[-empyre-] Re: empyre Moore N = c (G.H. Hovagimyan)

[iarvers@free.fr]

Re: Moore N = c (G.H. Hovagimyan)
i think that we touch thepoint, what is funny is that at the same time on the
list spectre, an artists decided to quit the list because of some too
theoritical posts, and he said i quit : it is too much theory fro me!

why can't we think from zero? is it really impossible? every mode of thinking is
a reaction to another, isn't it possible to think from the ground, without
quoting any ancestors or precient thinker? it seems that it is not possible. At
school, our brains are transformed into computational machines, you are never
asked to say what you are thinking about a particular point, the only think you
have to do is to compute and repeat the informations given by somebody who
knows!!!

"Nobody is interested in what you think, beginn first by learning the classics!"

In the art world, that's the same, right now in France, there is a debate about
critics who don't want to use philosophy or theory to write, it is denounced by
all the critic world. "It is impossible to have a critical discourse without
having the theorical tools!!"

And if you try, good luck! that's possible but, still difficult
and you fall in an other problem you were mentioning before, you quote without
knowing it other artworks, because what you did was already done before. It
also happened in the Palais de Tokyo at the exhibition "Notre Histoire" sic!!
with a big skelett sculpture that is a replic of another sculpture presented 15
years before somewhere else in France.

So it seems that even without knowing what happends before that we repeat it?
Would it depends on our way of thinking, is it natural or cultural? i am still
hoping that it is possible remembering an idea i really loved in philosophy
with aristote, saying that in each operson, there is a capacity to produce
knowledge,

