7 See: http://pipeline.gasworks. org.uk 8 Claire Pentecost, “Oh! The Public Amateur is Not Afraid to Let On That She Just Figured it Out,” 2007, published on http:// publicamateur.wordpress.com/ about/ (last accessed 26 July 2009).
commissions led to the creation of Pipeline, a second online presence for Gasworks. Edited internally, Pipeline (re)publishes research material generated by and around Gasworks’s projects, making accessible resources beyond commonly available biographical or searchable texts. As an evolving archive, its principle is to share knowledge with anyone interested in engaging with similar topics, in order to advance it rather than replicate it.7 ╫ The five projects Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska, CAMP, Ana Laura López de la Torre,
and Goldin+Senneby, whose work is presented in this publication alongside that of Maria Thereza Alves, all took part in the first edition of Disclosures, and some of them in subsequent ones. If their ways of operating are hardly comparable—for instance, at a decision-making level, some will opt for a ground-up consensus, while others will adopt a more editorial approach—all are dedicated to establishing a direct dialogue between their sociopolitical and historical surroundings and the production of cultural material. They may work in response to a need, issue, or a shortfall; to uncover hidden histories; to resist the normative and reshuffle the expected; or to help construct the future by feeding the social imaginary. According to varying principles, these projects are entirely built around participation, and often exist through their capacity to rally other enthusiasts, with the view to creating collective knowledge and/or memories. They are “public amateurs” opposing selfhood and engaged in a learning process which “in public […] has a chance to be collective, thereby deeper and finally more subversive.”8