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Excerpt from the MOSIS – MOdels and SYStems: Art and the city foundation's manifesto and technical data

Foundation MOSIS - MOdels and SYStems, Art and the City is a non-profit organization, established in Madrid on November 10th, 2008 and registered as a cultural foundation at the Ministry of Culture on November 20th, 2008. The foundation is located in and will mainly develop projects on a national level. However, it will also design international activities, especially dedicated to the areas of the European Union, Latin America and the United States.

The founder is JANA LEO DE BLAS who is also the president of MOSIS. The other three patrons are: the vice president ANGEL BORREGO CUBERO, the secretary SILVIA NUMIDIA GOMEZ-FONTECHA MARTINEZ. SERGIO TOMBESI is responsible for administrative matters.
 

Objectives

These are the objectives of the foundation:
A) 3.1. To “built CITY” by the means of ART and ARCHITECTURE/ 3.2. Loyal to the idea of the city as a place and the vehicle for progress, to establish MOdels and SYStems  of art, the city, of -art and the city-, of -architecture and city- and of -urbanism and architecture- / 3.3 To promote innovation and to push the resistance to the inertia of reusing already existing models./ 3.4. To validate models and systems. Showing the connections between a model or a system and its repercussion within everyday life; understanding that a model is the shape that something adapts in order to express an idea and that intends to represent a point of reference and a system is a group of its elements, its functions, principals and relations, a structured entity./ 3.5. To trigger the more proactive brunchs of philosophy that imagines and designs new worlds, constructed and created by the means of thought.

B) 3.6. To insist on the city's function as a place for human relations and the function of art a vehicle for communication.  To resist the conversion of the city solely into a territory of consumption and tourism, either by the means of ideas or practice. To circumvent the conversion of a museum into a theme park, of the piece of art into a product, of an artist into a residential tourist, of the places for art into a vacation “resorts”./ 3.7. To launch art as a form of affective knowledge./ 3.8. To push the concept of “use” in architecture as means to change  behavior as well as the moral connected to it.

C) 3.9. To trace “civic gaps”, that is, situations which not yet have been identified as problematic. To detect “system failures” which implies that something that does not work within the operations of a city's everyday life. Once a problematic situation or a gap has been detected, it bequeaths a record of its existence, and in some cases, draws attention to it by the means of artistic strategies suggesting alternatives to common practices.

D) 3.10.To contribute to the free development of personality, referring to Article 10 of the Spanish Constitution.

E) 3.11. To host and disseminate the work of Jana Leo concerning her reconsiderations related to art and the city, since this is the origin of the foundation.

Activities

In order to achieve the objectives mentioned above, the foundation will realize the following activities:
A) 4.1.To act like a THINK-TANK* related to - among other topics - contemporary culture, the city, art, urbanism and architecture:

To study already existing Models and Systems of Art, the City, urbanism and architecture./ To draft innovative models, intending to put them into practice by launching them into various environments./ To accomplish field studies including the detection of non-identified situations or “errors within operations of city life”./ In the case of these “errors”, create art projects that communicate its contents and concomitant emotions./4.2. The foundation will create original concepts as a base to create new art and city models. The ideas of these new theoretical schemata will be translated into concrete tools which art centres, museums, cultural and citizen centres are then able to integrate into their actual programme./ 4.3. The foundation will design spaces - of either stable or nomadic, architectural or virtual nature - in which the relation between art, the city and various population sectors are conciliated.

*Explanatory Note: A THINK-THANK is a group space for investigation, thought and activism. It influences its surroundings although it is isolated from them. It translates ideas that were created with the intention to apply it to real life. According to the ideas of Jana Leo, a “think-tank” contains two different definitions of a “tank”: First, the definition of a tank as a container-deposit-pool of ideas. Secondly, the definition as a fight vehicle which moves across slippery territories and converts into an instrument of resistance if perceived in combination with the term “think”. The “tank”'s power arises out of its investigation and its weapons are represented by its ideas. Considering itself to be a “think-tank”, the foundation will mainly work with self-initiated projects, enabling it to also react to external missions.

B) 4.4.To act as a CONSULTANCY, that is, to respond to external initiatives – competitions, and/or commissions,  or  proposal for case studies for concrete users – by offering studies of and solutions to real problems of actually existing clients. The projects' scales range from art and cultural centres, museums and professionals such as architects to councils and other institutions with political power, e.g. those within the cultural or tourism sector./ 4.5. To RE-ANIMATE spaces and entities. This is accomplished by tools such these three: usage alterations, interventions within space and program change.

C) 4.6. Revenue and commercial activities. Keeping the objective to obtain revenues in mind, the foundation might levy for its work concerning the earlier mentioned activities, referring to 4.1., 4.2., 4.3., 4.4., and 4.5. of article 4. It might also realize further commercial  activities, including publications, sale of artistic work and management of art and architecture projects, the objectives of which relate to the purposes of the foundation or  are complementary to it.

The work is accomplished from an investigator's viewpoint, not from that of a service, which means: When given a certain problem it is not sufficient to offer a solution and/or alternative, it is also necessary to study the context of the given situation, treating it as a reality and case study.

Beneficiaries

8.1. The foundation address the following entities: art centres, museums, cultural centres, its workers, directors and users and any other cultural entity, especially public entities and those without profit motive./ Artists, architects, city planners, writers, philosophers and sociologists and all those who are engaged in the subject area of arts and the city./ Any person interested in enjoying the subject area of arts and the city.