Junction 2010
Junction 2010 will unleash an explosion of creativity through a stimulating and intellectual conference program that encourages celebration, dialogue and connections.
From August 26-29, delegates from across Australia will discuss and celebrate best practice regional arts in an action packed conference program including six plenaries, fifty seven break-out sessions and a hands on stream including weaving, knitting and walking tours.
The plenaries include three internationally regarded key notes Francois Matarasso an independent researcher and writer specialising in community cultural practice; Ernesto Sirolli, a noted authority in the field of social enterprise and sustainable economic development and Mark Pesce, Australia’s leading technology expert and developer of the Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VMRL).
Outhouse Research
Coming soon…
Outhouse wins First Place!
Jury’s Decision:
“First place is awared to Outhouse, from Brian Cohen and his team from TRAX. Using an outhouse to serve as a semi-public video confessional booth, this project redefines society’s last bastion of privacy and intimacy. Equipped with four doors in but only one door out, this project is not just a humorous gimmick but it is a serious tool for enhancing the knowledge, development and preservation of community. Combining innovation, creativity, originality, and digital techonology, Outhouse unites yesterday and today in a way that cuts to the heart of the ongoing mission of the Future Places Festival.”
First prize is $3k Euro & a 3-month residency in either Austin or Porto. We’ve also been invited to present the Outhouse at the South by Southwest Festival in March 2010.
This is a big and meaningful win to a lot of hard work. It also sends a direct message to the geographic polar opposite point in the world where this project initiated. Creative new media projects can be functional & fun in community settings & excellent tools for engagement and cultural development. We thank the jury for recognising the deeper resonances of our project and for having the chutzpah to award first prize to a toilet. 
Future Places Winding Down.
We’ve had a priveleged time being here with the Outhouse & all the amazing people we’ve met in Porto.
It was especially great to connect with Costah, a Porto street artist of immeasurable talent, who gave the box it’s gaivota (seagull). He reckons although seagulls fly very far, they don’t fly very well. So he gives them balloons to help lift them. The booth is kinda like the balloons. Check out his website by clicking on his name if you’re curious to see some of his other work.
The piece with the little Brazilian girl looking out from the peekhole was done by local artist Luis Ferreira.
We’re trying to find a way to get this bloody box to Barcelona via truck or gaivota. I’ll be attending the 17th Annual Encatc Conference from the 21-23 October. Fingers crossed the Outhouse will make an appearance.
xB.
Porto, Portugal
OUTHOUSE | EUROPE is shaping up to blow away our expectations due to all the amazing people we’ve been meeting in this stunning labyrinth of a city.
We’ve started construction on our latest storycatching box here at the school of fine arts in Porto. David, the master builder, is blissin out over every handmade hinge on every door we pass on the way to a coffee. He is in the shadows of master artisans and if this were a different time he’d be one of them, sculpting the stone & wood in shapes that exhausting for me to even consider trying to make. Together we marvel at the little white shiney cobblestones and how much sweat must’ve went into the millions of them that line the streets of the city.
There are so much more to say but it’s time to get back to building. Below are some pictures from the past few days of construction of Outhouse v3.
The opening of our exhibition is 15 October @ 6PM
Outhouse | Portugal Team
Designer: Brian Cohen
Social Researchers: Tara Prowse + Mandy Field
Master Builder: David Whitchurch
Software Designer: Samuel Van Ransbeeck
Live Musicians: Jorge Costa & Cecilia Peçanha
Visual Artists: Costah, Luis Ferreira, Filipa Cruz, Maria
*Extra special thanks goes out to Outback Theatre for Young People for supporting this project.
Lake Mungo Festival
Well, Outhouse MkII has had an interesting life so far. As you can tell from our previous posts the older version looked like a toilet spaceship from the 70s. We decided to trim down & streamline the design with David Whitchurch, a master carpenter from the outback town of Ivanhoe.
We rebuilt a proud new version shown in these pictures in 36 hours & made our way down to show it off at the Regenerating Communities Conference in Melbourne. Unfortunately after putting the finishing touches on the inside of the booth the Mac Mini decided to crash, which apparently is very unusual. We went to those Mac genius dudes in the city who wanted to keep it for a few days in the repair room & spa. So it missed the conference. Sad because it would’ve been perfect.
BUT it was booked to appear at the Lake Mungo Festival in just a few days, so back onto the trailer with a new Mac Mini and off to the bush we went! In Ivanhoe David strapped down our precious cargo for the serious dirt roads en route to Mungo. The Outhouse made a big splash with everyone there. It was slated to operate for two one-hour blocks amidst a very busy festival schedule. To our surprise and perhaps yours, there was a queue across the site lined with young (& older) people wanting to get inside and answer the questions on the walls inside. There was an equally large crowd huddled 10 meters away around the projection screen waiting to see who would go broadcast once inside. There was an eruption of excitement when a person would appear on the screen. And frustrated murmurs when others chose to record privately. It was split down the middle between broadcast & private storytelling.
