[-empyre-] just a response from nice stuff

"sistero" <nancy@sistero.sysx.org> · Thu, 20 Jan 2005 13:00:07 +1100 (EST)

just a note thatoften i flick through these postings  -so obviously this
is not a careful reading of all the discussions lately  - but "Gee" I am
refreshed to glanse upon a response thatweaves together transcendent
practices of many kinds while feeding from the rot and beauty of
contemporary daily life...

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> Beautiful story, Mr Collins, thank you.  And 'true' as well!  You
> wouldn't have an image of Uncle Barrie?  Story and picture would be a
> great addition to the zeitgeist section of  The Concise Model of the
> Universe.
>
> My comments about the dire state of tertiary education in New Zealand is
> an analogue or meta-version of the same story, perhaps.  There are no
> doubt some talented artists who are also talented teachers.  And there
> are no doubt some talented students.  But you would have to pick and
> choose to put together a picture that didn't look like an
> abortion. (When I say 'talented' I don't mean 'self-obsessed' or
> 'self-promoting').
>
> Lets not pretend that this is a new observation.  Presumably everyone
> here has read (for example) Ivan Illich?
>
> Is it possible that talented artists either don't want to teach as a job
> or are sacked for taking the teaching somewhere that the
> bureaucrats don't like.  The students are much more often than not
> avoiding getting the sort of job that they will have in the real
> world.
>
> When the Polytechs were being repositioned as an alternative to the dole
> (here in New Zealand) there was the intention to employ artists as
> teachers for one or two days a week (and to have no or few full time
> teachers).  That would have made sense.  Any more than a couple of days
> a week doesn't make sense.  The idea that extending
> institutionalised education (and some sort of bottle-fed existence) for
> people who don't want to work, and who have zero artistic ability, makes
> no sense either.
>
> In response to HVJ (corporate whore!), who says that she is not sure
> what point I am making: I was hoping that my story might stimulate
> others to tell their stories in a way that reveals their souls.  I am
> not convinced, so far, that a bland and nonchalant wordiness is what it
> (new media and art in general) is about.  I am not objecting to academic
> discourse in whatever specialist language is appropriate (and some of
> them are wonderfully esoteric in themselves and occasionally attract
> people who can write, but the context here is an open or 'by invitation'
> forum and therefore will hopefully involve thinking
> outside the participant's norm.  And of course thinking outside the norm
> has its own advantages, as well as difficulties.
>
> To discover (and to show) in these black marksthe doorway to another's
> mind - the distinctive flavours and quirks of that particular tiny
> corner of the universe, is that not what reading and writing is about?
>
> In my own case this exploration takes a number of paths on several
> levels. Dr Paul Annear's life work was reading the stars.  Paul Conde
> Annear drank too much and 'acted' other people.  Another Paul Annear
> survived the WTC 'smart-bombing' and is now a Christian missionary in
> Africa.  Then there is the Paul Annear who was until recently the
> physio for the All Blacks. There is also the Paul Annear who travels
> into other realities while making jewellery. (Visit The Concise Model of
> the Universe (at www.xxos.net) and click on '2' on the site tool bar for
> more on the Paul Annears).
>
> In response to Dr Rackham's posting, my opinion at this moment is that
> hybrid has more going for it than apartheid.  A forum like this can be
> inclusive or exclusive.  If this one is to be inclusive it will aim to
> be attractive to a diverse range of views by promoting discussion that
> is far-ranging and questions everything - rather than seeking out
> representations of this or that ethnic, cultural, or whatever group.
>
> With Mr Picnic's (nice name) catchy combination of 'itchy fingers',
> surgical distinctions about what a list is and is not, mock
> philosophising about the 'man alone'  and butch talk of 'unnecessary
> romanticism' and 'crap assumptions', we have a clever example of
> comedic writing and we are back in Uncle Barrie's polyglot playground,
> thank goodness!
>
> A Paul Annear
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 21:24:47 +1100, Barrie <barriec@optusnet.com.au>
> wrote:
>> Cheers, Barrie, on 18.1.05 07:44 PM, The Paul Annears at