isabelle arvers
www;isabelle-arvers.com
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: Saul Ostrow <sostrow@gate.cia.edu>
> >Sent: Mar 12, 2006 3:29 PM
> >To: "Christiane Robbins @ Jetztzeit" <cpr@mindspring.com>,
> soft_skinned_space
> <empyre@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>, soft_skinned_space
> <empyre@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> >Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Moore N = c
> >
> >part of the problem is that students are learning ( an therefore artist/
> teachers
> are
> >teaching) the algorithm as written  by those who were/ are engaged in
> institutional
> >critique --  now, we all know the institutions 9museums, galleries,
> curators,
> critics,
> >theorists, historians) loved this critique because it gave all power to
> them.
> this
> >approach whcih places blame and there fore volition with the system actually
> empowers
> >those institutions to appropriate and define cultural production - rather
> than
> merely be
> >a condition of such production - This took the burden off the artist/
> audience,
> who in
> >turn were happy to be relieved of all obligations to engage in the
> construction/
> >maintance of the cultural subject -- Modernism/ post-Modernism dis-struction
> of the
> >cultural subject emposwered them to be passively and knowingly passive -- as
> a probe: it
> >might now be time to re-read Marx's thesis on Feurbach - and
> re-contextualism
> them in
> >terms of culture rather than history --
> >
> >---------- Original Message -----------
> >From: "Christiane Robbins @ Jetztzeit" <cpr@mindspring.com>
> >To: soft_skinned_space <empyre@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> >Sent: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 13:49:08 -0800 (GMT-08:00)
> >Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Moore N = c
> >
> >> Wow .... the narrative for this algorithm is so ... cute ... its almost
> >> endearing.
> >>
> >> However, we are just skimming here and I find when this surface slide
> remains
> >> unexamined, it becomes somewhat problematic.  This penchant for glibness
> may
> >> well be informing the dialectics of this conversation ... and/or it may
> simply
> >> be adding to the paradox.
> >>
> >> Further thoughts?
> >>
> >> Best,
> >>
> >> Chris
> >>
>
>                       JETZTZEIT
> " ... the space between zero and one ... "
>                  Walter Benjamin
>
>
>
>
>
>
>         Los Angeles _ San Francisco
>                      California
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 01:59:13 -0500
> From: "Saul Ostrow" <sostrow@gate.cia.edu>
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Moore N = c
> To: "Christiane Robbins @ Jetztzeit" <cpr@mindspring.com>,
> 	soft_skinned_space <empyre@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>,
> 	soft_skinned_space <empyre@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Message-ID: <20060313065502.M4988@gate.cia.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset=iso-8859-1
>
> I'll only respond to this point -- the institutional critique assumed that
> one could
> creat political change via cultural means -- which was a reiteration of an
> enlightenment
> principle which pre supposes consciousness leads to action -- my point is
> that we have
> confused consciousness with action in that the critique replicates the
> instituional bias
> it is meant to expose - transparency is meant to define the target - now that
> we know
> what thispart of the dynamicis how have we changed our practice substantially
> - rather
> than merely reactively
>
> >
> > Marx on Feuerbach - ?the  philosophers have only interpreted the world, the
> point
> > is to change it.?  Isn't that one of the trajectories of the institutional
> critique?
> >
> >
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 09:16:22 -0500
> From: "G.H. Hovagimyan" <ghh@thing.net>
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Moore N = c
> To: "Christiane Robbins @ Jetztzeit" <cpr@mindspring.com>,
> 	soft_skinned_space <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Message-ID: <8A6DE1DF-FE30-4EEC-9649-1776CE4A4AA5@thing.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252; delsp=yes;
> 	format=flowed
>
> gh comments:
>
> I think the question is who defines what art is? And also who defines
> what an artist is? Antonin Artaud talks about that is his essay, No
> More Masterpieces from the book Theatre and its' Double. Maybe
> someone on the list has the exact quote but I'll paraphrase,...."each
> generation has the right to define in their own terms in their own
> way what is means to love, hate, feel loss and so on. Let the plays
> of the past dwell in the past. No more masterpieces." There is
> another dynamic at work in the topic for the Documenta proposed by
> Beurgel, that is the learnedness and the weight of history that
> people in the art world work with.
> I went to the DIVA (NYC) this weekend and saw a lot of video art.
> One piece that struck me was a video of a young Chinese man's face.
> The video was him doing a series of video-performance works. On piece
> was of him putting elastic bands all over his head to distort the
> skin. He then slowly cut them off. The elastic bands left the
> inevitable crisscross trails on his face.  This piece was exactly
> like the work of a 1970's Austrian artist whose name escapes me. He
> used to do the same thing and photograph the results. He called them
> Farce Faces. The work of course come from what children do when they
> are playing with elastic (rubber) bands and their parents aren't
> looking. I've encountered this with Mainland Chinese Contemporary
> Art. They are doing work that is 1970's process/ body/ conceptual
> art. So my question is, is this a cultural colonialism? Is this the
> Chinese playing catch-up with Western Modernism?  Does Artaud's
> dictum apply here?
> What I suspect is that the art world would rather deal with an art
> form that is familiar such as video or conceptual art than try to
> seriously integrate digital art forms into the discourse. Simply put
> most curators are not trained to deal with computers.
> In any case I said in my first post that performance art was perhaps
> the most promising thread of discourse to come out of modernism.
> Perhaps that is what is happening with the Chinese. It is interesting
> to come back around to the initial question "Is Modernity our
> Antiquity?"  and wonder what the "our" means.
