Mail-Art ++
a C-Generation Mail-Art Project using Digital and Analog Strategies for Cultural Cohesion during the COVID19 Pandemic.
PART I
CONCEPT (Short)
This is a collection of miniature artworks in the form of an art-multiple set, which explore diverse strategies to engage the viewer through play. The set includes: an art pin, two performative card works, a half-readymade balloon piece, an artisan game, a sound artwork, three art placebos, an artisan pasta recipe, and a miniature museum. The set was designed to aid in maintaining mental and physical health through engagement and shows how important the role of art is in a time of crisis.
PART II
CONCEPT (Long)
Topic
The Games & Wonderment project thematically addresses art and cultural during the COVID19 crisis and the imposed governmental restrictions that are on the one hand important measures for our well being and on the other hand a challenge to all those active in the cultural sector. The project was therefore created as a “C-Generation” artwork that is relevant to a time in which art practices must conform to rules of social distancing,
Content
Games & Wonderments is a collection of miniature artworks in the form of an art-multiple set, which explore diverse strategies to engage the viewer through play. The set includes: an art pin, two performative card works, a half-readymade balloon piece, an artisan game, a sound artwork, three art placebos, an artisan pasta recipe, a miniature museum, and an interactive AR Poster.
Coined as a c-generation mail art exhibition augmented by technology, the project was created to be enjoyed in the confines of the home during a time where imposed physical constraints and along with the mental challenges must be overcome by using the imagination to engage ourselves in a form of aesthetic play beneficial to both our physical health and mental wellbeing.
Although appearing as a simple collection, the project is innovative not only because it makes use of new technologies but because it makes use of both digital and analog cultural strategies to create a project that can engage a wide and diverse audience. Throughh a variety of means and it is also able to make use of an establish network of communication such as the post services while at the same time linking modern channels of communication via social networking.
Scenerio
Each of the artworks included in the collection is an art-multiple, which is packed
In a reusable “art box” that contains all of the artworks and sets of instructions for engaging with them. Although people receive the package at their own residences, the project recreates the feeling of opening the doors to a museum through the process of opening the package.
Once opened, engagement begins and the “visitor” is on a path of discovery very much like the one when walking through an exhibition in a museum where one encounters artworks of diverse genre including performance works, prints, sculptures, and even sound art.
a C-Generation Mail-Art Project using Digital and Analog Strategies for Cultural Cohesion during the COVID19 Pandemic.
PART I
CONCEPT (Short)
This is a collection of miniature artworks in the form of an art-multiple set, which explore diverse strategies to engage the viewer through play. The set includes: an art pin, two performative card works, a half-readymade balloon piece, an artisan game, a sound artwork, three art placebos, an artisan pasta recipe, and a miniature museum. The set was designed to aid in maintaining mental and physical health through engagement and shows how important the role of art is in a time of crisis.
PART II
CONCEPT (Long)
Topic
The Games & Wonderment project thematically addresses art and cultural during the COVID19 crisis and the imposed governmental restrictions that are on the one hand important measures for our well being and on the other hand a challenge to all those active in the cultural sector. The project was therefore created as a “C-Generation” artwork that is relevant to a time in which art practices must conform to rules of social distancing,
Content
Games & Wonderments is a collection of miniature artworks in the form of an art-multiple set, which explore diverse strategies to engage the viewer through play. The set includes: an art pin, two performative card works, a half-readymade balloon piece, an artisan game, a sound artwork, three art placebos, an artisan pasta recipe, a miniature museum, and an interactive AR Poster.
Coined as a c-generation mail art exhibition augmented by technology, the project was created to be enjoyed in the confines of the home during a time where imposed physical constraints and along with the mental challenges must be overcome by using the imagination to engage ourselves in a form of aesthetic play beneficial to both our physical health and mental wellbeing.
Although appearing as a simple collection, the project is innovative not only because it makes use of new technologies but because it makes use of both digital and analog cultural strategies to create a project that can engage a wide and diverse audience. Throughh a variety of means and it is also able to make use of an establish network of communication such as the post services while at the same time linking modern channels of communication via social networking.
Scenerio
Each of the artworks included in the collection is an art-multiple, which is packed
In a reusable “art box” that contains all of the artworks and sets of instructions for engaging with them. Although people receive the package at their own residences, the project recreates the feeling of opening the doors to a museum through the process of opening the package.
Once opened, engagement begins and the “visitor” is on a path of discovery very much like the one when walking through an exhibition in a museum where one encounters artworks of diverse genre including performance works, prints, sculptures, and even sound art.
The difference between a museum visit and engaging with the Games & Wonderments mail-art project is that each of the works in the project must be experienced through active participation. In this way, the viewers shed their roles as observers and are placed in the role of the artist simply by providing experiential moments steeped in aesthetic expression.
The four Swiss languages are featured in the artworks contained in the Games & Wonderments package: German, French, Italian and Raeto-Romansh. English is used as a bridge language so that the project is available to English speaking communities.
Fig.1. The ArtBox showing instructions and labeling.
