2015.02.27 Made in Public Taipei Series #1 “Cash Your Imagination? A Conversation between Shu Lea Cheang and Halfway Café 公／共製造 台北系列活動＃1 「兌現想像？鄭淑麗與半路咖啡 對談」

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2015.02.27 FRI 3PM
公／共製造 台北系列活動＃1 「兌現想像？鄭淑麗與半路咖啡 對談」
地點：半路咖啡，台北市羅斯福路三段269巷51弄9號1樓
主辦單位：台北當代藝術中心 | 協辦單位：半路咖啡

Venue: Halfway Café, No. 9, Alley 51, Lane 269, Section 3, Roosevelt Road, Taipei 
Made in Public Taipei Series #1 “Cash Your Imagination? A Conversation between Shu Lea Cheang and Halfway Café”
Organizer: Taipei Contemporary Art Center | Co-organizer: Halfway Café

活動介紹：
在全球經濟環境面臨各種崩盤危機，資本主義挾帶貨幣經濟的模式侵入各種社會行為與價值取向的現實環境中，以及半路咖啡開始發行獨立貨幣以實踐高度自治與社群認同連結的想像之際，《公／共製造》系列活動特別邀請了藝術家鄭淑麗與半路咖啡進行一場關於另類經濟實踐的對談。鄭淑麗於今年一月出版的Musiques & Cultures Digitales第76期雜誌中擔任客座編輯，策劃《We Grow Money, We Eat Money, We Shit Money》特輯，收羅了各種藝術家對非正規經濟的想像或實踐方案。對談將從這些不同的案例和討論，以及鄭淑麗長期對於分享性經濟模式的思考中，邀集眾力一起探索在地另類貨幣的實踐可能。
《公／共製造》為一系列研究、活動、出版計畫，針對另類藝術經濟的發展可能和文化生產方式進行反思和辯論。此由策展人呂岱如和藝術家柳思雅（Marysia Lewandowska）所發起的計畫透過台北當代藝術中心、亞洲藝術文獻庫協同在台北、香港兩地同時進行，以回應「資產」（property）的概念及其合法性之建立和運作在亞洲如何相對描繪出其中的社會關係及政治難題，並藉此觀察其外顯於創意、價值、法律之間的張力又如何廣泛地作用在文化活動、生產和交換系統上，並對新自由主義的危機發出警鐘和反省。為了進一步對亞洲區域近來的政治局勢保持敏感和關注，此計畫的研究方向規劃在：資產、抗爭、公／共三項議題的探索上，邀請各界的文化生產、實踐者共同討論並進行新的公／共生產。

講者簡介：
鄭淑麗，藝術家、媒體行動者。於她長達三十餘年的創作生涯中，她的藝術追求展現了一份穿越社會、地理政治與經濟結構疆界的想像力與欲望，以重新定義性別、角色、財產、機制等。其批判手法以高度的敏銳性臨對諸多即時與人類科技文明進步和當代烏托邦相關的普羅議題。在90年代時期，即作為最早一批的前衛網路藝術家，鄭淑麗的作品脈絡體現她流暢精準使用各樣媒體的能力，而她對非物質性共享資產與網絡形態的探索、長期對於各種形式的財產權、另類經濟、共享資源（commons）的前瞻性深刻思考是為反省新自由主義時代面臨各種經濟危機、生態（環境與網路）的一面明鏡。
半路咖啡為一個新生活實踐經濟自治體，以咖啡店的經營作為空間介面，營造新的生活實踐方案的可能性，作為一個多元複合性的空間場域：咖啡／夜食堂／菜園／地下集會桌／互助牆，匯聚在台北積極活動的青年、軟爛的青年、社會運動參與者與素人、各界文化人等社群，進行重新組織生活的行動，以生活中的各項勞動集結重新發展對於社會文化、組織、經濟的反思和創意實踐，流串其間之諸眾更積極拓展新的政治思潮與青年文化。

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Introduction:
As today’s global environment confronts precarious reality that is as much prescribed by the capitalist social behaviors and values as an economic instability driven by the domination of financial speculation, Made in Public invites Paris based Taiwanese artist Shu Lea Cheang and Halfway Café, to discuss a recently launched independent monetary system, which reimagines autonomy in conjunction with community network. Last month, Shu Lea Cheang presented a special edition of “We Grow Money, We Eat Money, We Shit Money” for Musique & Cultures Digitales magazine as a survey collecting many of the artists’ proposals for alternative economies. These correspond to Cheang’s long-term artistic practice concerned with economic models based on commons and sharing. The public conversation will investigate and extend these ideas inside the local context by providing diverse materials and exchanges between Shu Lea Cheang and Halfway Café is encouraging participation in a collective production process.

Made in Public is a collaboration between artist Marysia Lewandowska and curator Esther Lu based respectively in London/Hong Kong and Taipei, who are embarking on a project responding to a relentless process of privatisation of all aspects of life. Their project will take a form of a collectively generated research, public events and a publication, jointly developed and supported by Taipei Contemporary Art Center and Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong. The enquiry is centred around the relationship between property, protest and the commons and the forms of their articulation as part of the globalizing processes of Asia. The research opens up an opportunity to expose and reflect upon the existing tensions in cultural production and dissemination as well as to explore alternative value, legal and self-governance systems by attending to a range of emerging creative expressions. In order to be sensitive to the recent political events in the region, the project invites cultural practitioners to discuss together the models and initiatives committed to commons-based society and their contributions to a well nourished public culture.

About the participants 
Shu Lea Cheang’s works have manifested a genuine spirit to imagine beyond the social, geopolitical and economical boundaries that are set to define gender, role, property and institution throughout her artistic career for more than three decades. Her criticality has attended many contemporary discussions around utopia and human civilization projected by technology progression since her early projects. As one of the first net artists in the 90s, her oeuvres demonstrate her capacity in mastering all kinds of media to express her ideas in a participatory or interactive narrative, and her exploration to immaterial common and network model, her long term thinking in proposing new property concepts, economy models and shared resources all serve as a mirror for us to perceive economic and ecological (the nature and the virtual environment) reality once again.

Halfway Café is an autonomous entity for proposing new living style and economy. The operation of a coffee shop creates a spatial interface to cluster and experiment with many lifestyle proposals. It is a multifunctional site, and opens itself as a café, an independent restaurant within a café, a garden, an underground meeting point, a supportive hub…to gather diverse communities such as active youth, soggy youth, social activists, amateurs, musicians, artists and cultural people in Taipei. It calls for actions to re-organize private and social life, and to rethink how to generate critical reflections and creative practice to change public culture, organization and economy based on labors and imagination in everyday life. The multitudes participating in this entity are active in exploring new political thinking and youth culture.