I invite you to be part of the creation of “Oh, the River People” , a work with 108 parts. The work will be exhibited in "Tracks", an exhibition at Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo, New South Wales, Australia, 19^th October- 1^st December 2013 www.wpccdubbo.org.au

The gold coloured tiles have been allocated to participants in China and Japan. The blue tiles are video parts, 4 of which remain unclaimed.

You may select a tile from the clear areas by requesting its number or one of the remaining video tiles which will be allocated on request. Use the enquiries button at the bottom of the fishdog web, or send an email with - Can do - or - Can do video -

As the parts are returned I will add them to the compilation and update the image here on the fishdog web.

You may render the tile in whichever manner you please, either digitally (or print, render and scan), then return.

For a full synopsis see the pdf in the Now at the top of the fishdog web.

There are other collaborations in this exhibition: "Read Between the Lines" coordinated by my colleague Annette Simpson is now seeking participants, and two other works to be commenced and completed during the exhibition at the Western Plains Cultural Centre. More details on request.

This work was presented as a paste-up in the exhibition "New Tracks" at Salerno Gallery in Sydney as part of The Sydney Fringe festival in September 2012.

Facilitated by Jack Randell as part of the National Life and Landscapes project with the collaboration of: Georgia Graham, Imogen, Mariah, Claudia, Kylie and Carl Guisti, Felix Saw, Eskild Beck, Eleanor Bennett, Dave Stein, Christopher Donnison and Linda Przhedetsky, Christina Di Bona, Cate Valpiani, Elaine Jones, Brendan McCumstie, Anthony Quinn, Annette Wilson, Annabelle and Sophie Stephens, Annamarie Amu, Ana Victoria Corrales Claro, Daniel Zunzunegui, Ross and Jorja, Rod Armstrong, Rob McCormick, Peter Aland, Paul Woodhead, Milena Sallustio, newtown.grafitti, Mical Noelson, Megan Jones, Luis Vargas, Luciana Servulo, Louise Lindsay, Lily Fink, Kylie Bowles, Julia Featherstone, Jeremy Zierau, Janice Navin, James Farley, Ian Mulligan, Vicki Aland, Tonya Graham, Terry Fahy, Tamara Lawry, Sharon Zwi, Sandy Gordon-Baker, Sandra Alon, Jayne Bleechmore, Nathan Shooter

Copyright Share Alike terms of Creative Commons– http://creativecommons.org.au/learn-more/licences

Polyprosopos art through participant partitioning

Brendan McCumstie
August 2012

Sitting in a small street-side café. Looking out on an intermingle of people, a collage of opposites, passing by, I search for a common thread to hold together my understanding of the myriad faced unit that forms this collection of the sensible, this formation of a shared world, this common habitat, this weaving together of a plurality of human activity that I am a part of.

How to sew together words from the patchwork of ideas in my mind? A conceptual quilt that could cover the underlying thesis of the polyprosopos oeuvre I have been fortunate enough to be a part of. I am speaking now, not of the street in front of me, but of the artworks conceived and connected through Jack Randell and Annette Simpson.

In an attempt to tame the Cerberus of thought in my mind, I turn to order an espresso in badly intonated French (the café in which I sit is in Montparnasse, Paris). What purpose does that last bracketed statement have, other than to create jealousy? Because it is only through this, sometimes jarring, cultural and linguistic interaction that it strikes me; sitting here, talking to the wonderfully patient waiter, I am currently engaging in what is essentially a social activity, inextricably linked, on the one hand, to the existence of diversity and conflict between us, and on the other to a willingness to co-operate and act collectively to achieve a common end.

Just as my words, to the waiter, must seem heteroclite in nature. So too these montage artworks must seem, on the surface, to be a mélange in their visual treatment. Anthologized. Partitioned.

By partitioning space we define approaches for being together and apart simultaneously - dividers that have the capacity to both obscure and reveal. This process gives operating systems methods to divide and store memory, and that is precisely what these works achieve.

They manage to organize the multi-faced individual into an aesthetic mass, all the while drawing upon and presenting the comparative histories; creating a framing of experience by combining elements from different spheres of experience in a montage of artistic technique.

Whilst the curating artists act as passive governing connectors who give new visibility to the final work, it is the myriad collaborating creatives who hold the power. There exists within this dialogue an inversion of traditional class structure and as such this offers us an entry point to discuss borders. Political partitions are utilized to divide an area into parts with reference to separate areas of governance; a redistribution of space over time.

