samanthapenn

Photography Students

2009-06-06T11:28:00.001-07:00

I was just looking through a (rich, dense) web database of graduate photography students when I came across one who seems to have very similar interests to me..

*http://www.source.ie/graduate/2009/index.html*

University College Falmouth »

Francesca Hall

Email: francesca.hall@live.com

Web: http://www.francescahall.com

Tel: 07843671985

15 Paces

This is a focused exploration of m experiences. Taking time to notice things that occur in my daily life, existing alone amongst the backdrop of this urban lifestyle. Not the loud, projective subject matter, but the quiet, banal objects that survive in a space of their own. Constantly moving forward, remembering, not forgetting what went before, but always looking, seeking and finding something else, questioning my pause and choice for putting that moment, that object into the rectangular frame of a photograph. Inspired by Debord's idea of psychogeography, this has become as much a study of my surroundings as it has my identity, proving my existence amongst this commonplace matter.

messager

2009-05-23T15:34:00.000-07:00

Annette Messager (born in 1943, lives and works in Paris) is widely regarded as one of Europe’s most important contemporary artists. The retrospective Annette Messager: The Messengers, presents an overview of the artist’s career and reveals her use of an astonishing and affecting repertoire of forms and materials (among them soft toys, stuffed animals, fabrics, wool, photographs and drawings). Mixing aesthetic registers and playing with remarkable virtuosity on our senses and feelings, this exhibition presents a panoramic survey from the intimate and conceptually driven pieces Messager made in the early 1970s to the very large sculptural installations of the past 15 years, in which movement plays an increasingly important role.

mark wallinger

2009-05-23T15:29:00.001-07:00

Turner Prize-winner Mark Wallinger is one of Britain’s most intellectually curious and unpredictable artists. This book provides a unique insight into his imaginative approach to art and life. Navigating art history, politics, sport, literature and popular culture, Wallinger pursues with vigour in his own words, and through selected quotations, poetry and artworks, subjects that preoccupy him in his own art: ambiguities of perception, the threshold between reality and illusion, and those moments that mark a historical shift in consciousness.

The Russian Linesman takes its title from a famous – or infamous – sporting moment when the linesman awarded the decisive goal to England in the 1966 World Cup Final between England and West Germany. His controversial ruling exemplifies a central concept of this project: disputed boundaries.

Richly illustrated with over 100 plates that bring together historical and contemporary works, that reach from a Roman double portrait of Dionysus and Silenus, through to Dürer woodcuts, early photographic pioneering works, a trompe l’oeil sculpture by Vija Celmins, and a video by Aernout Mik; this is an artist’s exploration of the frontiers and border zones through which, and by which, we come to be defined.

A special limited edition of 200 individually numbered hardback copies, signed by the artist is available at £34.99.

CATALOGUES ARE AVAILABLE FROM:

Our Southbank Centre Shop – Hayward Gallery
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7960 5211

Our distributor, Cornerhouse Publications (trade and mail orders)
Tel: +44 (0) 161 200 1503
E: publications@cornerhouse.org
W: www.cornerhouse.org/books

Our North American distributor, D.A.P. (Distributed Art Publishers) (for titles marked with an asterisk)
www.artbook.com

Altermodern

2009-05-23T15:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/altermodern/

flags and a story of a fictional town

A long time between suns

2009-05-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

The Otolith Group

The Otolith Group was founded in 2000 by its core members, Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun who live and work in London.
The Group works with media archives, histories of futurity, the legacies of non-alignment and tricontinentalism.
The Group's artistic work explores the moving image, sound and text.
The Group also functions internationally as a public platform for curatorial practice and discussion on contemporary artistic production.

The Group's films and installations have featured widely in international exhibitions including,
Lisson Gallery, London, Documenta 12: Kassel, Just In Time: The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam,
The Unhomely: 2nd International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Seville,
How to Improve the World: 60 Years of British Art, Hayward Gallery, London,
Ecotopia: The Second ICP Triennial of Photography and Video, New York, Destroy Athens: The Athens Biennial, Athens
and the Tate Triennial, London.

In 2007, The Group curated and produced The Ghosts of Songs: The Art of The Black Audio Film Collective 1982 -1998
and will co-curate a major exhibition on the work of Harun Farocki in London in 2009.

A Long Time Between Suns, the Otolith Group's first solo exhibition in the UK opened at Gasworks on February the 14th 2009.
Part ll of the exhibition will open at The Showroom in June 2009.

The Otolith Trilogy will be presented at Il Trifoglio Nero, Genoa, Italy in 2009.
www.iltrifoglionero.com

A Long Time Between Suns, has been curated by Emily Pethick and Anna Colin. The exhibition and the forthcoming
publication on The Otolith Group has been designed by Will Holder

For more information on the current exhibition
A Long Time Between Suns

please visit
www.gasworks.org.uk

Contact: Anjalika Sagar : anjali@otolithgroup.org - Kodwo Eshun : kodwo@otolithgroup.org

http://otolithgroup.org/

esay

2009-05-23T13:44:00.000-07:00

This essay will explore the artist’s position in contemporary European society by investigating Katerina Šedá ’s participatory art [1] project ‘Over and Over’

Samantha Penn, Time Based Media Year 2. Unit 202 April 2009

[2]

In April 2008, Czech artist Kateřina Šedá [2] brought 40 people from her home town of Brno-Líšeň to the Berlin Biennale. Alongside the Berlin wall, she and her neighbours built a structure, a large circle made from exact replicas of fences from their town. Šedá proceeded to climb into this structure, again with the help of her neighbours. At home two months later, Šedá travelled through the town of Líšeň in a straight line, enlisting the people whose houses she encountered on the way to help her cross their property. The project was entitled ‘Over and Over’ [3] [4] [5] [6].

