Wow! I have so much to say.
First of all, I would like to summarize my overall experience of residency at VarnaLab as incredibly positive. As an artist, it is always productive to immerse oneself in a creative and inspirational environment. For my own work, VarnaLab was an ideal space to both observe as well as to produce.
However, I feel the full potential for cross-discipline collaboration may not have been achieved during my time in the space. I will cite the following reasons for this:
1. Language: While most of the people working in VarnaLab do speak English, and while it's my own darn fault for not knowing Bulgarian, linguistic barriers do significantly reduce the ability for discourse to naturally develop. Furthermore, as an observer of the space and what happens in it, overheard conversations are actually as important as those I was intended to be a part of. While I did understand a good bit of the Bulgarian flying around, my linguistic skills are not at the level where I could jump in to those conversations. I think that future residencies would be best carried out with Bulgarian speaking artists.
2. Time Frame: Naturally occurring collaborations happen very slowly. I do not think that a 5-day work week, particularly without the common language, was enough time to really spawn the best kinds of conversations. I think that future artists should be in the space for 2 weeks, even if they are Bulgarian speaking.
3. Time of Day: While I tried to create a regular schedule that forced me to ensure that I was in the space for 6-9 hours daily, I think the majority of the interesting activities actually happen in the afternoon - evening time frame. I think that future artists should plan to stagger the times that they are participating in the space in order to be present for evening events etc... and to meet a broader variety of VarnaLab members.
4. My Art Practice: Simply put, my art practice actually was a bit of a problem for conversation making. Perhaps if the project I elected to work on during the residency (Catch 22) had not been such a code-heavy project, I could have spawned more dialogue with other members. However, I spent much of the time in the space engaging in an activity that was visually completely indistinguishable from the others in the space (coding). While some similarities between the artistic and technologic processes were supposed to arise from the residency period, I feel that I may have selected a project which was too similar and thus did not bring an alternate use/perspective to the space. --my bad. :)
Finally... what did I actually do?
Let's discuss the Emoticon Project or the Sticky Project or the .... whatever I am calling it.
EMOJIS!!!
During the residency period, it came to my attention (as it often does in such situations) that my language barrier was hampering my ability to effectively relate to the space and the people in the space. Despite the fact that individuals spoke to me in English, overheard conversation is often as important as direct conversation when getting a sense of a place.
Furthermore, my time in the space was punctuated by long periods of complete silence, wherein no-one spoke, in any language. However, I was aware that much of the work going on within the space involved tremendous amounts of digital and inter-personal communication. Just like a person that remains calm during crisis, the silence of the lab space was actually just a disguise for what was happening just beneath the surface; emails, messenger chats, international server reconfigurations, website re-designs... the transfer of information, while silent, is the backbone of contemporary life - and I was in one node (or epi-center) of that 24-7 information flow.
In an effort to engage with this reality, I first created the "stickies project." As installation/intervention, I invited lab members, when leaving or entering the space, to write their emotional state on a sticky note and place it on the wall next to the door. The result of this project was a color-ful database of the varied emotional (and distinctly human) states of regular lab members.
The second step in the "stickies project" was to catalogue and organize all the emotional states that were recorded. In an effort to re-engage with the digital nature of the space and the communication flows into and out of it, and in an effort to respond to my own linguistic pitfalls, I decided to create a set of "emoticons/emojis" that would be representative of the catalogued emotional states. These illustrations would have to refrain from any use of writing or language, and instead rely solely on expression to relay what was collected; I hope that you find I was successful with the project.
The 19 resulting emojis are more like Facebook "stickers" than like the bouncing smiley faces of Skype or gChat (another small response to the "stickies" that inspired them). However, they are designed to be used with any chat or forum software the user desires. Furthermore, the character designs are based (not directly, but inspired by) the people that I encountered in the lab. The characters represented are young, hip, inspired, revolutionary, and (of course) emotive.
These emoji stickers are intended for open use - steal them, use them. Though I would appreciate it if when used, some reference to the space that inspired them or the residency project was made.
THIS DESCRIPTION, MORE TECHNICAL INFORMATION AND THE IMAGES THEMSELVES ARE AVAILABLE AT: https://github.com/minkaart/VarnaLabEmoji
IN CLOSING
I want to thank everyone that made this project possible, I hope that you have enjoyed it as much as I have and I look forward to watching what future artists come up with!
--Minka
