Eye Contact
JAN 21 2026

14/01/26 Meeting Notes

Will: what is missing from AM: there is a lot of translation in the magazine: art law, art criticism, openings (accessibility), interviews and reviews. But literal translation between what the magazine is saying and the audience reading it

Sabina: Loss in translation but also loss in metadata, in a video of someone speaking. What about combining meta data with a text? To make up for the loss of translation. Especially people’s emotions or how they move, voice, tone.

Will: Capturing the essence of the person (this as metadata)

Emily: I’m imagining a collage of a text, where when someone laughs there is an audio clip interspersed with text, and the interview continues in text, and someone shifts in their seat and there is a short video of that,

Will: Or interview text only happens when the ‘important’ parts of the interview are happening. However, the audio still plays when more casual conversations occur.

Sofia: Translation as a central point, it can be approached in multiple ways, background and experience is part of this translation, and we can use this.

Tension between reading online
vs
on paper

George: video platform where people’s comments travel across the screen as the film/tv show/video plays

Emily: Wattpad fanfiction where people comment on each paragraph

Have moved from Interpretation to translation today

What are the main points that define an interview,
which can be taken out/played with?

Translation: urgency to communicate what someone is saying

Seunghui: YDP Stand-up comedian taking comments from audience and writing his own stories on the wall afterwards

What are we questioning?

Authenticity of reactions to questions and how a response is formed

The process, background and metadata that goes into anything being produced

For the interview it matters a lot, how in a studio getting a glimpse into the artists process changes the work

What about getting a glimpse into the curatorial process? Have we seen that before?

Will: What do artists do all day
(Tracey Emin documentary)
(Polly Morgan documentary)

Reading a text from a stranger vs
When did the writer pause, when did they stop to

We discuss Death of the Author, Roland Barthes

Sofia: Value is in the intangible part of the discussion, not the answer (or the binary)

Why are we interested in seeing the process?
Will: We all want a parasocial relationship with the curator or artist; we’re naturally curious and looking for insights
Leanne: The normal person doesn’t think about the curatorial process, they just see what is in front of them.
S: The process is secondary.

Sofia: Do you think you can describe yourself through data? I don’t think so. I don’t care where they went to school, are they happy, curious, whatever?

Will:

AUTHENTICITY

, to write one script and have different performances of it, different paths to the same outcome: different scripts that lead to the same outcome.

Inigo Philbrick, scammer, pretending to have credentials
What feels like a genuine interaction and what doesn’t?

Prepare 5 minute interviews separately and share with each other

Scripts or just questions? Why not both, if you fancy the challenge…

George: Every TV thing does a pre-interview, to identify what should be in the interview

Leanne: Like confessionals in Love Island

Interviewing ongoing for each month/year with repeated questions

Seunghui’s 24hr interview at Serpentine, Hans Ulrich Orbist

Matt Hale said to look at Orbist (he keeps in ums and ahs in his interviews)
Platform the interpretation
Interview
Changing conditions for art monthly

The assembly can be the crystalisation of the project (the climax)

What feeling do we want to deliver or encourage? (intellectual? playful?)

For peer led session

What question do we want to ask with this?

Why do you find this interesting & would someone with no idea about Art Monthly find this interesting / how will this event be experienced by an outsider? Why would they care

Mind map craziest ideas on paper map

George:
Metadata!!!

Content and information is important; but what surrounds it is also important
Conversation changes direction, this is meaningful; George thinks audience do still attend the exhibitions in physical.
RCA 2002 Art Book Fair – completely new book but 24 years old. When we record conversations, interviews, or processes, will what we’re making now also become an archive one day?
Audience already know; database is shaped by algo and people; metadata cannot be changed; metadata is about how people control the data.
Metadata: Question is important, but why are we asking this question?

Sofia: metadata has random data about you, bringing something new to the interview format.

Non-stop interview; no editing
CCTV camera; recording everything in a neutral point

Emily: disruption by physically seeing the metadata; seeing the formation of the question

How can one access the interview?

No stopping or editing versus the formal and edited version
Little screens showing throughout the RCA.

Is it related to livestreaming?
Voyeurism
Consent
Interview/conversation/chat

Conversation as more unpredictable
Interview as more predictable

Relation to AM:

What is the metadata of AM?
The data is complex to understand
Data versus Archive

Everything can be archive; we need to spend time and money to maintain archive
Everyday we need to use database to analyse something
Sofia: figure out the topic we want to talk about in the interview

Security office with security cameras

Xiaoyi:

What is the feeling of this conversation?
Then you know how to structure your words and behaviour
Interview as most interesting thing to do;
Some people will just remember; writing a manuscript
Transcript
Before AI, seven hours of transcribing for only one hour of conversation
People like interview a lot because
Podcast is also edited; the most experience interviewer can make it more smooth; you don’t need much heavy acting
Audience wants to hear provoking questions

Interviewer asking questions audience don’t dare to ask

Interviewer sitting next to each other; body language; stage; how is it staged?

