Julian Bleecker

Today, arrived in Linz from Los Angeles via Frankfurt. The Linz airport is one of those tiny regional style operations and, strangely, no one bothered to check my passport or stamp it or anything. It felt vaguely clandestine to simply walk out a sliding door trundling a bag of electronics and clothes.
A couple of other artists and such were on the same flight from Frankfurt, and we were greeted by a driver who shuttled us all about Linz, dropping off gear at various places. One artist was Garnet Hertz who builds cybernetic enhancers for cockroaches. We stopped at one of the Ars Electronica Center offices to pick up his Austrian-bred cockroaches.

Evidently, there's a very particular breed of cockroach that makes for the best art project collaborator — a breed that has no wings. These ones were especially large, according to Garnet, which may lead to some installation problems. If their legs are too long? they don't sort of flail enough to trigger the mechanism that propels them along via an electronic motor enhanced tranport rig. Um..

A quick stop to look at the installation space (Architekturforum Oberösterreich) and to see if the Pussy Weevil arrived safely..

and it was off to the Sommershaus, a large, foreboding lodge that has a long tarmac of pavement leading up to it giving you time to realize that its enormity, the fact that there are only three windows lit in a facade of hundreds, and the choir of rippling faded national flags make this place evocative of The Shining. There's either one other resident on the 10th floor, or I occupy the entire floor myself. And the lights are always off. And if you turn them on? they turn back off before you can get to your room and find the keyhole with your key. So there's that. And then you get to experience freshman year college dorm life..

A lesson for artists. Number 1 in a series.
I learned this one from this experience. Everything is negotiable when it comes to accepting an invitation to install a project.

Not only that, value youself, your time and your intellectual capital. Everytime you do an installation project (whether invited or after having convinced someone that you should be invited ask for three (3) things over and above what you'd expect to get, and have it added to the contract.

Examples

Ask for business class travel.

Ask for lodging within 10 minutes walking distance of the festival/gallery/auditorium (or, alternatively, close to some place you want to be near).

Ask for companion travel or travel fees and subsistence for your assistant.

When they tell you what your artist's fee is (and it will likely be barely enough to cover subsistence), ask for your meals to be covered, or ask for 50% more.

Be prepared to accept no as an answer. Be prepared to politely decline to particpate if you feel you aren't fairly compensated for your contributions.