Presentation of the project by Robin Mackay and Paul Chaney
URBANOMIC is a publisher and arts organization based in the UK that engages in interdisciplinary thinking and production. For the residency at Bergen Kunsthall, director Robin Mackay works in collaboration with artist Paul Chaney and others to develop a research programme that overthrows the notion of ‘site-specificity’ in favour of the concept of ‘plot’. A plot is a thread one follows to trace a local phenomena back to its global conditions. It is also a delimited area carved out for some specific purpose, but which always retains connections to its ‘outside’, and thus harbours the potential for ‘plot twists’.
Taking structural cues from the narrative forms of the international thriller, the detective story, and post-apocalyptic scenarios such as in Russell Hoban´s novel Riddley Walker, Urbanomic will develop and put into practice a methodology for systematically unpacking objects and sites, revealing the labyrinthine plots compacted within them.
Check Urbanomic’s micro-blog documenting the residency for updates, writings, images of work in progress, and, during the residency, the Yarncast – a series of audio podcasts in which Urbanomic will be talking to an exciting range of people working in crime writing, law, forensics, theatre, design, and more: http://blog.urbanomic.com/yarnwork/
Upstairs: Bergen Kunsthalls new residency program invites organisations to inhabit and transform the public space on the 2nd floor in whatever way they wish, creating a multi-disciplinary arena in the heart of the building: from an open studio or research station to a publishing house, classroom or pop-up shop.