Emily:

Think meta!
Few layers out from the main point; in order to make or break assumptions; public and people in our course; by revealing assumptions, can bring people out of their heads; either being in the same room/objects - into someone else’s mind.
Crazy ideas. Only questions; Polyglot!; so only some people understand certain points;
Playful feeling; break in monotony; generate; inspire; into action.

Leanne: The Artist Is Present

We should try staring at each other for one minute

Sofia: Why stick to the one on one, why not multiple people

Different formats happening at the same time: one with physical touch, one no words, different languages, only questions
One and Three Chairs, Installation art by Joseph Kosuth
Same same but different;

Xiaoyi:Inclusive and exclusive chats; this often happens in art spaces; contemporary art as a global phenomenon; global saying; class issue, higher and middle class

AM: what is missing in their ways? More different ways to talk about art?

There are spaces to share music and film but people are intimidated by contemporary art

Leanne: Easier to read

Will: lighter

Leanne: Easy to find what to read

Xiaoyi: What about languages, should AM open another language branch

George: British government treat AM as PR, AM gets govt funding/council and want to emphasise british art

Art Monthly can make money from their loyal readers, they dont need to break into another market/with their funding structure that prioritises

RCA x Art Monthly Partnership: Not a service; no contract; not monetary; only memo of understanding; not so concrete; you’re not giving advice for them in the next 50 years; you are using them as inspiration and material; and in turns inspires them; intellectual exchange; E.g. Design department collaborates with BMW, the company will have a contest and choose winning group. You are responsible for yourself and CCA.

Sofia: bring your own interview format

✸ IDENTIFY THE QUESTION YOU WANT TO EXPLORE IN RELATION TO ART MONTHLY ✸

20/01/26 Meeting Notes

First tensions found:

Art Monthly treated still as a Magazine instead of a Platform.

magazine vs platform
Not digital/online, is this a strength? It is safe from the algorithm

What is seen and what is unseen

seen vs unseen
exclusivity vs inclusivity

Sabina: The tension between taking a position and remaining unpositioned.

position vs unpositioned
an opinion is a format

Public art that fails to reach the public, as its complexity makes it inaccessible.

accessibility vs intellectual exlusion

Seeing the exhibition as a living archive

living archive (exhibition) vs archive
How Art Monthly could be a living archive

Things to work on:

Framework:

What is our starting point? To consider the artistic either as the physical artwork itself, as the exhibition as a whole, or as the abstract experience that the viewer takes away.

physical artwork - exhibition - intangible experience

Do we want to work only with contemporary art, different types of arts or with art from different periods?

just contemporary art - encompass all artistic disciplines - encompass all historical periods of art

Art monthly as an archive, a live discursive space -

Will: interested in interview format, capturing the essence of that person in words

Setting a space for a conversation, in the same room, a friendship/an honest conversation vs. emails

Leanne: how is it transcribed, where are they sat, how is it recorded

Colloquial interview is easier to transfer information

Working as a collective: this is a friendship, laura’s working together readings

Hoping for more physical installation

And to document it, maybe through film

Sad if we do a publication (lots of nodding)

A culture shapes a language, the digital is almost shaping a new culture/language, and meticulous languages are being remade into something globally understood. Talking/language online different from in person

To think about this physical magazine and them not really doing digital
WILL: remaining the same but changing utterly

If we were to do an interview, same, but changing utterly, same setting, sam setting, could be the conversation that changes utterly
Speaking about the importance of not knowing, when interviewing, no expectation or direction, things pop up and naturally interweave. So not knowing what to plan, and that is what changes the conversation utterly
Productive failure: Dying in a video game and being resurrected at a checkpoint

George: “Anti-platform logic” can’t know which article will be the most popular, a physical magazine is bought

Collage your own magazine (i.e. can’t with a physical one?) if you could

How is this different from meta-curated social media
Using data to do this for subscribers / demand drives commissioning

AM Income relies on long-term loyal readers

Commissioning an artist for a Collective response to a space

Xiaoyi + Leanne: “Person-to-person relationships”

Being in the same room together

What would an interview that prioritised the reader’s experience look like?

