Re: [-empyre-] escaping work having your mass and monad too
Thinking this into a new formation of practice. Praxis. Discursively and actively--against forgetting. The project I am working on performs operationally in 'information war' 'post-event'. It includes resources such as a school and library. http://occupyeverything.com/category/features/ It is a site of militant research and radical cultural formation. On Mar 12, 2011, at 4:30 PM, simon s...@clear.net.nz wrote: Dear empyreans, Two moments: [to talk to Aristide Antonas's post] escaping work or the work of escaping the representation according to which the telos of every field is visibility correlates with the work of resisting. How to encourage escape but by an escapist's strategy that doesn't end up in escapism? What David Foster Wallace calls the liberal education has this good and admirable goal in its sights, by giving the student to gain insight into the chains binding them to ways of thinking and ways of behaving, leading the student to ask questions, which in themselves are nodal points of escape - points all too soon coopted into an optic of resistance, like the field of a mass action. Recuperation of resistance as information. A new barbarism is intriguing. It smacks of a desire for an effort of thought, of critical thought, or archeology - shouldn't that be a geology? as in a crossing of the threshold of slowmo? - with the quick violence of the earth as the upsetter? The point is taken, however, that this cooption of liberatory knowledge to information, that is, representation, and this appropriation of action to the field of visibility, likewise, representation, tank up civilization - but as we know it, uncommonly well. The desperation of facing urgent situations without recourse to action, is it more or less a black hole for the civilian, more or less a barbarism, for the city, than spontaneous unorganised violence due to the urgency of desperate situations? The political space need not immediately become a place enclosed by the three theatrical walls of a living archive accessible by screen imagery, its fourth porous wall, its magic. If it is not an open space any more, we should look for the exits? I must admit, I am attracted rather than repelled by the concatenation of political space, live archive and interweb or net. And I would like to add the note that it might be precisely the violence and the urgency of desperate situations that make the thought think. Less a tank, than a gnawing at the earth, a disturbance in the field, a sudden inrush, a tremour, more than surface, less than depth. An illiberal, illegal, unauthorised, unorganised and nonhuman violence to the fields of thought and action. Secondly, I have been thrown by recent posts seeking to establish fields of names and negotiate those fields in terms of singular actions, singular movements. To identify them with the singularity of an event or a monad. Whether talking of an historically unfolding field of political action, liberatory or encapturing. Or, in fact, enchanting and magical. If we are with Badiou, then the event itself, in its singularity, has given rise to this open set of subjectivities we know by their names. If however we are with Deleuze, then the individual as a diffuse, clear confused, distinct obscure field is the event and the mass captured by its monadic singularity has escaped representation and cannot in turn comprise representatives of whatever revolution in thought and action has occurred. Except as a branding exercise? Best, Simon Taylor www.squarewhiteworld.com www.brazilcoffee.co.nz ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] escaping work having your mass and monad too
I'm neither 'with' Deleuze or Badiou. I am a feminist. On Mar 12, 2011, at 6:26 PM, Cara Baldwin carabaldwi...@gmail.com wrote: Thinking this into a new formation of practice. Praxis. Discursively and actively--against forgetting. The project I am working on performs operationally in 'information war' 'post-event'. It includes resources such as a school and library. http://occupyeverything.com/category/features/ It is a site of militant research and radical cultural formation. On Mar 12, 2011, at 4:30 PM, simon s...@clear.net.nz wrote: Dear empyreans, Two moments: [to talk to Aristide Antonas's post] escaping work or the work of escaping the representation according to which the telos of every field is visibility correlates with the work of resisting. How to encourage escape but by an escapist's strategy that doesn't end up in escapism? What David Foster Wallace calls the liberal education has this good and admirable goal in its sights, by giving the student to gain insight into the chains binding them to ways of thinking and ways of behaving, leading the student to ask questions, which in themselves are nodal points of escape - points all too soon coopted into an optic of resistance, like the field of a mass action. Recuperation of resistance as information. A new barbarism is intriguing. It smacks of a desire for an effort of thought, of critical thought, or archeology - shouldn't that be a geology? as in a crossing of the threshold of slowmo? - with the quick violence of the earth as the upsetter? The point is taken, however, that this cooption of liberatory knowledge to information, that is, representation, and this appropriation of action to the field of visibility, likewise, representation, tank up civilization - but as we know it, uncommonly well. The desperation of facing urgent situations without recourse to action, is it more or less a black hole for the