----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
Hi Margaret,
I have been teaching a graduate class called Creativity as Social Practice
(because I have too many students who start by saying, “I’m not an artist” so
using the word “Art” too much of a set-back) for several years; and more
recently, an undergraduate class called Digital Art as Social Practice. In
these classes, too, we explore social practice, collaboration, and
community-engagement. I’d love to syllabus-share with you off-list!
I relate “social practice” to Pablo Helguera’s notion of socially-engaged art
(I recommend his "Education for Socially-Engaged Art: A Materials and
Techniques Handbook” if you are reading Empyre this week and are unfamiliar,
it’s a great read). In the chapter, “Definitions,” Helguera understands that
terminology around socially-engaged art (and perhaps the genre itself) is
“porous,” with connections to multiple disciplines including activism,
community organizing, ethnography, sociology, and social work. While Helguera
begins his discussion with the idea that “All art...is social,” he frames
socially engaged art as a category of art-making rooted in conceptual,
process-based art. This does not go untroubled, as one might compare process
art that seems to have a low level of social interaction or outcome with one
that appears to have greater community impact. For instance, Helguera suggests
a Donald Judd sculpture would not be categorically similar to a Thomas Hirshorn
performance in its socially-engaged dimensions. Helguera offers this background
in conceptual art and process-based works to serve a historical reference, and
includes a reflection that uncovers how not all of these types of work are
equally “social” for the purpose of understanding socially engaged art. This
unclarity is not a weakness, though. Instead it is an opportunity for artists
to bring their practice into the realm of the social while understanding that
there is a spectrum of opportunity for engagement and participation in many
forms of social practices.
Like you, I use the word “participatory” to define my own work. I like how
Claire Bishop suggests “This expanded field of post-studio practices currently
goes under a variety of names: socially engaged art, community- based art,
experimental communities, dialogic art, littoral art, interventionist art,
participatory art, collaborative art, contextual art and (most recently) social
practice. I will be referring to this tendency as ‘participatory art’, since
this connotes the involvement of many people (as opposed to the one-to-one
relationship of ‘interactivity’) and avoids the ambiguities of ‘social
engagement’,…” (Artificial Hells,1). For me, personally, “participatory” points
to the method or mode of being with/in the work, and is less about naming a
genre. This mode always seems to be true for the works that I make. But the
anthology is much bigger than me.
In the anthology, we include a diverse group of artists whose works center on
the social, including those ranging from a Helguerian “Level 2” to “Level 4”
participatory structure (directive, creative, or collaborative participation),
such that the “involvement of many people,” as Bishop suggests, creates a
participatory experience. While my practice in new media art has introduced me
to a circle of peers who create this kind of work, Judy’s background in
photojournalism coupled with her commitment to collaborative methods has
brought a group of people to this collection whom likely would have escaped my
frame of reference. Together, we felt that "Social Practice” is a phrase that
is “porous" enough that it would communicate or account for the variety of
practices included in the anthology. To be honest, the publisher asked for the
word “Art” in the title :) I guess if you’re not familiar with “Social
Practice” you might think it has something to do with social work or *gasp*,
Socialism.
So, back to your question—we are using "social practice,” as a term for its
porous qualities, and its relationship to socially engaged art that generates
encounters, participation, and collaboration. We will address this in the
introduction to the book; and we are including art historians/critics who will
write section introductions throughout the manuscript that I think will help to
clarify these points. As an artist, my aim for this collection is to create a
space where artists' voices are amplified, together. Working on this edited
anthology feels as though it shares a creative and collaborative spirit with
social practice art. We started by inviting a few of our close contacts and
then asked them who else we should include. By the time we arrived at the 26
artist contributors we can say that just building the table of contents was a
surprising and collaborative activity.
Thanks for your thoughtful and generative question,
xtine
> On Mar 11, 2021, at 3:52 PM, m r <mrhee...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi xtine, Margaretha, and everyone,
>
> Thanks as always to Renate for the invitation and curating a fantastic month
> of empyre! I'm excited to hear more about Margaretha's contribution, and
> xtine's anthology. It's great to see Dalida Maria Bennefield's work included
> and others I've engaged with over the years.
>
> I just taught a Participatory Media Art course last semester here at SUNY,
> and we focused on social practice, collaborative art, and community engaged
> art, oscillating around those terms. I've worked for about a decade on
> feminist jail based digital storytelling drawn from participatory research
> methods and settled on participatory as a term to help describe the methods.
> I wonder if you could talk more about social practice as a term, and if the
> artists utilize that to describe their work, or how it may shift when
> centralizing media and technology? The book sounds fantastic and I'm looking
> forward to reading it. I wish it was available to teach last semester for the
> course I taught and hope to teach it in the future.
>
> Thanks everyone, and look forward to the conversation.
>
> my best,
>
> Margaret
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 11, 2021 at 1:27 PM xtine burrough <xtineburro...@gmail.com
> <mailto:xtineburro...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Hi Renate, All,
>
> Yes—thank you for your prompt. I enjoyed reading the list during the first
> week and do see (joyful!) parallels between interventionist tactics and the
> works I will mention here. There are projects throughout the book Judy and I
> are working on that creatively reimagine, undo, or expand technologies
> through social engagement and participation. I’ll share a few of them here:
>
> In the Magical Machines section, Lauren Elder showcases The Art Bank, "a
> repurposed, ‘trickster' ATM machine [which] served as a media kiosk
> showcasing a collection of creative work by teens, their college mentors, and
> an animated short. The animation pairs Lauren Elder, the project director,
> with a Hopi youth who submitted his artwork by mail from Arizona State
> Prison, where he was incarcerated for hitting a cash dispenser when it failed
> to return his card.”
