News - Talks and Publications.
Experimental Society
7/7/2010
The Mike Kenner Archive (ARC) of Office of Experiments appears in the exhibition that accompanies Experimental Society, the final part of the Experimentality conferences at Lancaster University. More
Experimental Ruins
6/7/2010
Office of Experiments run a workshop on 'Experimental Ruins' with Dr. Gail Davis at UCL Department of Geography. More
Experimental Subjects
Lancaster University
Neal White presents ongoing work and theory on the body and place as 'sites of experimentation' at the Experimentality Conference, Lancaster University. More
The Redactor
Apexart New York 6/1/2010
Neal White working with Office of Experiments launches this intermitent periodical. The Redactor is an explores erased organisms, land and ongoing struggles with state censorship. Featuring work from
Rich Pell, Jenny Holzer, Steve Rowell, and an extensive interview with Mike Kenner on staying under the radar. More
Residency - Centre for Land Use Interpretation continues. April 2010
Neal Whites ongoing resiency at CLUI's Wendover site in Utah continues with research into Smithon Spiral Jetty, and an investigation of Land as Laboratory - with a new film being based around the Millard County Cosmic Ray Facility in the Great Basin.
Supported by Henry Moore Foundation.
New Topographics
BLUEPRINT magazine ran a six page full colour article on the Overt Research Project.
The Body in Contemporary Art
Thames and Hudson
Neal Whites work with Office of Experiments in relation to the site of experimentation, from body to spatial entity, is highlighted in this new Thames and Hudson publication by Sally O'Reilly
More
Secret Vitrine
UCL
Cloisters Sept 09-Jan 2010
A classified map of a secret underground bunker obtained by Mike Kenner was visible through the code words used to name it. This was displayed alongside a Cabinet Office letter declaring the dates beyond which the names could not be used for display.
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Information on art, research and other experiments.
Neal White is also founder and Director of the The Office of Experiments, an independent research structure and arts practice. For more link here:
www.o-o-e.org
RECENT AND PAST PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS
Fieldworks from the Museum of the Void
Chelsea Space June -July 2010
This exhibition featured some of a larger number of works made in Utah, USA between 2008-10. In particular, the exhibition drew attention to the fate of Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson, a canonical piece of Land Art, which is under threat from the 'green' revolution. Stripping valued organic fertilisers from natural resources, the Great Salt Lake Minerla Corporation is seeking to expand its evaporation ponds and is threatening to turn this site into desert. With Smithson ideas of entropy yeilding to the passage of time, and drawing on surplus archival objects of British artist John Latham, who held similar views of event structures, the works ask how and when does preservation take place, and what role does society and socially engaged practice have to play in this? In this extremely remote place, documented in a central film, Spiral Jetty itself was full of day trippers and preservation teams from Getty and Dia Foundation, highlighting issues of the social within the framing of the Museum of the Void, as the region was named by Smithson himself.
A catalgoue is available from Chelsea Space.
Chelsea Space - More images
Chelsea Space - Press Release
Where is Heidenheim?
Heidenheim, Germany. July 2010 - May 2011
Public Art Commission. WERK 10 - Bildhauser Symposium Germany
Exhibition - Heidenheim Gallery - 16/07/2010
With artists Michael Beutler, Vanessa Henn, Tina O'Connell /Neal White,
Götz Arndt
Stefan Sous. Nomination by Penelope Curtis.
Working with artist Tina O'Connellwe made a proposal for working in both physical of the town and media space of the local newspaper - Heidenheim Zietung.
"As artists working from within a situational perspective, we have learned much from working alongside artists such as John Latham (see Artist Placement Group), Danish Architects N55, and with innumerate factories and production teams. We see sculpture more as a malleable process informed by the broader social contexts, and now bound in form by physical materiality, but through the flux and dynamics of events, which in turn become the substance and context of our own practice.
In making this proposal we believe that we are making a gesture that is both serious and at the same time, implies humour and a sense of inquisitiveness that are essential aspects of our own shared psyche.
Heidenheim over the course of the work will discover many places that it did not know of before. At the same, this will be true of the link papers and the places from which they come, as far flung as the wilds of Asia, the troubled regions of the Middle East, the burgeoning economies of Latin America and India, and the deep backwater of the midwest of the United States.
By uniting places through this project, a global dynamic will open up that is both a tribute to communications, as well as indicating other possibilities for exchange and co-operation against a background of future economic difficulties. The work occupies physical space globally and locally, as well as being conceived in the imaginary space that media sometimes makes. It is a sculptural work that is both material and immaterial, an event structure for a contemporary world."