The governance, and reconnection, of the partitioned artworks by Randell and Simpson serve to remove the barriers and it is this elimination of the partition that politicizes the work, bringing into visibility the forms of connections between experience, image and meaning.

"Art is not political owing to the messages and feelings that it conveys on the state of social and political issues. Nor is it political owing to the way it represents social structures, conflicts or identities. It is political by virtue of the very distance that it takes with respect to those functions." 1

Politics, as the collective encasement of parcels of personal experience, is in activity, the search for a conflict resolution throughout which we compose, conserve and change the general convention under which we live. Resolution is the goal, not the ultimate achievement (as not all conflicts are, or ever can be, resolved), politics does not require consensus to thrive, and in fact requires diversity to flourish. It requires a collage of opposites.

The modality of these artworks creates a new resolution, a productive space offering new ways for people to relate to one another, dialogues for a new politic. A negotiation between parties that is not governed, not hierarchical, but inherently possesses procedures to allow the course of concession to take place via a collage of voices in an atonal, though not unharmonious, composition of the aesthetic.

Rather than echoing the modern desire to quest for the politic of the individual, this is a political aesthetic perceptible in the slight movements and changes of state able to be seen or noticed amidst all the subjects.

The aesthetic that exists within these works lies not in the composite concrete reality, but in the reduction of boundaries - just as the world is beautiful because of its diversity, not its homogeneity.

Within this open-ended investigation “all of us involved in the production have pointed to the subject, and taken creative action to as if to say ‘it could be like this.’”2 But, personal ambition has also been released enough to state: "its ok if it doesn’t look like my idea".  That attitude, politically, is something useful these works have to offer the world.

1. The Politics of Aesthetics (2006) Jacques Ranciere, Gabriel Rockhill.  Interview: Janus-Face of Politicised art
2. Excerpt from private conversation with Jack Randall.

A collaboration facilitated by Jack Randell as part of the National Life and Landscapes project, and exhibited in New Tracks at Salerno Gallery, Sydney, 2012, with the collaboration of:

Milena Sallustio, Tim Winters, Breanna, Koren and Dad, Lisa, Ingrid Yin Hu, Sharon Zwi, Nikki McCutcheon, Sandra Winkworth, Jenny Norris, Leanne Tremain, Jessica Moore, Tonya Graham, Christina M. Di Bona, Allan Shillingsworth, Ruby Davis, Terry Fahy, Fiona Yardley, Greg McLaren, newtown.graffiti, Megan Jones, Penny Johnson, Lou Lindsay, Gweneth Buckle, Sandra Alon, Russell Wilder, Peter Everingham, Ken Tucker, Josh Heard, Neville Dawson, Kylie Bowles, Cate Valpiani, Lara Scolari, Janis Stewart, Kent Buchanan, Martina Calvi, Amy Duloy, Lea Tucker, Craig Stubbs-Race, Stella Bella, Jessica Sheridon, Fiona Cameron, Frances Brown, Maria Vainio, Sarah Crawford, Bryan Croll, Mark McIntosh, Donatus Gurnito, Christina Sunario, Shayla Anderson, Eleanor Lofts, Michelle

Participation was free, and invited under the Share Alike terms of Creative Commons– http://creativecommons.org.au/learn-more/licences

Anthony Quinn- An Email Conversation With Artist Jack Randell

Posted August 26, 2012

http://anthonyquinnartist.com/2012/08/an-email-conversation-with-artist-jack-randell/

AQ: How do you manage expectations, recognition and reward of participants, where you may receive them (including monetary, if applicable)?

JR: I nominate that these works are Share Alike copyright. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/

Which means that myself and all the participants share copyright. We each may use, distribute, archive, change or profit from the resulting image according to the copyright commons outlines. In the public domain, I endeavour to acknowledge all the participants in the work. For those works that have a physical component that I have provided or paid for, then I consider that I own its physical state. We each may use the image according to Share Alike terms, providing any resultant work is shared under the same guidelines. That being said I would have not much control over use and distribution anyway, and honestly I haven’t yet found an occasion when when it bothers me. I have had creative content stolen and re-used, and my lawyers tell me unless I am a corporation with large legal resources, its not much use chasing it up.

So the reward is the community value of goodwill, the recognition is the acknowledgement of participation, and participant expectation is met by the offer of a high resolution image of the final work for the participants own use.