civilian, more or less a barbarism, for the city, than spontaneous unorganised violence due to the urgency of desperate situations? The political space need not immediately become a place enclosed by the three theatrical walls of a living archive accessible by screen imagery, its fourth porous wall, its magic. If it is not an open space any more, we should look for the exits? I must admit, I am attracted rather than repelled by the concatenation of political space, live archive and interweb or net. And I would like to add the note that it might be precisely the violence and the urgency of desperate situations that make the thought think. Less a tank, than a gnawing at the earth, a disturbance in the field, a sudden inrush, a tremour, more than surface, less than depth. An illiberal, illegal, unauthorised, unorganised and nonhuman violence to the fields of thought and action. Secondly, I have been thrown by recent posts seeking to establish fields of names and negotiate those fields in terms of singular actions, singular movements. To identify them with the singularity of an event or a monad. Whether talking of an historically unfolding field of political action, liberatory or encapturing. Or, in fact, enchanting and magical. If we are with Badiou, then the event itself, in its singularity, has given rise to this open set of subjectivities we know by their names. If however we are with Deleuze, then the individual as a diffuse, clear confused, distinct obscure field is the event and the mass captured by its monadic singularity has escaped representation and cannot in turn comprise representatives of whatever revolution in thought and action has occurred. Except as a branding exercise? Best, Simon Taylor www.squarewhiteworld.com www.brazilcoffee.co.nz ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] the art of forgetting
..on Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 02:10:27PM +1300, simon wrote: Simon Biggs wrote: It's part of the role of artists to ensure we don't forget. Hmm, I don't think this is true really. Donning a role of social responsibility, whether that be for a moral project or cultural heritage, hasn't been widely practiced by artists since the Englightenment. Unless you're from an underprivileged background or oppressive political circumstance, it seems assuming such a role in one's art is increasingly frowned upon, lacking rigour, within the broader machine of self-disillusionment that is contemporary art. Rather: It's part of the role of artists to ensure we don't forget about them. Cheers, -- Julian Oliver home: New Zealand based: Berlin, Germany currently: Berlin, Germany about: http://julianoliver.com follow: http://twitter.com/julian0liver ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] the art of forgetting
Hi, yes, since when has the role of the artist or for that matter art in and of itself assumed the didactic role, it seems that in this current protest climate what is needed is as Nietzsche would demand a physio/physic need to forget in order to emerge. Best. Nick. Watts. ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] the art of forgetting
Certainly, in an art world where marketing is so much part of practice then your suggestion that artists should seek to ensure we don't forget them is the mantra. I'd rather not work that way... I am not from an underprivileged background nor live in an especially oppressive environment (although that is debateable) but nevertheless I do think people (including artusts) are obliged to try and make a difference. But that can come in many shapes and sizes. I agree a simplistic approach is not desirable. One reason I'm not with Badiou. Deleuze is far more interesting. Somebody mentioned Nietzsche, which is interesting territory in this respect. So is Marcuse, who seems out of fashion at the moment but offers a model of action that allows for a dystopian view. Best Simon On 13/03/2011 14:01, Julian Oliver jul...@julianoliver.com wrote: ..on Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 02:10:27PM +1300, simon wrote: Simon Biggs wrote: It's part of the role of artists to ensure we don't forget. Hmm, I don't think this is true really. Donning a role of social responsibility, whether that be for a moral project or cultural heritage, hasn't been widely practiced by artists since the Englightenment. Unless you're from an underprivileged background or oppressive political circumstance, it seems assuming such a role in one's art is increasingly frowned upon, lacking rigour, within the broader machine of self-disillusionment that is contemporary art. Rather: It's part of the role of artists to ensure we don't forget about them. Cheers, Simon Biggs si...@littlepig.org.uk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ s.bi...@eca.ac.uk http://www.elmcip.net/ http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201 ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] the art of forgetting
