Reading about Thomas Hirschhorn can make you excited about creating art. The words “Quality No! Energy Yes!” ring through your mind as you contemplate the potential aesthetic quality of cardboard and packaging tape. To reduce Hirschhorn’s practice such formal concerns, is of course a mistake though. It is the way in which mutilated media remnants are imbued with political agency that is one of the exciting aspects of Hirschhorn’s mode of making. In his interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Hirschhorn speaks a lot of his desire to create non-heirarchical and value-free installations that create open contexts for the creation of knowledge. It seems so simple: cut up some newspapers, photocopy some texts, tape it all together and, presto, open and free art for the people. The key to the validity of the project seems to be in maintaining this strategy over a period of time, with the continued hope that it will result in only small and temporary engagements. There is no utopian dream at stake and therefore nothing to loose at any one particular instalment. It is enough for Hirschhorn that an individual may engage with only one sentence contained within an exhibition.
Hirschhorn also mentions that he wants to give form not create form. By aiming to be free from what is his, he hopes that the viewer may also remain free. Here the role of the artist is to act as the mediator between audience and information. That which is of value are the exchanges that occur around the art, rather than the art itself. I am reminded of Doug Aitken’s book ‘Broken Screen’ in which an attempt is made to capture the spontaneous conversations that spring up during the production of art. Aitken says in the introduction to the book, that these conversations are often the thing that keeps him going. In a hyper-productive post-everything-world of intensely complicated interactions, it seems that all we can hope to hang on to now, are these fleeting fragments of engagement.
References
Doug Aitken, Broken Screen: 26 Conversations, edited by Noel Daniel, New York, 2006
Hans Ulrich Obrist: Interviews Volume 1, edited by Thomas Boutoux, Milan, 2003.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Gregory Sholette, ‘Disciplining the Avant-Garde’
Gregory Sholette does an interesting job detailing aspects of the relationship between art and government. In particular, his focus is on how certain producers or products of art are deemed either acceptable or not acceptable according to the government philosophy at the time. Writing from an American point of view, Sholette certainly has ample examples to illustrate the lengths to which a government will go in order to maintain order in the name of freedom and democracy.
Sholette highlights a fascinating development that occurred in the 1960s, when counter-cultural symbols were co-opted and sold back to the public by corporate America. Consumers were now able to buy not just products but an ‘alternative’ and ‘individual’ lifestyle. In the 1980s, a similar development followed on from this, whereby corporate management strategies adopted “experimental, avant-garde and even critical forms of culture.” (Shollete, p12) Employees, in offices potentially decorated with contemporary art, were encouraged to think ‘creatively’ in their new role as managers of their own self-gratifying activity. Keeping employees ‘happy’ was the key, “at least as long as happy-work leads to a product worthy of profitable exchange.” (Sholette, p11) Obviously this only describes the situation for a certain group of people, but it is nevertheless a disconcerting occurrence. Sholette points to a correlation between open and flexible management ideology and ‘tactical media’, the process by which amateurs or outsiders can exploit advancements in technology (cheap consumer-level electronics and expanded forms of distribution) to express their disenchantment with the wider culture. Both modes of being break the rules of engagement in an attempt to secure their own place in the world.
The underlying theme here is the lack of distinction between work and play, products and culture, and the ability of institutions to absorb any critique levelled against them. That any clear distinction between these poles ever existed is a debatable issue. Foucault would argue, via his account of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, that every subject embodies the means with which they remain under the rule of those with governmental power. However, it seems the concern now is that there exists a great similarity between the activities of those with power and those without, making any subversive activities harder to maintain.
References
Gregory Sholette, ‘Disciplining the Avant-Garde: the United States versus The Critical Art Ensemble’, in CIRCA: Contemporary Visual Culture In Ireland 112, Summer 2005, pp50-59
Sholette highlights a fascinating development that occurred in the 1960s, when counter-cultural symbols were co-opted and sold back to the public by corporate America. Consumers were now able to buy not just products but an ‘alternative’ and ‘individual’ lifestyle. In the 1980s, a similar development followed on from this, whereby corporate management strategies adopted “experimental, avant-garde and even critical forms of culture.” (Shollete, p12) Employees, in offices potentially decorated with contemporary art, were encouraged to think ‘creatively’ in their new role as managers of their own self-gratifying activity. Keeping employees ‘happy’ was the key, “at least as long as happy-work leads to a product worthy of profitable exchange.” (Sholette, p11) Obviously this only describes the situation for a certain group of people, but it is nevertheless a disconcerting occurrence. Sholette points to a correlation between open and flexible management ideology and ‘tactical media’, the process by which amateurs or outsiders can exploit advancements in technology (cheap consumer-level electronics and expanded forms of distribution) to express their disenchantment with the wider culture. Both modes of being break the rules of engagement in an attempt to secure their own place in the world.
