hello al,
I would like to second Susanne's call for some self-reflection on the
side of the authors of the juxtaposium proposal. I respect and admire
the work of most of you (juxtaposium authors, I just don't know
Baruch Gottlieb), but I think this proposal completely misses its
mark. Let me try to explain why.
When the juxtaposium proposal came in my mailbox I was a little
surprised by the contrast between the content and the style. Then
what caught my eye were the names at the bottom. Three well known
critics and three artists that all seem to come from very different
directions and backgrounds drop a harsh criticism and radical (?) new
presentation format onto our laps, completely out of the blue. If it
would have been posted today (april 1st) I might have thought it was
a hoax. Where does this come from? How was it created? How did the
writers come together? Have 'social media' so undermined our
communication skills that it is easily forgotten we are posting into
each others private email boxes/homes and that addressing the mailing
list members as a mass instead of possibly smart individuals is not
the way to go? Don't get me wrong, I like a manifesto from time to
time, but this seems to miss the mark by not having any clear context
but the writers' personal experiences, which are barely explained.
More info needed urgently please!
Like many working in the field of art and (what was formerly known
as) new media I am aware of the problems with symposium formats.
Everybody complains about them from time to time, like one complains
about the weather. It is good to criticize them. There have however
been plenty of experimental formats going around in the past 15 years
if not more. What bothers me a little about the juxtaposium proposal
is that this is completely ignored. It does not help to negate one's
own history. The problem with polemics like this is that it turns
what is a very diverse field into a black and white situation, even
retroactively. Institutional and corporate phenomena are placed on
the one side, and the victims of it on the other. This way you
actually become part of the problem. The reality of the past 15 years
is different and I personally feel very happy to have witnessed some
of it. I know that many on Spectre must feel the same way.
What we also do not need I think is a return to the polemics that
destroyed for example net.art. The claim that "Our field is all about
hacking, deconstructing and reformatting existing formats" is just
nonsense, sorry to say. Misinterpretation is actually a rather
standard approach of new media art that needs heavy criticism, if I
may be polemic a bit myself. If anything our field is about a
diversity of practices and exploration of new materials, hard, soft
and wet. I welcome a call for a renewed criticism, but only from an
awareness of and respect for past failures and successes, and from an
acknowledgment of existing constructive and/or interesting practices.
With respect,
Josephine
On 1 Apr 2011, at 13:33, susanne jaschko wrote:
Dear friends,
you have made an interesting proposition that I would like to
comment on. Let's leave the provocation aside with which you
apparently tried to get our attention and stir up some debate and
let's try to be a bit more objective in favour of a serious
discussion. I totally understand that you are tired of traditional
symposium formats. We all have been there. We all have attended and
participated in conferences and panels that went nowhere, at which
the speakers did nothing but present themselves in the ordinary,
boring way and were often not able/ not willing to respond to each
others' ideas, concepts, works or to discuss a subject
sufficiently. People who just read out their paper, speakers of
whom you get the impression they have not considered the subject of
the symposium, theoreticians repeating themselves, artists not
going beyond the information that they provide on their website.
Moderators who fail to generate something like an interesting
debate, because the presentations are so disparate.
There are a number of reasons why this is so. Lousy speakers' fees
don't explain everything. Laziness might be one of the factors.
Laziness of the organisers to find speakers who actually – in
theory – have something to say to each other, laziness to take the
effort to communicate with all participants in the panel about
their individual contribution in advance and making them understand
what the context is in which they speak. But also laziness of the
speakers to think of something different than the usual
presentation. In all those years that I am organising these kind of
events, I was rarely surprised by someone making the effort to come
up with something fresh, something extraordinary, although there
the space for it was there.
I don't want to play the ball back to you (or eventually myself – I
have played all positions in this game: curator, moderator,
speaker) asking you to be more inventive and responsive to each
other, even after delivering your speech. Maybe we need a change, a
challenge, to refresh. Maybe we should just stop trying to offer
topic-driven conferences to a larger public and just do little,
informal conversations like for example Andreas did at Tesla or
create workshop like situations in which real exchange is easier.
Which all really work well, we know. Since real and debate is so
difficult to achieve in larger groups, why not give up on that in
general, or do it in the way we do it here, have a remote, but
focussed discussion?
But let's look at what you proposed here. Artists talking about
each others' work, not their own. I have seen that, but not too
often at symposiums, granted. However when artists teach at art
school, this happens all the time. This does not excite me per se.
You should elaborate on this, make it clearer what you are
expecting to happen, or define even super clear rules to make it
special. Only speak about the artists who are present? Is there
still a kind of general subject to which the presentations will
refer or do you envision it more like a pecha-kucha, straight
forward presentation/reflection of one or many artworks without a
conference like theme?
How this will foster critique? I am not sure it can. Real critique
means also negative critique - in public this is very unlikely to
happen. And why should an artist be more suited to critique another
artist's work than anybody else? Finally the theoreticians - self-
absorbed in their own theory and discourse (like you say) they
should now disclose their subjectivity and/or speak predominantly
about the art. What I am missing rather in our field are more
theoreticians who come up with strong theories...theoreticians who
are not caught up in the scholarly world but have some connection
to reality. There is much more to say about your idea, this is just
a quick response, and we should continue talking about it. I agree,
we need more and new formats, because we all want to talk to each
other honestly, but we still hardly know how to in public.
--
su
susanne jaschko
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