Really a dystopian view relative to whom or what cultural context ? So is Marcuse, who seems out of fashion at the moment but offers a model of action that allows for a dystopian view. On Mar 13, 2011, at 9:58 AM, Simon Biggs wrote: Certainly, in an art world where marketing is so much part of practice then your suggestion that artists should seek to ensure we don't forget them is the mantra. I'd rather not work that way... I am not from an underprivileged background nor live in an especially oppressive environment (although that is debateable) but nevertheless I do think people (including artusts) are obliged to try and make a difference. But that can come in many shapes and sizes. I agree a simplistic approach is not desirable. One reason I'm not with Badiou. Deleuze is far more interesting. Somebody mentioned Nietzsche, which is interesting territory in this respect. So is Marcuse, who seems out of fashion at the moment but offers a model of action that allows for a dystopian view. Best Simon On 13/03/2011 14:01, Julian Oliver jul...@julianoliver.com wrote: ..on Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 02:10:27PM +1300, simon wrote: Simon Biggs wrote: It's part of the role of artists to ensure we don't forget. Hmm, I don't think this is true really. Donning a role of social responsibility, whether that be for a moral project or cultural heritage, hasn't been widely practiced by artists since the Englightenment. Unless you're from an underprivileged background or oppressive political circumstance, it seems assuming such a role in one's art is increasingly frowned upon, lacking rigour, within the broader machine of self-disillusionment that is contemporary art. Rather: It's part of the role of artists to ensure we don't forget about them. Cheers, Simon Biggs si...@littlepig.org.uk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ s.bi...@eca.ac.uk http://www.elmcip.net/ http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201 ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
[-empyre-] the art of forgetting
I agree with Simon Biggs - I do believe that this statement is true - and increasingly so, in a world where many artists are questioning our role It's part of the role of artists to ensure we don't forget Are we making objects or are we engaging ideas? This is the crucial core of the debate. Of course we often do both, but which do we prioritize? No artist can escape thinking about this, especially in today's economic times, where blue chip artists are dominating the art discussion: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/fashion/13CurrinFeinstein.html Many of us prioritize ideas by choice. Our wanderings in the New Media world may be part of this - especially for those of us who wandered into new media before the established blue chip gallery and museum world even considered new media as art. We were attracted by the creative potential and little else. At one time ideas may have simply been compositional tensions - the visual equivalent of music - however one could argue that even the abstract formalists prompted us to remember as they created a contemplative space, which by its very nature, promotes remembering. Now, with new media means of incorporating representational historical imagery and sounds into our work, more of us are exploring a variety of ways of more directly asking our audience to remember, and to do so from a base of the artistic imperative to engage the imagination beyond the obvious layer of direct representation. Last year I was part of a team of artists who organized a group exhibition based on remembering a particular historical site, linked to a specific cultural heritage but attracting artist-participants from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. In today's world, specific histories can speak to all of us. Artists can stir the imagination and engage in story-telling, and the artists in this exhibition did so through media as diverse as oral history listening stations in a living room installation complete with snacks; archival photographs assembled in a provocative collection making real the losses of urban renewal; a dress (made for this exhibition) with photo-transfers, embroidered decorative motifs, and layers of symbolism (literally). This was difficult territory to navigate, in a world where many people still view artists as either making self-indulgent personal outpourings or making objects to sell. It was not without direct challenges - however the success of the exhibiti on (about 500 people on opening day) and the requests now to work with other groups in organizing similar exhibitions are now pouring in. This first exhibition was based on a historic synagogue (meaning that we asked artists to respect certain boundaries) - however our next project will be with an entirely different group. The works in this exhibition were not graphic designed history lessons - they were true aesthetic interpretations and thoughtful, researched responses to a shared theme, so that the exhibition, when taken as a whole, engaged a historical narrative. http://culturalheritageartistsproject.org (just the video is here: http://culturalheritageartistsproject.org/video.html Cynthia Beth Rubin http://CBRubin.net ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] the art of forgetting
I've never heard of John Currin and Rachel Feinstein. I googled them. Currin's work hopes to channel Courbet but ends up looking like sub-Botero, a sort of soft-porn Beryl Cook (just as Currin isn't known in the UK I doubt Cook is known in the US - but google her). Worse than terrible. Painful! Somebody paid 5.5 million for that? Must be a scam... Googling Feinstein I found loads of pictures of her at parties but little or no art. Is she an artist or partier? Perhaps this is the fun side of relational aesthetics? I find what people like this stand for, whether they are artists or not, deeply disturbing. This is what art needs, like a hole in the head. Nobody needs this. They look like bankers. Let's return to the month's theme... Best Simon On 13/03/2011 19:45, Cynthia Beth Rubin c...