Mika Satomi, NGM interview
Interview host: Shih Wei Chieh
2022.09.06
Berlin
Can you tell us about the path and original intention of building e-Textile Summer Camp with Kobakant? (From 2011 - 2017, till the last festival trial development.)
“How to Get What You Want” has existed since 2009. The motivation for the summer camp was basically to meet others because you don't really know other people at that moment, there were very few people doing this kind of e-textile thing. At that time I was working in a research lab at the Swedish school of textiles. And I asked the boss if I could do a test version of the summer camp. They were happy about the idea so I got a small budget to do it, mostly to buy materials and food, and also to pay for the space. We didn’t charge people for a camp fee but everyone had to travel at their own cost. This was a test event, so it was not open. Half of the people were coming from the Swedish School of Textiles, the other half came from a group from V2, which is an institute in Rotterdam. There was also a curator, who was working with e-Textile and knew a group of people also working with it. So I asked her to pick a few people and come together. That was the first version of the summer camp, and then I also asked Hannah to join. I met Hannah when we were studying in the same school in Linz. The idea of summer camp came through our chatting, and also I was just in the position that I could actually organize one since I was working at this institute. It was also a little bit of my wish to do it in this camp style. I remember proposing the first version to the group, the concept was to be like a typical summer camp - with a camp site, and it would not be like a conference, it wouldn’t be about talks only, but about doing things together, living and eating together, and getting to know each other.
The first version was very nice, and we also had this old textile mill, like a kind of design public space. It was an old spinning mill in Sweden that was not being used. The second floor had been turned into a textile museum but the first floor was not in use, and they said we could use the first floor if we cleaned it. So we cleaned up everything and we did the camp there. You can actually see it from the website. It was really DIY style, like we had to make the place to sleep and everything. Later, I moved towards this job. In the beginning it was a one-time test, and it was not particularly meant to continue or anything, but I think a year later or so, either in 2011 or 2012, one of the participants named Meg Grant said she has a friend in France who had this space which we could use if I wanted to continue, because she also enjoyed it very much and she would like to have it again or see it again. So that was the start of the Paillard, and that's how I got connected to the Paillard, or Shelley and James. The start of the summer camp in France was in 2013 I think.
So one of my intentions was to do it without strings attached because when applying for all these fundings, you always have to promise something and it's a lot of work to get the money, and also when the funding goes away, you can't continue. This is a very typical situation, so I didn't want the summer camp to depend on funding. I also didn't want to spend too much time applying for them, so one of the frameworks was to do it without having any external money coming in, and at the same time, to keep it affordable for everyone. Therefore, nobody who was working in the organization was getting paid, and we tried to do everything ourselves, so that we didn't need money from outside. We're super lucky because Shelley and James - they are punks, they were very, very generous in giving us a place and they were not asking for money. . And I didn't know how much it would cost. So I decided to do everything, and at the end, whatever money was left in the pot would go to Paillard. I think I paid like 500 euros for the first year. Another thing is that I tried to do everything transparently. All the calculations of how much money was spent and for what was spent, was documented in a big sheet. I think it was on Google Docs, and you could see it, and it kept that way. So it was always ‘what you pay is what we spent’, from food, to wine, to material, everything. I was also asking people what is the affordable price for them for the camp fee. I think most of the people were either freelancers or working in a university and did not have a full time high position job. So spending 200 euros plus traveling costs was something everyone agreed was okay. That was how the price was decided.
Everything was new and I said, “I don't care how much time it takes. I wanna do this for fun.” So I did everything, from open call to planning, budgeting, buying, everything was done by myself. It was almost only me in terms of organization. The first summer camp in France was the first to have an open call. For the open call, I knew we could take 20 people. I asked other people to select the applicants with me. The format of doing workshops and projects was kind of coming from the prototype of summer camp we did in Sweden since it worked well. I think I kept it pretty much the same style in the first few years. The first part of the camp is a workshop, or skill share, and the second part is doing projects together. So that was kind of the format that was there for the first two years. And then I think in the 3rd year or so, I started seeing the same workshop being proposed all the time, so, I felt like maybe that didn't work anymore. But when we took it out and made it more about working projects, some people said they missed the workshops, so we brought them back again. The duration of the camp was around five or six days, but then later there was a wish of having a day off so we made it seven days, so there was a middle that was like an afternoon, or the whole day that was a day off that you could go to a picnic or whatever you wanted to do. The format and what kind of content was there on the camp kept changing according to the feedback of the participants, we tried to capture what people liked and disliked. And I also included my personal preferences, like I wanted to talk about concepts, so I was always bringing in this concept time and discussion time, for example.