The underlying theme here is the lack of distinction between work and play, products and culture, and the ability of institutions to absorb any critique levelled against them. That any clear distinction between these poles ever existed is a debatable issue. Foucault would argue, via his account of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, that every subject embodies the means with which they remain under the rule of those with governmental power. However, it seems the concern now is that there exists a great similarity between the activities of those with power and those without, making any subversive activities harder to maintain.
References
Gregory Sholette, ‘Disciplining the Avant-Garde: the United States versus The Critical Art Ensemble’, in CIRCA: Contemporary Visual Culture In Ireland 112, Summer 2005, pp50-59
David Campbell, ‘Horrific Blindness’
In his article, David Campbell outlines how the meaning of images of violence changes according to the context in which they are shown. One example he uses are the photos taken by white supremacists documenting and celebrating the lynchings of African-American’s in the first—half of the 20th century. The photos were published and became powerful articles of propoganda, becoming “integral to the public and social meaning of the murders.” (Campbell, p57) The exhibition ‘Without Sanctuary’ (2000) compiled a selection of these historical documents and re-presented them for a new audience. Stripped of the racist environment that produced them, they now serve as horrific reminders of America’s past and its impact on the present.
The element of Campbell’s article that I find most interesting is his description of the system of distribution that delivers images of violence to an audience. The key here is not only the audience’s role in experiencing the images, but also providing the media with pre-existing criteria for judging the acceptability of any particular image. Essentially, any public response to images of violence is “against pictures that have been anaesthetised in anticipation of this response.” (Campbell, p64) We are only shown what we are expected to enjoy. Our compliance in this system of distribution complicates any accusations of blame thrown at the media for disturbing the peace. Certainly, boundaries of good taste are transgressed in individual occurrences of poor judgement. But it is the determination of what is good taste in the first place, that is more shocking.
References
David Campbell, Horrific Blindness, in Journal For Cultural Research, Vol.8, No.1, Jan 2004
The element of Campbell’s article that I find most interesting is his description of the system of distribution that delivers images of violence to an audience. The key here is not only the audience’s role in experiencing the images, but also providing the media with pre-existing criteria for judging the acceptability of any particular image. Essentially, any public response to images of violence is “against pictures that have been anaesthetised in anticipation of this response.” (Campbell, p64) We are only shown what we are expected to enjoy. Our compliance in this system of distribution complicates any accusations of blame thrown at the media for disturbing the peace. Certainly, boundaries of good taste are transgressed in individual occurrences of poor judgement. But it is the determination of what is good taste in the first place, that is more shocking.
References
David Campbell, Horrific Blindness, in Journal For Cultural Research, Vol.8, No.1, Jan 2004
Jean Fisher, ‘Towards A Metaphysics Of Shit’
I am currently writing a narrative for a film that is intended to represent the fragmentary nature of lived experience. The central character will, at the beginning of the film, appear to be suffering from the continuous and repetitive stream of activities that fill her life (driven primarily by an unfulfilling job). The way in which I want to articulate the real source of her discontent, is through the perceived cohesion of her comings and goings. That is to say, it is as if everything makes too much sense; all of the time and space in which play, nonsense and distortion may be allowed to reveal the ‘productive cracks’ in the perceived monotony of her life, has been compressed almost to the point of not existing at all. These ‘productive cracks’ are important on a meta-level because they reveal the inadequacies of the reductive narratives that sustain the power structures within which we all reside. They are also important on an emotional level because they provide an individual with moments of stimulating disruption, moments of engagement in a disconnected system. These moments still arise, but they are not often able to be acknowledged as sites of resistance because the apprarently cohesive steamroller of productivity moves one’s consciousness on to the next chapter in the story.
