With Constant Dullaart
Portrait of Eyebeam alum artist 2020, Constant Dullaart. Courtesy of the Artist
How do you characterize the media you work in?
Abundant. I explore media without a single endpoint, critically investigating what constitutes the concept of a medium. But I’ve mostly been affiliated with media like video, internet, or photography.
How does your practice engage with technology?
The tool influences what you make with it. The technology we use colors what we see and what we create as does the media we distribute our message
What was your focus during your time at Eyebeam?
During the start of the COVID-19 lockdowns in Europe, I found that I was missing a way to connect socially online without resorting to using a multibillion-dollar US-based company. I set up an artisanal social exhibition platform, common.garden , based on spontaneous audio / video interaction. I wanted a grass-roots lockdown alternative to the chess club or neighborhood bar, in which people could easily meet each other in preferred contexts without a steep learning curve or other barriers to access.
Screenshot taken from an online hangout, bouquet.common.garden, a virtual lush gardenscape full of wildflowers in the background.
Was there a culminating project?
distant.gallery is the foundation I currently run on top of common.garden software, and have made over 30 exhibitions with people in Baghdad, Shiraz, Amsterdam, Bogota, Kinshasa, Seoul and many more. We have an amazing team developing the project to open source our janky code so it can be self-hosted, but still work together and work with federated login structures. This way, everyone keeps control over their own data, and we can continue to supply a platform for collaborating institutions like HEK Basel, Ocean Archive, and ZKM Karlsruhe who, next to funding partners like Cultuurloket DigitALL. It has become a digital exhibition canvas, where people follow other users presenting, live editing the page, and can casually meet other visitors who you see jotting around the page as small, colorful eggs. There’s this almost physical, embodied dynamic of moving among the digital objects. We’ve become a site for hybrid experiments including musical compositions, intercontinental dinners, and made specially for the medium.
How has dialogue or collaboration with Eyebeam artists and alumni factored into your work?
Other Eyebeam residents naturally experimented with the platform and weighed in. Chris Clary, who was also a Rapid Response fellow, used it for The Chrisy Show and has since curated a number of exhibitions on the platform. JPGS, who was also in the cohort, has curated shows on the platform with SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin and the Futura Tropica project. Sarah Grant, a Rapid Response fellow whom I knew prior to Eyebeam has become a core member of our team.
How do you think about the role of the artist in society?
Reality can be an oppressive construct; to be challenged at all times. Art can prompt you to see differently and shift your perspective. Artists can dream up incorrect, weird, non efficient, non solutionary uses of technology and different modes of using technology that don’t involve the outrageous data mining that we’ve become accustomed to. To use a pandemic analogy: I’ve been fed factory bread, now we make our own sourdough for anyone to make the wildest sandwiches they can dream of.