Cubitt Archive Blog

Since 2016, the year of Cubitt’s 25th Anniversary celebrations, Goldsmiths MFA Curating students have been conducting research in Cubitt's archive. Since November 2017, Out of Data Research Group has been exploring the possibilities and limits of visual data representation within the context of an institutional archive. Previous projects have been “The Future Imperfect”, developed by Lucy Cowling and Sophie Bownes in July 2017 and “from the middle finger tip to the elbow bottom”, developed by Eline Kersten and Kirsty White in November 2016.

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Out of Data Research Group is working with artist Jayson Haebich on a series of works that translates the group’s database of information into interactive visualisations.

Haebich is a London-based new media artist and programmer who received his MFA in Computational Arts at Goldsmiths in 2017. He creates diverse and innovative works ranging from light sculptures, digital artworks, club visuals, site specific installations and data visualisations.

Image courtesy of the artist.

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The age of exhibition participants at the time of exhibition at Cubitt from 1993 to 2017.

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The nationality of exhibition participants at Cubitt from 1993 to 2017.

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Out of Data Research Group has been sifting through Cubitt’s exhibition history and collecting data based on the following column headings:

[Individuals]  Name, Role, Name of Exhibition, Year of Exhibition, Year of Birth, Age at Time of  Show, Gender Pronoun, Place of Birth, Nationality, Current Residence, Highest Level of Education, Location of Education

[Exhibitions]  Curatorial Themes, Exhibition Format, Artistic Mediums, Number of Participants

We transformed some of this data into simple graphs. Here is one that shows the gender of exhibition participants at Cubitt from 1993 to 2017.

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Out of Data Research Group

Out of Data Research Group  – comprised of Goldsmiths MFA Curating students Katie Yook, Ashley Janke and Johanna Hardt – is working with Cubitt Gallery into early 2018 to conceive an event based on research into Cubitt’s Archive, which dates back to 1991.

The collective investigates how an archive informs the identity of a cultural institution and explores possibilities and limits of visual data-representation means such as graphs and maps. In what way can data analysis be appropriated in a creative and critical way? How can it incorporate ideas of identity in flux?

Out of Data’s curatorial approach is situated in the socio-political by challenging the authority of objective data as ‘truth’ in relation to knowledge production. Through this approach, the collective questions numerical means of representation normally taken at face value.

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ON DOCUMENTING PERFORMANCE and other KPI’s

Within the archive boxes from between March 2003 and August 2004, during which time Emily Pethick held the second Cubitt Curatorial Bursary, the Programme Review and Evaluation Forms take a prominent place in boxes’ content. 

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# ON LANGUAGE GLITCHES                   and stamping them out

We are hard at work producing a performance event, bringing together some of the research interests we have explored in previous blog posts, such as archival technologies, handwritten narratives, and nonsensical documents that have been given historical precedence by ending up in the archive boxes - even if just as scrap note paper.

Want a first sneaky scoop of what the performance event will entail? Yes, well, it will involve mediated translation and narration, glitchy language, and Cubitt stamps found in the archive, which we will give new live life. Pardon the terrible joke and keep a keen eye on the blog as we will release more information soon! 

This example of a ‘stamped out’ playful language error was made by participants aged between 14 - 16, during a workshop in 2007 for the I & ME event. More on that here.

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# ON ARCHAIC TECHNOLOGY VOL II and the absurd concept of fax spam

Handwritten notes are one of our favourite types of document in the archive. However, sometimes on the back of the notepaper we have found things that tickled us even more. 

'Advertising’ that came through the fax machine was a category of spamming we did not knew existed until now. Here is an example of a spam fax that invites you to spam some other poor victim with prank phone calls - it’s all very meta.. 

Find some more junk faxes after the jump! 

Particularly note the savings of 27 - 38% on the coffee, and how on the second fax it is only the ‘managing director’ that is allowed to claim this brilliant offer....

