jonathan kemp

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Application text for <£5k grant:

**
1] working title: exquisite_code** 

**2] 50 word description:**

exquisite_code interrogates notions of read/run processes in a radical experiment hothousing a collaborative novel. Participants work 8 hours/day for 5 days generating text-prompts, text and edit-software in unrelenting micro-sessions. Rendered text chunks will elaborate the exquisite_code life novel in a continuous public display. A POD publication with Mute will follow. 

**
3] 1000 word description, headings as ACE suggest**   


**1 You and your work**

//Description://

exquisite_code interrogates notions of read/run processes in a radical experiment hothousing a collaborative novel to be published using Mute's print-on-demand services.

8/9 writers will work relentlessly eight hours daily for five days, in an event hosted by E:vent Gallery in London's East End. 

Text chunks will be produced and written over six minute sessions in response to a set of prompts generated by participants at the beginning of each day.

At the end of each six minutes, bespoke and reconfigurable edit-software will worm through the chunks, adding to the text repository to elaborate the exquisite_code life novel. 

The edit-software is interrogated and re-written in scheduled code writing sprints by participants, and all materials will be on live display at all times [projectors, CRT monitors] and  as hardcopy  continuously extruded by line printers. 

The project will culminate in a final night launch of the novel and will include performances/detournements made by participants from the accumulated materials.

Publication of all code, prompts and text making the novel will be by way of print-on-demand publication in collaboration with Mute. 

//Outcomes://

The project continues recent work with xxxxx [http://1010.co.uk] that examines how to exploit the read-run collapse of code, where notation simultaneously performs itself, in both an expanded and material notion of software as a means of production for new artistic works.  This provides a grounding for further workshops and presentations in the context of future productions. 

Such a theatrical design premise will create in the project speculative, intense, and playful mechanisms for a new and necessarily decentralized and collaborative artistic environment for all those involved.

A range of participants have been invited, including:

Pippa Buchanan[DE/AUS] writer/coder/artist http://schoolofeverything.com/teacher/pippabuchanan

Leif Elggren [SWE],  writer/mystic/artist http://www.leifelggren.org

Dave Griffiths [UK/BE] writer/coder http://www.pawfal.org/dave/

Stewart Home [UK],  writer/neoist http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/

Brendan Howell [US/DE],  writer/coder/artist http://fritzing.org/

Jonathan Kemp [UK], writer/artist http://xxn.org.uk

Olga Panades Massanet [UK/ES] writer/artist  http://www.ungravitational.net

Eleanora Oreggia [IT/NL]  writer/coder/artist http://xname.cc/

Sabrina Small [US],  writer/artist http://www.foodandfootage.com

A technical manager/co-ordinator will also be appointed.


    
  
**2 How the public engage with the work**


**exquisite-code** will attract a mixed audience given that its concerns are not totally defined within the terms of new media art, with the remit of the project playfully inviting a diverse public interested in art, computational and literary domains. All materials will be on live display at all times via projectors and a CRT monitor, and all writers will be available for public scrutiny, interrogation and interaction.
Hardcopy will also be available for inspection as it is to be continuously extruded by line printers. 

The event will culminate in a final night launch, with extracts of the novel presented to the public through human-machine readings, performances and detournements by participants made from the weeks accumulated materials..

Subsequent publication of all code, prompts and text components of the novel will be by way of the print-on-demand publication with Mute, to create an important legacy to further debate within a wider context.



**3 Making it happen**


Participants have been identified and invited; discussions and an agreement has been made with E:vent Gallery to host the event and launch. Simon Worthington of Mute has been very keen to support the event and discussions on implementing the print-on-demand (pod) technology are ongoing, with the possibility of an instant publication via an on-site pod station being actively pursued. A dedicated website has been set up both for disseminating project information and, in part, for use as a text dump for the event, and for which convergence with the available Mute templates for the pod publication is being implemented.

Information and publicity leading up to the event and about the release of the book will be distributed across various online newsgroups and litservs, promoted from the dedicated website, http://www.exquisite-code.com, as well as through associated partner/participants sites. The book will also be added to Mute's roster of publications available to the public.

Furthermore an organisational wiki has been established for use by all those involved. 

This event follows on from previously acclaimed work including the xxxxx season of nine events as a part of node.London in March 2006 http://1010.co.uk/xxxxx_as_event.html; Crash at Shoreditch Town Hall and the ICA, London, in 2005 http://crash.1010.co.uk/post_crash.html; and more recently, Real Code at Piksel 2008, Bergen Norway http://1010.co.uk/org/piksel2008.html.

**
4 Finance**

The proposed budget has been kept low by the agreement of all participants to arrange their own accommodation for the duration of the event. This in-kind financing has greatly helped keep the budget on-target for <£5k. This allows for an adequate subsistence payment (£25/day) and a nominal fee of £250 (£50/day) for the ten participants (nine artists and one co-ordinator/manager). Further in-kind agreements with both E:vent and Mute ensure both the project and publication are viable given the size of the ACE grant applied for.

Budgets and accounts will be available for scrutiny on the organisational wiki and all receipts will be kept and available for audit as required. 

**
5 Evaluation**


Evaluation will take the form of monitoring three identifiable staging posts within the projects development:

a) that the projects marketing and publicity campaign is widespread and effective

Criteria: significant project presence registered in online listings and to maintain statistical monitoring of unique visits to host site and associated partner sites (eg. E:vent Gallery site) throughout period of project.

b) that the project's planning, as detailed on the organisational wiki, is successfully completed, with all its components executed.

Criteria: that the projects described aims and their means of production are in place, the event is executed successfully and delivers all described outcomes, including a well attended launch event 

c) that completion and distribution of publication takes place within 4-6 weeks of the event's completion                           

Criteria: that publication quality, design and layout are determined and publication goes to print in an inititial run of 50 for distribution via online and UK/Europe outlets.
jonathan kemp

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