[1] Participation in Contemporary Art, by Xavier Roux, describes the difference between participatory and participative art. This essay looks at participatory art in general.
[2] http://www.kopenhagen.dk/interviews/interviews/interview_katerina_eda/ [Internet] Interview Sebastian Quedenbaum-Katerina Šedá
[3] Hernandez Chong Cuy, S. (2008) Introducing Katerina Šedá , Modern Painters, Vol. 20 no9 October 2008, p 64-66
[4] Walker, H., My grandmother could do that., [Internet], The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago Available from <>
[5] Uhlířová, M., (2006) Nothing: An Interview with Kateřina Šedá, [Internet], Edition 1, Umelec International, Available at
[6] Uhlirova, M., (2003) [Internet] Available from; < http://www.cameandwent.com/theoneseda.html>

The primary theme in Šedá ’s work is the isolation of the individual in a democratic society, the invisible barriers which have been put in place by what Guy Debord calls the ‘Spectacular’ Modern European Society [7]. Šedá is responding to the social changes that have taken place in the Czech Republic since 1999, when the country’s communist government was replaced by parliamentary democracy. [8]

“Before 1999 there was a big fence around all my country. And now this fence is all over – between the people.” [3]

She uses simple motifs, ideas that people will understand but, conversely, which could be dismissed as publicity hungry sound and image bites from someone who understands the power of the image. [9]

While Šedá’s work is clearly focused on those around her, she chose to show it at the Berlin biennale. This strikes critics as hypocritical. [10] What can the art world gain from her piece? Where can the art world place it? Is it sculpture or performance? Is it contradictory to claim to be an artist, someone who works with the visual, when one actively involves people and consequently social themes in ones work? How does one successfully classify and critique such work? How on earth do her participants feel? Is she not simply trying to secure herself a little funding so that she can continue with her personal project? Is she arrogantly and childishly trying to be artist, revolutionary and counsellor at the same time? I hope that this essay will provide the answers to some of these questions.

[7] Debord, G. (Translated by Knabb, K) (2002). The Society of the Spectacle, [Internet]. Available from:
< http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/>. AND Debord, G (1988, Translated by Imrie, M., 1990) Comments on the Society of the Spectacle. 2^nd Edition. London, Verso.
[8] Radio Prague (1997) The “Velvet Revolution” , The Czech Republic Today [Internet]. Available from:
< http://archiv.radio.cz/history/history15.html and http://archiv.radio.cz/history/history15.html >
AND https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ez.html
[9] Gillan, P. (2008) Obituaries: Patrick Ireland, 35, Enigmatic Artist Who Worked Ceaselessly for Peace. Modern Painters Vol.20 no.5, June 2008. P115
Kuspit, D. (2008) A Critical History of 20^th Century Art. Art Criticism Vol. 23 no.1/2 2008 p11-350

[10] Coulter-Smith, G. (2008) Katerina Šedá @ 5^th Berlin Biennale 2008 [Internet]. Artintelligence. Available at: <http://artintelligence.net/review/?p=595 >

Šedá is showing people to the art world. There is something anthropological, something a little Victorian, about this. Non artists are brought before artists, their actions scrutinised. They did not ask to be put on display. If their garden happened to fall in the way of Šedá’s invisible line, they were forced to either submit to the artist’s demands or to be criticised for submitting to the demands of a spectacular society. This is incredibly ironic. In attempting to combat elitism the art world is being elitist. In its quest ‘to merge art and society’ [11] it is creating new and confusing social divisions. The art world, including Šedá (whether she knows it or not) is totalitarian in its egalitarianism. [12]

Kant introduced the idea of the autonomy of the artist, [13] and this autonomy, the separateness of the art world, has enabled artists to make ambiguous statements with as much purpose and dignity as any academic, and what’s more has allowed them to permit themselves to make a comment on any issue they choose to. This is extremely worrying to some critics. [14]

The image is an incredibly powerful tool, particularly in a society, like ours, where information is so readily available. The internet has made almost anything available to almost anyone. It has allowed almost anyone to have their say, under alias or disguise if they please. Any viewpoint is represented somewhere on the internet, with variable amounts of control. The internet is a representation of opportunities and an advertisement for freedom of speech. The problem with the internet is precisely this, according to critics. [ADD A FOOTNOTE 15]

[11] Benjamin, W. (1936) The Work of Art in the Age of the Mechanical Reproduction [Internet] Excerpt available from:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm
Adorno, T and Horkenheimer, M (1944) The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception: The Dialectic of Enlightenment [Internet] Available from:

< http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm>

[12] Kekes, J. (2008), Assault on a Fine Ideal. New Criterion, Vol. 6, no. 6, Feb 2008, p.25-31

[13] Johnson, R. (2008) Kant’s Moral Philosophy [Internet]. Available from:
< http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/>
Beech, D. (2007) Autonomy v Barbarism. Art Monthly, no. 309, Sept 2007. Features p.1-5

Beech argues against autonomy as isolation and for autonomous decision making in a theory of theory’ both alternative to and convergent with the one proposed in this essay

An artist may create something that is meant to be ironic, which has been thoroughly researched, but in the hands of a stranger on the internet all irony could be lost if an image is not properly explained. Critics feel that clarity and integrity are being lost, [16] and what’s more, that the celebrity endorsed, well promoted art world is infringing on the space previously occupied by academia. That in a visual society, books and reading are under threat, and that boundary crossing art like Šedá ’s (I am talking about the fact that her work has social as well as aesthetic aims, not the fact that she works with fences) is acting as a decoy whose ambiguity and publicity courting is extremely dangerous to academic development.

[10]

I will now look into Šedá’s work to see how specifically it fits in with these criticisms. It certainly could be called ambiguous, and it certainly does explore more than just aesthetics. It could be said, in response to accusations of elitism, that Šedá is in fact making an ironic comment about the way people are forced into following perceived social norms. [17]

[14] Townsend, C. (2009) Knowledge as Spectacle, Art Monthly no 322 Dec 2008/Jan 2009, Features p11-14 “The claim that was made for Sherman and Prince in the 8os, that the very act of transformation is understood as itself a critique, neglects the degree to which the autonomous sphere of art has been subsumed by celebrity, mass culture and the marketplace.”

Fowkes, M and Fowkes, R. (2009) Art & Philosophy: Or how Philosophers got Curated. Art Monthly no.323, Feb 2009, Features p.11-14

Grant, D. (2009) The Disappearing Catalogue Essay. American Artist no.73, April 2009, p.74-5

[INTERNET FOOTNOTE 15]

[16] On Ambiguity. Gaddy, J. (2008) Stack the Vote. Print, Vol.62, no.5, Oct 2008, p.14.