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# ON FUNDRAISING STRATEGIES and the parties of Cubitt’s early years

Before Cubitt secured regular funding, appointed a curatorial fellow, and moved into their longer term home and present location at Angel Mews, which were vital structural changes made around 2000, fundraising for exhibitions and upkeep of the studios happened in many weird and wonderful ways. 

We have found evidence of a fundraising tombola and an ‘everything must go...’ open studio as the Cubitt artists prepared to move premise. It seems that the basement of the old Caledonian Street premise was used as a fun and creative way to generate some extra revenue, as there are also some fantastic DIY ticket sheets ready to be duplicated, cut up into quarters, and sold for fundraising parties.

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# ON OFF SITE PROJECTS and whatever happened to that pink tank on Page’s Walk?

For the last thirty-something years an old Czech Army T-34 tank has been parked on a small piece of wasteland, just off Old Kent Road. In July 2002, Polly Staple commissioned Alexandra Mir to go and cover the tank in pink camo (with permission of the owner, who also paid for the pink ‘War Paint’). She was assisted on the job by a bunch of Cubitt studio holders, and over the course of one weekend, the salvaged film prop became public art.

Documentation of the make-over

Mir documented the public's’ response during the painting and in the weeks thereafter.

Some of our personal favourites include:

‘I thought I’d make you some coffee, but THEN I SAW THERE WERE FIVE OF YOU.’ (day one)

‘I kinda liked the pink tank the other day, but I suppose my background of public art makes me see it through that veil which means my critical eye is fucked on this one. Maybe that is GOOD’ (day twentyfive)

‘IS JULIA ROBERTS GOING TO BE IN IT?’ (day one)

And of course

‘Pale Pink is so last season, think it should be neon pink instead' (day thirty).

After this first artist commission the tank has been continuously covered in graffiti and repainted, legally and illegally. Repaints have included it resembling a leopard and an American yellow taxi. This metamorphoses into question what the tank looks like right now, so we went over to investigate. It was a slight disappointment, because it looks rather like a bog standard tank:

To those interested in going to see the tank for themselves; here are the instructions as printed in Alexandra Mir’s publication Tank Talk.

Pink Tank is only one of the interesting off-site projects that we found evidence of in Cubitt’s archive, others include;

1996: Erlend Williamson’s walking tour of South East London, which featured and empty and fake booking centre outside of Cubitt (it seems the original title was intended to be PISS OFF I’m Having My Lunch, but it ended up being the more tame Booking and Information Centre)

2004: Published and Be Damned, where the self-published magazine fair happened at St. James’ Church in Clerkenwell, whilst Cubitt’s gallery was transformed into a ‘Public Library’.

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# ON SKETCHES IN THE ARCHIVE and their tangible counterparts

Some of the most fascinating finds within Cubitt’s archive material are the early sketches of works. To have the privilege to view them, subsequent to their concrete state allows for a fantastic opportunity to witness the transformation of ideas, from early concept to tangible works.  

Public Library was designed by Pablo Léon de la Barra and exhibited as part of Published and be Damned, curated Emily Pethick and Chris Hammonds. The exhibition, between 07/07/04 and 31/07/04, explored the experimental styles of self-published magazines, comics and journals.

Curated by Polly Staple, Adam Chodzko’s sculpture, Better Scenery, was erected outside Cubitt in 2002 and exhibited between 06/12/02 and 26/01/03 with its counterpart placed in Fargo, North Dakota, USA.

For more information on the two works:

http://cubittartists.org.uk/2004/07/08/publish-be-damned/

http://cubittartists.org.uk/2002/12/05/adam-chodzko/

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# ON VISITOR BOOKS and their presumed use value

Why have a visitor book? For years Cubitt had one left open outside their exhibitions. They are interesting scrapbooks, not only bringing together all the exhibition flyers, but they also make for great name-spotting. Whereas most visitors just scribbled their name, in later years perhaps accompanied by an email address, the blank pages presented themselves as a literal carte blanche for some to get creative or vocal. Frequent doodles, fake signatures in children's’ handwriting (hello wobbly Bruce Forsyth, hello Nicholas Serota surrounded by rainbows), and even a “will you marry me?”, can be found scattered across the pages. 