@cbrubin.net wrote: I agree with Simon Biggs - I do believe that this statement is true - and increasingly so, in a world where many artists are questioning our role It's part of the role of artists to ensure we don't forget Are we making objects or are we engaging ideas? This is the crucial core of the debate. Of course we often do both, but which do we prioritize? No artist can escape thinking about this, especially in today's economic times, where blue chip artists are dominating the art discussion: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/fashion/13CurrinFeinstein.html Many of us prioritize ideas by choice. Our wanderings in the New Media world may be part of this - especially for those of us who wandered into new media before the established blue chip gallery and museum world even considered new media as art. We were attracted by the creative potential and little else. At one time ideas may have simply been compositional tensions - the visual equivalent of music - however one could argue that even the abstract formalists prompted us to remember as they created a contemplative space, which by its very nature, promotes remembering. Now, with new media means of incorporating representational historical imagery and sounds into our work, more of us are exploring a variety of ways of more directly asking our audience to remember, and to do so from a base of the artistic imperative to engage the imagination beyond the obvious layer of direct representation. Last year I was part of a team of artists who organized a group exhibition based on remembering a particular historical site, linked to a specific cultural heritage but attracting artist-participants from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. In today's world, specific histories can speak to all of us. Artists can stir the imagination and engage in story-telling, and the artists in this exhibition did so through media as diverse as oral history listening stations in a living room installation complete with snacks; archival photographs assembled in a provocative collection making real the losses of urban renewal; a dress (made for this exhibition) with photo-transfers, embroidered decorative motifs, and layers of symbolism (literally). This was difficult territory to navigate, in a world where many people still view artists as either making self-indulgent personal outpourings or making objects to sell. It was not without direct challenges - however the success of the exhibiti on (about 500 people on opening day) and the requests now to work with other groups in organizing similar exhibitions are now pouring in. This first exhibition was based on a historic synagogue (meaning that we asked artists to respect certain boundaries) - however our next project will be with an entirely different group. The works in this exhibition were not graphic designed history lessons - they were true aesthetic interpretations and thoughtful, researched responses to a shared theme, so that the exhibition, when taken as a whole, engaged a historical narrative. http://culturalheritageartistsproject.org (just the video is here: http://culturalheritageartistsproject.org/video.html Cynthia Beth Rubin http://CBRubin.net ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre Simon Biggs si...@littlepig.org.uk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ s.bi...@eca.ac.uk http://www.elmcip.net/ http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201 ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] the art of forgetting
..on Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 04:58:41PM +, Simon Biggs wrote: Certainly, in an art world where marketing is so much part of practice then your suggestion that artists should seek to ensure we don't forget them is the mantra. I'd rather not work that way... Great. It's a rare attitude. I am not from an underprivileged background nor live in an especially oppressive environment (although that is debateable) but nevertheless I do think people (including artusts) are obliged to try and make a difference. This is a risky imposition I think. Artists are, almost by contemporary definition, assigned with a social /irresponsibility/; by escaping obligations, social utility, behavioural and cultural norms, even laws, they supposedly widen our cultural and intellectual scope, demanding new definitions whilst undoing others, affording greater movement for the group as a whole. That's the idea, a romance still prevalent today. How many actually do - and how transformative their efforts are - is another thing. The reality is that most art is now made in the interests of excelling within the group rather than excelling the group as a whole. An obligation to make a difference is perhaps more clearly delineated and easily asserted where public arts funding is concerned - a common polemic between tax payers and state commissioned public artworks, for instance.. I don't see how else making a difference as a priori for the arts can otherwise be imposed (or whether it should). The change here should better happen with audiences, of which and why work is valued. I'm personally increasingly drawn to making less 'solipsistic' work, work that reaches into the world with change in mind. At the same time I fear that art audiences comprise a poor context for effecting change; the art world is naturally more interested in the transformation of its own narrative than the world around it. And so, like numerous others, I'm interested in strategies like direct distribution and public intervention. I do think we use the word 'art' far too often, especially to describe projects that are not explicitly works of