[-empyre-] communities / machines

[helen varley jamieson]

On 8/07/10 11:19 PM, Johannes Birringer wrote:
> but what interests me about the discussion here is that is claims "communities" where i see none,
> and i want to learn to understand.

maybe you have a different understanding of "community", if you are not 
seeing any? i am seeing communities all over the place ...


>
> I would argue there are no such communities (non physical ones) that work perfectly successfully, unless
> you argue that networking itself (via internet protocols and communications) is a form of non-dissociative "sharing" (of what) and understanding different or
> indeed shared (culturally transmitted) methods of working (rehearsing, composing, performing together, as musicians, say, do when do perform in a concert for audiences ).

maybe you also have a different idea of what "successful" might mean; 
when i say that my interactions within networked/remote communities are 
perfectly successful, i mean that i'm able to achieve what i want or 
expect to achieve in those contexts, not that i'm achieving (or even 
aiming for) some kind of "perfection".

everyone has a different measure of success, & while generally within 
commnunities one might suppose that there should be a common goal or 
idea of "success", it is still going to be different for individuals & 
often will be some kind of compromise. part of what makes a community 
"successful" is to understand & respect those differences.

> It seems you are arguing for "creativity" in regards to non distinct, non-forms  or, if i understood the irony of  Eugenio's comment,  facebooklike ant-community. If Lady Gaga has 11 million facebook friends,
> what does that mean?  Not much, in my opinion.

i'm not making any arguments about "creativity" itself :) as for 
numbers, of facebook fans or whatever, that has never been one of my 
measures of "success" or value.

>
> Since you initiallly introduced the training on which all theatre forms (and other performing or visual arts forms) are based that apply a range of artistic criteria and sustainable knowledge (and surely filmmaking
> also has criteria which may or may not appy to YouTube, and so do design and architecture, no?), I was surprised how quickly creativity (among artists as you say) is shifted into cybersapce and net-conditions.

i'm not sure that i have understood your point about what is surprising; 
artists have always experimented with new technology, & have been 
experimenting in the networks & cyberspace as soon as these spaces emerged.

applying traditional methods to new forms is a useful way to introduce & 
experiment with those new forms; training methods is one thing, another 
example is the representation of traditional stories in new forms. if 
the audience is already familiar with the story, it makes it easier for 
them to read the new form. by this i don't mean making work that is 
"easy" or unchallenging, but rather trying to negotiate a discursive 
common ground between the audience & artist - a temporary community, 
perhaps, where we can have a conversation.

>
> Now, it appears that the creativity addressed here iks closer to the machinic, as i gather it is explained in some writings on assemblages.
> I found an effort at defining this in Andreas Broeckmann's piece "Remove the Controls":
>
> "Today's social environments are fully permeated by technical apparatuses, tools and infrastructures which form complex assemblages of objects, spaces and behaviors. Our bodies are fitted with cyborgian extensions (glasses, walkman, car, elevator, pace-maker), and the way we work, rest and play is intertwined with our machinic environment. We are ourselves part of the machinic assemblages that surround us.
>
> The principle of the 'machinic' relates not so much to particular technological or mechanical objects connected to or independent from the human body. The 'machines' can be social bodies, industrial complexes, or psychological or cultural formations, such as the complex of desires, habits and incentives that create particular forms of collective behavior in groups of individuals, or the aggregation of materials, instruments, human individuals, lines of communication, rules and conventions that together constitute a company or institution. These are examples for 'machines' which are assemblages of heterogeneous parts, aggregations which transform forces, articulate and propel their elements, and force them into a continuous state of transformation and becoming.
>

if this is the case, then when have humans, & consequently creativity, 
ever not been "machinic"?

> As an aesthetic principle, the machinic is associated with process rather than object, with dynamics rather than finality, with instability rather than permanence, with communication rather than representation, with action and with play. The aesthetics of the machinic does not so much concern itself with the intention or result of artistic practices, but with the translations and transformations that occur within a machinic assemblage" (cited from http://www.ljudmila.org/nettime/zkp4/45.htm).
>

process, dynamics, instability, communication, action & play are all 
elements of live performance, which is where my practice & experience 
are situated, so as i read this i am thinking, yes, yes, yes. these 
aspects also apply to communities, moreso than objects, permanence & 
finality. then i get to "intention" - which julian brought up earlier as 
being fundamental to art, & i agree with that. so we're talking about 
machinic with intent :)

>
> I got the impression that the discussion so far proposed to celebrate this lack of "concern .. with the intention or result of artistic practice".

i am curious, what is it that's giving you that impression? i haven't 
been able to keep up with all of the posts (i've been travelling) but it 
isn't the impression i get; & in my own work i am definitely concerned 
with intention & result. one of my current interests is how we can make 
work that is "participatory" & "interactive" (a couple of currently very 
over-used & misused words!) and yet does not completely erase the gap 
between artist/performer & audience/spectator. presumably as artists we 
have an intention that drives us to make artwork, beyond the current 
trend of user-generated content & digital identity-making, & this 
intention is tied up with some kind of result or response or engagement 
that we want to provoke in our audiences. in this sense it could be 
argued that art is manipulative, selective, framed as opposed to the 
more random user-generated content & facebook-type interactions. which 
of course are not without "intention" either ... ;)

h : )
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helen varley jamieson: creative catalyst
helen at creative-catalyst.com
http://www.creative-catalyst.com
http://www.avatarbodycollision.org
http://www.upstage.org.nz
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