One big change that I made from the second year is that I didn't want to be on the selection committee. It was a little bit difficult the first year because a lot more people than I could accommodate applied, which was a lucky thing. But then when I had to reject some applicants, some people were starting to get upset and asking for an explanation, which was too much for me to handle, while doing all the organization. So I asked the others to select, and I totally removed myself from that, that was like, a really difficult thing. Therefore I always have to say this: e-Textile summer camp is not a community in that sense, because you cannot just come, you have to be invited. It's not publicly open per se because Ijust can't accommodate 100 people if 100 people wanted to come here. And because of the style of the event, it cannot grow bigger. And these are also the questions that came or critique that I received. It's exclusive because, on one hand I said everyone who came could come back since that was kind of important for me, to have this feeling that you could come back. Otherwise, if it's always an open call then it's another dynamic you create. Actually re-inviting participants also helped the organization because most of the people already knew where things were and what to do, and then there would be like, maybe five new persons joining each camp. From an organizational perspective, the fact that you don't have to inform everything from scratch every time is very much easier. And also people could then start to take more initiative and organize things themselves, for example, the workshop materials. So this was one thing, but then it makes the camp exclusive because there's less and less space for new people to come. And this was a criticism. So we thought about whether we could make it bigger or more open. And I think one of the years we expanded to 40 or more than 30 participants, and this was a disaster. It was very difficult from the organizational side, because the space is not that big. We really were pushing the limits. And in the summer fest in 2017 we even tried to do a public event where everyone could come. And of course we considered moving to another space where we could put 60 people in. But then we said no, that's for others to do, not for me. So that's a little bit of the decision. When we did the fest in 2017 it was also for us to test these things - to test what happens if you take totally newcomers. There were a lot of people who wanted to do more workshops and they are new, so we wanted to see how that would work out. That was the first part that we tried.
Can you tell us about the role of “HOW TO GET WHAT YOU WANT?” in your community building experience?
“How to Get What You Want” is not even a library. It was like this: we started to work together as an artist duo, and in the beginning we were living in the same city. But then Hannah moved to different cities, so we were always working in a different city and meeting for a project, but doing the prototyping in different places. That was what made it necessary for us to document our process, so that others can know what we are doing, or know, for example, where we bought our materials. In 2009 we got a really nice research job in a research lab in Scotland called Distance Lab, which doesn't exist anymore. There we were together and then we had this research position and where they let us do anything we wanted. We proposed this project because we were documenting these processes already and a lot of things that we tested didn't make it into the actual project. You know you test five things and you only use one. Or you put a lot of time into developing something and then you realize it doesn't fit the project. So we thought ‘Why don't we document these things so that we don't forget?’ It would be an archive for ourselves. Also, materials at that time were much more difficult to buy compared to now, so we were thinking that it would be nice to document these things. Another important thing is that when we started these e-Textile things we didn't know electronics and programming or about these materials either. In the beginning we were also students, so a lot of information came from other people sharing their knowledge online as open source information. So we wanted to also kind of contribute back with the knowledge from what we have done, exactly the same way we learned. We put it online so that others can also use our information.
That was our first motivation. And this research lab said ‘yes, you can do this’, so we started. It is done in Wordpress, we just searched how to set this up as a kind of archive. Wordpress was easier for us to quickly do stuff, and also it was really intended for our own notes. That was how ‘How to Get What You Want’ started. It is one of the projects we did and continue doing, and especially when we do a new project or workshop, then this research process falls into it. So we try to kind of make it open source, we share all these processes of making. And again, I don't think ‘How to Get What You Want’ itself is a community at all. It was just that we were quite early in working with this thing (e-textile materials). So I think a lot of people refer to it or encounter this because at the time there were not so many other sources of information available. In 2009, 2010, there were not so many places to look for answers to ‘where do you buy this silver thread’ or something like that.
