Jacquelene Drinkall

I have suddenly just been accepted to the Banff Research in Culture residency, “On Energy”, from May 30, 2016 to June 24, 2016. My expected arrival date is May 29, 2016 and my expected departure date is June 25, 2016. It is quick notice, so unfortunately the project falls outside funding timelines for NAVA grants, Career Fund etc. and it catches me with almost no funds.

Image: Jacquelene Drinkall, "In Defense of Capitalism (ironic)", still image montage from movie montage, 2016 

 Here is a bit of info about Banff Research in Culture (BRiC) “On Energy”:
 “How do we make energy visible and what does it render possible? What are the limits of specific energy sources, like coal, oil, and solar? The 2016 Banff Research in Culture (BRiC) residency takes on the challenge of energy, its pasts, present, and futures. Artists and researchers will help redefine the impact of energy on society, and imagine new ways of representing and thinking about energy for the coming transition.” 

Image: Ian Milliss, "Welcome to Kandos", A3 297x420mm poster (detail), 2013 

 Here is the program overview:
 "Our lives revolve around energy. From driving our cars—or bikes—to work, to eating food and heating our homes, energy in some form or another conditions the quotidian at every scale. Energy grounds the daily, the quarterly, the annual, and the epochal. Futures trading in New York and Chicago makes the extremes of weather a fiscal crisis for working families hard pressed to pay their utilities, while the growth rate of nations bends to the capacities and supply of domestic and international energy markets. Since the industrial revolution, our lives have been fueled by the social and physical energy available from coal, oil, and natural gas. No longer dependent on the rhythms and limits of organic energy, such as wood, water, and animal power, fossil fuels have simultaneously made the modern, globalized economy possible, and redefined the social history of energy in the meantime. What Leibniz called the living force has become, since the systematic mechanization of fossil fuels in the 19th century, the fundamental force of modern history.

 Image: Jacquelene Drinkall, cover art for Digital Culture and Education comprised of stills of my Fukushima Firefox avatar in the virtual world Blue Mars Lite, 2013

On Energy invites participants creating in the fields of visual art, architecture, design, literature, humanities, social sciences, and physical sciences to consider energy; its conceptual, corporeal, and cultural development since its thermodynamic invention, and the sort of materialism that can emerge when energy is redefined in a postindustrial capitalist society. This residency asks artists and researchers to collectively address energy’s historical figures and futures; its visual and social economy, and its capacity to disfigure, since energy is not a thing, but rather a representation of the force embedded in matter and the relations between materials. Over four weeks of intense workshops, discussion groups, studio time, and individual research, we will consider the cultural, political, and historical components of energy and explore new ways to artistically and conceptually figure energy in history. The collective aim of On Energy is to reimagine energy in the long view; to establish its current possibilities and limitations, and examine the social and physical forms energy might take in the future. Participants are expected to arrive with interests and ideas particular to their own research and artistic practice around energy in its current or potential shape."

Image: Jacquelene Drinkall, "Telepathic Balaclava Fascinator (Dark DNA)" 

 This is what the program offers:
 BRiC is a research and creation residency where academics and artists can carve out the time and space to further develop their ideas and projects within a supportive and rigorous community of diverse perspectives. Discussions and seminars, reading groups, talks and presentations by faculty and participants, demonstrations in artistic production, and studio visits are all a part of this program.” - See more at: https://www.banffcentre.ca/programs/banff-research-culture-energy#sthash.bcLR90dG.dpuf
Faculty consists of Imre Szeman (Canada Research Chair of Cultural Studies); Matthew Huber (Associate Professor of Geography at Syracuse University); Keller Easterling (architect, writer and professor at YaleUniversity); and Ackroyd & Harvey (artists working at the intersection of sculpture, photography, architecture, ecology and biology). Fellow students consist of thinkers, researchers, architects, writers, curators, social scientists and artists who have trained in visual art with demonstrated commitment to professional practice, and whom are current PhD researchers and post-doctoral researchers.

Image: Jacquelene Drinkall, "ELF Luxury Home Vail Fires," oil on canvas.

Here is my summary of my accepted project:
 Myproject will intensify and focus my artistic research into energy as it relatesto telepathy, transference and neuro-ethics. I will look critically at telepathy through the lens of media, culture and society: telecommunications infrastructure, speculative technoscientific innovation and synthetic telepathy; cinema, film and video; and conditions of immaterial labour and cognitive capitalism. I will perform a woven telecommunications wire headpiece for two; create transdisciplinary text-based research integrated with videomontage analysis of energy in cinema and telecommunications infrastructure; and integrate residency program learning. Stemming directly from performance and video work will be intermedia still image and artist book production.

Image: Jacquelene Drinkall, "Animating the Telepathic Balaclava Fascinator Into Thin Air", collaborative/community performance for video, 2015

TRAVEL: Sydney-Calgary return flight (cheapest is United Airlines at $1650 with all extra fees included on top of airfare); Banff Airporter shuttle $121; and comprehensive travel insurance $184. Total including Sydney train to airport for travel is almost $2000. Participants who complete this Banff program are also awarded $1000, because the program was awarded a grant, and this is agreat help! My folks have very kindly helped me with the airfare already (before prices rise) but they have only given me $500 and I need to pay back the rest and this $1000 is already earmarked for them.

FEES: Banff requires a fee of $1595 for the cheaper and shared accommodation option that includes most meals. The overall fees are much more, but I have been offered financial aid from Banff to the value of $1904.34, which is very kind and generous.  Any funds above the target amount will be prioritized towards an upgrade to a single room so I can sleep with greater peace and personal rest space, which costs an extra $420.

CREATION OF ARTWORK: I do not need to spend much money at all on art materials, hopefully just working with no/low budget performance, video, my staple medium of woven telecommunications wire and other ‘free’, existing and non-expensive mediums (and energies!). However this is a creation and research residency, and creation of new work will definitely be a result of my attendance. 

Any extra funds over the Pozible target will enable me to travel with greater ease and upgrade to a single room accommodation (single rooms raise the Banff fees to $2015 – and this was my initial option, but I have changed to a share room to cut costs). Any further extra funds will go towards the creation and research elements of the residency (eg. photographic documentation and multiple hardcopies of the artist book instead of just a digital version). Any extra funds beyond the priority of travel and fees needs will be put towards the creation of new work and artistic research.

Also, I have listed some rewards that eclipse the required Pozible target of $1500. If I am lucky to sell any rewards above $2000, I plan to donate 20% of funds raised from those items listed as above $2000 to Frontyard artist run space, as I only urgently need about $1500 and I am priviledged to have a residency at Frontyard for the duration of my Pozible campaign - I plan to use Frontyard's internets a lot and continue working with them. Frontyard run on donations and I am very happy that they are happy to accept 20% of anything I sell over $2000: http://www.frontyardprojects.org/events

I am most grateful for the generosity of in kind suport from friends and family:

* Ian Milliss' donation of his "Welcome to Kandos" 

* MAP Futurist Dinner Dance ticket donation - thanks to Miriam and MAP team

* Donation of room at my folks new B&B 

* Julie Shea already forwarded $500, enabling me to pay the Banff fee deposit in exchange for a commisioned portraite of her using my spirograph (see rewards).

* My folks for part gift and part loan already.

* My Pozible brainstrust Gianni Wise for showing me how to do this.