In Jean Fisher’s article, an archetype with an anthropological history that spans multiple cultures is posited as a potential agent of change amidst a climate of impotence in the face of so much global commercial productivity. Trickster posseses the power to rebell not by negating systems of meaning, but by interogating and disrupting them. As Fisher says, that “which limits the self also provides the key to its liberation from constraining patterns of thought.” (Fisher, p66) By embodying ‘otherness’, trickster is able to manifest that which is unable to be articulated. And without a code of ethics and a productive bottom line to adhere to, trickster is able to jam the system by revealing the cracks the system itself produces.
I see trickster elements at play in the work of John Ward-Knox. Through subtle shifts, sleights of hand, he is able to ‘return shit to productive use’ (Fisher, p69). The objects he uses are not so obviously the waste produced by globalisation in an industrial sense. Nonetheless, they are often pieces of rubbish or just stuff that was lying around, the waste produced by one’s daily routine. The resulting sculptures toy with functionality, releasing a kind of beauty that was lying dormant within the original object. In this way, Ward-Knox reveals the cracks in our predetermined meanings for objects that liberates us (and the objects) from constraining patterns of thought, even if only temporarilly.
References
Jean Fisher, ‘Towards A Metaphysics Of Shit’, Documenta 11, Platform 5, The Catalog, Ostfildern/Ruit, 2002, pp63-70
In Jean Fisher’s article, an archetype with an anthropological history that spans multiple cultures is posited as a potential agent of change amidst a climate of impotence in the face of so much global commercial productivity. Trickster posseses the power to rebell not by negating systems of meaning, but by interogating and disrupting them. As Fisher says, that “which limits the self also provides the key to its liberation from constraining patterns of thought.” (Fisher, p66) By embodying ‘otherness’, trickster is able to manifest that which is unable to be articulated. And without a code of ethics and a productive bottom line to adhere to, trickster is able to jam the system by revealing the cracks the system itself produces.
I see trickster elements at play in the work of John Ward-Knox. Through subtle shifts, sleights of hand, he is able to ‘return shit to productive use’ (Fisher, p69). The objects he uses are not so obviously the waste produced by globalisation in an industrial sense. Nonetheless, they are often pieces of rubbish or just stuff that was lying around, the waste produced by one’s daily routine. The resulting sculptures toy with functionality, releasing a kind of beauty that was lying dormant within the original object. In this way, Ward-Knox reveals the cracks in our predetermined meanings for objects that liberates us (and the objects) from constraining patterns of thought, even if only temporarilly.
References
Jean Fisher, ‘Towards A Metaphysics Of Shit’, Documenta 11, Platform 5, The Catalog, Ostfildern/Ruit, 2002, pp63-70
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Celia Lury, “‘Contemplating a Self-portait as a Pharmacist’: A Trade Mark Style of Doing Art and Science.”
In her discussion of Damien Hirst, Celia Lury discusses the way in which a brand name is now the “mark of the organisation of a set of relations between products in time” (Lury, p94) rather than being the “mark of an originary relationship between producer and products.” (Lury, p94) This is part of a broader discussion regarding the nature of the author function.
With this in mind, Lury highlights the nature of Hirst’s spot paintings as elements in a series, indexed by the logo that is Hirst’s name. Here Lury cites Raymond Williams and his ideas about ‘flow’. The example given concerns television programming and the way in which the interval between programs has changed over time. Earlier in television’s history, the end of one program was distinct from the beginning of the next one. The result was a “published sequence of discreet programs.” (Lury, p97) Now, the interval blurs this clear division via the use of advertising and broadcasting company ‘idents’. Consequently, the sequence is turned into a flow, a “shifting series of units, of products, images and events.” (Lury, p97)
This idea connects to other issues that I am currently researching which have also been covered by earlier Critical Studies readings. One way of summarising these issues is to point to our increasing inability to distinguish between individual elements within a system. This issue was addressed by Lane Relyea in ‘All-Over and at Once’ and also comes up in Hal Foster’s book Design and Crime, via a critique of our overly designed lives. The example of television intervals is also addressed specifically in a program on BBC4. Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe takes a caustic and cynically humourous look at various aspects of television content, such as presenters, advertising and reality TV. In Episode 2, Series 4, Screenwipe has a false ending at the beginning of the show that leads into a mimicking of the indiscreet interval. Charlie Brooker’s dialogue attacks the way in which a program’s credits are squeezed to make room for promotional content, protesting against the informational noise this generates. The moment of contemplation that might have otherwise existed is disabled, thereby reducing the viewer’s ability to digest the experience of the previous program.
