The SQUID project was presented as part of LIVE ART LIVE BLOG, which was launched at Chapter Arts Center’s annual performance festival Experimentica 2011 in Cardiff, Wales. The presentation, Performing SQUID, was written by Katja Aglert, Martijn van Berkum and Janna Holmstedt, and was carried out live at Experimentica 12 by two of the artists and initiators of the LIVE ART LIVE BLOG project.

LIVE ART LIVE BLOG is run by the performance platform random people and aims to increase the visibility of performance and live art events through the medium of a live blog. It was launched the 12th of October and can be followed online at: http://liveartliveblog.net

For more information on the festival: http://www.chapter.org/24305.html
For more information on random people: http://random-people.net


Photos: Erin Rickard for www.culturecolony.com

During this event, hosted by Platform at Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art, four new texts were released, the SQUID archive was on display and the audience was welcome to print their favourite texts. The artists Anna Lundh and composer/sound artist Johan Landgren both individually conducted live performances deriving from their text contributions.

Johan Landgren performed one of his experimental voice acts, which he commented with the words: The voice is false. False like a bad copy, a hybrid, an impostor. Lend me your ear and I will tell you why. And show you how.

Anna Lundh took as starting point her investigation of composer Karl-Birger Blomdahl’s unfinished opera project ‘Sagan om den stora Datamaskinen', and specifically one of the remaining documents (dating 1967) – a list of concrete sounds to be used in the opera. Through Lundh’s performance she problematized the relationships between concepts as time, history, ‘the now’, technology, sound and text.

The contributions released during this event were:
#50 Knowing You, Knowing Me: An Appendix for Why We Cannot Speak, by Barrie James Sutcliffe (Gothenburg, Sweden)
#49 OPERATION: Sagan om den Stora Datan – Akt II, by Anna Lundh (Stockholm and NYC)
#48 Technology Of The Voice, by Johan Landgren (Gothenburg, Sweden)
#46 The Boy, by Meira Ahmemulic (Gothenburg, Sweden)

During Textival, a text-based festival in Göteborg, Sweden, that includes live activities and an alternative book fair, a new contribution was released, The Great Satan, by the artist Kalle Brolin. The full SQUID archive was on display and as part of the event Brolin had an artist talk and screening in connection to his text contribution.

From Sep 4-26 the SQUID archive was on display as part of the exhibition "Plattform" at Röda Sten, Göteborg. During the opening we organized an event that consisted of live readings of the most recently released texts:
- Pojken, by Meira Ahmemulic (Berlin)
- OPERATION: Sagan om den Stora Datan – Akt I, by Anna Lundh (Stockholm and NYC)

The 19^th of February 2010, we organized a SQUID event in Helsinki, Finland, hosted by HIAP. The event consisted of two performances by Toine Horvers, followed by an artists' talk, on different approaches to independent art publishing, with the Finnish artist duo IC-98.

One of the performances by Toine Horvers, Sound Scape, has been recorded and is available in the archive as audio file:
#42: Sound Scape, by Toine Torvers (Rotterdam)


Photo: Oskar Lindström

During Nov 7, 2009 - March 13, 2010 the SQUID project was part of ”Labyrint 09 - Writings and Observations” at Botkyrka konsthall in Sweden. "Writings and Observations" refers to the artistic practice of writing as a way of seeing, a way of altering the world. The 2009 year’s edition of Labyrint focused not only on artist’s books, but also text art, and the aspects of writing in contemporary art.

In conjunction with the opening of ”Labyrint 09”, one new text was released at SQUID:
#40 Family Album, by IC-98 (Turku)

One of the SQUID contributions is an ongoing project, which is regularly updated with new material. Please take a look at the updated version:
#8 Untitled [In Progress], by A. S. Bessa (New York)

The artists' run intiative Bezdomny invited us to make a lecture. It took its point of departure from the SQUID project. We talked about what we call parallel knowledge and different approaches to text and writing in contemporary art. We also talked about the practices involved in the SQUID project.

The project space Hit, run by the artists Åsa Norberg and Jennie Sundén, hosted this SQUID event. The Swedish artist Elin Wikström made a presentation and screened a video, which is part of her project ‘Aquatic Aliens versus Norwegian Marines, part I - IV’.

During the following week the SQUID archive and furniture was on display. Visitors were welcome to have a chat over a cup of coffee, sit down and read the texts, listen to the audio files or print out their own favorite collection.

With support from Nordic Culture Point.

In Nov 2007, Martijn van Berkum (NL) joined as project manager to run SQUID on a regular basis. Thanks to this cooperation and Martijn's programming skill, the entire website was redesigned and moved to a new URL: www.squidproject.net.
Our aim was to create a website that would do justice to the diverse and dynamic content the authors at SQUID have generated over the past years. The new layout makes the website easy to navigate; various functions have been improved and it’s now possible to search the texts by theme, author, or in chronological order. Some of the texts are also available as audio files.

Ersta konsthall, initiated by the Swedish artist Linus Elmes, is located in a restaurant and forms a natural meeting point between the bar and the WC. For Ersta konsthall we made recordings of three of the SQUID contributions. The visitors could sit down in the small intimate space and listen to texts by Veronica Brovall, Po Hagström and Jan Verwoert. Anders Karnell, Jenny Telemann and Mako Ishizuka made the readings. A compilation of all the texts available at SQUID was also available. Furthermore, the new SQUID website, designed by the artist Sunny Lee, was officially launched.

When Travelling Magazine Table was exhibited at Iaspis, April 22-30, 2006, SQUID became part of the TMT archive. In relation to this, Katja Aglert and Janna Holmstedt made a presentation of SQUID.

TMT was initiated by the art collective Nomads & Residents (Bikvanderpol and Cesare Pietrousti) 2001.

For this occasion the idea of a SQUID-specific furniture was further developed in collaboration with the Swedish furniture designer, Mattias Wreland. It contained archive boxes with the texts from squid-net.com for the visitors to take with them, a computer for browsing the website and comfortable seats. The program for the lounge included live readings of texts from squid-net.com, a discussion on the theme of "Theme" moderated by the artist Fredric Gunve.
The live readings were made by Martin Ahlberg, Anders Karnell, Mariam Nordmark, Petra Eleonora Näslund and Pontus Olgrim.

Katja Aglert and Janna Holmstedt were invited by the Russian workgroup "Chto delat?/What is to be done?" to present SQUID and participate in "Chto delat?/What is to be done? working meeting in Petersburg". Both SQUID and Chto delat?/What is to be done? are accessible on the Internet, this doesn't mean though, that the work can be done only online. We believe that to meet and engage in discussions face to face is still a fundamental basis for this kind of work.

With support from Sleipnir, NIFCA.

For the first public launch of SQUID at Tensta konsthall, Katja Aglert and Janna Holmstedt designed a SQUID-specific furniture that contained archive boxes with the texts from squid-net.com for the visitors to take with them, a computer for browsing the website and a printer for print on demand. The web design was made in collaboration with the artist Robert Pörschke.