ART2102 is pleased to begin its off-site program of events with Annex, a series of six artists’ talks organized by Shana Lutker and held at the Mountain Bar in Chinatown over three consecutive Sundays. Each talk takes the form of a conversation between the artist and a person of their choice whose particular professional knowledge or expertise is of interest to them for the ways in which it may inform their practice, or simply fulfill their curiosity.

Annex explores the relationship between artists and experts as it oscillates between research and collaboration in times that are increasingly reliant on specialist knowledge, and that have seen art practice itself no longer being solely defined by the perfection of a craft. As artists have increasingly referenced specialist disciplines, even adopted them in some cases, these conversations shed new light on their practice. The range of topics covered, from the representation of the human head to the techniques of protection from ballistic attacks, highlights the infinite areas of specialized knowledge. We are invited to discover only a few of them through the lens of these artist’s interests.

Participating artists: Meg Cranston, Sean Dockray, Shana Lutker, Angie Waller, and Mario Ybarra Jr.

I was interested in the idea of the crowd as an expert, an increasingly popular hypothesis made by proponents of the free-market in light of social formations enabled by the Internet. Even more fascinating to me was the radical shift in attitude towards crowds over the past century and a half, beginning with Charles MacKay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds and continuing through Gustave LeBon and Elias Canetti. The premise of my presentation was that I would share the $150 dollar honoraria with the audience, provided that we collectively decide what to do with the money. While I thought it would be an interesting experiment to put group dynamics into practice for a lecture, I was more interested in the possibility of the lecture being transformed into a social organism with a longer lifespan (such as: a group of people bound by legal contract), thus doubling the meaning of "return."

The presentation began with a lecture called "Investment & Return" in which I summarized the advice given by a real financial advisor about what to do with the $150. Strangely, his advice began straightforward but ended up extremely utopian and impractical. This lecture also touched on the mystical nature of group behavior (evidenced in quasi-scientific terms relating to the hive mind, groupthink, collective wisdom, emergence, etc.) At the end, everyone in attendance voted in an unusual system that encouraged feedback and strategy. Each person was given 12 sticky dots to distribute however they wanted among 12 choices. Whichever of the choices got the most dots would determine how the $150 was invested.

In an expression of optimism and desire for collective change, the "Garden" won. Yoshua volunteered land in his backyard where it would be located. As everyone began figuring out the practicalities of what to build, when to volunteer, etc. the garden lost its appeal. After discussion and an improvised vote, it was determined to instead draw straws, with the winner collecting all $150. The winner, Jim, generously invited everyone to Hop Louie’s for a couple rounds of drinks. He gave Brendan $20 to throw into a public space (the choice that Brendan had been lobbying for). After the money was exhausted, everyone continued on to Phillippe’s for famous french dip sandwiches. The experiment swung from extreme cooperation to extreme selfishness and settled somewhere in between.