References
Celia, Lury, “‘Contemplating a Self-portait as a Pharmacist’: A Trade Mark Style of Doing Art and Science,” in Theory, Culture, Society, Vol.22 / 1, London, pp93-110.
Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe, BBC4 (Series 4 originally screened in the UK between September 25, 2007 and 19 December 19, 2007)
Episode 2, Series 4 can be watched here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYxhMj3DsB4
Foster, Hal, Design and Crime, London, 2002.
Relyea, Lane, ‘Allover and at Once’, in X-tra Contemporary Art Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2003, pp3-23.
With this in mind, Lury highlights the nature of Hirst’s spot paintings as elements in a series, indexed by the logo that is Hirst’s name. Here Lury cites Raymond Williams and his ideas about ‘flow’. The example given concerns television programming and the way in which the interval between programs has changed over time. Earlier in television’s history, the end of one program was distinct from the beginning of the next one. The result was a “published sequence of discreet programs.” (Lury, p97) Now, the interval blurs this clear division via the use of advertising and broadcasting company ‘idents’. Consequently, the sequence is turned into a flow, a “shifting series of units, of products, images and events.” (Lury, p97)
This idea connects to other issues that I am currently researching which have also been covered by earlier Critical Studies readings. One way of summarising these issues is to point to our increasing inability to distinguish between individual elements within a system. This issue was addressed by Lane Relyea in ‘All-Over and at Once’ and also comes up in Hal Foster’s book Design and Crime, via a critique of our overly designed lives. The example of television intervals is also addressed specifically in a program on BBC4. Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe takes a caustic and cynically humourous look at various aspects of television content, such as presenters, advertising and reality TV. In Episode 2, Series 4, Screenwipe has a false ending at the beginning of the show that leads into a mimicking of the indiscreet interval. Charlie Brooker’s dialogue attacks the way in which a program’s credits are squeezed to make room for promotional content, protesting against the informational noise this generates. The moment of contemplation that might have otherwise existed is disabled, thereby reducing the viewer’s ability to digest the experience of the previous program.
References
Celia, Lury, “‘Contemplating a Self-portait as a Pharmacist’: A Trade Mark Style of Doing Art and Science,” in Theory, Culture, Society, Vol.22 / 1, London, pp93-110.
Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe, BBC4 (Series 4 originally screened in the UK between September 25, 2007 and 19 December 19, 2007)
Episode 2, Series 4 can be watched here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYxhMj3DsB4
Foster, Hal, Design and Crime, London, 2002.
Relyea, Lane, ‘Allover and at Once’, in X-tra Contemporary Art Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2003, pp3-23.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
James Clifford, ‘The Predicament of Culture’
If the extract from James Clifford’s book is read within a broader context, it can be taken as an example of the tendency to assume that we (an individual, a culture, a people, a nation, a world) are constantly progressing, through the invention, critique and re-evaluation of beliefs, customs and behaviours that have existed before now, or that continue to exist right now. This is to say, we believe we are always moving towards a better way of living together. In isolated cases of socio-political conflict or dispute resolution, a ‘positive’ outcome may confirm this assumption. Scientific or technological advances also add to the feeling that existence is improving all the time. Naturally, there is always an opposing view to any kind of potentially positive news; a whole system of critique, encompassing almost every way of being in the world, provides a whole range of opinions on any topic event, issue or whatever. In ‘The Predicament of Culture’, Clifford references Margaret Mead and her writing seems to hit a solid 10 on the out-dated scale. Then again, Clifford himself now seems relatively uncontroversial, whilst the tone of the article indicates a certain urgency within his claims.
My disappointment is with the inevitability of this constant to-ing and fro-ing between all manner of social organizations, individuals, political lobby groups, governments, businesses, cultural agencies, academics and so on; contest and resolution, then contest and resolution, tension and release. The giant wheel of human existence continues to roll around, appearing to go up the hill, only to fall down the other side. Sisyphus would be impressed with our persistence.
My fear is that a nihilistic philosophy is always lurking in the background, ready to turn everything into a meaningless and random collection of garbage. Any supposed new thought or method would be seen simply as a temporary variation that would eventually be replaced by another temporary variation. Believing in anything would instantly require so much more than faith and the process of contest and resolution would grind to a halt.
References
James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art, Massachusetts, 1988, pp215-251.
