Hey everybody,
I'm sorry for being so negligent in posts, but I hope to rectify that.
I have been having trouble keeping up with all the posts, but am
deciding to just throw something out there and hope that I am not
repeating too much.
I just gave a talk at a space Messhall in Chicago and we were treading
over this territory as well. I am sure it's on our minds. I came away
with these thoughts that I think can address two different strands of
thought:
1. Embodied practice (that is the participating in a social culture
that exists outside commercial paradigms of political aesthetics
practice) is a good thing. The emergence of spaces that attempt to
produce new models of social exploration and the connecting of these
spaces (and journals or magazines) is a key component in producing
vital counter culture. It's amazing to me how much more useful these
spaces are than theory. However, I don't want to go too far down the
road of anti-intellectualism. It's just that we need places to
participate in more than we need books right now.
2. Critique is a useful function, but if not contextuaized inside a
community who want to grow, it is just mean spirited. The quest for
calling out who is co-opting and who is commodifying and who is
selling out, can often be a screen for one's own career or social
frustration. I have seen more than a few times the use of the term
co-opt applied to projects only because they attempt to retain a
reasonable socially gratifying level of recognition. The witch hunt
for self serving art projects can lead to more ill will than
productive politics. So, I'm always curious about the approach to
politics of calling out the corrupt among us. I realize I work in an
institution where I feel somewhat complicit in a form of
institutionalization. I'm ok with that. I think MASS MoCA can be
helpful to some projects and not to others. There is some sense of
contradiction that is tricky to navigate. I am also aware that
producing counter-structures is often times more fruitful than the
figuring out who is, and isn't truly down with the cause.
I often think we internalize the values of the marketplace by
consistently retaining the avant-guare as new product placement. That
under the veil of market critique, we are harboring our personal
product, that is our subjectivity. This is problematic. Often the
language of capitalist critique is used as a cover for our own ego.
That happens... I swear.
-----Original Message-----
From: empyre-bounces@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
[mailto:empyre-bounces@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of christina
ulke
Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2005 4:52 AM
To: soft_skinned_space
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] on meaningful articulations : strategies
Robby - i tend to disagree with you, I think art does have the power
to change people's perception of things and give us a very complex
experience of reality. Art can indeed be effective in the traditional
art world.
But how do you measure effectivity?
I think one problem that stands in the way of having a serious
discourse in the gallery/museum system is the 'branding' of the
individual artist/artist group/ project and - along with it- the need
for "product"[artist=product] consistency.
Take for example 'Fallen Fruit'; a project that was published in our
3rd issue as one of the art projects
http://www.joaap.org/new3/index.php?page=viegeneretal
" FALLEN FRUIT began as an artist's project for The Journal of
Aesthetics and Protest in Los Angeles; it was a mapping of all the
'public fruit' in our neighborhood in Los Angeles. We believe that
fruit planted on private property which overhangs public space should
be public property and created
this project to encourage people both to harvest and plant public
fruit. The
project is a response to accelerating urbanization and the loss of
people's capacity to produce their own foods, as well as issues around
grassroots community activism, social welfare and social
responsibility " http://www.fallenfruit.org/
I wonder - what started out as a "confined" art project is now an
art collective/cultural machine driving its own advertisement campaign
with spin-off projects in NY, shwag, events etc.
I would argue that Fallen Fruit is an example of a project that is in
the process of commodifing/branding itself; the question is -is this
sort of production around the artwork an example of an"embodied"
practice? Or is it an example of an effective marketing strategy in
order to get the
project into the Whitney Biennale? Or is this commodification even
necessary to be effective?
Robby wrote:
I am very skeptical that Art, and artists when articulated as
individual practitioners, abstracted from a political, social, or
cultural base, can have an actual effect here
and
While Fish Story is a solid and even innovative practice of
documentary
photography- it, like Sekula's practice- becomes a stand in for the
real in the capitalist art marketplace, as he is bandied about as the
last standing Marxist in contemporary art
Ryan wrote
along the lines of Kenneth's questions, i'm also interested in the
engagement with criticality as an "embodied" practice (to use Brian's
phrase).
Ryan wrote
this is what i've seen as part of the journal's project (not to say
that for everyone else, of course). at some point, we have to evaluate
the state of embodiment. is the materialization of a given discourse
just producing books and conferences?
i've been thinking about de Certeau's use of "tactics" v
"strategy" in relation to the militaristic use of those concepts...
(thanks to a recent discussion with the center for tactical magic) a
lot of critically engaged practice has put much faith in the notion of
tactics as a reactionary form of practice, whether of the direct
action kind, or the unconscious everyday method of coping. but i'm
wondering if it's not important now to develop notions of strategy...
what would a "strategical media" look like? this is what i've seen as
part of the journal's project (not to say that for everyone else, of
course). at some point, we have to evaluate the state of embodiment.
is the materialization of a given discourse just producing books and
conferences? or is it interfacing with life in other ways? i certainly
am not saying i know how to evaluate this (if it's even possible) but
it seems the questions would have to be raised. as to the question
about where commodification (fetishism) is happening... i think there
are multiple ways that one could site that. certainly the publishing
system, and what's been called the "academic-military-entertainment
complex" on other lists recently... best,
ryan
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