. . . [three dots]

Four page newspaper supplement and online. . . . [three dots] was a six-month residency at the Guardian newspaper as part of the Year of the Artist. The piece was outputted on 19/3/01 in the G2 supplement of the newspaper in an unlimited edition of 400,000 copies and available on the Guardian website. The process was pivotal and moved me out of the artist space and forward into a dynamic business environment that I have worked in on and off ever since. It's the ability (learnt through this residency at the Guardian) to move freely between the worlds of art and business, business and art, plus negotiate the fallout from risk, that makes my consultancy work post–2006 so valuable to clients. In my Arts Council England lecture Ways of Working (7/11/01) about optimising conditions for artists' residencies, I describe my ambition for future public engagements: 'Call yourself a consultant. Not an artist. In that way you can charge five times more money than you could as an artist.' (This was somewhat of a joke.) Furthermore, I say 'If someone asked me to become artist-in-residence again I would say 'yes' but not call myself an artist.' I turned away from the word 'artist'. After the Guardian residency I positioned myself potentially as a paid consultant, which, in a twist of fate, I did become. Especially after the release of my book How To Be An Artist. Post–2009 I regularly gave workshops and talks in business contexts. I was suddenly in an environment where the drivers of excellence were commercial considerations. I found this very refreshing. Also, business leaders sometimes could be persuaded to invest in my work, understanding that having an artist, or key creative in the organisation, would have process value that exceeded any financial transaction. These collaborations in industry contexts became standard ways of funding my technology ideas. After the years of public funding that this period 1998–2006 documents, it was a relief; these mechanisms presented different ways of working and a new kind of optimism. Although, when I came back to the word 'artist' in 2018, I realised that I genuinely didn't belong in either the art or business category but sat on the very narrow (and precarious) dividing line between the two areas. I don't see these two as being in conflict but as having a useful and ongoing cross-pollination. However, the making of the . . . [three dots] piece presented some interesting challenges – I clearly hadn't learnt enough diplomacy at this stage in my career.) In retrospect, it amuses me that my G2 supplement piece begins with 'Why?' – it's typical of the wry humour often evident in my work that is rarely picked up by observers. During the residency I was asked many times 'why?' – in Ways of Working I describe the questions as: 'WHY? WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO DO THIS? WHY PUT IT THERE? WHY DO YOU WANT TO CHANGE THINGS?' And so disarmingly, I put the question right at the start of the work, to bring the shadow out from its hiding place and reveal a truth. The news story from the Guardian 'What do you mean, there's no brief and no deadline?' in which I am (perhaps prophetically) called 'idiot savant outsider' is archived on their site and can be viewed here. . . . [three dots] was outputted on 45g newsprint. CMYK colours 100 59 3.14 24 (blue), 1.18 96.08 91.37 0 (red) and 50.2 34.9 98.82 19.61 (green). The gifs archived on the Guardian Unlimited site were each 1700 x 2128 pixels, exactly twice the size of the print versions. 'Point a microphone out into the night sky towards the modern city with its fast food outlets, cars and high-rise blocks, the lights coming on one by one. Record the sounds and objects that you hear, now and for fifty years into the future. 
In an unassuming way, these pieces are a collection of some of the sounds and shapes that you are likely to find on your digital tape. Just a record of things heard.' (From Michael Atavar Exhibition Notes) See below the various texts hosted on the Guardian website for . . . [three dots]. I note my prescient comments about virtuality, which seem as timely now as they were twenty years ago. Despite my hyperbole from the time of youth, I perceive us to be living in a hyperreal virtual environment every day, 24 hours at a time. (My notes about spelling and punctuation can be found in the Artist's Statements [Language] section of this site.) 'one of the key debates in the 21st century will be the relationship between VR (Virtual Reality) and RL (Real Life). in the same way that in the last century there was a similar dialogue between theatre and film. but in order to develop this 3-D potential of the computer screen we need monitors that are big enough for us to step inside, so we can have life-size representations of ourselves in virtual environments. I'd like to see a screen a mile wide and just as high for the user to get lost inside.' (From the website 'portal' . . . [three dots]) 'it would be useful in culture if there was a cut off period for art. after which all works could be put in the wastebasket (in the same way that files are taken off the desktop to make more room on the hard disk). it's a kind of fantasy. I know this will never happen. in fact I'm not really advocating this practice. but it might be interesting to play with it (moving pieces of paper around just to see what it looks like). this wastebasketing would cultivate a space for new ideas. without the legacy of the past influencing our decisions. creating a new kind of authority not based on historical authenticity. the www is full of archiving. libraries of information. downloads of text and very few windows (opportunities to look out into other kinds of space. non-authoritative, non-hierarchical and non-linear). it would be useful if we could make an alias of all antiquities. retrievable from a larger database, present, but not really here.' (From the website 'archive' . . . [three dots]) 'a default is a basic behaviour that exists on an electronic device. a behaviour that returns the machine it to its factory standard. the default is perceived as the basic i.e. crudest form of the application. this is seen as common sense. but it's not how I see it. with defaults we have no choice. they are allocated to us. they're undeniable, unprocessible, irreversible. an opportunity for us to deal with the basic. that's very interesting to me. a default is the electronic blue that sits on the TV screen in the Chinese take away on Seven Sisters Road, waiting for the right button to be pressed on the remote. beautifully clear and direct. containing nothing and saying nothing. a default is the beauty of the obvious thing. all around the world I see an extensive electronic installation of default blue displayed on TVs, cash dispense machines and arcade games. these screens are broken, waiting technical attention or out of use. but for me they are clearly on.' (From the website 'default' . . . [three dots]) 'on the www everything has equal value. all the rubbish and the value is viewed within the same frame (the browser window). and so in a way is the same. if we look at the edges of this window as a picture frame that holds all kinds of landscape information, it's important to notice that this frame does not discriminate according to content i.e. there is no equivalent of an ornate heavy gold border or a clip frame saying 'this is important' or 'this is cheap'. and so the www presents something I've always been moving towards in my work, the complete integration of low and high culture.' (From the website 'frames' . . . [three dots]) ATTC-Minus 8: Michael Atavar for Psopo Bubble Commissioned: Guardian Newspaper Special thanks: Jo Confino, Rohini Malik Okon at IniVa, Dan Glaister, Arts 2000 Website: Text, programming, print graphics and Illustrator files by Michael Atavar Graphic reconstructions: Richard Scarborough