Introductory presentation at Fertile Ground Conference, Dunbar, October 2014.

1. Fertile Ground
North Light Arts, Dunbar, Scotland
25-26 October, 2014
Introduction to the Conference:
“When I'm writing, I'm thinking...”
Chris Fremantle

2. Aristotle's Poetics
There is another art which imitates by means of
language alone, and that either in prose or
verse--which, verse, again, may either combine
different metres or consist of but one kind – but
this has hitherto been without a name.

3. Nicholas Bourriaud (2008)
...it seems that it was one of those moments when
an emerging aesthetic paradigm took form and
became visible, when an artistic generation was
shaped.

4. Helen Molesworth (1996)
What I desire most from criticism, and is often the
hardest thing to find, is writing that is highly
tuned to the problematics of the relational. … In
other words, work that pays close attention to
what happens when you put something called
theory or history next to something called an art
object.

5. Grant Kester (2014)
...these projects confront the critic with a very
different set of questions. When does the work
“begin” and when does it “end”? What are the
boundaries of the field within which it operates,
and how were they determined? At the most
basic level, can we even agree as to what
constitutes the object of criticism?

6. Grant Kester (2011)
In the most successful collaborative projects we
encounter instead a pragmatic openness to site
and situation, a willingness to engage with
specific cultures and communities in a creative
and improvisational manner … , a concern with
non-hierarchical and participatory processes,
and a critical and self-reflexive relationship to
practice itself. Another important component is
the desire to cultivate and enhance forms of
solidarity... .

7. Grant Kester (2014)
I do think there is a paradigm shift occurring,
specifically in the way in which we understand
aesthetic autonomy. This isn’t simply a shift in
the content of work, but in the underlying formal
organization of artistic production. … These
changes aren’t occurring simply because artists
are asking different questions about their own
creative practice. Rather, they reflect a broader,
trans-disciplinary interest in collective
knowledge production.

8. John Thackara
drivers for change
(gloomy)
signals of transformation
(seedlings)
leaving things better
(not just doing less harm)

9. Basarab Nicolescu
Collaboration?
Knowledge and practice?
Multi-disciplinary
Inter-disciplinary
Trans-disciplinary

10. Basarab Nicolescu
Collaboration?
Knowledge and practice?
Multi-disciplinary
Inter-disciplinary
Trans-disciplinary