Our Process

The following statements describe our process in the past. Currently we are rethinking and adjusting this process to the new setting which is situated in an urban environment and includes a commissioning institution.

Based on our experience, we can state that in order for a project to become successful:

– we need to own land

– we need to spend time on site

– we need to make random encounters

– we need time to create mutual trust or familiarity

– we need to find at least one person who is willing to believe what we imagine

These steps are the beginning of our proposal stage. This process can take up to a year during or at the end of which we have developed a full fledged proposal. This proposal will put in consideration the unique local situation, which consists of the land and its current inhabitants. (Alternative options are: institution invites eteam for a proposal and then executes the proposal with their own resources. In this case eteam only functions as a fee-based consultant and does not take artistic control.)

Since our motives are guided by our artistic practice, the project might not lead to a rationally explicable solution. Most of our past projects created a belief system within which all involved parties shared a common vision. This vision only existed because all participants put it into existence.

Many current artistic practices involving community activities are surrounding topics of green space and improvements of living situations. All these ideas are based on the belief that in order to change something for the better, something positive has to be created. – What if we reverse this and state that in order to create a communal event, the process can use something that initially has a negative notion (similar to the reversion of the perception of empty space from a wasteland to an asset)?

Once we have established a presence or familiarity, we can start a simple project. A project that is easy to understand or relate to. We call it “scenario one”. For its execution, it doesn’t require participants to have special skills, but exploits a  shared knowledge and common experience. It should maintain spontaneous and improvisational qualities to remain accessible. It might have only two active participants (eteam) at certain times.

Past examples include an Artificial Traffic Jam (the image of a traffic jam is familiar and everyone can picture it. In order to create it, no skills are necessary.), a strike (equally easy to picture and create as a traffic jam) or a landcruise.

Once “scenario one”, has happened successfully, previous participants are more willing to go further and explore unfamiliar terrain. Unfamiliar because it might not be as easily understood by the uninitiated.

This is the “event”, a larger project conceived based on our research and the experience and connections made throughout the year.

Since most “events” are happening outdoors, the “event” will happen in the following summer or fall.

We expect the entire project to take about 1.5 years which includes “scenario one” and the “event”. This time frame is an estimate based on previous experience, since we don’t know the local conditions.

Whatever we conceive as a project we deem feasible.