[-empyre-] Re: Moore N=C

["" <sean@flatlife.net>]

Nietzsche's idea of an Eternal Recurrence comes to mind in relation to GH's comments about the Chinese contemporary video artist.

The thought as I understand it is that all has happened in an eternity past...given this notion I rest in the idea that everything is antiquity or "familiar"...how liberating really...

I think the notion of modern or new or fresh or unknown comes from a desire to represent a distinguishing characteristic within the totality of existence...to achieve the intended result (becoming distinguished), much negativity needs to occur...the subjugation of those who conduct similar practices for starters...a claiming of expressive characteristics as support...

I do not feel that particular forms are what give an expression it's vitality or edge...to me, it is the life within the form to which I respond...

Maybe this too simplistic, but I do see it...

Best, 

Ripple, Sean

www.FlatLife.net
www.myspace.com/flalife
www.Incurve.blogspot.com  



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. 

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