NoSpace

by Tomasz Madajczak, Micheál O'Connell

During the 2020 pandemic lockdown period, Co. Cork, Ireland based artist Tomasz Madajczak began collaborating by videocall, with other practitioners he had approached in the year before. Emerging from exchanges with Micheál O'Connell (a.k.a. Mocksim) was the idea of 'NoSpace'. As restrictions relaxed temporarily in August of that year, Tomasz entered Uillinn, The West Cork Arts Centre to use a studio space offered to him there. The concept, discussed remotely with Micheál (still unable to travel due to Covid) was to subtract from the space, rather than 'making' anything. Several works resulted from this attempt to empty an already empty studio. They became interested in the auto-transcription records of their daily one-hour online conversations. These words, generated by mysterious artificial intelligence, appeared a few hours afterwards as a record of each call. Even though the ambition had been to produce nothing, the algorithmic writing was something. Due to minor technical problems, varying bandwidth and issues with mics for example, but also because AI still has problems dealing with the variety of colloquial terms, accents, specific ways of communicating and especially irony, the transcripts, though impressive, are also puzzling and amusing in places. Micheál compiled the unedited conversations each day; Tomasz had them printed, and then pasted the sheets in a grid pattern on the walls, crucially outside of, the studio. This book is another record of those auto-transcribed discussions. ======================================= From Professor of Art and Aesthetics, John Roberts: "It's hilarious (I was laughing out loud). It's an algorithmic tragi-comedy, mediated through Beckett and Tristan Tzara, in which two 'idiot artists' talk 'artistically' without end. Indeed, everything is preamble, platitude and self-reflexive pontification." ======================================= Contents: 7th August 2020, 8th August 2020, 10th August 2020, 11th August 2020, 12th August 2020, 13th August 2020, 14th August 2020

202 pages, Hardcover

Published February 28, 2021