About the WebStudio

upcoming projects | schedule
concept | artist's statement | media

The WebStudio is an Internet-based collaborative art project, which allows participants to interact with Miami artist Xavier Cortada through two webcams and a live chatroom. The composition, specific theme, and colors of the paintings will be determined by input provided through the live chatroom during scheduled sessions.

Participants are also encouraged to post writings on discussion forums and to e-mail scanned images and text on the painting's topic to the WebStudio.  Cortada will collage these unto the paintings.  

 

upcoming projects:

• Master-Peace 2000:   During the next few months, Cortada use his WebStudio to create ten murals with high school students from ten Miami-Dade County Public Schools high schools.     Each mural will explore lessons humanity has learned during each of the past ten centuries.
  
• World Wide Wave:  On New Years Eve, Cortada will be printing New Years Resolutions posted on the a WebStudio Message Board and incorporating them into the Millennium Mural.
  

schedule of sessions

Master-Peace 2000 WebStudio sessions are scheduled for:

• November 22 @ 9:37 am to 11:44 am with Coral Gables High
• November 22 @ 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm with DASH
• November 23 @9:30 am to 10:30 am with Miami Beach High
• November 23 @ 12:30 pm to 2:30 pm with Coral Gables High
• November 24 @ 9:30 am to 10:30 am with Miami Beach High
• November 24 @ 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm with DASH
• November 29 @ 8:00 am to 9:05 am with MAST Academy
• November 30 @ 7:30 am to 8:30 am with Killian High
• December 1   @ 7:30 am to 8:30 am with Killian High
• December 2   @ 8:00 am to 9:05 am with MAST Academy
• December 2   @ 11:30 am to 1:30 pm with  MAST Academy

 

the concept

Too often the lines defining those who make art and those who consume art are too rigid. The "WebStudio" project aims to blur those lines by inviting the participants into the studio through the use of the Internet. Too often, people stare into paintings and wonder how they were created. Why they were created. By whom they were created.

Using the Internet and a web-cam (a camera that broadcast live images on an Internet website), Miami artist Xavier Cortada will invite others to "enter" his studio. During scheduled sessions three times a week, they will see him at work and collaborate with him in the creation of five theme-specific art pieces. Using e-mail, participants will send comments to the artist --giving feedback on the art work, the process underway, or the theme being explored.

When facilitating a collaborative process in a public venue, the artist stands back while others create, offering his advice. At times, he is involved in the painting. However, in the "WebStudio," the artist is the one being guided. He paints, but listens to folks talk about technique, composition and color. About issues, policies, and personal perspectives. Their ideas will be integrated --their actual words and sketches incorporated-- into the collaborative painting.

Each month the "WebStudio" will also feature a theme-based chat room (where participants can openly communicate with one another about the artwork, process and/or the theme), bulletin board (to post writings, citations, links and personal comments on the theme) and virtual gallery (to post digitized pictures of individual artwork on the topic). At the end of the month, the collaborative piece will be "hung" in this electronic gallery and an artist's statement about the process in the bulletin board. At the end of the project all the completed theme-specific pieces, video installations of the web-cam, and text from the electronic communications will be exhibited at a yet to be determined alternative space.

In 1998, over 5,000 people accessed the artist's website. They surfed through the many paintings and community projects but weren't engaged in the creative process. They came to observe something that occurred in the past, not to witness or participate in its creation. The best they could do is click on the e-mail icon and say "nice painting." This project brings them "in the studio" and changes all that.

 

artist's statement

Just the other day at the coin laundry the manager asked, "How long does it take for you to make a painting." He was trying to compute my hourly rate. Too many look at a museum art piece in disbelief and claim, " I could have painted that!" --as if its very presence was a direct assault on their person. Many don't understand the role of the artist anymore. Sadder still, some aren't aware of the creativity inside them. Many dismiss the creative process as thing done by others

People in society have lost their connection to art. Many wonder what it would have been like to be in the artist's studio. What it would be like to see art come alive. And wonder how they would react. Would they sit quietly or be engaged in conversation with the artist? Would they offer advice? Would they go further? Would they create?

I am a social artist. I mean that. One that actually enjoys painting in social situations. And usually addressing social issues. Having collaborated with others across four continents in creating pro-social art, I have explored ways in which I can inspire and facilitate others in individual and collective expression. Indirectly, all these life experiences find their way to my studio--whether in painting with street children in Bolivia, AIDS patients in Geneva or kids in a Miami cancer clinic. And naturally my artistic influence, the stuff I perfect in my studio, is found in all of these collaborative projects.

Regardless of whom the art belongs to, how can I as artist truly interpret society if I don't give society the last clear chance to respond? I do so in a community setting when I paint a mural. Comments reinforce the process: "How beautiful. That's too strong." Or they do so subtly through questions: "That's not finished yet, is it? Can you add such and such." Too often the role of the studio artist is too narrow, suffocating. An artist at times is forced to play psychic. Summoned to interpret his reality, his world. But being incommunicado from that world during the actual creative process.

Well, there is one simple way of exploring that. Put a web cam in my studio. And open the e-mail channels. Set up a painting schedule. And be receptive to the incoming e-mail. Start up a chat line. Have people scan and e-mail suggestions on how the painting should proceed from beginning to end. Incorporate their texts and drawings as I've done dozens of times before in community murals. Except this time it's in my studio. Made to feel communal. As if society at large is commissioning you to proceed.

 

media

Read about the WebStudio in The Miami Herald Liz Balmaseda's April 10, 1999 column : "From Cyberspace to the Canvas:   Artist's interactive Website mines chat rooms for muses"