HOWTO Writeup

In the second half of 2004 I began exchanging emails with a pair of
artists called MANIK (MArija Vauda & NIKola Pipilovic). We had met on
the New-York-based Rhizome mailing list. I live in Peterborough in
England. Manik live in Belgrade in Serbia (formerly Yugoslavia). The
Internet dissolved that distance, allowing us to discuss art,
aesthetics, and occasionally old television comedy programs.

Early in 2005 MANIK suggested that I have a show of my work in
Belgrade, and began working to find a suitable gallery. The gallery
that eventually agreed to show my work, O3one, specialises in new
media art, and had exactly the kind of space and technology that I
needed. With the show confirmed for the end of July, The British
Council agreed to pay for me to travel to Belgrade.

In Belgrade I stayed with MANIK (who were the perfect hosts) for a
week to set up the show, attend the private view and give a talk.
Setting up the show went quickly and smoothly, although I had to do
some last minute hacking to ensure the software part of the show
would run well unattended.

The work I showed was:

Canto - http://www.robmyers.org/art/canto
1969 - http://www.robmyers.org/art/1969
draw-something - http://rob-art.sourceforge.net/
paintr - http://paintr.robmyers.org/

At the private view people liked the work and some had interesting
questions. The talk two days later - about my work, free software and
free culture - also went well. I chatted to a couple of other artists
before and after.

One thing I wasn't prepared for was giving interviews to radio and
television (a music TV channel called Metropolis, and a national TV
arts program). That and the heat of Belgrade's summer were the only
two real surprises I had.

Whilst in Belgrade I had enough time to see MANIK's work and talk art
with them in real life, to see some of the city, to visit some of
MANIK's artist friends, and to look around some of the city's
galleries and museums. Like Jack White I had to see the Nikola Tesla
Museum.

This experience has confirmed my belief in the potential of
collaboration over the internet, and driven home the importance of
real world, international, collaboration between artists.

Show photos - http://www.robmyers.org/weblog/2005/08/02/rob-myers-
howto-images/

My web site - http://www.robmyers.org/
MANIK's weblog - http://tiija.blogspot.com/
O3one - http://www.o3.co.yu/
Rhizome - http://www.rhizome.org/
British Council http://www.britishcouncil.org/
Remix Reading - http://www.remixreading.org/
Creative Commons - http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5509