[[[[[ritual]]]]

Conditions that have been set
Setting the scene, not expectations
Food water,
Audience asking questions
Leanne: at YDP, artist in residence does an open studio, during which the gallery space might take on the function of a studio

Receiving a richer experience of the work from knowledge or literacy in art / luxury

Louisiana Channel, interviews with artists in the artists studio FORMAT

Look at what type of questions are being asked

Art Monthly doesn't really go into the physical labour that goes into the work, the process of art making, observing how the artist interacts with the materials in the studio

Creating more open ended conversations on the old topics

Society engaged by art rather than socially engaged art: people get engaged

Art engages community, art unifies, art

Documenting the process and it unlocking something in the moment

See the artwork first and then interact with the process, seeing the process first is disruptive

Process and material as a curatorial tool/critical entry point

Leanne: QR code for viewers to record their thoughts https://thekoppelproject.com

Will: no pressure like when talking to someone
George: presenting interview with the artwork

Interested in the atmosphere of where the work was made (favourite work)

L: depends how curious I am
W: physical materiality, lighting, brush strokes, which came first, last

YouTube comment sections, anonymity, paint drying

George comment sections: repeated comments, lots of people just say its beautiful, why do they comment, they want to exist in a meaningless world

21/01/26 Meeting Notes

Rehash of our findings we discussed yesterday:

Will’s discussion with Matt Hale
Colloquial interview style, following a relational pathway and physicality of the space
How the digital is shaping a new language: how it’s transcribed
How an interview can be productive failure (thanks Chiara for the saying)

Xiaoyi: When we’re thinking of interviewing the same person in the same condition. Usually you don’t have a second chance. But the curator/artist experiment of 3 artists who were graduates and the curator accompanied them for a year. Having a monthly meeting, talk or chat and what has kind of changed.

CONT.

Art Monthly’s lack of collective data of viewership
The ethics of process and product over an artist’s work
QR codes for audience participation and that being part of a performance
Different ways to platform the viewers interpretation of the work (it it takes away the problematisation of expecting an answer)

OVERALL VIEWERSHIP OF INTERPRETATION

Xiaoyi: I feel the interview in a format has the most direct transcription.

If you’d like to explore interviews as a format, how do you view this as a curatorial framework?

Leanne: 24 hour interview from Serpentine with Hans Urich Obrist. The book Curious was a good launch point

Xiaoyi: Are you all interested in the interview format?

Sofia: I was mostly working around how we combine our interests in the materialisation of them.

Questions/findings:

What type of digital elements attract the audience?

What does physical attendance offer?

What is the issue of dissatisfaction of digital mediation

Sensory and Rational perception

Cognitive dissonance
Attention and access capital
Productive nature of subjectivity
Collective interview

Sofia: If you go to an exhibition with physical over digital works, trying to find a middle ground

CONT.

Xiaoyi: Clear interests in looking specifically at the references and format. One thing is how to imagine the interview, and for format there is with the on-site interview and how to platform interpretation. If you’re creating a new reiteration. But maybe there is another dimension of changing conditions of what is changing, and remember that the assembly is only one event. Also what do you care about? I’m curious to know if this is more intellectual, more playful/fun?

Perhaps it would be interesting when we figure out who we are working with. We have to try and consider all the elements.

How you can put your most crazy thoughts into the interview format, and different reiterations of what is the question you want to ask with making this event. Eventually it is how to deliver your thoughts and share your failures. Think outside of the box. It could just be a new format or who we might interview and what is their relationship with Art Monthly. What question might you want to ask or explore with the interview?

The question needs to be asked as to why you find this interesting for people who have no idea what you’re doing with Art Monthly. The difficulty is to imagine how this would be experienced and why would they care?

George:

What do we do everyday? Something is lost and why do people still come and go? Metadata. I like the case of non-stop 24 hr interviews. The disruption of the break in the conversation. The nervousness of tension of not knowing the answer.

How does this relate to Metadata? It cannot be changed and you’d like to bring more of the background of the interview. Recorded in a neutral space and then

Being able to physically see the metadata of the interview not set as. Thinking of the livestream???

The combination of interview, chat and conversation.

Xiaoyi: Don’t over prepare. The most predictable online. In person the heavy amount. After a recording you can remember and then some people will re-write the questions from the answers.

Why is it relevant to Art Monthly?

George: The data is complex and hard to understand.

What is the difference between metadata and archive?

George: Archive is on borrowed time

Emily: I also wrote think meta. To break and reveal assumptions and by revealing assumptions we can bring them out through physicality, whether than be an object or a space.

An interview with only questions

An interview with a polyglot

The feeling is playful, a break in monotony, to connection this inspiration with action

Xiaoyi: The inclusive and exclusivity of chats that often happen within an art space. Contemporary art as a global phenomenon. It’s related to a class issue of the global conditions of contemporary art

Leanne: With music and film you can share, but with contemporary art there is something missing, that is silent

Xiaoyi: Maybe the audience are all highly educated, what are the different ways for audiences to engage

Emily: What was hanging over us is that we didn't necessarily know the audience or we were figuring out and comparing.

Leanne: Art Monthly also has a subheading for each article or review. I don’t think you are supposed to read it back-to-front.

What question do we want to explore?