did. And that level of engagement has opened up potential that I’m still exploring. Sometimes passively, sometimes directly.

What’s the most surprising difference you’ve encountered between a Twitter performance and an in-person performance?
The audience. With a performance on Twitter, it can be difficult to gauge how many people are just watching versus how many people are actually tweeting. With a physical audience you know their size, and they’re much easier to read. However the big semi-anonymous face of a Twitter audience really keeps me on my toes! I’ll sometimes spend an entire performance trying to figure out who they are, and how to play to, and with, them.

Has your work on Twitter helped change your ideas about or feelings towards performance art? If so, how?
Two main ways. First, a hashtag is a space that people can inhabit for a finite time. In that sense, hashtags are the stage, the gallery, that anyone with the Internet, in theory, has access to. This concept of space is a lot more exciting to me, and potentially democratic, than waiting in line to sit across from “the artist” in a performance like Marina Abramovic’s “The Artist Is Present.”

Second is that by nature Twitter is still rather whimsical (at least in popular perception). As much as I like Chris Burden’s work, I won’t be nailing myself to a Volkswagen and tweeting it any time soon. There is an inherent playfulness to the platform that I use both for and against the medium of performance art itself. Which is to say, I try to have fun too.

What kind of emotional response are you hoping to evoke for those who participate in this project?
Life changing! Or any. In that order. :)

Follow Creative Time on Twitter here.