In 2007, ‘David (20)’ also queried the existence of these books, when writing “surely this is not here for simply writing your name?? Hmmm... why do that, I’m not sure...”. We’re not too sure why people simply wrote their name either, to see and be seen (by us)? Instead, ‘David’ took his time to write a very in depth exhibition review over two pages, commenting on the content of the works, the installation of the A/V and the curation. Let’s hope a now-30-year-old David continues to give constructive exhibition critique, we appreciated the feedback.  

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# 0N ARCHAIC ARCHIVE TECHNOLOGIES and innovative 21st century viewing solutions

As children of the nineties, VHS tapes have an air of nostalgia, not having encountered them since our pre-teen years. As the current archive researchers at Cubitt, delving into archive material of the late nineties and early noughties means that these childhood entertainment objects are now our receptacles of information. However, with media disk storage and their players updating at increasing speeds, we are now faced with laptops without CD/DVD drives, images on tiny slides and a quest to find an operative VHS player. Luckily, laptop screens also make great alternatives to lightboxes and once the tape was up and running, we found great satisfaction in the handling of the noisy machine and being able to manually whizz the images backwards and forwards.

All visuals come from David Robbins’ Ice Cream Social and Symposium in High Entertainment held on the 12th of January 2002. More on the event here and here.

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Sometimes the back of something is more interesting than the front.  These items from the archive called out to us this week, not for the content of their fronts, but for the details we saw on their reverse.

The items from top to bottom are:

Invitation card, Charles Avery: The Plane of the Gods curated by Tom Morton Photograph (verso), Adam Chodzko’s work cell-a 2006 installed in Angel Mews Flyer for the “Archive weekend”,  Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Artist-Run Spaces So Different, So Appealing? , organised by Bart van der Heide in 2007

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Throughout Cubitt’s history, Cubitt artists have found novel ways to communicate with the world outside the studios.  At the end of the 1990s they devised a strategy to take the environment outside the building as a site for exhibition.  They put a billboard on the side of the building on Caledonia Street and commissioned new work for artists for this space.  It was intended for this to draw attention to the building as a place where things were happening, a place that could be visited.

These photos show various billboard projects commissioned by Cubitt.  They are: (top to bottom)

Group Material, ‘Freedom’ - in relation to the Jochen Klein exhibition (1998) Wolfgang Tillmans as part of the exhibition ‘We Gotta Get Out of This Place’ (1997-98) Wolfgang Tillmans (detail) CRASH! as part of the exhibition ‘Urban Islands’ (1999)

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Cubitt’s story is one of regeneration.  The gallery and studios have had to be relocated four times in the 25 years that they have been in existence.  Not insignificant changes in the urban environment around King’s Cross, as well as widespread gentrification throughout London have moved the artists from an empty and derelict factory at 2 & 3 Goods Way (1991-1993) to their current location on Angels Mews (2001-present).  Remaining within the same 2.5 mile radius in North London, the various locations of the studios are mapped out above.  It’s not a bad walk!

Cubitt Locations 1991-present Kings Cross Studios, Goods Way, NW1 (1991-1993) Cubitt Street, WC1X (1993-1994) Caledonia Street, N1 (1994-1999) Angel Mews, N1 (2001- present)

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Cubitt is known for many things, but one of the lesser-known is that it was one of the first artist-run spaces with it’s own website.  http://www.cubittltd.demon.co.uk is no longer in use, but when it was introduced in 1999, it was revolutionary to the way that the organisation communicated.  A few print outs from the original site exist (see above), as does this manifesto/mission statement that introduces the new phase in the gallery’s programming.  A couple of years later, in 2001, the Curatorial Fellowship was launched.