End Note(s) : moderation(s) 2012-2014

Over the course of two years, from 2012 to 2014, Moderation(s) saw a sprawling ecology of artists, curators, and writers gather around different formats of inhabitation, production, and exhibition making. Essays were viewed as works of fiction, language as image, sculpture as situation. An extension of this approach, End Note(s) focuses on interpretations of and reflections on what has been said and what has been done during Moderation(s).

Each project installment of Moderation(s) –including three residencies, a series of performances, a conference and an exhibition– questioned or redefined the conditions of creating objects, situations, and stories. Allowing for chance encounters and improvisation to often take the lead, the program reveals itself through its participants more than anything else. Driven by the desire to return to the specific nature of creative processes of production, doing preceded defining.

The book begins with a poetic gesture by the writer Guy Mannes-Abbott, and continues with annotations throughout by Witness to Moderation(s) Christina Li, along with her essay “Speaking in Parentheses;” a narrative of encounters, drawing lines between the territories of intimacy and isolation by writer Oscar van den Boogaard; a text-reprint by curator and writer Chris Fitzpatrick, originally performed at the Moderation(s) conference Stories and Situations; the “Participation and Confidentiality Agreement” by artist duo A Constructed World, which lay at the base of their work The Social Contract; the essay “True Pleasure” by philosopher Aaron Schuster, where the writer playfully expands on what we think of as true pleasure with cues from Freud, Hegel, and Plato; a visual essay from Incidents of Travel by curatorial office Latitudes; the short story “Boquerones en Vinagre” by artist Nadim Abbas, written during A Fictional Residency; and a lyrical text by Travis Jeppesen, telling the story of the exhibition The Part In The Story Where A Part Becomes A Part of Something Else.