#0.3 Publication marks the final moment of IT IS PROBABLY BETTER TO START FROM ZERO. The publication intends to function as an overview of the whole project and the artists' practices. It chronologically compiles written and visual records, presenting the development of the project over its eight month duration. It includes supporting essays and interviews by Alejandro Ball, John Gillett, Rogério Taveira and Nayia Yiakoumaki, reflecting on themes presented by the four artists.

The publication is available for sale at £7. Please email contact@betterfromzero.co.uk to order one.

(b. 1993, Stockport)

After marking its mid-point with #0.2 Workshop, IT IS PROBABLY BETTER TO START FROM ZERO presents a second intervention by each of the four artists exhibited previously, over the next four months. By coming back into the Window Space, the artists present the progress of their ongoing research and practice, taking into account the effects of their relation with the curators, the other artists and the space itself. Since her previous installation, Goldie has been exploring the effects of working with degenerative materials. Her latest collection of sculptures 'Obscured Artefacts' are built in fragments, allowing each structure to be arranged and rearranged, depending on their environment. Her work takes notice of the negative space and the complexity of the missing object, questioning the impact on the remaining sculpture. Visualising the absent space stems from an amalgamation of elements taken from the artist's work on light projections.
Goldie creates a sculpted design from microcrystalline wax, which is melted away from the main body of the structure. The wax is then set into plaster and polystyrene segments and cast into triangular forms, a shape that was used in her previous installations to represent the formation of light. It has been important that the rituals and processes of an object are understood by the audience. By presenting a visual timeline within the display, Goldie hopes that the viewer will piece together the journey each structure has made.

(b. 1990, Lisbon)

After marking its mid-point with #0.2 Workshop, IT IS PROBABLY BETTER TO START FROM ZERO presents a second intervention by each of the four artists exhibited previously, over the next four months. By coming back into the Window Space, the artists present the progress of their ongoing research and practice, taking into account the eects of their relation with the curators, the other artists and the space itself. For her second display, Inês presents Digestion, a humorous continuation of her previous installation Blend In. It follows the questions raised before regarding globalisation and its input towards a future hegemonized world. Culture, language, religion, demographic presence, ideology and economic expropriation are all part of an ‘alimentary bolus’ that dismantles physically, in smaller pieces, for the possibility of a digestion. To digest something is to acknowledge that it comes as a pre-processed reality of something that is already past and it was raised within a system that is not only ours; there is a need to acknowledge it as a collective digestive organism. This display will be a place to rethink how generations re-evaluate previous generations’ decisions and how they are processed in a fast-forward thinking world. It intends to raise awareness to how this decision making process shapes our world and how it can be questioned.

Inês Marques (b. 1990, Lisbon) is a London based designer. She has completed a BA in Multimedia Arts - Installation and Performance at the Fine Arts University of Lisbon, Portugal and is currently undertaking an MA Material Futures at Central Saint Martins – University Arts of London, aimed at engaging designers to have a critical and social point of view whilst developing their projects. She was involved in the MAE’ Artist Residents in Sesimbra and worked in collaboration with FAZ – a young collective group at Arpad Szenes and Vieira da Silva Museum, Lisbon. Her work has recently been shown at PROTECHT exhibition at The Cass Bank Gallery and undertook the role of tutor/designer in Concept Catwalk, a project in collaboration with V&A, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and fashion designer Nicky Vu for students of Prendergast Hilly Fields College.

Despite Internet-based art is usually perceived through its own online context and remains in its own context, both curators and artists have tried to re-interpret and re-elaborate it, by embracing always new approaches. These approaches are usually marked by attempts to undermine or take a distance from the medium of the Internet, or accepting it by being an integral and active part of the complex structure of the online context. However, artist, curators and art institutions tend to confusedly categorise the variety of online art manifestations as Web Art, Internet Art, Net Art or Post-Internet, manifesting a lack of attention to the different artistic approaches to the matter and a shallow investigation on how artists use online contexts to meet and satisfy their artistic needs.

Although the mutable nature of these forms of art and the difficulty of associating them with a specific theoretical definition still remain, artists and curators have lately defined a common trend focused on freeing artistic contents from the habitat of the Internet, translating them into the physical space of the galleries. This curatorial and artistic process shows an attempt to de-territorialise a specific work from the original context of the web and re-territorialise it according to physical setting and display. Furthermore, this process aims to re-create and re-elaborate artistic messages by taking physical control of their production and reception, which would otherwise be compromised by their exclusive online presence.

FULL ESSAY HERE

(b. 1987, Zaragoza)

After marking its mid-point with #0.2 Workshop, IT IS PROBABLY BETTER TO START FROM ZERO presents a second intervention by each of the four artists exhibited previously, over the next four months. By coming back into the Window Space, the artists present the progress of their ongoing research and practice, taking into account the effects of their relation with the curators, the other artists and the space itself. For the second manifestation of Diaspora of the Line, a poliedric archive accesible on-line at http://diasporaoftheline.tumblr.com, Juan focuses on architecture as a colonial tool to neutralise local imaginary in Africa. This presentation is concerned about how the historical fact is represented and transmitted, rather than the history in itself. Construction materials or building ornaments are some of the elements used to rethink the decolonial process of British Institutions and Museums. Humor and anecdote introduce a disruptive grammar used to analyse the content provided by official video databases, such as Imperial War Museum or British Film Institute.

Juan Crespo (b. 1987, Zaragoza) lives and works in London. He graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona, where he also studied the MA in Artistic Production and Research. He has recently shown works in Barcelona (Sala d’Art Jove, ARSM or Loop Video Art Festival), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Santander, “Biennal Leandre Cristófol” La Panera, Lleida and Festival Cine-Septiembre, Sinaloa, México. He is Co-Founder of PIL Project, presented at London Metropolitan University, and now part of the Digital Artist Residency within the Wrong Biennale. PIL Project has recently been granted in Step Beyond to develop a research project in the Russia’s new internet content law.