RE: [-empyre-] on meaningful articulations : strategies

"Nato Thompson" <NThompson@massmoca.org> · Wed, 9 Nov 2005 19:31:52 -0500

Maybe my position sounded too reactive. I wasn't actually referring to your position on Fallen Fruit that way. I realize that the connection could easily have been made and I apologize. I was more reporting on what had been discussed in Chicago.

I actually agree with you in part. I am not completely familiar with the fallen fruit project in total, but it seems reasonable that building in an ability to retain financial solvency can be a reasonable method for continuing a project. 

yes, critique is absolutely valuable. I just sometimes feel that the left lives in a world of critique to compensate for our powerlessness. But I understand that you are pressing these issues in a productive way. 

I guess one of the ways I think of trying to figure out a project's 'effectiveness' is based on the 'social resonance' of a particular project. If a project can lead to empowering someone to actually do something, that is great. I guess a lot of concern about the whitney biennial is only that we feel these places are just vacuous spaces where only the image of the project survives, but the radical pedagogical value goes unused. I think in many instances of co-optation, that is exactly what happens. The image remains but the social value shrivels up. I may be more moderate on whether or not good things come from the whitney biennial. I mean it really depends on the project. the whitney gets a lot of visitors. This reaches a lot of people. Who knows?

But on a more counter cultural level, its best to have projects participating in a community of resistance. This also means producing spaces where people can react to, build upon and work on the social implications of the work that we are producing. It means developing alternative systems of distribution, considering the educational or pedagogic value of our practice on multiple levels and finally, truly strategizing on who our audience is and how best to reach them. 

And in terms of settling on terms as marc has advocated: what terms should we discuss. I'm ready to play the game. 

-----Original Message-----
From:	empyre-bounces@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au on behalf of christina ulke
Sent:	Wed 11/9/2005 6:41 PM
To:	soft_skinned_space
Cc:	
Subject:	Re: [-empyre-] on meaningful articulations : strategies

Nato -

 I find it funny that you perceive my critique as mean spirited. If we 
cannot critique within our own community - where can we?

'Fallen Fruit' was brought as an example because of its use of  marketing 
strategies and the cultural engine around their project. The question I was 
trying to raise  - maybe "commodification" doesn't have to mean "selling 
out". Maybe it can be a useful tool.  There are many other examples of 
projects using commodification as a strategy for their counter-cultural 
agendas (e.g. RtMark, the Yes Man, Natalie Bookchin's and Jacqueline Stevens 
agora-x-change http://www.agoraxchange.org ).
I don't think your equation of commodification=corruption is true.

Doesn't  the fact that we have a difficult time addressing this topic on 
this forum call for more discourse?

Nato wrote:

"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 rnse 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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