To the idea that Šedá’s work could be damaging to knowledge, there are a number of responses. It is true that Šedá’s work dips into politics and social structures rather than delving deep into the issues. Her responses are personal, phenomenological [18] ones. Her work is autobiographical, combining and bringing together art and Brno-Líšeň. She is acting out her ideals. This could be called dangerous if her ideas were taken up and followed vehemently, obsessively, by someone with political goals. However, this could be said for any idea. Šedá pursues her ideas, but makes it clear, by placing herself within the art world, that she is an artist. Her work asks questions and acts out answers, but does not propose them. Her position as an artist means that her work can be ambiguous and contradictory without posing a threat to society. In addition, that which interests her, she researches, and thoroughly. [19]

So what is the art world’s purpose, if it offers the artist the chance to act out any wish, to explore any idea without fulfilling it in ‘The Real World’? One could say that such an ideas space is extremely useful as without it ideas would have to be tested in the real world.

[17] This is disproved in interviews with Seda-for example in this interview excerpt about another of her projects, ‘There is Nothing There’“…manipulation doesn’t necessarily imply forcing and taking advantage of someone, it is also any given structure that can direct, control or mould something. I think that every game is a form of manipulation of those involved, one that brings with it certain ideological problems (e.g. winner/loser, stronger/ weaker, and most of all the act of following the rules). The fact that it’s a voluntary manipulation is another matter. Watching TV, a soccer match, a wedding, and what happens in the doctor’s office are also forms of manipulation, even though we mostly choose to do them.
I might be oversensitive to that word. When it has been used in describing my projects, it has usually been in a negative sense. Some see working with people as very simple. I often hear how I put too much effort into something that might be done more easily. But I wonder how, when no one trusts anyone anymore. It is important to me that the whole project is understood in a positive way, not as an example of the terror of mechanized activities, but as a picture of something collective.

[18] Kriegel, U. (2008) Self-representation and Phenomenology, [Internet]. Published online: 8 February 2008. Springer Science+Business Media B.V. Available from: < http://uriahkriegel.com/downloads/phenomenology.pdf >

Flynn, Thomas R. (2006) Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction. ‘Very Short Introductions’ no.153. Oxford: Oxford Press, p17

[19] “Since becoming a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, Czech Republic in 1999, KateřinaSeda has staged interventions into the life around her she identifies as “normality”. These experiments have taken place in small villages near Brno, her home environment, as well as in the urban setting of her second home Prague. Based on rigorous research into behaviour and communication patterns in both art and non-art communities, Seda has developed some poignant sociology-driven themes and spun around the truisms about production, consumption and meaning of contemporary art.” –From [6]

In fact, one could say that the ironic nature of the art world could be more dangerous than its ambiguity. If everything is a parody of itself, what is real? What is life? Šedá, amongst others, could be seen as challenging this irony from the inside, from within the art world. There are those who prefer to make visual responses to philosophical and social questions. [20]

Significantly, Šedá ’s comments on her own work are ambiguous, or open to misinterpretation. It seems from interviews with her as though she is actually acting entirely without irony, which would suggest that she herself is an anthropological specimen.

Our modern/post modern society is continually in awe of achievements, developments, and rebirths. The problem with such rapid ‘progress’ is that its speed and magnificence are perhaps too enthralling, that it distracts from such vital progressions as learning, deducing, rewriting. [21] Young children frequently dissociate themselves from situations in order to learn from them. [22] In a similar way, the art world’s continual self examination, process analysis, [23] and open ended

[20] Carey Young’s work questions, very knowingly, the relationship between the art world and the world at large. She is aware of the limits of artistic contributions to society and makes clear, through her comparison of ‘intervention’ and ‘insertion’ [1] and works such as I AM A REVOLUTIONARY (www.careyyoung.com)

Allan Kaprow its synthesis thoroughly questions the nature of participatory art and its playfulness and transience. http://www.moca.org/kaprow/

M. Lederman Ukeles deliberately avoided the gallery setting in ‘Re-Spect for Givers’- Lafuente, P. (2004) Art On Parade, Art Monthly, no.280 Oct 2004, Features p.1-4

Cai Guo Qiang, like Kateřina Šedá , grew up in a communist country which underwent a revolution at the end of the 20^th Century. Unlike Šedá, he involved other artists in the production of his work entitled ‘Bilbao Rent Collection Courtyard’. His work could be an example of both a critique of regimes and organisation, particularly communism and capitalism, and also a piece of art which is participatory in its intimacy and use of recognisable imagery.
Guggenheim Bilbao (2009) Press Release-Cai Guo Quiang. [Internet]. Available from: <http://www.undo.net/cgi-bin/undo/pressrelease/pressrelease.pl?id=1236942542&day=1237244400 >
Robert Barry’s piece ‘It has Order’: : ‘ ... it has order ... it is always changing ... it is affected by other things ... it affects other things ... it is not confined ... it is not in any specific place ... it can be presented, but go unnoticed ... to know of it is to be part of it ...’ (It Has Order, 1969-70). Heiser, J. (2004) Robert Barry [Internet]. Frieze Magazine Issue 80, Jan-Feb 2004. Available from
<http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/robert_barry/>

[21] Debord, G (1988, Translated by Imrie, M., 1990) Comments on the Society of the Spectacle. 2^nd Edition. London, Verso.
Debord claims that the integrated spectacle has led to widespread ‘illiteracy’

[22] http://www.hiddenhurt.co.uk/Articles/dissociation.htm

questioning could be a widespread and sustained attempt to make sense of the world as it is through a sort of detachment. Perhaps a lot more questioning needs to be done; perhaps, as Guy Debord says of the spectacular society, this abstract thinking is going to stick around for some time. Perhaps it is even here to stay, and today’s artists are internet generation incarnations of the artist as the romantic analyst of society.

I feel that to say art is obscuring knowledge ignores the fact that art has never been something that claims to know. It has always been subjective. Perhaps the issue as far as art and knowledge is concerned is to do with the different ways in which text and image are received and shared, and the limitations of image and text. Images are limited in that they make an immediate impact on the viewer, and thus when viewed out of context their meaning can be skewed. Images can easily have multiple meanings, and as such must be ‘read’ and understood with care. Text is limited by language-which is why certain texts fare better in one language than another. The plus side with text is that, through language and through statements, it makes its intentions very clear. Writers use only one language, a linear, 2D sequence of symbols, which is understood by a certain number of people. The image may have more than one language, (languages of space, of time, of symbol etc [24]), and also one combined language, the specific phenomenological language of the creator. It must be remembered that art does not always wish to be understood, that artists can knowingly create something which is confusing because, were it not confusing, it would not be itself. As writers have a voice, the artist has a voice, and with both academic writings and the ‘fine arts’, this voice must be taken into consideration.

