As part of its project entitled Promiscuous Infrastructures, the Artivistic collective invites submissions for the second phase of the project, which will take place from March 9 to April 14, 2012, at Skol, an artist-run centre in Montréal.

What Artivistic is up to
Artivistic is currently in the research-creation phase of a publication tentatively entitled Promiscuous Infrastructures: experiments in art + information + activism. Rooted in the work of Artivistic’s friends, allies, and past participants, the publication sets its sights on “autonomous infrastructures” by looking at radical education & the production of knowledge, intergenerational support systems, as well as sustainable financing.

For Phase 2, we will set up a temporary printing workshop at Skol. This intervention is meant to collectively visualize our concern, obsession perhaps, with what lies behind art, activism and knowledge production: (1) the ways in which we relate to each other, (2) organise to work together, and (3) the conditions in which things are being done. In other words, we are asking:

How do we build value in affective relationships?
How do we organise for that (models, processes, strategies)?
How do we in turn outstretch these in the long-term?

In order to get a grip on autonomous infrastructures, Artivistic will turn its ideas, words and images into printable material that can be shared in such a way that others can contribute and engage their own approach.

By engaging in this convivial method of making printed stuff to be passed on, commented on, and remixed, we hope to bring ideas to life and to punctuate collective thought processes that have to do with autonomy. In parallel to the set up of a printing area, an office space and a documentation centre, the public will be invited to further engage with the process through activities and events. Works featured will be composed of material produced by Artivistic, collaborators and that selected from the present call for submissions.

Submission requirements: 3xA cells
Artivistic will accept submissions that will address the above interrogations, in the form of printable material, and produced by “3xA cells” composed of 1 artist + 1 activist + 1 academic.

Of course, participants need not exactly see themselves in these ways, but there should be in every cell a trouble-maker, someone that is obsessed with form (or that can make things look pretty), and another who more often thinks things through a bit too much.

What for
Our stance is not so much “what is to be done?” but “something is already being done.” And we not so much want to show it (off) but to actually come to value it better, to become more confident collectively. We believe that the fundamental predicament of our times is fear. It makes us defensive, it insidiously brings about isolation. In 1969, it was right after the initiation of the first Black Panther’s Free Breakfast for School Children Program that J. Edgar Hoover (FBI director) stated that the Panthers posed “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.” This exemplifies the power of alternative infrastructures and brings us back to today’s (global) criminalisation of dissent. As we know, valuing is not an individual act, it is a collective one. We see this project as a kind of “work interruption”: to interrupt the current flow of things, of business-as-usual (not for an anonymous “system” but for ourselves, as artists, activists, academics); to perhaps go back to some of our footnotes (left behind because we were too busy going forward); to take the time to think and to nourish each other, to be present, in order to live differently. By making stuff together, we can get to know each other better, to value our ideas better, to build affinity.

Deadline: Saturday, February 4, 2012

Examples of formats: zines, booklets, posters, maps, inserts, and anything else that can be printed on paper.

Please send your submission to: printme@artivistic.org

Send any questions to: info@artivistic.org

For more info: http://www.skol.ca/en/next/promiscuous-infrastructures-phase-2

Artivistic is currently in transition, experimenting ways of being perpetually creative within a hostile political and economic context. From 2004 to 2009, the Artivistic collective organized thematic events including four large-scale, international and transdisciplinary gatherings on the interPlay between art, information and activism, bringing together diverse artists-organisers and other thinkers & makers. Artivistic emerges out of the proposition that not only artists can talk about art, activists about activism, and academics about theory. Artivistic aims to inspire, proliferate, activate. www.artivistic.org