This is your space say the artists. Make your own damn art I often say. But can you believe artists? Is art your space, a free space?"

Recently I received a publication from Tate Britain entitled ‘Alter Modernism’. Alter Modernism is an idea that culture has changed in the light of globalization, put forward by French curator Nicolas
Bourriaud. It has been greeted with opprobrium by some British intellectuals who have a lot invested in ‘things as they are’. Inside were some easy to read diagrams to help understand Alter Modernism.
The first was a triangle that symbolised Modernism, the second diagram was a star with many intersecting points drawn across its centre: Post Modernism. The last diagram was a series of overlapping circles spreading across the page: Alter Modernism. The Alter Modern diagram could have been the footprint of the Our Space Pavilion. It suggested that somehow the project was spreading. Once people start meeting and discussing life and experiences, perhaps they move on and share their ideas with others.

Increasingly the space in which human beings communicate has become less hierarchical. My Space, Facebook and ‘all the rest’, are as much a part of the public domain as the street. We feel and we are told that this is liberating and although there are questions about the ownership of information on the internet,
we understand that somehow the world has changed. A space for interaction and participation has been created. This new space is not a neutral space: from abusive blogs at the end of every online article, to the Facebook registration of African American voters in the recent elections in the US, people are populating the new possibilities that are on offer.

Bob & Roberta Smith
2009