|| UGO 0.2 DIGITAL PROJECT SPACE ||
Commissioned research presenting projects including: OLIVIA BAX, CHRIS ALTON, DAVID EVANS & JOHN ROBINSON. |
UNIVERSITY CENTRE COLCHESTER RESEARCH FUNDED PROGRAMME. | COLCHESTER UK.
2018-19
UGO 0.2 is a digital project space.​ The project space intends to theorise, test and consider the increased focus in digital production and curation in contemporary fine art practice.​ The developing output will form a programme of collaborative, temporary, formal and solo research practice projects by students, staff and invited artists.
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UGO 0.2 has been devised to provide a broad and experimental opportunity for students to consider the potential for the internet to inform their emerging works, as part of a holistic contemporary fine art education. This space focuses on showing the potential interpretations of working in / with internet-based platforms to complement a multitude of arts practices. Alongside this, there is a wider professional development remit, as these platforms become an increasingly utilised vehicle for emerging artists and artist-led projects due to there; accessible, affordable, adaptability, networking, curatorial and promotional strengths.
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PUBLICATION | UGO 0.2 2018-19
ONLINE EDITION | UGO 0.2 18-19
WEBSITE | UGO 0.2 DIGITAL PROJECT SPACE
|| HANDLE THIS | OLIVIA BAX | UGO 0.2 | 2019 ||
UNIVERSITY CENTRE COLCHESTER RESEARCH FUNDED PROGRAMME. | COLCHESTER UK.
2018-19
Bax selected a new process in which to develop the work for the project, an animated response to the physical process she repeatedly undertakes as part of her sculpture making. The resulting looped .gif artwork focused on the preparation of a sculptures surface for a ready-made handle, a reoccurring motif in Bax’s work. As Bax describes ‘The loop acts as an important tool to see that the changes in speed are not an error in the file but deliberate. In the studio, things might slow down, and speed up again but an artist’s work never stops…’ Olivia Bax Handle This Text 2019.
|| SIMILITUDES | DAVID EVANS | UGO 0.2 | March 2019 ||
UNIVERSITY CENTRE COLCHESTER RESEARCH FUNDED PROGRAMME. | COLCHESTER UK.
2018-19
In Similitudes UGO 0.2 welcomed a collaboration between eight BA (Hons) Fine Art 3rd Year students and artist/curator Dave Evans, for the fourth curated digital project.
Similitudes brought together a completely remote, internet-based group project curated by Dave Evans, taking work in progress as a loose framework for submissions and the resulting conversations exhibited online at UGO 0.2.
The outcome was a series of images from which the curator felt disconnected and unresolved. Evans, confronted by this unusual position of ‘encountered images’, has taken a line from Claire Bishops Artforum essay ‘The Digital Divide’ [2018] ‘can communication between users become the subject of an aesthetic’ as a format for the curation, via exchange between curator and artists. So maybe the exchange between curator and artist could be the exhibition itself, rather than plucking an aesthetic out of thin air?
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Similitudes became the result of such an exchange, on a chan-style message board at http://ffzzgg.net/UGO/.
|| THE UNION OF HUMAN INTELLIGENCE TASKWORKERS | CHRIS ALTON | UGO 0.2 | April 2019 ||
UNIVERSITY CENTRE COLCHESTER RESEARCH FUNDED PROGRAMME. | COLCHESTER UK.
2018-19
The Union of Human Intelligence Taskworkers employed [for a living wage of £10.00 p/hour, which is substantially higher than rates paid on MTurk.] a small group of Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk)HIT workers to collaboratively design a union banner about their working conditions. The HIT workers, conducted research, exchanged notes and drawings, and offered feedback on the banner's design as it developed.
Alton conceived the project as a possible avenue for dissent and solidarity for the HIT workers. The Union of Human Intelligence Taskworkers reveals their working conditions to a wider audience, whilst also commenting on broader issues regarding precarious labour, automation, and trade/workers unions in the digital age.
|| VELAZQUEZ VARIATIONS | JOHN ROBINSON | UGO 0.2 | Feb-June 2019 ||
UNIVERSITY CENTRE COLCHESTER RESEARCH FUNDED PROGRAMME. | COLCHESTER UK.
2018-19
The commission Velázquez Variations investigated the complex, cinematic, multi-perspective painting Las Meninas [1656] by Diego Velázquez. In the performance Robinson draws upon the uncertain relationship between the figures depicted, artist and audience, encouraging audience participation, documentation and support as he reworks and poses, capturing snapshots of an idiosyncratic retelling.
Looped audio, mangled life size inked figures from Las Meninas, a single mirror and a temporary hanging system generate documentation for potential paintings to be developed by Robinson upon return to the studio.
|| UGO 0.2 | 2018-19 | ELBLOK PUBLICATION | August 2019 ||
UNIVERSITY CENTRE COLCHESTER RESEARCH FUNDED PUBLICATION. | COLCHESTER UK.
This publication documents the first programme of projects developed across the 2018-19 academic year. Images & Text courtesy of Olivia Bax, David Evans, Iris Gunnarsdroittir, Heidi Sharp, John Robinson, Chris Alton and Jonathan Kelham [editor].
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PUBLICATION | UGO 0.2 2018-19
ONLINE EDITION | UGO 0.2 18-19
WEBSITE | UGO 0.2 DIGITAL PROJECT SPACE