> My original art algorithm is an art work made specifically for this
> venue (on line discussion).  It has no value in the greater art
> world. It has no use value. It doesn't exist for any other than the
> few people that read about it here. It is, however, art.
>
> http://nujus.net/gh/
> http://post.thing.net/gh/
> http://spaghetti.nujus.net/rantapod
> http://spaghetti.nujus.net/artDirt
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mar 12, 2006, at 9:01 PM, Christiane Robbins @ Jetztzeit wrote:
>
> > We may well be dealing here with merely one interpretation of the
> > "institutional
> > critique" of the late 80's and a rather overarching one at that.
> > Your email
> > draws your assumption as fact when you state that "we all know the
> > institutions
> > ... loved this critique because it gave all the power to them."  I
> > don't know
> > this to be the case.  Point in fact, I doubt that it carried that
> > much weight when
> > it was first introduced - and that being in the USA. The resistance
> > to this critique
> > that I witnessed when its tenets were introduced was memorable ....
> > and this email
> > speaks to its staying power.
> >
> > On the other hand, if you are implying that the proponents of the
> > institutional
> > critique have now been incubated and absorbed by "the Borg", and that
> > we are now witnessing a incestous, mannered, iteration of that
> > critique ( ie. Andrea
> > Fraser's lastest work ), then you may have a point.  Then again, it
> > becomes necessary
> > to offer an analysis of the cultural machinations of the past 15 -
> > 20 years which
> > have led us to this point and, again, it is not an a facile
> > summation of modernism
> > or post-modernism ( please note that this is not at all the same as
> > notions of modernity.)
> >
> > Of course, my own POV is within the USA, but given the cultural
> > tremors ( especially
> > in the art world/s) of this centrifugal force, I believe that its
> > influence has
> > been far reaching and contributed a viable sense of agency to
> > numerous cultural
> > producers. Larger political, economic and nationalistic forces have
> > been introduced
> > during the past 15 years which have undermined individual agency
> > and subjectivities
> > - and this has not at all been limited to visual art practices, not
> > to producers
> > nor to various cultural institutions. We have not been operating in
> > a vacuum, that
> > is without question.
> >
> > Trans-medial and trans-cultural perceptions of artistic practices
> > produce imaginary
> > patterns which overlap but are not identical to our own
> > individuated, inhabited,
> > material realities. It is this interaction of the material, the
> > cultural and the
> > imaginary that offers an infusion of richness to the topos of this
> > conversation
> > - especially relative to the socio-economic impact of globalism,
> > capitalism, consuming,
> > notions of modernity and yes, passivity.   Passivity is an
> > increasing ( and, yes,
> > alarming ) mode of being in the world - especially in the USA.
> > This is due to so
> > to so much more than the hubris implied in thinking that this was
> > due to modernism
> > and/or post-modernism as it played out in the visual arts.
> >
> >
> > Marx on Feuerbach - ?the  philosophers have only interpreted the
> > world, the point
> > is to change it.?  Isn't that one of the trajectories of the
> > institutional critique?
> >
> >
> > Thanks for the discussion -
> >
> >
> > Chris
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Saul Ostrow <sostrow@gate.cia.edu>
> >> Sent: Mar 12, 2006 3:29 PM
> >> To: "Christiane Robbins @ Jetztzeit" <cpr@mindspring.com>,
> >> soft_skinned_space
> > <empyre@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>, soft_skinned_space
> > <empyre@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> >> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Moore N = c
> >>
> >> part of the problem is that students are learning ( an therefore
> >> artist/ teachers
> > are
> >> teaching) the algorithm as written  by those who were/ are engaged
> >> in institutional
> >> critique --  now, we all know the institutions 9museums,
> >> galleries, curators,
> > critics,
> >> theorists, historians) loved this critique because it gave all
> >> power to them.
> > this
> >> approach whcih places blame and there fore volition with the
> >> system actually
> > empowers
> >> those institutions to appropriate and define cultural production -
> >> rather than
> > merely be
> >> a condition of such production - This took the burden off the
> >> artist/ audience,
> > who in
> >> turn were happy to be relieved of all obligations to engage in the
> >> construction/
> >> maintance of the cultural subject -- Modernism/ post-Modernism dis-
> >> struction
> > of the
> >> cultural subject emposwered them to be passively and knowingly
> >> passive -- as
> > a probe: it
> >> might now be time to re-read Marx's thesis on Feurbach - and re-
> >> contextualism
> > them in
> >> terms of culture rather than history --
> >>
> >> ---------- Original Message -----------
> >> From: "Christiane Robbins @ Jetztzeit" <cpr@mindspring.com>
> >> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> >> Sent: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 13:49:08 -0800 (GMT-08:00)
> >> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Moore N = c
> >>
> >>> Wow .... the narrative for this algorithm is so ... cute ... its
> >>> almost
> >>> endearing.
> >>>
> >>> However, we are just skimming here and I find when this surface
> >>> slide remains
> >>> unexamined, it becomes somewhat problematic.  This penchant for
> >>> glibness
> > may
> >>> well be informing the dialectics of this conversation ... and/or
> >>> it may
> > simply
> >>> be adding to the paradox.
> >>>
> >>> Further thoughts?
> >>>
> >>> Best,
> >>>
> >>> Chris
> >>>
> >
> >                       JETZTZEIT
> > " ... the space between zero and one ... "
> >                  Walter Benjamin
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >         Los Angeles _ San Francisco
> >                      California
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > empyre forum
> > empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >
> >
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
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>
> End of empyre Digest, Vol 16, Issue 15
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>