>> the.paul.annears@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>> > Dear Soft-Skinned Peeples
>> >
>> > There are (at least) two groups that seems very very
>> under-represented here on this discussion.
>> >
>> > One group is the indigenous Aoteraoan, however that might be
>> defined. This is only an issue because we are supposedly discussing
>> the new media from the perspective of the Aotearoan, indigenous and
>> otherwise if it is possible (or rather: sensible) to make that
>> distinction.
>> >
>> > The other group that seems to me to be under-represented is the
>> practising artist (full stop).  The practising artist (full stop)
>> being a person (or other sentient entity) who doesn't have a job at
>> what is known in NZ as a tertiary institution.  The distinction that
>> I am making is not that teaching is evil, but rather that the
>> artist, who doesn't have a job 'teaching' students (most of whom
>> have
>> > absolutely no talent and in any other non-middle-class reality would
>> have to get a job), this artist, I suggest, has a rather different
>> perspective and is operating in a rather different realm.
>> >
>> > For myself I can say that I have had a number of grants and have
>> taught in a few workshops but for many years now I have not had a
>> comfortable middle-class existence and looking at the results of
>> middle-class art: a huge explosion of galleries and of middle-class
>> buyers and a extraordinary implosion of completely puke-worthy 'art'
>> leads in the same direction
>> > as the rest of the bloated society is heading, to wit, down the
>> non-composting toilet.
>>
>> I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.
>> Oscar Wilde
>>
>> > The practising artist's role, be he Aotearoan or not, be she online
>> or offline, is to push the limits, to go where no sentient being has
>> gone before.  OR, perhaps, is the practising artist's role to work
>> the room, shoot the breeze with the people who will further their
>> careers and generally be, at least on the surface, fawning and
>> disgustingly appreciative of the favours that might be dripped upon
>> them?
>> >
>> > In 1982 I had an exhibition of my paintings.  One of them was a
>> colourful matrix, a labyrinth of uncertain meaning to the
>> uninitiated. The gallery dealer took me too firmly by the arm with
>> his alcoholic hand, whispered hoarsely at me that the people he was
>> about to introduce me to were going to buy the painting and that
>> they would like to meet the artist before they did.
>> >
>> > These people who reminded me very much of my Uncle Brian and Aunty
>> Jean (who at that very moment were watching The Sound of Music for
>> the 29th time with their three plump children) wanted to ask me a
>> question. Fire away, I said, with a euphoric sinking feeling.
>> >
>> > They liked the colours the size of it and it would go very nicely on
>> a certain wall in some room or the other, but what was the painting
>> about?
>> >
>> > I explained that it interested me that young people liked to dress
>> up...and go out and get covered in blood...and be mutilated...and
>> die horrible deaths...the red they admired was blood.
>> >
>> > It is not the job of the artist to be provocative, mildly or
>> > otherwise.  But it is the job of the artist to question everything,
>> to stand outside everything, and how can someone who is questioning
>> everything survive in a
>> > middle-class environment?
>>
>> Money can't buy friends, but it can get you a better class of enemy.
>> Spike Milligan
>>
>> > I suppose the answer might be: by being wonderfully brilliant.
>> >
>> > Voyeuristically yours,
>> >
>> > The Paul Annears
>>
>> I had an uncle, dead now, from my first marriage. He was an actor, his
>> stage name was the same as mine - Barrie Collins, which never ceased
>> to amuse him, he performed on stage during the depression here in
>> Australia.
>> He and his mates in the local barber shop were always short of cash,
>> one day they were discussing art and discovered that each of them
>> could paint one thing really well. My uncle could do a nice sunset,
>> another bloke said he could paint reasonable trees, another quite good
>> lakes and the last could do a good flamingo.
>> So they set up a business painting landscapes with flamingos which
>> they sold in the barber shop, made enough to pay for the beer, what
>> more do you want.
>>
>> Barrie
>>
>> (its a true bloody story, I only wish I had one of the paintings)
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>
>
>
> --
> The Paul Annears
> www.xxos.net
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre

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