There is something universal about that which only requires, factual knowledge to be understood [25]. As such, art may teach and continue to teach, for years to come. I feel that what is needed, in order to remove confusion, is for the artist (or the individual) to become aware of the dangers of both irony and idealism through reading, through understanding, and through maintaining integrity. Debord puts it forward that one must compromise oneself today in order to achieve success. [26] One must be aware of the risks. There have always been those who have pursued success. Every person is different, and different words and images take hold of different people, encouraging them along different paths. For those who choose to try to bring people together, for those who wish to teach and, really for those who wish to make art, it is important to be aware of the possibility of success, to be aware of those around you who have achieved different things in different ways, but at the same time to be very aware of your own self and the progress you have made, the nuances of every influence.

It is and has always been impossible to satisfy everyone. In a society so full of information (or at least which has undergone such rapid change) it is advisable to treat every event as something never before studied, something completely new. This does not mean abandoning history, but rather studying the source of the piece of information, the person who has put it together, the significance of the information to different people.

The Situationist International, which sought to break apart capitalist social structures, itself split down the middle in 1972. [27] Both divisions wanted to eradicate the Western notion of ‘high art’ and ‘low art’. While the aesthetes in the group wanted art to become‘for everyone’, the politicos saw art as a part of the spectacle and called for a recognition of this followed by the integration of art into society. Both factions wanted the same thing but wanted to go about achieving in very different ways. Hoping for the sudden dissolution of the art world seems rather big ask. Today, despite the disbanding of the SI, there are still attempts from various

[23] Klein, J. (2008) Repeat Performances: Seriality and Systems Art Since 1960. Art Papers, Vol. 32, no. 2, Mar/Apr 2008, p 65
[24] This links to post structuralism, which I have not read much about but would like to begin thinking about
[25] (Though in these times, as Guy Debord argues in ‘Comments on the Society of the Spectacle’, all information could be considered suspect. (The chapter entitled ‘Disinformation’) Perhaps rather than taking this stance I would say that all information is potentially suspect, and that every piece of knowledge is limited because developments are continually being made that could change perceptions of it.)
[26] ‘Permanent self denial is the price the individual pays for the tiniest bit of social status’; ‘Comments…’ p 32

groups, both political and art based, who attempt to make ‘being an artist’ possible for anyone. I have mentioned this firstly because the Situationists are an example of how ideas can break down and become new ideas for different people.

There are two final points I would like to make, in response to my own utopian conclusions. One is that, as the Situationist politicos felt, simply scratching the ideas of the last century or two, and revert to a system where art and science and philosophy are one ‘academia’ rather than separate categories, could have positive outcomes. As it is, some artists have taken up Situationist ideas, like attempting to remove categories and the isolation that comes with them. The ‘spectacular’ society may yet, slowly, disappear. Conversely, it may be said that the work of artists such as Šedá is the very epitome of the spectacular, that Šedá is a specimen, an example of how deluded and confused people are, how audacity brings glory. The long term benefits of trying to ‘insert’ [28] art into society are unclear. It would perhaps be better for artists to make work only for those who will certainly know what they are being shown, and as such to avoid bringing into the ‘art world’ people who not only confuse but also become confused.

[27] (http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/242). Black, B. (2000) The Realisation and Suppression of Situationism [Internet]. Available from:
<http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/242>

[28] “The idea of an artistic intervention, with its implication of stoppages and blockages, has always seemed a little naïve to me. Why is this word so over-used in connection with art? I hope I am not being over-literal when I ask: since when did an artist actually stop anything to do with mainstream Capitalism? Insertions seems a much more useful and provocative term. It implies that the artist has the knowledge and the tactical cunning to define a system (perhaps by combining disparate systems) in formal, conceptual and indeed rhizomatic terms, and then find a gap from which to insert or divert something which reframes an understanding of the whole. Such a tactic exposes and manipulates the dynamics and asymmetries of power around us: a form of Kinetic art employing a systems aesthetic. This is art as software: it implies a potential reprogramming of the physical and the immaterial. We should explore this model further.
Young, C. (2008) On Clido Merieles [Internet]. Tate Magazine, no. 14, 2008. Available from :
< http://www.tate.org.uk/tateetc/issue14/playingthesystem.htm>

Also, where knowledge is concerned, Sartre said that we can only give the name knowledge to that for which we have indisputable evidence. [29] In this respect, artists like Kateřina Šedá could be some of the only people who really know anything, because they admit that they really only know what they themselves perceive. Sharing such information, while it may seem mundane, is at least aware of its mundanity, and in this sense art could be called the least abstract, the most thoughtful of schools because it minimises the possibility of foolish decisions becoming law. However, what people like Šedá [30] do actually know is art, and artistic approaches to life.

Katerina Šedá will most likely continue in a similar vein to her current one, her style of work being linear, the theme of each project based on a theme which has arisen in the previous project. In choosing to analyse her work, I have focused my attentions on one person’s outlook, one person’s output. Šedá is one of many ‘participatory’ artists, each of whom has a slightly different processes and themes. Šedá is just one of a number of people trying to learn phenomenologically, trying to invent a way of learning [31] And I do believe she is trying to learn something, or trying to produce something of philosophical value. She refuses offers from residents of other towns who believe that her charming intrusions will perhaps give residents (or at least those in charge of ‘culture’ in the area) a sense of solidarity. She does this on the basis that she cannot teach anything to people she does not understand [32]. It is this along with a total lack of irony in her statements and interviews

[29] Flynn, Thomas R. (2006) Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction. ‘Very Short Introductions’ no.153. Oxford: Oxford Press p71