'I am nothing without my mob, my mob is nothing without me' Anon

a study in 'community conversation' and the individual, facilitated by Annette Simpson with sincere thanks to all who participated (in no particular order)

Kim Goldsmith, Brendan McCumstie, Gill Pedrona, Sam Paine,

Nicki McCutcheon, Rowena Galway, Paul Woodhead,

Katherine Morgan, Sue Southwood, Lee Wilde, Kathielyn Job,

Sandra Alon, Gwen Buckle, Rowena Horden, Judi Ringger,

Corrine Brittian, Kylie Bowles Haskins, Heather Vallance, Brigid Palin,

Janice Jan, Bronwyn Austen, David Stein, Ingrid Yin Hu, Julie Andrews,

Ben Palmer, Jude Morrell, John Cameron, Pauline Hams,

Kerry Palmer, Milena Sallustio, Tamara Lawry, Martina Calvi. Lily Fink, Viv Hill, Georgia Mulligan, Heidi Lee, Mitzi Vardill, Catherine Stein,

Mari Manoukian. Marilyn Allan, Terry Fahy, Lara Scolari,

Gerald Soworka, Miriam Cullen, Rachel Butler McDougal,

Yvonne Levenston, Philippa Shaw, Joy Lukunic, Lea Tucker,

Ken Tucker, Louise Lindsay, Nadja la Ganza, Trish Yates, Sophie Bray, Roseanne Summerville, Cathy Clapham, Mike Martin, Fiona Yardley,

Wendy Lowe, Sharon Zwi, Pauline Mulhearn, Paul Andrews

This work was commenced at the opening of my small exhibition of other collaborations at Bar del Convent, San Agustin, Barcelona. All but 5 of the 'tiles' were complete, so I picked up participants on our journey back to Australia. We found some good people in London, among them Martin Hamblen, who was doing a performance work in front of the Tate Modern called "A Penny for You Thoughts". This started a great conversation, leading to his participation in completing the work. We also met some young folks at Q8, (an excellent education and engagement facility) Singapore Art Museum who agreed to collaborate, and then there was Guitar Wes who I travelled out west to look at a project at Brewarrina in the first week of our return. Many thanks to all.

Gracias por tu participación en el trabajo "Palau de la Música" que forma parte de mi proyecto  colaborativo  "Vida y Paisajes Nacionales". Tu fe en el proceso, ha producido un extraño y encantador resultado. Mis ojos mirando intensamente los patrones accidentales mezclándose con el  propósito de cada una de las piezas.

Todas las imágenes de estas series han tenido una revelación lenta, que es casi lo contrario de imágenes hechas por una sola mano. Pero el verdadero valor es que es una impresión del Palau de la Música que ninguno de nosotros podría haber llegado en forma individual, y por eso estoy muy agradecido.

Collaborators: Futaro Suzuki, Ana Victoria Corrales Claro, Mireia Borderia, Daniel Zunzunegui, Nikola Carevic, Roberto Espinagosa, Mario Villalpando, Arantxa Zunzunegui, Wesley Thompson, Katharina Kuhn, Cheryl Tan, Martin Hamblen, Monica Cortez, Oscar Randell, Isabella Pozzi, Emilie Frenois, David, Tano Vinzia, Benjamin Palmer, Ana Celina Pastelin, Mayra Benitez Poyo, Cesar Sanchez, Javier Santos Liebana, Facundo

In this work "National Life and Landscapes- Shearing Shed" I emailed each of the participants one of 24 digital tiles of a line image from a subject unknown to the recipients.

My fellow artists were asked to digitally render the tile in colour or texture using the paint bucket tool in the Paint application on their PC or similar.

When returned, all tiles were placed back in order and the outline restored. Participants then received a high res. digital file of the finished work to print, archive or do with whatever they saw fit. All the works in the "National Life and Landscapes" project are produced under the terms of Share Alike agreement of Creative Commons.

The conceptual rationale is to produce a work from diverse sources. This for me is exciting in itself, not the least because I cannot predict what the final work will look like. Other than as author of the process, only I know the original subject image. In this project I aim to dissolve some doubts I have about the following questions:

• Will the integrity of the original image survive?

Yes it did, it is still readable as an image of a shearing shed in the countryside.

• Or do we arrive at a whole new place?

Yes we do, the end result is a surprising interpretation that no one of us could have created

• What does the end result say about the self or group as arbiter of representation?

An integrated collaboration is equally capable of producing a representative visual statement as that of the single creative viewpoint. Providing the individual is acting freely of their own volition, with the preparedness to locate the result alongside others, then an exciting new matrix is possible equivalent to the focused energy of the solitary creative act. This is not new in theatre, but is not common in fine arts.

• And how might that speak poetically about our presence on this ancient planet and this point in time?

