A workshop organised by Stuart Bailey, as part of 'Columns, Grottos, Niches: The Grammar of Forms – On Art Criticism, Writing, Publishing and Distribution'
Wednesdays, 2 and 9 December 2009 / 11–16:00
Office for Contemporary Art Norway
Nedre gate 7, Oslo / www.oca.no / info@oca.no
Wednesday, 2 December
A modest proposal for a Serving Library
Stuart Bailey will introduce publishing in its most exploded sense through (a) a brief inventory of activities at Dexter Sinister, ostensibly a model of a
publishing imprint established in a basement on New York's Lower East Side in 2006, and (b) 'The Serving Library', a larger umbrella project which has grown
from the same intentions. Some of this so-called library's aims are: to reconsider the nature of art/design pedagogy; to distill Black Whisky; and to
establish a physical space which incorporates both a limited bar and collection of reference material. This week at OCA will function as a model/trial/pilot
version of the idea as a means of working out exactly how it might operate.
From PDF to Portable Document Format
In this session, Bailey will recount the ways in which one particular book, itself a collection of disparate texts, has recently been published in a number
of different formats. This will introduce various kinds of texts (the book contains, for example, statements, captions, essays, close readings, historical
literature, pseudonymous writing, etc.) and contexts (the texts have been published together, for example, online for general downloading, as unbound
signatures for a librarian's conference, as a bound book for an exhibition, and within an established series by an established publishing house). It will
be followed by a discussion with the participants concerning the past, present and future roles of both publishing and education, with specific reference
to art and design.
In tandem with the workshops to be held at OCA, Stuart Bailey will launch the latest book by Dexter Sinister, Portable Document Format, at 19:00 at Torpedo Bookshop, Hausmanngate 42.
-Stuart Bailey, '(Only an Attitude of Orientation)'
The fragmentary reader concerned with art/design education, '(Only an Attitude of Orientation)' will also be published and circulated by OCA in PDF and pamphlet form.
[During the intervening week, the model Serving Library will be open during regular OCA hours for reference and discussion. OCA will arrange a series of film screenings and other events to be announced during the week.]
A This day is deliberately left more open in order to incorporate whatever else might happen during the week. But roughly speaking:
A discussion centred on the various roles of libraries, with particular reference to the texts in 'Portable Document Format'. This might include the switch from an Archiving to a Circulating to a Distributing model, as outlined in David Reinfurt's Short Account of the Library; the relationship between the whole and the parts, as related in the 100th chapter of Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities, itself closely read by Rob Giampietro in General Stumm Invades the State Library; and the essence of library science, described in David Senior's account of the influential Indian librarian S.R. Ranganathan's writings, whose principles are summarised as ∞ Hospitality.
A closing group discussion which will attempt to structure and assemble a follow-up to the opening pamphlet, '(Only an Attitude of Orientation)'. We will speculate on how a reconsideration of the traditional Bauhaus Foundation Course might build itself from a location such as The Serving Library. For the sake of argument, this sequel is provisionally titled 'From the Toolbox of a Serving Library', and founded on the idea of classes derived from the components of Adobe's Illustrator, Photoshop and inDesign digital toolboxes: 'Hand', 'Type', 'Magic Wand', or 'Dodge & Burn.'
All Texts are from Portable Document Format and are also available from the larger online library at www.dextersinister.org/library.html.
These two seminars are conceived as part of the same workshop, so attendants are encourage to attend both. The workshop is free and open to the public. However, it requires registration in advance. To register or for more information, please contact Anne Charlotte Hauen at anne.charlotte@oca.no.