We cut a quick short film of 3 participants who were across all ages and we projected it at the final festival celebration. It went over really well. This project will still be finding its feet as we adapt it to be responsive to different audiences and events. The organisers and other partners recognised its relevance not only as a engaging & entertaining public activity but it showed its power as a participatory research tool to gather feedback and data. The insights & testimonies were valuable for many outlets and performed by people who may otherwise pass up a written survey with boxes to tick.
Unfortunately Outhouse v2 came to a spectacular end on the road back through the desert. The wind was relentless and the main strap split sending it soaring in slow motion off the back of the trailer and skidding down the track. We were too exhausted to get upset. At least it was on the way home instead of on the way there. We packed the pieces into the back and brought it back to David the carpenter who smiled and said, “It’s time to make v3!”
In a few weeks the funkiest Outhouse will debut at the Future Places Festival in Portugal. It promises to be that much more. Can’t wait.
xB>
Future Places Festival
Digital Media & Local Cultures
Porto, Portugal
13-17 October 2009
The FUTURE PLACES Festival is an international competition celebrating digital media work. FUTURE PLACES explores the potential of Digital Media when applied to specific cultural and social environments.
The festival features exhibitions, conferences, workshops, concerts, performances and parties. We are interested in creative and new languages for interactive and media expression, and their impact on local cultures, society and public space.
We want to reach a generation of creators who are breaking conventions. We are addressing this call to those who are blurring the lines not only between disciplines, but also between the real and the virtual and between the commercial, the artistic, and the academic arenas. Mainly, we want to explore the impact of new technologies in “real life”. How can new technology build local communities, create new identities, new narratives, and new forms of public interaction?
Building the prototype…
As we build the prototype for the Outhouse Storycatcher we’ll be posting photos & videos here.
The Wondrous Storycatching Machine
OUTHOUSE
Long Drop. Dunny. Biffy. Thunderbox. These are all Australian terms for the place where some of our best thinking is done- in the Outhouse. An participatory research tool & interactive installation, Outhouse turns the old style photo booth on its head by replacing it with custom built digital media technology.
Once inside users are presented with six open questions which act as prompts. Each one is in an ornate picture frame. On the reverse side of each frame is a follow up question designed to unpack the response from the first question.
The user is then presented with two choices- push the red button to record a private testimonial, but pushing the green button risks comfort & anonymity by triggering a live public broadcast. The feed is sent to a projector which is trained on the largest building or wall in the vicinity. Although no one can see you, you are being watched.
What began as a bit of a curiosity has all of the sudden revealed the human face behind the status update, a public testimonial, a soapbox, a confessional. How has our risk-averse culture gorged itself on safety & control? How has public anxiety compromised our social flexibility? When do we front up? This is a foray into putting the two worlds of safety & risk back to back. Outhouse is where the accidental pedestrian can close the door to the outside world, whilst sitting in the midst of it.
Where it came from.
The Outhouse was born eight months ago out of a multi-arts project by TRAX in partnership with Outback Theatre for Young People, in the socially isolated town of Ivanhoe in outback Australia. It is a community of under 200 people where the nearest shopping centre is 200km away. We wanted to find a way to take the researcher out of the research and for residents to be participants in measuring their local cultural assets. We aimed to design an unmediated way of gathering data which was simple, but not simplistic.
The Outhouse is designed to flirt with notions of intimacy & exposure, but it’s content is ultimately determined by the context it is in. It does not predispose a response from the user, instead it functions as a tool to engage communities through open narrative. From this there are many possibilities for concrete outcomes; the seeds of great artworks can be collaboratively generated, or qualitative data can be used to affect planning & policy.
Currently TRAX is partnered with CAMRA (Cultural Asset Mapping in Regional Australia), a major Australian Research Council and industry funded project running from 2008 to 2013 as a partnership between seventeen organisations, including four universities.
CAMRA aims to provide planners, policy-makers and communities with the knowledge they need to make better informed planning decisions for more effective development of their local arts and cultural industries. The Outhouse is a key research tool being deployed in rural Australia.
Project Support Portal
“Culture is the accumulation of all the artistic expression of a time and place. It may present an unattractive picture, or a brilliant one, but it is an essential record unless we take the nihilist view that human existence itself is irrelevant.
The nihilist would see no point in having children. If any one of us matters, then art matters and culture matters. A Society without art leaves no children; with no past it can have no future.”
- Julian Burnside, QC
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This project is currently seeking funding &/or in-kind support to develop & grow.
