Preparations towards 18 Hour Museum...

AIT is currently planning the next in our series of temporal 'museums' - we began this in 2002 with 8 Hour Museum, followed by the second in 2004 and the third this year. The first two manifestations went on for eight hours, but for the third we extended this to twelve hours, spanned over a weekend. Our thinking for these events have, from the start, been pragmatic and utopian - that is, responding to the lack of space for exhibition making in Tokyo by deciding to 'create a museum' for a limited duration, whilst also trying to probe the experimental dimensions of what could be done. I am particularly interested in the various (largely unwritten) histories of such hybrid events that blend elements of exhibition, club and disco cultures, screenings and lounges. I guess this has a lot to do with the fact that most of these kinds of events happen outside of the museum (probably breaking most of their rules of behaviour), and have been organised by a range of people from artists and curators to community groups and activists. What we try to initiate through our time-based 'museums' is probably shared or at least sensed by many people of our generation who experience museums as a rather formalised spaces and who are open to engaging with installation works, interactive pieces or environments that invite you to stay in them for a long period of time. I remember for the first 8 Hour Museum, some people who came left almost immediately, unable to grasp what it was, whilst most seemed to find their space within it and stayed for several hours. It helped that the largest space was given over to a huge bean bag lounge/ bar, around which were placed various 'services' and 'displays'. What interested me was the fact that this space was not bound by a singular focus (like the DJ or a screen), but purposefully allowed to contain multiple activities and sounds. I suppose the notion of 'programming' an event, in the way that Timothy Leary writes about psychedelic experiences or David Mancuso writes about his Loft parties, is something which we are into exploring further though.
So, we are now preparing for the next 'museum', which we hope to set up for eighteen hours, all night in early 2007. I have been reading various things as background material for this - histories which I would one day very much like to try to compile. More on these snippets as they arise.

Comments

[Markuz Wernli Saito]

Dear Roger McDonalds
Hello A-I-T

The curatorial approach on your blog and the AIT project is very promising and forward looking
I am contacting you because I am an artist currently based in Kyoto who works with 'social spaces'
where persons can reconnect with themselves, their places and others.

I am coming to Tokyo on December 16 and 17 and was wondering if I could visit you
and the AIT if that makes any sense. If we could gather a small interested audience I would be
interested in doing a small presentation on my work since I don't find much echo in Kyoto.
You can view online what my work is about:
http://momentarium.org/service/video.html
http://designmatters.to/meetings/nov_06_meeting.html
http://kyotojournal.org/1124slides/

Would be great if we got a chance for an exchange.
Thanks in advance for your reply.
Best regards from Kansai,
- markuz
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