Collective 11:11’s first collective event in the Summerhall Exhibition space was a series of video screenings and a group discussion about the films. The purpose behind this was so that we all could share work that interested us, allowing for more group discussion beyond our personal projects as this was an area that we identified our collective needed to work on. As said in our manifesto, we want our collective to be collaborative, and so hosting a screening in a collaborative way introduced that idea to us with the potential of us being able to work in a similar format in the future, whether as a collective or in our own speculative projects.
To get the recommendations and the subject of our screenings, we initially after the previous meetings had decided to post the links on Microsoft Teams, however this quickly developed onto our Miro board since it was easier to access as the screenings we happening so we could queue the next video. This also allowed us to see clearer which videos were on Youtube and which were on UbuWeb, our main streaming platform as decided in a previous meeting. From there I created a screening order which we as a collective could all follow with full details of the films. Since most of the captioning for the films was in English, we decided that I would do this so other students could read the subtitles where necessary.
The event ran very smoothly, lasting 3 hours with videos taking up a good 2 and a half hours of that. In order to watch the videos I brought a projector in so we could take advantage of Summerhall’s large white walls. This also made the viewing experience better since we weren’t all sharing a small screen to view the video-work on. To improve the experience members of the group additionally brought snacks in for us all to share which was a great detail to set the overall tone of the session – it was relaxed and much more of an open, collaborative space than our class dynamics. As the webpages we were using were in English, I volunteered to ‘host’ the screenings, doing the technical side of session on a combination of a tablet, the projector itself, and my laptop. Being prepared for this also helped the event to run smoothly and be stress free for the collective.
The event was really beneficial for our collective, helping us both to understand the intricacies of organising a screening as well as improving the group dynamic. The conversations we had about each film were interesting, especially regarding my showing of Carolee Schneemann’s Interior Scroll (1975-95) which raised questions of cultural norms in education. This was first shown to me in my first class of my undergraduate degree and so I have almost become normalised to it but some of the students who studied in China were surprised by the subject and the content. This encourages me to think about the bringing together of contexts in my own workshops and how these conversations can take place. Work and knowledge that I think is a given might be completely alien to someone else.
Finally I chose as some of the screenings were taken place to make an event poster for our collective. This gave the event better documentation for us as a group and emphasised that it was a formal event, giving the event a name, time stamp and context. I chose to include a list of all the screenings that took place, as well as our names and a photograph of the projector and snack table. The collective really appreciated this and since as a group we have received feedback on how well this was done. Our collective is now in a great place as a team to work together for future events in subsequent weeks.