As the live-ers of our own lives, we carry the story of existence from our past into the future. We are each responsible for that. When called to act in good faith in community with others, we thread our story into the weave of the prayer mat of acceptance of who we are and of what we might become. This work of the larger project "National Life and Landscapes" is an image of a shearing shed, an image of country made heroic in Australian post-white settlement by song, poem and painting. The "National Life and Landscapes" version of the shearing shed is made by revealing what might be, from who this small community of 24 artists are, rather than what we thought we should be. Courageous in revealing rather than deferentially affirming.

I am highly excited by the result. A map of how our uniqueness represents the highest capacity for mutuality and connectedness with others.

As my vision adjusts to its community of voices, "National Life and Landscapes- Shearing Shed" still speaks to me well after I finished re-composing it. It’s a bit like those studio pieces that get started, are put aside, then picked up again, while over the same time several other works have started and finished in a single stream of creativity. And these slow moving works are often the most revealing, becoming the road less travelled, the one requiring more care and caution, not from danger, but because there is potentially more to miss.

The community of fellow travellers who contribute to the creation of the works in the "National Life and Landscapes" project are some of my friends who have shown faith and trust in my itinerant path as an artist, and to you all I offer my gratitude for this and other gestures of support.

I will publish for my own catalogue a Giclee limited edition of 25 on Canson Infinity Artist Canvas 390gsm, 24x36cm.

Please contact me if you are interested.

Participating artists: Rebecca Pinchin, Kerry Palmer, Jodie Benton, Mike Sutherland, Laurie Rouse, Darrell England, Janice Navin, John Mosley, Lea Tucker, Lilli Anderson, Annette Simpson, Phill Gersbach, James Farley, Brendan McCumstie, Mel Singh, Ken Tucker, Phil Cameron, Brett Anderson, Kelly Robson, Rob and Marilyn, Kim Goldsmith, Stephan and Donna, Anthia Hart, Sandy and Ian

Gracias por tu participación en este proyecto " Vida y Paisajes Nacionales ". Tu fe en el proceso ha producido un extraño y encantador resultado.

Me asombra el ver y leer patrones accidentales mezclándose con el intenso y apasionante  propósito de cada una de las piezas. Todas las imágenes de este cuerpo de trabajo (Vida y Paisajes Nacionales) han tenido una revelación lenta, que es casi lo contrario de imágenes hechas por una sola mano, que a menudo las comprendo muy rápidamente. Pero la verdadera belleza es que es una impresión del Palau Nacional que ninguno de nosotros podría haber llegado en forma individual, y por eso estoy muy agradecido.

Siendo parte de los segmentos, las obras de este proyecto encajan perfectamente con lo que dice Jacques Rancière en términos generales de las prácticas artísticas, en cuanto a que: "formar parte en la partición de lo perceptible en la medida que suspenden las coordenadas ordinarias de la experiencia sensible y remarcan la red de relaciones entre espacios y tiempos, sujetos y objetos, lo común y lo y lo singular. "(Véase Jacques Rancière" la política de la estética 'en www.16beavergroup.org)

Thank you for your participation in this work "National Life and Landscapes- Palau Nacionale". Your faith in the process has produced a strange and delightful result. My eyes drift to looking and reading the accidental patterns mingling with the intense purpose of each of the parts. All of the pictures in this body of work (National Life and Landscapes) have a slow reveal, that is almost the opposite of pictures made by one hand, that I often understand very rapidly. But the true beauty is that it is an impression of Palau Nationale that none of us could have arrived at individually, and for that I am most grateful.

In being made of segments, the works in this project fit neatly with what Jacques Ranciere says broadly of artistic practices, to the extent that they "take part in the partition of the perceptible insofar as they suspend the ordinary coordinates of sensory experience and reframe the network of relationships between spaces and times, subjects and objects, the common and the singular." (see Jacques Ranciere ‘The Politics of Aesthetics’ at www.16beavergroup.org)

Contributing artists- Ruslan, Cris Peira, Adrien Biot, Marta, Alba Gasset, Arthur Randell, Anna Victoria Corrales, Claro, Anna Caballero, Arantxa Zunzunegui, Luis Vargas, Francesco Aragone, Angel Muñiz, Pepe Usagre, Estibaliz Lecea, Juan Carlos Mejia, Cesar Sanchez, Dolores Martina, Rocio Luna, Elaine Jones, Arol, Oscar Randell, Carles Guitart, Mireia, Luis Torrento

The Palau Nationale is Barcelona’s Museum of Contemporary Art, known as MNAC. The image was created with participants from Barcelona, as well as other parts of Spain, Lima, Australia and the UK.

