The tenantspin Project

While FACT’s Collaboration Programme comprises a number projects that have operated for varying lengths of time, one of its more lasting projects has been tenantspin, “an internet community based on rich media broadcasting.”457 Rich media includes audio, video and animation, and the output of the individual projects are broadcast on a television channel

454

Dunn (2004), “Who Needs a Spin Doctor? Part Two,” p.20 455

ibid.

456_{FACT Artistic Policy, (Available: FACT Archive, Box – Admin General 1)} 457

streamed live on the internet.458 tenantspin began as an iteration of the Superchannel

project conceived by Danish artists collective Superflex, and the Liverpool Superchannel

launched a few months prior to the final Video Positive festival in 2000. Superflex are three artists, Rasmus Nielsen, Jakob Fenger and Bjørnstjerne Christiansen, who have worked on a number of interactive and media art projects which range from social commentary films to mapping exercises since 1993. The first Superchannel studio opened in Copenhagen in 1998, with the Superchannel in Liverpool being the second of more than thirty studios to open in total.459

Fig. 2.2.3 Superflex (Rasmus Nielsen, Jakob Fenger and Bjørnstjerne Christiansen)

The collaboration was facilitated by FACT, and took place between Superflex and the Liverpool Housing Action Trust (LHAT). The first Housing Action Trusts (HAT) were introduced by the Housing Act of 1988460 and were intended “to tackle the management and renewal of badly run-down housing estates.”461 LHAT was the largest of the six HATs462 and differed because it was concerned particularly with the city’s high-rise blocks.463 Having launched in 1993, LHAT was tasked with reviewing the future of the city’s sixty-seven tower

458

Superchannel: The Tower Block, Project Outline, (Available: FACT Archive, Box – Inactive Superchannel (CP.16))

459 _{Superflex (2010), Superchannel (Online)} 460

Great Britain (1988), Housing Act 1988, London: The Stationery Office

461 _{Tallon (2010), Urban Regeneration in the UK, p.61; Couch (2003), City of Change and Challenge:} Urban Planning and Regeneration in Liverpool, p.161

462

HATs were established in Liverpool, North Hull, Stonebridge, Waltham Forest, Tower Hamlets and Castle Vale (Liverpool Housing Action Trust, Information Pack, (Available: FACT Archive, Box – Inactive Superchannel (CP.16))

463

blocks,464 and with a budget of £260 million, was “to create sustainable housing solutions and bring in private finance initiatives.”465

Fig. 2.2.4 Derelict Belem Tower, Sefton Park, Liverpool, 2012

The residents of the tower blocks, through the High-Rise Tenants Group (HRTG), elected to join LHAT’s twelve year scheme of regeneration or demolition and re-housing466 and, ultimately, fifty-four of sixty-seven blocks were demolished, two remain unoccupied and derelict, and only eleven are inhabited today. The HRTG had been established by LHAT as an outlet for tenants,467 and despite the problems of high-rise living in tower blocks which were in need of major refurbishment, many of the residents who had moved there during the slum clearance of the 1960s, were reluctant to have their homes demolished.468

464

Great Britain (1993), The Liverpool Housing Action Trust (Transfer of Property) Order 1993, London: The Stationery Office

465 _{Hope, S. and Carrington, S. (2007), “Alan Dunn, tenantspin” in Art of Negotiation, eds. D. Butler} and V. Reiss, Manchester: Cornerhouse Publications, pp.254-280 (p.258)

466

Dunn (2004), “Who Needs a Spin Doctor? Part Two,” p.18

467 _{Prudames, D. (2005), Living It Up – High Rise Society At The Museum of Liverpool Life (Online)} 468

The majority of the residents were aged over fifty, and 40% were over seventy years old469 and, therefore, tenantspin worked primarily with an elderly population. Consequently, Liverpool’s Superchannel introduced many of the participants to a completely new concept of technology and it became part of a:

Network of local studios used by people and communities as a discussion forum, presentation medium and a physical gathering place. It was a tool that enables you to produce internet TV directly engaging users in the creation and evolution of content.470

The Superchannel model was launched before mainstream broadcast channels such as YouTube were conceived and was, therefore, a unique and innovative means of disseminating, in this case, artworks and opinion pieces that would otherwise not have been viewed by the wider public. In the run up to Video Positive 2000, the Superchannel was based at a hub at Coronation Court, Liverpool’s oldest tower block, in the Norris Green area of the city. Coronation Court was built in 1956,471 and upon opening was considered to be a luxurious alternative to the city’s Victorian terraces, with central heating and indoor bathrooms.

Fig. 2.2.5 The now demolished Coronation Court, Liverpool

469 _{Superchannel: The Tower Block, Project Outline, (Available: FACT Archive, Box – Inactive} Superchannel (CP.16))

470

Superflex (2010), Superchannel (Online)

471 _{Coronation Court was ten storeys high, 99 metres long, and contained 114 flats (Coronation Court} and Langholme Heights, (Available: FACT Archive, Box – Inactive Superchannel (CP.16))

In the years that followed, however, these facilities became run-down,472 and despite many of the tenants of Coronation Court being particularly vocal in their support for refurbishment,473 the block was eventually demolished and the headquarters of the

Superchannel relocated to LHAT’s office at the Cunard Building on the Liverpool Waterfront. After the conclusion of Video Positive 2000, Superflex left the collaboration as planned, and the Superchannel project was renamed tenantspin. The Superchannel effectively served as a pilot for tenantspin, and with a long-term plan in place, FACT began the process of recruiting a project manager to facilitate the collaborative element of the project.

Alan Dunn, an artist from Glasgow who had ten years of experience working on a range of community-based art projects across the country, was appointed as project manager in 2001, and under his guidance, tenantspin became increasingly situated at the heart of a growing debate on access, particularly for socially excluded groups such as the elderly, to new technologies like the Internet, as well as playing a role in community development and urban regeneration.474 Dunn recognised the need for tenantspin to respond to its changing environment, and whilst early debates focused on the issues of regeneration and displacement, the conclusion of the LHAT scheme saw the original issues of low standards of living removed by either the refurbishment or demolition of the participants’ tower blocks. Furthermore, with the opening of the FACT Centre in 2003, and LHAT due to be disbanded in 2005, tenantspin relocated for a final time to the FACT Centre, and the project became less focused on high-rise living as its participants were no longer strictly recruited from the tower blocks.

472 _{Hope and Carrington (2007), “Alan Dunn, tenantspin,” p.258} 473

Superchannel: The Tower Block, Project Outline, (Available: FACT Archive, Box – Inactive Superchannel (CP.16)). See also Cobalt Housing 2009

474 _{Kelly, P. (2002), “Case Study 02: Community Worker” in Supermanual: The Incomplete Guide to} the Superchannel, ed. M. Brewster, Liverpool: FACT, pp.14-17 (p.17)