entertainment, politics or science and have no overt utility, hence committing them to a frame (and culture) of reflexive discussion and abstract value generation, limiting their reach. The art world will tell us we're making art anyway. We don't always need to do it ourselves! But that can come in many shapes and sizes. I agree a simplistic approach is not desirable. One reason I'm not with Badiou. Deleuze is far more interesting. Somebody mentioned Nietzsche, which is interesting territory in this respect. So is Marcuse, who seems out of fashion at the moment but offers a model of action that allows for a dystopian view. Marcuse (esp Study on Authority) is great to read with this topic in mind indeed, but far from dystopian in my opinion! Cheers, -- Julian Oliver home: New Zealand based: Berlin, Germany currently: Berlin, Germany about: http://julianoliver.com follow: http://twitter.com/julian0liver On 13/03/2011 14:01, Julian Oliver jul...@julianoliver.com wrote: ..on Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 02:10:27PM +1300, simon wrote: Simon Biggs wrote: It's part of the role of artists to ensure we don't forget. Hmm, I don't think this is true really. Donning a role of social responsibility, whether that be for a moral project or cultural heritage, hasn't been widely practiced by artists since the Englightenment. Unless you're from an underprivileged background or oppressive political circumstance, it seems assuming such a role in one's art is increasingly frowned upon, lacking rigour, within the broader machine of self-disillusionment that is contemporary art. Rather: It's part of the role of artists to ensure we don't forget about them. Cheers, Simon Biggs si...@littlepig.org.uk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ s.bi...@eca.ac.uk http://www.elmcip.net/ http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201 ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] Pumping
Thank you for your thoughts and kind words, Christina. I appreciate it. I am invested in reframing contemporary environmental issues and the problems of corporate monstrosities. “Pumping” tries to do this through a historical lens – as well as through an imagined future. I have employed plenty of humor in my work to couch my political critiques, but I have shied away from irony. I wonder if sincerity and irony are possible to co-exist in a work of art today… amidst a culture of nihilism and Jeff Koons sculptures where everything is trivialized and turned into pop…. But, surely certain things are far from trivial and certain things demand our attention… I take the construction of cultural objects (like “art”) seriously. I know that there is a school of thought that believes that art is outside of politics and ethics – but I firmly believe that nothing can be responsibly made or considered outside of those domains. Everything functions on a political level. The slogan “art can change the world” may have become a cliché, but I don’t think the principle has been debunked. http://www.joeltauber.com/pumping.html On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 12:54 PM, christina christ...@christinamcphee.netwrote: Joel, In your installation Pumping-- you have filmed yourself as a pumpman/ lineman. Your character is dressed in a thirties or forties period work outfit. Even the glasses (little round horn rimmed) are right. The art direction recalls Hollywood films of the same period. I am thinking especially of the Steinbeck adaptations to film . Grapes of Wrath. Of Mice and Men. When I watched it at first I was completely involved in this atmosphere, so much so that I really thought it was old period footage or outtakes. When i realized that it was you, performing as pump man, I felt pleasure at having been awakened out of reverie. I had to think right away about why you were performing like that, in apparently actual locations, like dry desert sites near LA. The shots struck me as true- not landscapes 'like' or evocative of the region (as with No Country for Old Men , the Coen brothers exam on early oil in California). You went to a lot of trouble to get these shots. Your landscape of rail, desert hills, and parched dirt has extraordinary craft. And you make us watch this place roll by over and over. The pump man never gets done. What grabs me by the scruff of the neck and shakes me is, how you have used the current vogue for 'reperformance' to do MORE than recapitulate ironically, as it were, a forties aesthetic. Unlike, perhaps, Longo, with the 'MadMen' style falling suits of the sixties. Remediation, but with a difference. What is this? Please tell more about this strategy of reperformance and the tactic of extreme verisimilitude, combined with repetition. -cm On Mar 11, 2011, at 9:55 PM, Joel Tauber wrote: 1873. Los Angeles. 6,000 people living in a semi-desert. Dreams of trains. Rumbling through the landscape. Ushering in “Civilization”, Christianity, and Economic Progress. A massive government handout. The Southern Pacific Railroad seizes it, and commandeers the City. Bribes. Propaganda. Squashing of rivals. Escalation of freight prices. Pullman Strike. Army quells strike. Trains. Tracks. Infrastructure. Proclamations of paradise. Migration. Rapid growth. Sprawl. An exciting city emerges. A powerful railroad facilitates and shapes its growth. http://www.joeltauber.com/pumping.html -- Joel Tauber joeltau...@gmail.com ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre -- Joel Tauber http://www.joeltauber.com/ joeltau...@gmail.com ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
