THE DHARMA COLLECTIVE - AND, OR, NOT
Matthew Welch & Laurence Alan Price
www.stasisvoid.com/thedharmacollective
www.stasisvoid.com/thedharmacollective
A two week residency, installation and research project @ made in goldsmiths gallery, Goldsmiths SU, University of London 14/3/11-1/4/11
GOOGLE SEARCH INPUTS
As part of our residency at Goldsmiths we set up a project over the first week where an intern would work during each day in the makeshift studio we had constructed. This studio acted as our collaborative thinking space during the residency and was filled with books, images, objects and equipment from both our individual studios. During our meetings prior to and during the residency we developed lists of terms, words that interested us both in and out of the context we had found them in. It is a mixture of these terms (some of which stem from our first exhibition with the dharma collective) and terms selected in response to the project and earlier days search terms that make up the lists.
The GOOGLE SEARCH INPUT project was designed to be both contained and open - a structured intervention into the process of blind searching, presented with a multitude of references, images and data. By asking interns to select 5 images from any page of their search results we (re-)inserted a human process inbetween the search terms and the results. So when the dharma collective searched for the word modernism, there were only 5 image results for us to study and choose from. We saw the project as a mode of outsourcing research - albeit on a very domestic level.
The responses to the task, the words/terms/phrases, and the images that the interns were presented with became alienated forms - a personal notion of agency was stripped from their task.
As we were not concerned with the content of the images but the process of the project, the search input terms, the interns subjective decisions and the resulting images collected were redundant forms.
The GOOGLE SEARCH INPUTS project along with other research and data gathered during our time in goldsmiths will go on to form the foundations of the dharma collectives' future projects. When developing the project early on, we decided that the images selected by interns would be printed and then shredded. The shredded images would then be pulped and cast to form a rock-like surface used to create the cave. Due to the time consuming process of casting with pulped paper, we decided to use the shredded images to build a structure with paste, timber and wire. These two monoliths would form a symbolic cave entrance which people could both pass through into another part of the installation and also view as sculpture.
What follows is a copy of the text given to each of our interns and the corresponding lists of search terms. Over the 4 days of the project we amassed nearly 1000 images generated by the interaction of google search engine and our interns. The Dharma Collective plan to publish these images as a website in the near future.
Thanks to our interns - Sam, Eva, Heather & Harriet
THE DHARMA COLLECTIVE; AND, OR, NOT
PROJECT BRIEF;
USING THE LIST OF WORDS, TERMS AND PHRASES PROVIDED THAT APPLY TO THE DATE YOU ARE WORKING, ENTER EACH TERM INTO GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH, AS IT IS EXACTLY PRINTED AND SPELLED. THEN, AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION, SELECT FIVE IMAGES FROM THE SEARCH RESULTS GENERATED (THESE FIVE IMAGES ARE COMPLETELY OF YOUR CHOICE, THEY CAN BE IMAGES YOU FIND INTERESTING, IMAGES YOU HATE, IMAGES THAT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND IN RELATION TO THE SEARCH ETC. THE CHOICE IS YOURS!)
IN YOUR FOLDER ON THE DESKTOP (LABELED WITH YOUR NAME AND DATE) PLACE THE FIVE SELECTED IMAGES INTO A SUBFOLDER OF THE FOLDER, NAMING IT WITH THE WORD/TERM/PHRASE FROM THE LIST THAT THE IMAGES CORRESPOND TO.
THERE ARE THIRTY WORD/TERM/PHRASES FOR EACH DAY (SO THIRTY FOR EACH PERSON) YOU DO NOT HAVE TO RUSH, GO AT A NATURAL PACE AS IF YOU WERE RESEARCHING THESE TERMS NATURALLY FOR YOUR OWN PROJECT OR ENQUIRY. IT DOES NOT MATTER IF YOU FINISH BY THE END OF THE DAY, BUT PLEASE AIM TO REACH YOUR TARGETS!
HAVE FUN AND GOOD LUCK,
THE DHARMA COLLECTIVE
16/3/11
MODERNISM
CAVE PAINTINGS
CAVES
AVANT-GARDE SCHOOLS
AVANT GARDE
HEGEMONY
CAPITALISM
CONSTRUCTIVISM
FUTURISM
DE STIJL
AGATHA CHRISTIE
AFGHANI EXCAVATIONS
LOST ISLAND
MACHINES
MAGNETS
MANTA RAY
GLOBALIZATION
ONTOLOGY
NATIONAL HISTORY
WORLD WARS
ISLAND
UTOPIA
PARADISE
FREDERIC JAMESON
THOMAS HIRSCHORN
ATLANTIC OCEAN
YURT HUTS
FELT MONGOLIA
MIKE NELSON
ECO-CONSCIOUSNESS
17/3/11
WALTER GROPIUS
BAUHAUS NAZI
INGVAR KAMPRAD
DIETER RAMS
MERZBAU
SEX-POL
SWEEDEN
WAITING ROOMS
BRUTALIST
MONOLITH
STEAM ENGINE
JAPAN
ALEXANDER RODCHENKO
STRIP LIGHTS
THE CONTEMPORARY
ENGLISH TEA
SLAVES
AND OR NOT
GEORGE BOOLE
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
BALM
SHELF BRACKETS
THE TIME MACHINE
ANCIENT BOWLS
CHRISTIAN BALE CHRIST
MAGNOLIA
HYPEREALITY
REINCARNATION
FINANCIAL CRISIS
FREE MASONRY
18/3/11
BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR
FRENCH REVOLUTION
EGYPTIAN CONTEMPORARY ART
DUNKIRK
BATTLE OF HASTINGS
HADRIANS WALL
TATLINS TOWER
PYRAMIDS
STARGATE
THE GREAT EXHIBITION
FATALIS MACHINA
HEURISTICS
THREE STAGE ROCKET
PRODUCTION
THE UNKNOWNS
SAVAGES
CELTIC MONUMENTS
PSUEDO PYRAMID
MENHIR
TUMULUS CRYPT GAV’RINIS
FRENCH DOLMEN
IN SITU
ROCKETS
MILLENIUM FALCON
AUTHENTICITY
CRITIQUE
DISCUSSION
COMMUNICATION
THE MOONS SURFACE
TRANSCENDENTALISM
21/3/11
INSURRECTION
TRANS-HISTORICAL MEMBRANE
SACRED SITE
AGENCY
JOSEPH BEUYS
NEW PSYCHIC LANDSCAPES
ZODIAC
OFFICE SHREDDER
POANG
THE SINGULARITY
ANCIENT MAPS
HOLY MOUNTAIN
ENTROPY
TIN OPENERS
GLUTTONY OF CONSUMPTION
PSEUDO-SCIENCE
ELECTRO-MAGNETIC FIELD
GANGS
CROWD
QUEUES
FORTS
HABITUAL
RAGE
EXPEDIT
1968
MAGIC
SUSTAINABILITY
MICRO-BLOGGING
LIBYA
PROXY
