www.close your eyes and
see tenants.org
The Internet TV project
tenantspin has been hugely successful and gained
respect from many artistic
and social agencies. In is first three years the
project has webcast around
250 live shows on subjects as diverse as
E-Democracy, green homes,
Elvis, tenants’ rights, Jamaican Rum Cake
recipes, anti-social
behaviour, Alexei Sayle, money, care, the paranormal,
pensions, robots, HAT and
demolitions. It has involved members of the
community over a lengthy
period of time and consistently unearthed and
drawn in new participants. It
has collaborated with major cultural figures
and created some
extraordinary opportunities for participants.
Slowly evolving out of the
first experimental project at Coronation Court
in 1999, the tenantspin has
been based around a relationship between a
Liverpool-based arts agency
(FACT), a community of high-rise residents and
a Government housing body
(HAT). In understanding how this relationship has
developed it is important to
reflect upon the period in question as it is
to some extent a never-to-be-repeated
period in Liverpool’s housing
history.
The first project was housed
in a modest high-rise community flat (sharing
with a hairdressers salon and
Tenants’ Association office) in the
Coronation Court tower block.
Built in the mid-fifties, the ten-storey
block stood eight miles from
Liverpool city centre and in 1999 around half
of its community was aged
over 70. It was proposed that the Internet TV
project, as a channel for
community generated content, could become a means
for the isolated Coronation
Court tenants to find new networks and new ways
of dealing with developers.
The system used was one designed by some
creative workers and
technicians in Copenhagen and there was an initial
excitement over the new
technology. One tenant commented:
I cannot believe that
these young people from Denmark are interested in
us.
As with many such ventures,
it was left to a few to actually carry the
baton for a supposed new
democratic tool. Interactive TV researcher Stuart
Nolan makes the interesting
point that:
You can throw as much
technology as you want at a community but if they do
not have an existing context
of communication and participation in
democracy they will not
participate electronically.
The ageing population perhaps
understood the relevance of the new project
but when they did contribute
to decisions affecting their future it was
through the long established
culture of voting for a representative
(someone more confident, more
articulate) to attend lengthy centralised
meetings in their place.
It is from this context that
the tenantspin grew and grew up. It would
strive to see the larger
city-wide picture. It would be managed and
overseen by The High Rise
Tenants Group (HRTG) and would thus encompass 67
tower blocks with a
population of around 2,500 (of whom around 70% were
over 60) – isolated
communities facing either demolitions or
refurbishments.
Crucially, tenantspin would
look forwards rather than backwards. The
content would not be
nostalgic the channel would enable individuals’
contributions to tomorrow’s
situations to be heard. FACT would continue
working with the tenants,
commissioning artists and writers to find fresh
avenues of discourse and
participation.
From these beginnings and
aspirations, tenantspin has developed an identity
that is both local and
global. Part of its appeal is in its constantly
changing format, its
flexibility and sustainability. At the time of
writing, the project is about
to enter another exciting new phase. After
one year in Coronation Court,
two years in the Cunard Building sharing a
floor with the HAT and two
years in the newly built FACT Centre on Wood
Street, it is going home to a
community setting.
Choices have been made a
decision to focus activity around 5 remaining
tower blocks in South
Liverpool and an invitation to Arena Housing a
replace HAT as project
partners. A new community centre is being built in
front of one of these tower
blocks and permission has been sought to embed
a little tenantspin studio in
this centre. The studio will directly link in
to all 300 flats across the
five blocks and in response to concerns over
access to computers we are
exploring the possibility of enabling
residents to view tenantspin
on their regular TV sets.
We are taking some risks but
resisting a push to supersize. Something we
at FACT have learned from HAT
is that it is important to be able to put
faces to names and if this
means keeping projects at a manageable scale
then that downsizing must be
done.
If I close my eyes and
reflect upon three-and-a-half years of working with
tenantspin, FACT, HAT and
HRTG, I see people. I see people smiling,
frowning, debating, plugging
in, filming, recording, editing, disagreeing
and challenging. I see HRTG
tenants in Denmark, Germany, Sweden and on
Broadway in New York, waxing
lyrical about this project of theirs called
tenantspin. I see tears and
screams of laughter. And the beauty is that you
can see most of this too as
every single tenantspin show is permanently
archived on the website
(www.tenantspin.org).
Whatever the merits of
computer-based community projects, it cannot be
denied that tenantspin, while
not directly reversing a decision to
demolish, has in a unique way
contributed to an attempt to genuinely
consult people. When
consultation is sometimes confused with getting your
own way perhaps a project
like tenantspin can fill that gap with mature,
balanced, passionate and
respectful debate.