[30] And me

[31] Mark Leckey is another artist who does this

[32] “In fact, far-flung art institutions have appealed to the artist with descriptions of their local tribulations, followed by an invitation to propose and develop works in situ. "They invite me for a three-day visit to their venues and cities," Seda recalls, "and I am supposed to become inspired in that time and propose a project that can address one of their problems." The artist

questions whether such an undertaking is feasible.” [3]

that leads me to believe that Šedá is not merely narcissistic. She may be naïve in thinking that through art she can ‘reach out’ to society, or she may simply be a Czech woman for whom working with the visual and spatial works well but who has questions about the situation these preferences has left her in. Artists are not required to be academics (or rather they are required to be more than academics) Perhaps Šedá showing her non academic, non capitalist work to academics and capitalists, to people who look for patterns rather than making ‘insertions’ is pointless. But that would imply that one can only share ones ideas with those who know what you know, which would surely stop learning in its tracks. We can only go forward. Šedá ’s claim that she is ‘showing people each other’ is fair enough but it is not clear whether she knows who she is. Within her work she acts out various roles, such as that of travel agent, traveller and healer. She is an artist who has been trained at an art school. She understands the power and language of the image and the art market. She knows how to make bold statements, how to appropriate, juxtapose and collage. Why is it that her profession is the only one to force itself upon others, to proclaim its superiority? Do other professions simply have more integrity? What we have learnt is that conversation is seen as useful in today’s art world. Perhaps this is because conversation is lacking in our society, because everything is becoming institutionalised. Perhaps it is because the art world, a network which deals in aesthetics, made the mistake of looking in on itself and discovered there was very little to discover, and so began to try to make links with other social groups to justify and try to understand its existence. Perhaps this mistake, moreover, will become useful as it highlights the dangers of making ambiguous, uninformed decisions. At best, art like Katerina Šedá ’s is food for philosophical thought. As worst it is cultural dross stemming from ambiguous, uninformed and above all self serving decisions. For me and for those who study art, art is what we make of it. And that leaves us with tremendous freedom and tremendous responsibility. Perhaps for people like Šedá , whose experiences and love of the visual lead them to create participatory art, it is immensely important that they think before involving people about exactly what the consequences of their actions will be.

The criticism that knowledge is being destroyed could be countered by the argument that art is working towards something through the existentialist principle that one must always continue, that one has no choice. Art, which is more ambiguous and more capable of the snap decision than academia, is becoming more widely available. Maybe this is fantastic, maybe exploring ways of communicating is an amazing thing, especially when trying to make sense of a rapidly changing world. Modernism, rapid and incredible change, fuelled imaginations, caused questions to be asked. These may take a while to answer, and art is full of ambiguities, possibly in awareness of this. Is art not an equally valid form of knowledge, provided it is kept at arm’s length? Is this cautious distance not one of the great things about art in a society that so often leaves questions unanswered? Is art not trying to do what the existentialists, particularly through Husserl, [18] tried to do, which was to find an irrefutable ontological principle? Conversation has always existed. However, for conversation to be valuable to learning, a new approach to learning should come into play, one which is both experiential and situational but also broad minded, all encompassing, diplomatic [33]. I will, to finish, and aware of my own lack of knowledge, mention the essay ‘The Palimpsest’ by Hakim Bey, [34] which proposes an approach to art which requires one first to be well informed, able to distinguish recurring patterns in the history of art and to place one’s own work in relation to them, and thirdly to act “not looking for delicious ironies, but for bursts of light.”

[35]

[33] Pethick, E. (2005) Resisting Institutionalisation [Internet]. Nought to Sixty Magazine. Available from:
<http://www.ica.org.uk/Resisting%20institutionalisation,%20by%20Emily%20Pethick%20+17441.twl>. “As Brazilian artist Ricardo Basbaum (who realised the project Re-projecting (Utrecht) with Casco in April 2008) describes:

'Conversations' are a way of thinking, where the self opens to the outside, producing a special social space where no single language of truth is prevalent. It enables the transformation of the voice of the other...'Conversations' are a sort of dialogue that have their own dynamics, always surprising the participants...'Conversations' succeed as a play-like situation, and involve a certain practice on how to keep yourself in a permanent state of awareness and change (flexibility). There's nothing specific to be achieved in a conversation, except that when the participants feel they are out of it - that is, when they finish a particular dialogue - they just cannot go back to the same places they left before (some transformation might have happened). Therefore, 'conversation' is a modality of movement.”

[34] Bey, Hakim, The Palimpsest [Internet]. Available from: <http://www.hermetic.com/bey/palimpsest.html>

[35] The Novgorod Codex, a palimpsest. http://www.csad.ox.ac.uk/csad/Newsletters/Newsletter10/Newsletter10d.html

3086 words

notes for the essay

2009-05-23T13:43:00.000-07:00

Essay plan-

Part one. 1000 words. History, build up (perhaps less than a thousand words, perhaps even need only mention in biblio)

· Until fairly recently, people were not expected to take part in art in any way other than to look at it. The history of participation in art, or interactive art, or community art.

· Kant’s autonomy of the artist

· Modernism / postmodernism and the idea that there is no creator. industrialisation

· Existentialism, phenomenology, etc-existence precedes essence. Everything is relative

· The spectacle, the society of the spectacle

· The internet, globalisation. The world becomes more specialised (says baudrillard)

· Baudrillard, comments on the society of the spectacle.

Part two-katerina seda. words

· Describe seda’s work. Localised, a combination of social work, community work and art. Utopian, artistic presentation of findings.

Part three-placing seda within contemporary art. Criticisms of participation in art

· First define what participation is, what interactive is ( quote definition in ‘participation in contemporary art)

· Participatory art is unscientific, anthropological findings.

· Autonomy of artist gives a lot of freedom, artists are exploring this-relational aesthetics, art is no longer dictating but has the ability (though not always the power or knowledge) to include, and explores the views of everyone, not just artists. Post modern participatory art is a ‘painting’ or collage of viewpoints or actions. The rules of the performance or event are really mostly governed by the artist.

· Some artists (eg deller’s parade, find others) address themselves mainly to the art world. Some, eg Warhol, impact on the public. Seda’s work does connect with a specific section of the public. This is a virtue of seda’s work-many artists focusing on community make general comments and ambiguous gestures. Art Brut is honest. Seda seems to have retained her integrity, she is asking a genuine question in a particular way

· The way in which seda etc asks questions is unscientific, and though art using found objects can be made beautiful, where concept is involved sometimes application of aesthetic values is less than rigorous (as in the situationist magazines). From the knowledge pov, art can even be seen as damaging as the questions it asks are just that, only questions, wrapped in classy packaging and presented to the public, whereas academic works are harder to publicise. There is danger of mass ignorance of a situation-art reassures people that a question has been dealt with in some way when in fact it has not. (knowledge as spectacle)

· The traditional functions of art-to connect with something higher/to communicate higher thoughts (cave paintings were a little religious), to teach, to be revered, to make something beautiful, to challenge the imagination, to perfect a representation of the world, to QUESTION ITSELF? When did art become self conscious? Modernism? And then, to question the effect of art questioning itself. Which is what seems to be happening now, with artists like Sherrie Levine and Carey Young (the quote about intervention vs insertion)

· What good does questioning do?

