Having identified that Repeator:Transmission and Office for Art, Design and Technology share similar aesthetic, theoretical and philosophical outlooks we began undertaking a collaborative residency to explore each others practices in more detail and to delve into Coventry, a city undergoing major redevelopment.
This collaborative residency was focused through a pair of processes, firstly transmission and broadcast and secondly a series of working ‘methodologies’, this allowed us to make effective use of our limited time together and to really gain insights into the inner workings of Coventry and each others practices.
The idea, and relative accessibility and affordability, of networked communication really facilitated the 3 of us staying in touch and exchanging ideas and content through out the residency, however, perhaps more interestingly this thinking around using technology to reach out and communicate more widely really informed works produced and the form of the works. Similarly the ‘methodologies’ focused our time together but also acted creatively and set the tone for a series of collaborative activities and ways of exploring the city which included climbing, walking and drinking among many others.
After several weeks of struggling to get the trio of us into the same city at the same time we decided to take the residency public through an exhibition and series of events including talks, performances and a walk and meal. This was also an opportunity to engage an audience and extend the methodologies which we had been adopting out to a much wider group of participants.
In the lead up to this exhibition we moved into City Arcadia, a gallery space operated by Coventry Artspace, this period of our time together allowed for material experimentation on a scale not afforded by the studio space which Office for Art, Design and Technology occupy. We began working with back projection into public facing windows, inflatable sculpture and temporary architectures made from graphite rubbings of the cement floor. Other experiments taking place in the space included working with salt, sound, tape loops, DJing techniques and live feeds of moving image bouncing from wall to wall and first floor to the second floor and eventually from the gallery out into the wider shopping centre.
The events taking place within this time in City Arcadia included a walk around the city centre where participants we’re joined to each other by hashtags, walkie-talkies, shared listening and group decision making.
Conversations and elements of the works themselves suggested that Coventry is a city under flux, it is a city which is defined by growth and re-growth which is led by its inhabitants. The transparent, inflatable threshold which Repeator built to sit halfway through City Arcadia reflected this most poignantly with its periodic de-inflation and collapse, only for it to be patched up and reinstalled by participants, collaborators, visitors and inhabitants.