Home Staging
In the present situation, mobility within a very short time has been drastically reduced and cultural life in public has come to a halt. Although it is an unprecedented situation posing extreme problems for the arts, innovative solutions at the digital and analog levels are possible and the Games & Wonderments project shows this.
However, whatever creative strategies and alternative formats can be developed and applied so that art can prosper in a time where social distancing is and my become the new norm, we must take into consideration that things may very well shift away from large intuitional event makers and mass audiences to smaller and more socially relevant parties.
Independent of what results from the present dilemma, there is hope for a sustainable society if we embrace the epidemic as a chance to replace rampant consumerist culture with practices of social solidarity and cultural production. Such a transition would lead us away from the collapse of the support systems that provide for our very existence.
Fig. 2. The instructions inside the project box that explain how the project works and how to participate. There are several levels of participation: 1) Exchanging an artwork with an artwork from the artist receiving the package; 2) Registering the artwork and adding it to the digital map of artists and artworks; and tweeting it to the dedicated Twitter channel for the project.
PART III
MARKETING
Introduction
Games & Wonderments is created as a new form of mail-art in which participation is a key factor behind the development of a compatible communication strategy and marketing concept which will insure the success of the project.
Analog Strategy
When it comes to the marketing strategy for the project, the most important of all is the box in which the project is sent. The box is conceived as a multipurpose and reusable object, and this makes it possible to forward the box with new content any number of times to new parties.
The box is initially sent with ten miniature artworks from the Games & Wonderments collection. Each of the artworks is separately packaged and can be enjoyed independent from the other works. The instructions that accompany the box communicate the intensions of the project and inform recipients that they may keep any one of the artworks, but in order to keep the work, they must add one to the collection and then send it to another artist of their choice. To extend the project to a larger audience, the work that was exchanged can be given away to an acquaintance of the artist.
Fig. 3: A screen shot of a Twitter page showing the tweet containing an image from the “Games & Wonderments project. Twitter can be used to collect photos of the artworks included in the collection as they change over time. This is done by making a pic of the artwork that an artists is going to include and then sending the pic as a Tweet using the hash tag: “#gamesnwonderments”. A search in Twitter’s “explore function” using the hash tag will bring up all submitted images.
Daisy Chain eEfect:
Phase 1: The total number of Games & Wonderments sets planned is 100; Each project package reaches an artist who in turn sends it to another artist after replacing one of the original artworks with a one of their own. At the point where each of the original artworks has been replaced, 10 artists would have received and artwork and given one away, amounting to a total of 20 artworks in circulation.
Phase 2: Should the cycle of receiving-adding-sending be repeated for the remain 99 project packages, the number of artists involved reaches a total of 1001and the number of artworks exchanged reaches 1010.
Phase 3: Should the cycle continue beyond the initial phase and artists replace artworks that have already been replaced, the number of artists involved and the number of artworks exchanged reaches a significant number which can be considered equivalent to the number of visitors to a museum exhibition.
Of note here: the project reaches a sizable audience o without assembling a mass audience a museum., Also, although dependent on where participating artists send the package, the project crosses international boundaries at a time where travel is in many cases restritive and not possible.
Digital Strategy
Given the possibility that the process of exchange would continue ad infinitum, the number of artists participating and the number of works seen would reach a significant number and above all generate an interesting trail that would offer valuable information, which would not only aid in implementing a digital marketing strategy but would be of use to further explore the data set at an artistic level as a collaborative work.
Such an exploration has been implemented in the project by simply including a dedicated QR Code in the instructions located in each of the boxes and requesting recipients to scan it in using a smart phone.
The scanning of the QR code results in a request to digitally sign the Games & Wonderments Logbook that catalogues information on the artwork, the date and location of the exchange.. At the same time, participants are offered the opportunity to post the work given or taken to social media using the provided hashtags and links.
Fig. 5. The ArtPac is a reusable packing system designed for the Games & Wonderments project. Constructed with waterproof material and easily closed using a system of Velcro fasteners, the ArtPac can be reused to send the Games & Wonders to other recipients. The ArtPac acts as a shipping container and as a protective sleeve to the ArtBox that contains the artworks. The QR Code located on the outside of the ArtPac is unique for each ArtPac and can be scanned in by the recipient to announce the date and geographic location of that particular ArtPac back to the original sender. The data is collected and participants with the proper URLs can follow the journey of the package as it makes its way from one artist to the next
Interestingly enough, the requests for information function similar to the app used for coronavirus tracking, creating a digital marketing strategy for the Games & Wonderment project. This offers all of the participating a parallel visualization of the process of viral infection, offering a concrete example that shows how something can easily spread from a single person to thousands of persons.
Fig. 6: A mock photo mosaic created by using pics from the collection from the Games & Wonderments project. If placed based on geo location, a mosaic an image of the shape of Switzerland would emerge that would offer a true overview of the cultural landscape of Switzerland created in collaboration by Swiss artists.
At the same time, taking part in a project that offers participants the opportunity to experience new cultural strategies for creation and dissemination of art, which when linked to the communication potential that social media platforms offer, extends the project into further dimensions beyond the project’s scope, making it a valuable experience for artists who are open to new possibilities in making their work known while at the same time offering valuable tools for future cultural strategies under diverse conditions.