Part 4. Positive side of participatory art.

· The existentialist idea that in a society each person must independently transcend existing social structures and reconstruct. Phenomenology, the description of wwhaat we see and only that. It is today much easier to gain some insight into an artist’s (or another person’s) life because people are more willing to share things that in the past were seen as inconsequential.

· This resonates particularly for women-feminist art has sought a feminine language, female structures. Social structures are indeed being broken down in that things like relationships, emotions and the moment in time are being put forward for scrutiny, or simply put forward. As the rules for what can be presented have changed with modernism (today we are a long way from the salon des rejetees) anything can be presented for intellectual consideration and debate, although critics of this system (knowledge as spectacle) are putting boundaries on what can be called knowledge. It seems that phenomenology and the idea that everything is relative are ideas that have been fully taken up and manipulated by the state, museums, society (hence relational aesthetics) whereas the satrean notion that knowledge is only what can be definitely proved, the modesty and integrity of learning, has fallen by the wayside, perhaps because phenomenology makes the world seem so enormous, perhaps, as debord suggests, simply because it is easy for the state to encourage an extended period of research without conclusion

Conclusion-that seda is one of few ‘participation’ artists who choose specifically to work with art and people and whose work has a purpose. but is participatory art still just a badly run synthetic play area for adults, a real life version of the sims, a narcissistic attempt by one person to fulfil his or her desires which otherwise would go unfulfilled? Is it escapism? Participatory art seems even more likely than painting etc to be seen as pointless. Does it really affect anybody? In the case of seda, and others (young, the guy who made the huge glass diamond) work directly injected into or aimed at the community can impact that community (perhaps only in as much as boosting its sense of importance, or at least the sense of importance of the local culture office). It seems that the best thing to hope for at the moment from participatory art is a small window into a section of the community. Participatory art may yet be a useful way of dealing with modern society, it may give people a feeling of comfort, it may yet challenge, but it has to be done very carefully. The artist must not make the work about themselves-he or she should have a goal. Work should not be pretentious in any way-if the artist has a limited knowledge of something, they must admit as much, and if their friends are mostly artists, they must admit as much. To gain information from the public, using a gallery is futile except for as a place to display findings. The larger questions at hand in this essay are whether phenomenology is a sound philosophy, whether it works, and also how art will develop and adapt in our bizarre, abstract capitalist society.

Participation…

I would like to hold a series of conversations about a vase

Classes

Discussion groups

Can we discuss this picture of x?

WHAT IS ART LIKE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRYES? IS IT LIKE ART IN CAPITALIST COUNTRIES WAS 100 YEARS AGO, EMPHASIS ON SKILL ETC? OR IS IT DRAWING FROM CAPITALIST SOCIETIES?

IDEAS in situationism-

Them moment, the transitory moment, how important is this actually in situationism?? The fundamental choice. The feeling of being someone in the world who is able to make choices.

Participation-audience participation, how to get to the bottomof whether something a ‘participant’ does is true. Debord suggests that ‘participation’ in art is a masquerade that proclaims itself able to, as Beech says in the article ‘Include Me Out!’; “fundamentally challenge the cultural distinctions that separate …(artworks)…from the artist and the minority community of art”.

My work is about capturing a moment of time but surely that is invalid when the only people whose it are art students?

Existence, ritual etc

Maybe this initial essay could address problems of participation

Then my dissertation could look at the moment in time, the idea of ritual and of existing and the disorientating ‘spectacular’ world.

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/confused-bow-down-north-korea-obama-where-are-you

It is important to distinguish

between the concepts of participative art and

participatory art projects. The latter describes artworks

in which the artist uses participation as a component of

art making. In participative art projects however,

participation IS the project and the artist creates the

framework allowing for participation with no preconceived

ideas of the outcome. As in participative

democracy or participative management it is not so

much the fact that people participate that matters but

rather the fact that participation is the main principle

governing human interactions in such models.

(participation in contemporary art)

An essay on participation would have to take into account relational aesthetics

http://www.springerin.at/dyn/heft_text.php?textid=1761&lang=en

(Participatory Art: A Paradigm Shift from Objects to Subjects, Suzana Milevska)

Theorists

of "participatory" democracy such as jean-Jacques

Rousseau in the eighteenth century, John Stuart Mill in

the nineteenth, JDrgen Habermas in the twentieth, and

today's Cass Sunstein have stressed that active and

civil give-and-take among people of differing views is a

bedrock of informed and socially responsible citizenry.'

(interactive art for a challenged democracy)

Traditionally artworks last and can be seen or

experienced at any time. Contemporary artists have

explored time sensitive artworks that can only be

experienced under specific conditions or at a specific

date and time.

Robert Barry - Sent a message to let the public know

that “This morning half a cubic meter of helium was

released in the atmosphere”. The artwork only exists

through that message and the connection it created.

Christian Boltanski - Mail-art. Sent a vague and

alarming letter to his friends and acquaintances and

documented their reactions.

On Kawara - Sent numerous telegrams to inform his

public that “he is still alive”.

Liam Gillick - Designed a conference room in 1999 with

geometric furniture and specific walls configuration. A

real symposium was held in the room as part of the

installation.

Karen Kilimnik - Created a series of drawings are based

on her address book thus creating connections between

people on many levels.

Meetings and Conviviality

Artworks can also work as machines generating

encounters or meetings of all kinds. Here are a few

examples:

Braco Dimitrijevic - “Casual Passer-by” a series of giant

advertising posters based on photos of anonymous

passer-by and giving the status of celebrity to unknown

and unaware individuals.

Sophie Calle - Most of her work is based on meeting

with people she doesn’t know: followed passer-by,

hired as a maid in a hotel she searched hotel rooms

etc..

