Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of South Wales (joint submission with Cardiff Metropolitan University and University of Wales Trinity Saint David)
“The New El Dorado"
Location: Manifesta 8: The 8th edition of Manifesta, The European Biennial of Contemporary Art, Murcia and Cartagena, Spain
Research Context
"Common Culture" is an artists' collective comprising Campbell, D., Durden, M., & Brown, I.
Common Culture were commissioned to make The New El Dorado as a reflection of their on-going critical engagement with the cultural manifestation of commodity consumption.
Research Imperatives
The practice-as-research project explored three related questions; firstly what processes of commodification are at work in the consumption of art & popular forms of entertainment?; secondly, what is the role of comedy in mediating social conflict?; and thirdly, how can national identity be explored within a global context?
Project methods
The video used an episodic dramatic narrative to critique the assumed efficacy of socially engaged art and the interventionist impulse at the heart of biennials like Manifesta. Foregrounding their own status as cultural tourists, Common Culture, engineered a strategic collision between elitist assumptions attached to art and its consumption, and the perceived vulgar aspects of popular culture.
Dissemination
Banff International Curatorial Institute Symposium: Are Curators Unprofessional? Screening by Teresa Gleadowe, Banff, Canada. November 14, 2010.
“Collaboration” Research Symposium at Goldsmiths University February 15 20011. Screening and seminar presentation.
Screening at The Future of Art: peripheries use value and social change. ARCO Art Fair- ARCO Foundation Room Pavillion 8., Madrid, Spain. 16/02/13.
Screening at the Trashing Performance conference and public presentation and discussion on the panel: “Common”. University of Roehampton, and the Live Art Development Agency, 29 October 2011,Toynbee Studios, Theatre, London.