My disappointment is with the inevitability of this constant to-ing and fro-ing between all manner of social organizations, individuals, political lobby groups, governments, businesses, cultural agencies, academics and so on; contest and resolution, then contest and resolution, tension and release. The giant wheel of human existence continues to roll around, appearing to go up the hill, only to fall down the other side. Sisyphus would be impressed with our persistence.
My fear is that a nihilistic philosophy is always lurking in the background, ready to turn everything into a meaningless and random collection of garbage. Any supposed new thought or method would be seen simply as a temporary variation that would eventually be replaced by another temporary variation. Believing in anything would instantly require so much more than faith and the process of contest and resolution would grind to a halt.
References
James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art, Massachusetts, 1988, pp215-251.
Monday, May 19, 2008
James Meyer, ‘The Functional Site; or, The Transformation of Site Specificty.’
James Meyer offers a useful description of two kinds of site and their art-historical contexts. The literal site is exactly that – an actual physical space outside the gallery that provides a critique of the institution by establishing new conditions for viewing that are intended to be more open, whilst revealing the conditional experience the exists within the gallery. The literal site is phenomenological – knowledge is gained from the conscious experience of what is there before you. The functional site, on the other hand, is a process or operation that exists between two or more sites. Which is to say, it does not privilege one specific space; it is a mobile investigation of inter-subjectivity. Here the art world is an institution within a network of institutions.
Meyer uses the ideas of Robert Smithson to illustrate the discursive nature of the functional site. Of particular interest to me is Smithson’s use of the concept of entropy, which Meyer quotes when talking about the mobile site as a “non-place, a ruin.” (Meyer, p31) Entropy is a scientific concept relating to the law of thermodynamics. It is a statistical measurement used to describe the amount of chaos that exists within a closed system; it may also be thought of as the unavailability of a system’s thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work. In his famous article, ‘Entropy and the New Monuments’, Smithson describes a state of being that is beyond the world of ‘values’; a flat empty desert that is “devoid of all classical ideals of space and process.” (Smithson, p14) Here, time exists without space and without movement. This is what Smithson observed existing in certain physical and psychological environments and he expanded the concept of entropy to draw attention to these socio-political situations of inactivity. Yet Smithson did not take a negative position here. In fact, he finds a kind of inspiring balance within these inert sites, something that might be approaching a “new consciousness of the vapid and dull.” (Smithson, p13) Smithson saw this consciousness represented in the ‘new monuments’, minimalist sculptures that, in their typically large, flat surfaces, distilled the infinitesimal complexity of these sites into “monumental artifices of idea.” (Smithson, p14)
Referrences
Meyer, James, ‘The Functional Site; or, The Transformation of Site Specificty’ in Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art, Erika Suderberg ed., Minnesota, 2000.
Smithson, Robert, ‘Entropy and the New Monuments’, in Robert Smithson, the collected writings, Jack Flam ed., California, 1996.
Meyer uses the ideas of Robert Smithson to illustrate the discursive nature of the functional site. Of particular interest to me is Smithson’s use of the concept of entropy, which Meyer quotes when talking about the mobile site as a “non-place, a ruin.” (Meyer, p31) Entropy is a scientific concept relating to the law of thermodynamics. It is a statistical measurement used to describe the amount of chaos that exists within a closed system; it may also be thought of as the unavailability of a system’s thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work. In his famous article, ‘Entropy and the New Monuments’, Smithson describes a state of being that is beyond the world of ‘values’; a flat empty desert that is “devoid of all classical ideals of space and process.” (Smithson, p14) Here, time exists without space and without movement. This is what Smithson observed existing in certain physical and psychological environments and he expanded the concept of entropy to draw attention to these socio-political situations of inactivity. Yet Smithson did not take a negative position here. In fact, he finds a kind of inspiring balance within these inert sites, something that might be approaching a “new consciousness of the vapid and dull.” (Smithson, p13) Smithson saw this consciousness represented in the ‘new monuments’, minimalist sculptures that, in their typically large, flat surfaces, distilled the infinitesimal complexity of these sites into “monumental artifices of idea.” (Smithson, p14)
Referrences
Meyer, James, ‘The Functional Site; or, The Transformation of Site Specificty’ in Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art, Erika Suderberg ed., Minnesota, 2000.
Smithson, Robert, ‘Entropy and the New Monuments’, in Robert Smithson, the collected writings, Jack Flam ed., California, 1996.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)