Philippe Parreno - Organized a party at the Consortium

exhibition in Dijon France. His project aimed at using

time rather that space during the art fair. The “party”

generated meetings and conviviality.

Rirkrit Tiravanija - In one famous instance, in a Cologne

gallery, Tiravanija re-created his East Village

apartment, where he cooked and served food for 24

hours. In another instance he created a relaxation

space for artists during an art fair.

Contract and Collaboration

Other contemporary artists have explored contractual

relationship and collaborative art processes.

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster - “Welcome to what you

believe you see” (1988) the artist documented his

relationship with various gallery owners he worked

with.

Noritoshi Hirakawa - Created forms based on chance

encounter – for a show in Geneva (1994) he placed an

ad in a newspaper seeking a travel companion to

Greece. Documenting the travel was the material of his

artwork.

Alix Lambert - Wedding piece (1992) – got married four

times in six months as part of her exploring marriage

relationships.

Maurizio Cattelan - Designed a costume of a rabbit for

gallery owner Emmanuel Perrotin who had to wear the

costume in his gallery as part of the project.

(participation in contemporary art)

The issue with my work is, why should anyone watch my films and respond to them? What does art give to people? What is the point of participation in art?

Can art help people to understand society perhaps? Does it help them to express themselves? Why are there so many artists and art students today? Do people study art for narcissistic reasons, or to express themselves, or to be free?

Metatheatre or breaking the fourth wall-panto, asides, etc.

People unsure of how far to go, how much to participate

In art, the artist makes up the rules, although modernism has brought up the question ‘what is an artist’-sherrie Levine, Duchamp etc

PHOTOGRAPHY and spectacular society seem to have developed at the same time. I wonder if my artefact could be ‘a photograph’. Perhaps a photograph of a well known painting that now has a prominent place on some kind of packaging….does such a thing exist? What about a painting by monet? Perhaps photography does not fit in with participation though.

· Until fairly recently, people were not expected to take part in art in any way other than to look at it. The history of participation in art, or interactive art, or community art.

· Propaganda? The idea of art for the masses? COMMUNISM? These things

· Modernism-the rejection of the idea of an all powerful creator

· The sixties, freedom of movement, individuality…..encouraged artists to think in different ways?

· Conversation

Art which makes a big fuss about nothing.

Jeremy deller-a parade celebrating no particular event

If Alys's work used art reproductions to address art's

role within a social and cultural context, Deller, Martinez

and Laderman Ukeles used people to reflect on

their own social or political conditions. Here, different

problems arise: Friedrich Schiller had in the i8th Century

defined the work of art as self-contained, and the
aesthetic experience as a moment of free play or suspension

of power, allowing for two seemingly contradictory

conclusions: aesthetics as a completely autonomous

sphere of experience, and secondly aesthetics as offering

the possibility to create a new form of collective life.

While most contemporary art production has focused on

the former, typically modernist approach - condemning

any possible social or political role of art as an unacceptable

confusion of disciplines - there have always been

voices that have insisted on the interconnection between

art, life and politics, both from an art context (Constructivism,

Bauhaus or Joseph Beuys) and a theoretical one

(Louis Althusser). Today, the contradiction remains; for

example, Relational Aesthetics takes social relations as

its medium (and thus furthers the melding of art and

life) while problematically still adhering to the modernist

idea of the independence of the work of art.

By engaging sections of the public in the performance

as participants and asking them to act out their

own social roles, Deller, Martinez and Laderman Ukeles

made them the subject of the work and, at the same

time, allowed them to adopt political and social subject

positions. That ability of the parade to create subjectivity

is where the artists' political aspirations lie.

(art on parade)

Martinez organised a march with certain disadvantaged people, encouraging them to think about how they were being mistreated, to think of their rights. The artist can use his or her Hand of God to create situations in which anything is possible-the artist uniquely has the ability to organise an event that is both meaningless and meaningful. The artist is like ‘miss blossom’ in ‘I capture the castle’ or a child’s favourite toy-they can do and say what is taboo, can voice emotions that might otherwise cause social isolation. An art event can be baffling, the audience knows what to expect and they expect to see little. In some instances, like the tate modern’s fluxus weekend, when a large organisation is in charge there is still a definite BBC feel-mass production, safe versions of challenging ideas, mediocrity and noise. Participation art is best in intimate settings, and, to maximise its thought provoking impact, it is best experienced alone, and ideally out of a gallery space unless the work is particularly designed for a gallery space. At mark wallinger’s Hayward exhibition, while the flower arrangements hit a pleasantly jarring note amongst a self conscious and ‘educational’ array of sculptures and optical illusions, the corridor piece, an enclosed space where the corridor continues up the wall and around the ceiling, would have been perhaps more effective if it had been in a separate area, away from everything. Though it succeeded in creating an atmosphere, it felt more quirky than calming, disturbing or thought provoking. Too many astonishing things can be almost as mind numbing as not enough.

Laderman Ukeles'Re-spect, in which the

municipal workers of Givors, a small city near Lyons,

drove their trucks and vehicles down the Route National

86 onto the banks of the Rhone. Once there, the 27

assorted vehicles, accompanied by a river procession of

rowing boats, rescue speedboats, barges and a tow boat,

performed a carefully choreographed 'ballet mecanique',

while a ioo-ton diamond of recyded glass from the local

glass factory was gradually revealed.

Re-spect is probably the one case in which an artist

has used the parade format to its full potential. On the

afternoon of October 28, I993, almost the whole city of

Givors went to the Quai de la Navigation to witness the

arrival of the parade and the subsequent performance:

Re-spect became a real celebration. The artist even

obtained the official sanction of the mayor who declared

the day a public holiday - a necessary condition to, allow

all public service employees to participate.

The spirit of competition between the different

groups (firefighters, cleaners, gardeners) enabled the

public service employees to define themselves in relation

to their own department, to the other municipal

workers, and to the city as a whole.

As with any type of interventionist art, there are troubling

aspects to Re-spect and to the other parades. They

can be accused of representing a shallow form of communitarianism,

of being a function of socio-political

compensation and moral grandstanding. As Marius Babias

writes in 'Subject production and political art practice'

(Afterall, issue 9, 2004), 'instead of bringing to light the

state of affairs in a comprehensive political analysis and

thus possibly helping to create a revolutionary situation,

temporary art interventions take on the form of a socioromantic

service, fictitiously reconciling the real conflicts.'

