physical arts community brainstorm

April 20, 2008 by RootSpaceOnline

Dear fellow RootSpacers, Here's a summary of the points discussed during our mini-brainstorming session yesterday concerning the venue for the "Art factory" concept, and some of my comments. Rayya, George, Joe, feel free to add and correct any of it.

* We began by trying to imagine which kinds of artists could be working in the venue, in or order to imagine what it should look like and need, which led to us trying to project which fields would go well together and would be attractive to investors or companies requiring their services.

* The idea was, at least from my end, to try and develop a place that is financially sustainable, and then modify it or work on what can be done with it to promote and contribute to social change and development.

* Since Fadi is a potential investor, we looked at his interests, which are mainly in the modern digital media, mainly in animations. He might have a venue, in which he would like to have animators and other artists whose work contributes to the animation process (i.e. photographers, designers...). He is also open to have other artists work out of that space, but of course it has to be money-generating (through rent, perhaps training courses and classes...)

* It seemed to me that although Fadi is obviously in it for financial profit rather than social development, he is open enough to accept a model that might suit everyone. He seems attracted to the of an alternative space that includes various types of art and different types of work, where the animators and others could be free-lancers for his company (which he guarantees will bring them work from abroad), and where they could also be using the space (either through their work with his animation company or through rent or something else) to do their own creative work. He wants it to be a coop, and not a space with employees, and sees this type of space as something that will allow artists to be in their element and thus to be more inspired and productive.

* The difficulty in this is to bring in various types of art and artists whose work does not easily bring revenue, doesn't fit into the animation world, or doesn't easily attract, well, capitalists basically.

* I believe that despite his focus on money-making, Fadi's interest and potential provision of the venue is an opportunity that's worth looking at. If RootSpace is interested, and I think that this needs to be discussed amongst the artists concerned, two things need to happen:
1) Find a model for the place that would generate revenue but still promote creativity and not need artists to compromise their values or their personal non-commercial projects (this is feasible in my opinion, but needs LOTS of creative and strategic thinking, as well as the potential creation of the need/want for some of the things that this "factory" could provide)
2) Project who would be working from there, what the venue should look like in terms of size, amount of shared space, amount and type of private space, type and quantity of equipment needed... basically the type of ecosystem needed for the project. Then the cost and other issues can be projected, and if we want someone like Fadi to invest then we can pitch it to him, or can start working on how we can develop this with a clear objective in mind.

* When thinking of point 2, we began imagining what type of services the place could provide to businesses, to then imagine who would be working from there. There are a few ideas pitched, realizing of course that we need the input of other artists to really imagine what's needed (I'm quite clueless, I put some of the basic obvious ones). Services - Branding - Animation - Creation of concepts for events or projects - Design (graphic, furniture, fashion) - Editing - Music prod Artists - Animators - Photographers - Architects - Graphic designers - Carpenters/fine arts - Writers? (comic strips, stories for animations and other scripts) - Fashion designers Equipment - Computers (duh) - Black room - Carpentry tools and space - Music/sound - Drawing/sketching space/tools

(Notes/comments written up by Rayane)