Can you briefly introduce us to the “tailor shop project?” And did it inspire you for any vision for your art in industrial or any other alternative level? (More on how art can collaborate/serve society?) And from here maybe can you talk about what is “sustainability” in your art practice?
I think a lot of people understand the KOBA Tailor Shop project as a shop, but it's really an artistic project. It's an intervention or like, a one year long performance, I would say. And the project did not just happen, it came up through steps. There were a few projects that we did beforehand which was dealing with sustainability in the sense of ‘how do we work and produce and consume electronics and textile, or clothes?’ And how could small craftsmen or individuals participate in this seemingly mass production field? So the project was more out of our interest to talk about and discuss these things. We were dropping in this idea of ‘if everyone could decide what they wanted to do, what would they want to have?
So first we did a project called WishLab, which was a temporary lab space where people could post what they wanted to have. And then we selected like ten people to make the thing, we did a workshop together, so everyone knows what to do or how to work with these materials. And then we were making these wishes come true. This was at a cultural Institute in South Korea (Anyang). We proposed this idea, and before we arrived, they had already gathered information about people’s wishes for us. And the people participated in the lab as makers. It was a mixture of... I think, through their Institute, the open call and also they promoted a few people who are artists, designers who already have quite a lot of skills. So that was one of the steps that led us to this tailor shop idea. Basically, instead of doing it as this workshop style and temporal thing, we did it as a real shop to see what people really liked, what people wished for with electronics, what they wanted to have.
Also, since it was a tailor shop, there was nothing there for you to buy. You have to come and say “I want to have this”, and then we would make it from scratch. It was a very well-thought decision to choose not to sell anything. You come and then you order and you could only order for yourself. You could say you wanted to make a product, and ask us if we could design it into development, but it was for yourself. This was related to this idea of sustainability in a sense that, a tailor shop for us is kind of symbolically understood that it's opposite from mass production, fast fashion, because the clothes are customized, it's you who initiates the process. Also, if you tailor your own clothes, you don't throw it away a year later. So we introduce longevity in a way by creating something that was meaningful for you, which you would want to keep all your life. In this shop project, being the shop was one part of it, but the other part was doing a lot of talks and events to also discuss with the others. Also, when people came, we tried to also kind of initiate these discussions about mass production and ordering, or also the price. “What is the fair price to pay for the labor”? That was also another thing that we talked a lot about, and it was more about creating the discussion.
The format of the shop was very tiring, but also very convenient for us because it doesn't exclude people. Anyone could come into the shop. A lot of people didn't know what it was and came in out of curiosity to ask what it was, which was good for us. if it was a museum, or a gallery, it's not so open. In the end there were a lot of performance actors who wanted something more in the direction of costume to use on stage. A lot of people came, many people said ‘how interesting. I don't know what I want, let me think and come back.’ They never came back. But it's fine, they just had to think about it and that's already important. A lot of people came and said they wanted to have a bike jacket and that they had this cool idea, and none of them came back to actually make one. I think for many people who are performers, or people who just perform as a hobby, the tailor shop idea kind of gave them a reason to spend money, for them to have this strange clothware which has a technology, this legitimizes the tailor order. If it was a completely private item, it's a little bit harder for people to decide. So my guess is that that was the reason why in the end there were a lot of requests from performers and not so much of the everyday wear. I personally think e-textile involve interesting materials and tools and techniques for people to think about technology, or in some cases the textile industry, but on its own to be something that has utility - I don't think it has that aspect so much. I think we made a total of 13 garments that year.
What is your opinion about the difference between the model of summer camp and artist residency program and how do you see the pros and cons? (If it's comparable)
When I go to an artist residency, I expect to work on my own projects, it's time for me to develop a project. And in the summer camps - not only the summer camps I organized, but also the other summer camp I went to, even though many of them ask you to propose a project at the end, I don't have time to work on the project. There are so many other things going on. It's much more about networking and meeting people than really doing something.
What is the necessity of global collaboration, transdisciplinary projects (e.g. art science, crafts and e-textile) to you?
