Multipoint US
Multipoint US is a self-managed artists’ working group that focuses on a rigorous exploration of contemporary cultural issues coupled with an investment in expanding the notion of collaboration. The group meets monthly and the types of projects on which they work depends on the group decision. The leadership shifts from member to member at a predetermined moment and the projects change depending on who is leading the group.
The main criterion for any project is that it give equal support to the aims of the group (as stated above) and the individual artistic practice. So while collaboration is key, this is not a communal melting pot where the identity of the individuals is erased. Rather, it is an experiment to see how collaboration can strengthen the individual.
An element of chance is extremely important to this endeavor. Considering Duchamp’s experiments with chance, there is a vast complexity of permutation possible when a set of elements, including lacunae, is carefully considered by a rigorous interpreting consciousness. Due to gaps in the structure, the hits and misses of personality, practice, and intention, the implementation of any collaboration is uncertain and open to the interpretation of any particular group of participants, any particular arrangement of elements. This group thrives on that uncertainty and makes it a driving force in the possibility unfolding around it.
History
Multipoint refers to a project that began in Nantes, France in 2002 when an international post-diplome program at the Beaux-Arts school there was floundering due to the resignation of the program director. The artists participating in the program decided they wanted to attempt an unprecedented, egalitarian venture whereby all decisions would be made by majority vote. This included budget concerns, travel destinations, and the projects on which the group would collaborate. While the experience was arduous for the participants, the unfolding result was revolutionary.
Several members of the 2000-2001 post-diplome group became interested in identifying, in real practice, the ways in which a self-managed team or workgroup might actually function within an organization. We visualized a sharing of competencies and responsibilities that would be mutually supportive to the functioning of the workgroup and of the individuals participating. We envisioned a dynamic, participatory program that would balance the individual creative practice with responsibility to the team and the team projects; but also where the team projects would feed and fuel the individual engagement.
With these ideas in mind, in July 2002, MultiPoint was born: a self-guided work-group concerned with the extending projects that experiment with the notions of how the artist functions in contemporary society, where the isolated studio practice is only one part of artistic practice.
The website http://multipoint.free.fr/ (enable popups) was conceived with guest collaborator, Patrick Bernier, a French artist whose work is strongly informed by collaboration and contemporary media (internet, satellite, and digital film). The site explores randomness and chance, dealing out a network of exchange like one might deal a game of cards.
Multipoint continued for one year with a new group of artists but like all revolutionary projects, this one found little favor with a conservative French establishment. When the director of the art school, Robert Fleck, took another position in his native Vienna, the new director transitioned the program back to a simple, French post graduate affair.
Multipoint in America
When April returned to the US, she felt that the efforts began with her colleagues in France were worthy of continued exploration. Beyond Baroque in Venice, California approached her about a similar venture and she took good advantage the chance, seeing it as the next step in the process.
After a year of intensive meeting, discussion, and collaboration around the notion of “belief,” a topic that emerged through a series of chance encounters, the participants in the new project conducted a weekend-long “burn” where they labored intensively making work, discussing practices and ideas, and cooking. The result was a book-object, on Fire-soma rot, that was presented with a performance and extrapolation of the collaborative process at Beyond Baroque.
Participants
MultiPoint 01 Nantes France (session 2002-2003)
Dessislava Dimova . April Durham . Christine Laquet . Olive Martin . Michelle Naismith . Douglas Park
MultiPoint US (American intervention at Beyond Baroque, 2004)
April Durham . Christie Frields . Bryan Gorrie . Pam Strugar
MultiPoint US (at Small Wonder Foundation, 2007) ------>
Juliet Conlon . April Durham . Bryan Gorrie . Linda Parnell . Pam Strugar . Sharon Suhovy
Working with Multipoint US
MultiPoint US is open to anyone interested in artistic fields:
activists, referees, architects, artists, dancers, film makers, exhibition directors, storytellers, critics, collectors, musicians, designers, economists, writers, editors, exhibition organisers, historians, art historians, journalists, playwrights, landscape designers, philosophers, photographs, poets, psychoanalysts, sociologists, stylists, translators, web designers, etc.
The main criteria are a commitment to the group effort and a strong individual practice.
Applications are accepted in March 2008 for the new session beginning May 2008.
Multipoint US Artists . 2007-08
Visit the MultiPoint US blog : to join the blog, petition the director at