Bildausersymposium Heidenheim
DARK PLACES
John Hansard Gallery Nov 2009-Jan 2010
Working with Office of Experiments, I co-curated this exhibition for John Hansard Gallery. Commissioned by Arts Catalyst and SCAN. November 2009 - January 2010. Featured work from Office of Experiments, Steve Beard and Victoria Halfor, Beatriz da Costa and Steve Rowell.
Dark Places Catalogue is available from John Hansard Gallery. Essay by Sally O'Reilly
Atthe heart of the exhibition lies a field guide to Dark Places - South Edition, a database created by The Office of Experiments. The project uses experimental techniques, fieldworks and GPS technology to create a database that maps secret and intelligence space in the UK (Dark Places), and that that visually documents them on the ground (photographs), turning the technology and the gaze back on its developers. Working with Steve Rowell (CLUI) in the field, and supported by Lisa Haskell (technical developer), this is the first of a UK wide project actively documenting spaces through 'overt' techniques. To probe places in which knowledge as intelligence, research or experimentation / testing occurs entails extensive experimental fieldwork, means we are both open to and under scrutiny from the culture we are observing and examining. The database will be launched later this year. The Overt Research Project including the future 'Experimental Ruins' based in Greater London is supported by UCL Department of Geography, and Arts Catalyst.
As a result of my own research for the first phase of the Overt Research, the Office of Experiments has acquired a collection/archive of documents, that amongst other things, contains formerly classified documents of over 30 years of experiments undertaken on the public (and with US Military) at Porton Down - a secret chemical and bio-chemical warfare research facility in Wiltshire in the UK.
The archive, researched and donated to the Office by independent researcher and activist Mike Kenner was given in digital form and then printed out so that it can be accessed - in person only - at sites or by agreement. Documents were largely obtained by Mike through official lines with Cabinet Office and through FOIA requests. This Archive has been digitised at source by Mike, and was then painstakingly catalogued by Ross Robertson for OOE, before being 'facsimilied'. The Mike Kenner Archive can be loaned out for display in a physical space, or as part of a mobile library.
This is the founding archive of Office of Experiments 'ARC' - Autonoumous Researcher Collection, for archives and collections of researchers unlikely to enter into conventional institutions.
A key principle behind the Overt Research Projects aims is to get artists and others into the event- field. Supported by Arts Catalyst, Neal White and Steve Rowell of Office of Experiments lead the experimental field trip around sites of secrecy and cold war technology within the region of Southampton. Utilising footage on board the bus, from conspiracy video mixed to unreleased governement information films, a range of sites were visited including; Porton Down, Boscombe Down, Underground ROC Bunker, ISEE (International School of Explosives Education, Department of Homeland Security - who did us a nice little lunch) and ending up inside Royal Observation Corps Museum inside Blandford Camp Military Base. More tours for 'Experimental Ruins' that will be based in London will be announced on Office of Experiments site. For more see Arts Catalyst website, New Scientist or numerous blogs...
The Redactor
The Incidental Person, Apexart, New York. January 2010.
THE REDACTOR, was a special intermitent publication launched for 'The Incidental Person' exhibition at Apexart on January 6th 2010 in New York.
THE REDACTOR is a stamped limited edition publication that features an exclusive interview with leading UK secrecy activist, campaigner and journalistic source, Mike Kenner (whose archive is featured in Dark Places - see above) as well as incidental editorials, news and features from our correspondents in the field - Rich Pell (Nature Correspondent - Center for Post Natural History, US), Steve Rowell (US, Real Estate) and visual features on John Latham and Jenny Holzer.
The Launch issue was a stamped limited edition of 500 only, with free insert, and is produced by Neal White of the Office of Experiments. Design - Sara de Bondt.
If you would like to obtain an electronic copy (unlimited as a PDF from late Jan 2010) please contact me. Limited Editions are available for a donation cost of £5.
For more see . www.the-redactor.com
Truth Serum
Casino Foundation for Contemporary Art, Luxembourg. September 2009.
As part of the exhibition 'sk-interfaces', the Truth Serum project was developed as a gallery installation, and off-site performance with The Office of Experiments. Devised and researched by Neal White / Dr. Nicolas Langlitz in 2007-8 and exhibited formerly at FACT, Liverpool January - April 2008. Workis featured in the publication on The Body and Contemporary Art by Sally O'Reilly for Thames and Hudson Twentieth Century Art Series. Commissioned by Arts Catalyst. Details
The Wager
Flat Time House, Peckham July 2009, London
By-passing gallery, auction house and market, visitors partook in an evening of live speculation on the value of a theory, on the value of speculation, and a theory of value.
