Koru Chorus

What does an art collective have to say about collaboration?
Bristol Diving School (just finished residency Wander) wrote a collective piece for Jegens&Tevens

What’s the difference between a parasite and two units that are in respect of one another?

This text is presented by and representative of Bristol Diving School. Comprised of three voices,
the text is firstly constructed by a fraction of the Bristol Diving School; a sub-cell or sub-unit
composed of four members who are currently producing collaborative research. Second, there
is an interspersed voice that is representative of individuals external to the group, an assembled
pseudo-author. You always need two forms of input This voice is a composite of those who
attended a recent public event hosted by Bristol Diving School that encouraged a
deconstructuralist examination of the term collaboration. The stratified content generates a
semblance of a third voice, that of a wider context surrounding the Bristol Diving School model.
Existing as a less defined metanarrative, this third voice is a proxy to the entirety of Bristol
Diving School, which exists as a cluster of teeming cells unfurling in a shifting environment.

Bristol Diving School has been in operation since 2009 and is both the name of a collaborative
artist project and of the site in which the project was conceived. The site began to operate by
opening to the public for one night at a time, presenting a series of exhibitions that often directly
examined the protocols of collaborative practice and erasure of the individual author. By
employing modes of visual arts practice as a means of representing themes and ideas, the
project often presented objects and installations that were emblematic of the site and the ethos
of the brand. A self-reflexive relationship emerged between the site and the activity taking place
within it. The two entities, branded by the same name, became interchangeable, a classification
that obscured the traditional definition and distinction of the artist working within a space.

At a later point, the Bristol Diving School body began to grow, a development that would
subsequently define the wider ecology of the project. The annual reconfiguration of the group,
through the accretion of new members, stimulated a horizontality to allow for multiple subversions
of the project to exist simultaneously, beyond a fixed location. The ontology of this form
of collaboration has created a complex and non-linear trajectory in which inconsistency partly
defines the system.

Maybe there is a finesse
[being enmeshed in the information itself]

The members of Bristol Diving School individually or mutually probe sources of information,
which in turn contribute to the methodology and content of the project. Probing can lead to the
formation of nodes through which a network of associative connections and forms of
understanding unfold. Developing and sustaining individual and shared knowledge produces a
complex dynamic of interdependent interaction and exchange, with subject matters overlapping
and intertwining. This process could be seen as borderline chaotic; autonomous individuals
operate, disperse and migrate. The qualities of the units taking part Focus is scattered and
decentralisation occurs. An adaptive body materialises, similar to emergent systems of learning
and self organisation.

Whether taking the form of an exhibition, performance, public presentation or written article, the
work produced by the collective is representative of the Bristol Diving School members making
a contribution to the project at that moment in time. The processes involved in developing these
works often entail methods of negotiation, determined by the motivations and characteristics of
the individuals or sub-cells within that particular constellation. Ideal collaboration allows for
maneuver
Otherwise it doesn’t work. Like a studio visit. The foundations of the collective ethos are
maintained but redefined throughout every new iteration.
Individual authorship and identification of the self are, to a degree, relinquished or in a state of
adaptation as the group shifts and transforms over time. Varying dynamics, but mostly a formal
structure. Retain the compromise to keep a positive working process. The why? and why nots?
that mobilise collaborative activity are like the swarming behaviours of swallows or ‘trends’ in
financial markets and very much at times defined by unknownness, intuition and trust (taking
into account systematic and speculative forecasts).

Hierarchy and positions of leadership are negated. Through different modes of public
engagement, Bristol Diving School is beginning to test scenarios for emergent learning, which
can develop within interdependent and supportive contexts. Devising public events to explore
these avenues extend the methodologies of collaborative practice beyond the members of the
collective and open up questions regarding methods of public transparency within organisations.
In both of these procedures of sharing and exposure there is an opportunity to examine where
the boundaries oscillate between ownership and user, producer and consumer.

The awareness of the dynamics of the bigger picture

The collaborative mode of conduct often manifests itself in the subject matter and motif,
propagating a recursive pattern. The collaborating units correspondingly mirror one another in a
self-similar yet refractive manner; a double headed animal… adds complexity – can be
dysfunctional. It emulates an evolutionary mechanism, a kind of feedback loop or, more
precisely, a feedback spiral consisting of multiple strands. A feedback spiral is in and of itself
undulating, cyclical and modifying, the foundation of cellular differentiation and growth.
The dynamic of the widening spiral has been used in recent theories within the fields of social
and natural science to illustrate the relationships and structures that generate the
developmental layers of cultural, social and ecological development. Each new stage is founded
on and envelops the stage preceding it, building upon the resources and problems that define
the earlier paradigm.

The same complex interactions described within the helical narrative of evolution appear in and
constitute collaborative endeavour. Progress and regression, reexamination and renewal,
nonlinearity and adaptation are the traction forces that stimulate a zigzag movement between
the collaborating parties and through this, form a trajectory. These relationships create tension,
a pendulum force that sustains and supports the congruent state between cells. Tension and
force are intrinsic factors influencing and maintaining the development of an organism.

These are components of an ongoing conversation and discourse.

Bristol Diving School
Proboscis Extension Reader