>
> Dalida Maria Benfield writes about a VR project for the Expansion section:
> "VR Utopia is an iterative, experimental virtual reality space for knowledge
> exchange and collaboration for the global community of artists, designers,
> and transdisciplinary researchers of the Center for Arts, Design, and Social
> Research (CAD+SR), co-designed with design researchers M. Eifler and Evelyn
> Eastmond (Microsoft) and a focus group of CAD+SR.”
>
> Joseph DeLappe shares a body of work in the Re-imagination section: "Woven
> through all of the works described is a keen sensibility of engaging issues
> surrounding memory, violence, peace, and social justice. Such projects have
> involved either the creation of temporary, large scale low polygon sculptures
> and installations created on site with local communities/collaborators;
> internet based engagements including an early experimental global
> sing-a-long; and a series of crowdsourced rubber stamping projects to
> intervene with political symbols on cash.”
>
> I know Margaretha has either just written or is about to write to the list,
> so I will leave this short(er) in anticipation of her post.
>
> My best,
> xtine
>
>
> > On Mar 11, 2021, at 11:56 AM, Renate Ferro <rfe...@cornell.edu
> > <mailto:rfe...@cornell.edu>> wrote:
> >
> > Dear xtine and our -Empyre- guests and subscribers,
> > The book sounds fascinating and actually resonates with last month’s
> > feature of artists who use the code of Social Media code as a tool against
> > itself. In fact artists Derek Curry and Jennifer Gradecki will join us
> > once again this month.
> >
> > These artists use code, data and other technological tactics to turn social
> > media in on itself through obfuscation, education, and other critical
> > means. I expect there are artists in the Expansion section of your text
> > that do like-minded interventions.
> >
> > Where does your own artistic work fit? The juxtaposition of practice and
> > theory have been seminal in my own work, perhaps you would share with us
> > how you see the influences of both on one another especially when it comes
> > to socially engaged work?
> > Sent from my iPhone
> > Renate Ferro
> >
> >> On Mar 8, 2021, at 12:35 PM, xtine burrough <xtineburro...@gmail.com
> >> <mailto:xtineburro...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >>
> >> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> >> Thank you, Renate, for your introduction. Hello Empyre—long time reader,
> >> first time contributor :)
> >>
> >> Judy and I are artist/academics collaborating on an anthology, Social
> >> Practice Art: Technologies for Change to be published by Routledge near
> >> the end of this year.
> >>
> >> This book centers on the voice and works of artist-author contributors
> >> across six sections (listed below), which we are pairing with section
> >> introductions written by art historians and critical scholars.
> >>
> >> Social Practice Art: Technologies for Change demonstrates how artists use
> >> their creative practices to raise consciousness, form communities, create
> >> change, and bring forth social impact through technologies, from ATM
> >> machines to artificial intelligence. This book, a collection of case
> >> studies, is envisioned as a resource for artists, faculty, and students
> >> who engage with technology as a conduit for creative expression, and who
> >> want to explore social practices, such as cultural commentary and
> >> criticism, participatory art, and community engagement.
> >>
> >> The book begins with “Seeds and Tools,” a section that includes chapters
> >> grounded in digital investigations of ecosystems then traverses the
> >> digital wild. In “Windows and Mirrors,” we highlight the wisdom of
> >> powerful artists who consistently create socially-engaged art that employs
> >> technological practices then reflect their processes back to the readers.
> >> Moving on to Section III, “Magical Machines,” we focus on the
> >> supernatural, including magic, science fiction and time travel; themes
> >> that many are craving during these unprecedented times. In the
> >> “Expansions” section, we include artists who discuss art as social
> >> practice that forefront the affordance of digital forms, virtual spaces,
> >> and algorithmic experimentation as part of the creative process and expand
> >> consciousness across networks and in virtual spaces. Embedded in Section
> >> V, artist-authors draw on “Reimagination,” to confront, change, or rethink
> >> humanity using emerging platforms and on-demand processes. And finally,
> >> artist-authors create entirely new platforms for social exchange in
> >> “Radical Matrices,” which we felt was a fitting theme to end the journey.
> >>
> >> We imagine that intuition, perhaps through improvisation, is greatly at
> >> play in the works featured throughout this book. Digital media projects
> >> with collaborative lifeforms (mushrooms and artificial intelligence, for
> >> instance, in Cesar and Lois’ work) require agile and flexible approaches
> >> to artistic projects centered on participation.
> >>
> >> We would like to invite some of the contributing artist/authors to this
> >> conversation, including Kim Abeles, Dalida Maria Benfield, Christopher
> >> Blay, Margaretha Haughwout, Praba Pilar, Lucy HG Solomon, and Victoria
> >> Vesna (tag, you’re it!).
> >>
> >> Warmly,
> >> xtine and Judy
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> empyre forum
> >> empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
> >> <mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au>
> >> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu <http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/>
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au <mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au>
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu <http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/>
>
> --
>
>
>
> Margaret Rhee, Ph.D.
>
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Media Study
> SUNY Buffalo
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