The evening of events is based around ‘The Wager’ set in The Hand (former studio of John Latham), and is a performance and tribute by artist Neal White to John Latham. The ‘Wager’, was first conceived by John Latham with Neal White in 2005, and has been executed by legal advisor Sarah Andrews with further assistance from the Noah Latham in 2009. Although technically a wager based on the notion that Flat Time Theory has been reduced to a legal bet, and welcomes challengers to provide evidence for or against these ideas, it also places the intuitive position and the theoretical assertions of Latham and Flat Time against a contemporary backdrop of economic crisis, fiscal turmoil and uncertain futures based on economic projections.
In the ‘Mind’, Neal White of The Office of Experiments has worked with the artist Tina O’Connell to re-make a version of her series of works based on “In Dublin’, originally staged in 1999, during her residency at Irish Museum of Modern Art. In the new version, A Quantity of Easing (The Physics and Economics of Sculpture) the work is reduced in scale and set upon a block of Frieze magazines that chart the rise and rise of the market through the 90’s and early part of this century. Using Lathams own techniques of destruction of books (by oil) as an inherent critique of the art market's commidifaction processes, a further twist is added by a sweepstake that allows viewers to place their own wager on the speed of the works destruction.
‘Even The Odds’ continues the theme of game playing and gambling, with viewers able to take part in specifically designed dice game that is a gentle reminder of the event/no-event structure of Latham’s theory. With a soundtrack provided by the casinos of backwater Nevada casinos, and a film taken from Lathams own Fiona Shoe, the viewer can win a limited edition of the dice, a prize for a simple roll of the dice. DIce are still available for purchase.
The Wager was made following a period in which I was based at Flat Time House in Peckham. In addition to sharing and developing ideas with John Latham prior to his death, I also helped secure initial funding to establish the house and archive. In return the lAtham Estate and Barbara Steveni have become friends and supporters.
Catalogue for exhibition at Centre Pompidou, Paris and Kunsthalle, Bern.
"At once the support and an extension of the event, this publication outlines the concept of the void in art, aesthetics, philosophy, religion, science, popular culture, architecture, and music, and broaches the subject of nothing, of vacuity, of the invisible and the ineffable, of rejection and destruction."
I was invited to submitted an artist contribution for the catalogue, so filed a field report on behalf of The Office of Experiments from the F-Utility unit in Utah. Entitled: F-UTILITY at the Heart of the American Void.
Edited by John Armleder, Mathieu Copeland, Laurent Le Bon, Gustav Metzger, Mai-Thu Perret, Clive Phillpot, Philippe Pirotte
ISBN: 978-3-03764-017-3
Publication link.
Limitations Permitted
Peckham Space - June 2009.
The OOE Kiosk was on Peckham Square 21-28th June. Inside the Kiosk interpretive materials were provided by the Office of Experiments.; 'A Field Guide to Unpermitted Events' edited by Marsha Bradfield and Neal White provides the new observer with a step by step guide to public space fieldwork, enhanced by a distorting optical periscope made by John Hill. Meanwhile Manu Luksch and FLIX present a custom made 3D Video Viewmaster with 18 x 1 minute films outlining specific bye-laws communicated in sign language. Embedding the apparatus, codes and rules of behaviours back into the space itself, each element re-interprets restrictive local by-laws to embrace a positive engagement with a local community that frequents what is considered by some as one of the most contraversial public spaces in the UK. An Offsite Commission with Manu Luksch. Peckham Space. Peckham, London.
Wendover Artist Residence 2008-10.
I undertook an enormously rewarding, intense and demanding residency for The Office of Experiments at the Centre for Land Use Interpretation at their Wendover base in Utah, USA, in Spring and Summer 2008, and returned for a final leg in Easter 2010. This field research utilised the F-Utility Unit (Field Utility Unit - see above/left), but will also lead to a number of works that are still under development. These works include a solitary performance and filmwork by Randy (sometime cipher of OOE) connecting the work and ideas of John Latham and Robert Smithson. This was shot in 'the remote location', the first piece of land acquired by Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt in Utah, near to both spiral jetty and the sun tunnels.
The research and residency has been funded by The Henry Moore Foundation, Bournemouth University and Centre for Land Use Interpretation. CLUI
O+I
As a former member of O+I (formerly Artist Placement Group) I undertook research and submitted bids with Tate Archives to further explore and disseminate materials in the APG Archive. The APG Archive was acquired by Tate in 2004. Ongoing research suported by O+I, Bournemouth University, Critical Practice at Chelsea College of Art and Tate Archives. Images are taken from a 'between' (a format developed by APG) and developed as an output with Critical Practice that took over South London Gallery to discuss Art and Economics. 2007.
Above: Kunst als Sozlale Strategle (Art as Social Strategy) . 1977, Bonn Kunstverein. Podium discussion between German government ministers and APG artists. Uk artists make proposals to ministersw to adopt artists in their governemnt as done in the UK. Below. At SLG 2007.
Useful chronology of APG at Tate weblink
Critical Practice Chelsea weblink
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Neal White 
