RAM Gallery
20th anniversary-exhibition

November 19th 2009 - February 14th 2010

Contained In : 

The Continuous Production of the Ultimate White Cube?

A streamlined symposium about Gutenberg2.0, Copyright/Copyleft and The Sharing Culture

– to be connected… to participate… to perceive…

to reflect… to become local again...

Symposium Thusday January 14th at 7pm

Moderator:

Carl Mattias Ekman (architect, scholar phd AHO)

Participants:

Susan Joseph (ccMixter – initiator of the white cube remix project)

Robert Nunnally (ccMixter – initiator of the white cube remix project)

Emily Richards (ccMixter and ArtisTech Media)

Gisle Hannemyr (CreativeCommons.no)

Frode Gether-Rønning (IT-director, AHO)

Rolf Gerstlauer (architect, curator of the exhibition, professor AHO)

Introduction:  

The aim of this video symposium is to set the light on free sharing culture in art, entertainment, science, and academia ... or on culture per se.

Creative Commons and/or Copyleft are yet not very known to the Scandinavian public and we

want to change that by having a ‘large discussion on the nature of sharing culture versus the

authority of chronology, idea and corporation’. RAM Gallery, Oslo has last fall been declared a White Cube and as such it prepares for the optimal meeting between ‘the work’ and ‘the

spectator’, yet any White Cube represents the institutionalization of ideas and hence authoritative incorporates and contextualizes what not necessarily in its creation was supposed to partake in chronology. In other words: The place in which we exhibit art is a place of curate and thus in its nature not unlike any governing business-like corporation. The curator curates the value of the meeting between ‘the work’ and ‘the spectator’ - while the optimal meeting between ‘the autonomous work’ and ‘the autonomous spectator’ never actually can take place other then outside of any corporative or institutionalized context. ccMixter.org is such a non-institutionalized and non-corporative context in which we, ‘the spectators’, can meet us, ‘the work’, through participation and free sharing – and without any critique at all. Or?

The video symposium is on ramgalleri.no announced as:

Contained In: The continuous production of the ultimate White Cube?

A Streamlined Symposium About Gutenberg2.0, Copyright/Copyleft and The Sharing Culture – to be connected... to participate... to perceive.... to reflect... to become local again.

and is a vital element in RAM Gallery’s 20th anniversary celebration:

RAM Gallery 20th anniversary-exhibition - November 19th 2009 - February 14th 2010

An attempt to implode/explode The White Cube

A layered time, space and place construction by Rolf Gerstlauer (curator for the exhibition)

On December 17th 2009 ccMixter.org did explode/implode the White Cube by streaming 96!!!

‘White Cube Remixes’ into the gallery space!

Thursday December 17th 2009 – audible until February 14th 2010 (sound installation):

A Cube Contained In

– the white cube remixed by a tremendous free global force.

The White Cube Remix seeks to bring the joy of Creative Commons music to the RAM Gallery, in Oslo, Norway. (quote: http://thewhitecube.info/)

The known ccMixters SackJo22, aka Susan Joseph, and Gurdonark, aka Robert Nunnally, outed on November 7th 2009 a ‘call for remixes’ for ‘The White Cube Remix’ project. SackJo22 created ‘The White Cube’ a cappella and Gurdonark posted his ambient track (with sample pack) called ‘Winter Lights’. The ccMixter.org community was asked to produce individual music pieces as remixes on the base of Gurdonark and SackJo22’s sample-material. By December 7th, the closure date of the call, 68 people had created 96 different remixes. On December 17th a mp3- player containing all the music was installed in The White Cube of RAM Gallery Oslo and streams since the more then six hours of unique music into the exhibition space.

Besides joy, what else did Creative Commons music bring to the RAM Gallery? What do we hear in the Creative Commons music when we listen to it? What, who and where is the curator? Is The White Cube exploded/imploded by the lack of critique?  ...and where is what meeting? Is the ccMixter community (and the likes) morphologically as transparent as the cloud in the clock or as the clock in the cloud? Does it need at all to pretend transparency? Is the ‘free culture of sharing and participation’ a romantic idea only or is it the optimal meeting between the autonomous work and spectator? What will happen to ‘culture’ if we continue to share and participate freely...? Who’s to tell us what about culture?

These polemics state the temperament of the today’s video symposium. The discussion will not only focus on ccMixters ‘The White Cube Remix’ project but also use it as a point of departure for a debate on free sharing culture and an alternative licensing practice in science / academia / humanoria.

The symposium is organized as a live-video conference streamed into and from the RAM Gallery Oslo. Participants in the videoconference are invited international guests from Creative Commons, ccMixter.org and ArtisTech Media as well as local curators, art critiques and academics.

The video conference is a collaboration between RAM Gallery Oslo and The Oslo School of

Architecture and Design (AHO) and will be video-taped and made public available on aho.no and ramcam.blip.tv as well as other academic web-based channels and various creative commons blogs.

Rolf Gerstlauer – Oslo, 13.01.2010

Biography

Rolf Gerstlauer is professor at The Oslo School of Architecture and Design and runs together with his partner a small atelier in Oslo. Studio Gerstlauer Molne’s works are on architecture, film, photography, dance/choreography and include now also noise-production. As an architect Gerstlauer has a love/hate relationship with the white cube, yet as a constructor and maker the extended exploded/imploded white cube represents the base for all of his creative works. Earlier confrontations with the white cube include works like: Momentum 2000 – nordic biennale of contemporary art Moss (with Moment Architecture), Oslo Kunsthall – Oslo Art hall 2000-2003, Contiguity 1999 – AHO, Architecture as Infrastructure – National Museum for Architecture Oslo (with StudioB3), ‘Timeroomchamber’ - Uri/Switzerland and ‘Headhunting’ - DogA/Dansens hus Oslo.