An online strategy for production, the canvas edition was printed in Australia and exhibited in Barcelona in May 2012, along with other pieces from the National Life and Landscapes series.

The works in this series bring together individual creative desire to form images of collective voice. Crowd sourced art making, undermining the 20th century's "solitary artist genius" mode of single point sensitivity.

Participants from the audience of a lecture given on aesthetics at Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo for the teachers day for Art Express, 25/07/11

Tim Gratton, Susanne Jones, Wendy Ramsay, Annette Holman, Noel Dewsbery, Vicki Gainsford, Margaret McColl, Jillian Reidy, Candice Roots, Sonja-Gai Hasler, E Yap, Sally Underwood-Nalder, Terry Fahy, Lorin Doyle, Trudy Alfred, Rebecca Nixon, Linda Chant, Heather Gordon, Cath McNeill, Kathleen Brown

The "National Life and Landscapes" project are collaborative works.

Your participation is invited under the Share Alike terms of Creative Commons – "This licence lets others distribute, remix and build upon the work, even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit the original creator/s (and any other nominated parties) and license any new creations based on the work under the same terms. All new derivative works will carry the same licence, so will also allow commercial use. In other words, you agree to share your materials with others, if they will share their new works in return. This licence is often compared to the free software licences, known as 'copyleft.'"

Court House was produced by participants at a talk I gave on conceptual aesthetics at Western Plains Cultural Centre in July 2011

Contributing artists- Ulrich Krauss, Pierre Granoux, Jenaro de Rosenzweig, Eric Mefsloh, Claudia Rannow, Stefanie Schmid, Nils Meyer, Mical Noelson, Stefan Bubenzer, Konrad Tadesse, Anna Rossow, Tobias Sirtl, George Ertas, Laurent Bousson, Manuela Steffin, Danijel Zbil, Bruno Nagel, Lisa Polten, Michael Lee, Victoria Gisborne-Land

This work was conceived and produced in Berlin in April 2012

This work was produced as a collaborative digital exercise with students in my Digital Graphics Tvet Class at the Lincoln Education and Training Unit at Orana Juvenile Justice. Most of these boys are aboriginal and are sentenced from courts in the Western Region of New South Wales.

I gave the team an archive of cloud photographs and asked that they cut, paste and edit to create the perfect cloud. Using skills delivered in the learning sessions I asked that they then make digitally interpretive changes to the theme of You, Me and Us as three versions of their perfect cloud. These thematic cloud images were then shared to a central accessible folder.

The final tiles used in the poster were retrieved from the pool of images by the boys and negotiated to create the final image. The work references the Cloud series work of Michael Riley, and addressed the theme of the 2011 NSW Reconciliation Schools Challenge of You, Me and Us.

Our poster won first prize in the years 9-10 category, with each of the six boys winning a gift pack of NSW Reconciliation Council and FM Triple J merchandise. The award ceremony and exhibition was held at the Australian Museum from 27 May- 5 June 2011.

"I found the work very engaging. It abstracted the concept of You, Me, Us, into a dimension that allowed the audience to engage with it according to one's own background, thus it was a very inclusive statement. To me it sang loudly the words, 'same, different' --- in that, it highlighted alikeness and at the same time difference and yet together the whole was complete. It was through the wholeness that the work held together so well".

Kerrie Murphy, Co-Chairperson (Non-Indigenous) of the NSW Reconciliation Council

You, Me, Us is an archival digital print on Hahnemuhle matt fine art smooth photo rag 308 gsm 60 x 84cm

"Nothing builds self esteem and confidence like accomplishment, and for the children and their carers from the Apollo community involved with Jack's special school holiday project at Apollo House, this was certainly was showcased. Jack was able to positively engage these participants in art by encouraging their creative flare and triggering their imagination. Watching the smiles and looks of achievement on everyone's faces as their individual artworks came together as a community masterpiece was very special" -Johanna Leader.

Laugh, Dance, Dream 2012 is part of the National Life and Landscapes project.

This work was produced during the summer holiday workshops at Apollo House Community Centre, Dubbo.

A collaborative project with community participants.

The 33 participants were: Breana, Siara, Lakkirri, Kota, Loriana, Jordan, Luke, Domonic, Declan, Hailie, Koorine, Liegh, Mareous, Googie, Tyerell, Michael, Mel, Hayden, Chris, Blake, Daniel, Maddie, Maxwell, Jamari, Alex, Emma, Tallis, Johanna, Jahnesta, Shaylia, Gabby, Max, Malakye.