I feel like a lot of projects that offer funding try to talk about this thing as a selling point, but I have a bit of doubt about it in a way. If you are two people from the same country doing something, is it necessarily less meaningful? No, right? So I don’t think an international collaboration is necessary, I think it could have another aspect, but it doesn't necessarily make it better. I think it's really case by case. It's nice to have that exchange or mixture or to know others, but simply being international or trans-disciplinary is not enough to make the collaboration better. You still have to work on it to make it better. I feel like these collaborations were more of a trend. The argument to say “it's good to have this diversity and mixture and trans-disciplinary collaboration”. But I feel like one can almost make a next step argument because that has been tried. And then there were some results from that. But I don't know if one should always look at things only from that perspective or filter and then judge if the result is good or bad, because it's very individual within these collaborations.
Let's say that here sits a person from Mexico, and then he has a certain opinion or a certain understanding, or certain knowledge. But this person does not represent Mexico. Or you know I'm Japanese. I grew up in Japan, but I don't represent Japan or Japanese people. What I say is still my personal opinion and my personal understanding. I'm just an individual. There's a lot of things I don't know, or that I misunderstand.So in that sense you have to be careful because this argument tends to underestimate people from your own country, or from your local region. These people also have completely different ideas and opinions and experience than you do. But if you're somehow evaluating more for a person who came from much farther distance, I don't know if that is healthy in that sense. I mean this is just a bit of a counter argument to the idea of international collaborations to think about, it doesn't negate it, but I think it's important to think about it when promoting international trans-disciplinary collaborations.
I think we will always be partial, but you have to be aware that your argument and your point of view is partial, but you're working with that partial view. I will never have that complete overview. There will always be another one who has another opinion. Working in the artistic processes, it's important to recognise that you always have your context and your partial point, your own view, your own expression, even if you talk to people and then you gather information. And so still you almost use yourself as a filter to experience and to say something about it, what I say is not necessarily right, it’s my point of view. And I'm not telling you what is right to do, I'm just telling this is what I think. And then the others can think about something else because this person encounters another point.
How can autonomous projects be funded by national funding without losing the governance?
There are summer camps like - I think Radiona is one, but also there's this Swift camp. I think it's another model. So because that's also a summer camp for technology, art people, it's more music, art, music technology. And that one is fun but I think it has a little bit of a different picture. The organizer, she's not an artist, she's an organizer working in a cultural institute, doing curation and event organization. So her interest is in organizing events and organizing funding. She writes funding every year and gets funding for us, therefore she makes her point how this is necessary for the public to have it, and therefore the public funding money should go there. So, of course one can see that point and put in the work to organize like she does, but I recognize that's a full time job. Really, you have to dedicate. You can't be like,’ I want to do my art, but on the side I also organize’. Your interest and dedication should be organizing and you see it from that point of your view only. That's how I see it, and that's why I don't do funding for events. But I think it's possible to organize public funding in that way too.
What is your opinion on how to raise funding internationally collectively with local communities?
So if you think that you are putting money into a very big pot, then there is a government who is deciding how that money is spent. And of course it's their interest to spend that money for the purpose of people who pay for it, and that's national. Of course it's not that simple, but you can also understand it in that way, therefore, if you say that I want to spend this entirely with something that has nothing to do with the country, but somewhere else, of course there are also fundings and money available for that. I mean, it's understandable why they don't want to pay that for something that has nothing to do with that country's people if you're using the money from the people, that country. But there are also fundings which has nothing to do with the national tax. There are these private fundings, there are international fundings, then their agenda is different and the reason why they fund something is different, so maybe you just have to find the right context here. But do you really need funding? I mean you can say that the camp is there for the pleasure of the people who go there. Why don't they pay for it themselves? It's really mostly serving the people who come to the camp. If you're getting public funding then you always have to kind of find the way that it makes sense for the public. Otherwise you can try to look for private funding which just wants to support artists. For example, they want to see cultural activities. For some, it doesn't matter, they just have a big pot of money and they want to see things happening, in that case, you don't have to make that argument. There are different models and different agendas. I don't want my tax money to be just feeding someone to have fun, then do it privately, but don't you don't need public funding. That is also my argument why I didn't like funding for the summer camp.
Links in the interview
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