However, even though the potential political and

social effects are difficult to measure, the thoroughness

and consistency of Re-spect injected a certain optimism

that the piece provided a social service, at least as a faithful

exposition of a certain complex situation. This can't

be said of Deller's work in San Sebastian.

. By organising his

parade not on an 'arbitrary day', as stated on the Manifesta

leaflet, but on the official opening date (on Friday

at 7pm, normal working time in Spain), and publicising

it through the Manifesta marketing office, Deller made

sure most of the art-world visitors witnessed part of the

march. But if the potential audience for the work is

reduced to what Stephen Willats called, in Art and Social

Function, 1976, 'art's social environment' that is, 'the

institutions and groups of people which effectively

maintain it [art] as an identifiable activity within society',

then the act of self-representation loses most, if not all,

of its social and political relevance, because the artist is

merely 'preaching to the converted'. On the other hand,

if, as in Givors, the city is made to look at a section of

itself, there is a chance of the work going beyond the

mere psychological empowerment of the marchers

towards a real political empowerment, and the artist

won't then be accused of objectifying the participants

exclusively for the benefit of his or her artwork. Whether

that was the case in San Sebastian is impossible to

establish, because while the event was there for everyone

to see, the timing and publicity were clearly biased

towards an art audience.

(a o p)

On Kawara - Sent numerous telegrams to inform his

public that “he is still alive”.

It is in the major differences between the shows, however, that each

revealed itself as the product of a unique zeitgeist. While both projects

were theoretically open to amateur and professional photographers

alike, MoMAs final pool was thick with names that still resonate:

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange, August Sander, and many

others. That is no surprise when you consider that Edward Steichen

and Wayne Miller determined the selections, rather than the singleblind

crowd process of "Click!" The starry-eyed rhetoric of "The

Family of Man" was based on a belief in pan-cultural human

universals, tempered by a mid-century trust of authority manifested

in Steichen's curatorial position. By comparison, the organizing

principle of "Click!" is embarrassingly local: the Brooklyn Museum

called for photographs about Brooklyn. If that sounds insular and

solipsistic for a major museum, it is only in keeping with the age,

when much of the global data network is devoted to creating and

promoting endless permutations of branded individuality. That may

be less narcissistic than it sounds; skepticism abounds about global

truth, so it is safer to stick to those small pieces of the world that we

can know and control. Even the different layouts of the exhibits speak

volumes. "The Family of Man" was an expansive and grandiloquent

installation designed by Paul Rudolph, while "Click!" occupied a

humble gallery that downplayed physical presence and curatorial

statement in favor of virtual presence and user comments.

(the taste of crowds)

Of course, all this mediocrity [of contemporary

art) claims to transcend itself by carrying

art to a second, ironic level. But it is just as

empty and insignificant on the second as on

the first level. The passage to the aesthetic

level salvages nothing. On the contrary, it is

mediocrity squared. It claims to be null-1"

am null! I am null!"-and it truly is null.

What we have here is a brilliant diagnosis

of the irony we see everywhere in

contemporary art, the idea that through a

kind of internal self-reflection art is somehow

able to distinguish itself from those

values it appears to be putting forward.

And faced with this irony, there is no point

in accusing the art of being bad because

it is just this judgment that it is already
about. Indeed, it is possible to argue that

this judgment is the real subject of the art,

that it would not exist,until after such a

judgment had been made-A. d yet-this

is Baudrillard's objection-it is e*actfy in"

doing this, in turning a bad judgment into

good art, that art forgets the fundamental

rule of symbolic exchange, which is that no

distinction between good and bad can ever

be made.There.is no outside position available

in the game between good and bad,

between value and the destructioR Ofvalue,

that contemporary art unleashes. The good

(value) can never definitively be separated

from the bad (the destruction of value).

(baudrillard good and bad)

Nevertheless, if`we rea4d

Baudrillard's text closely, we will see how'

those distinctions that he puts forward are

impossible to maintain. The same terms

and figures will play in both positive and

negative registers. For example, as we have

seen, Baudrillard can criticize the irony of

art's reflection on its own worthlessness, but

also praise irony as the "universal and spiritual

form of the disillusion of the world." He

can criticize the art world's "insider" trading,

but also approve of Warhol's "radical

snobbism." He can criticize the indifferent

exchange of objects, which "cease thereby

to exist in their finality;' but admire the

"fetishization" of pure forms that "can only

be exchanged among themselves." And

Warhol, Duchamp, and Baudelaire for their

part, if they are largely seen as positive, are

also viewed at times in a negative light

But in another

,sense it is Baudrillard himself who proposes'this

rule, who is able to putforward

a definition of "good" art in-a situation

where good and bad are inextricably united

(and in so doing reintroduces stakes

into contemporary art).

Baudrillard thus introduces

a distinction that lies not so much within

the existing field of art as between this

field and what allows it. Art-appearance

as such-is precisely the failure to represent

that "nothing" for which it stands

in or replaces, just as this nothing could

not be visualized without its art. And

certain artworks and artists-Warhol,

Edward Hopper, Duchamp-come closer

than others to bringing appearance

and nothingness together, although they

too could never finally do so, inevitably

falling short of the mark.

distinction between good and bad must

be made, the exchange between them

must stop somewhere, yet we can never

exactly say where this distinction falls,

what lies on one side of it or the other.

As Baudrillard says, "You can no more

identify the instigator of this plot than you

can identify the victim. The conspiracy

has no author, and everyone is both victim

and accomplice."

Such is the power of Baudrillard's

thought: that henceforth the world is not

as it is but only the failure to realize a

kind of rule. To suggest that the world is

a simulation is not to change anything

about the world or to oppose anything to

it, but is only to demonstrate that the world

inevitably falls short of itself, can never be

entirely realized. It is to introduce a gap

between the world and itself, to make it

seem as though the world is the effect of a

prior crime or conspiracy

(baudrillard good and bad)

There was, as a characteristic

feature of modernist life and thought, a belief

in the autonomous agency of the artist, transcending

history, to speak on behalf of the other. While challenging

western culture's myth of autonomy, especially

as the individual was subjected to the ideological and

economic constraints of modernity, the artist nonetheless

presumed a freedom from those limits. However,

linked with agency in its operation seemed to be a

responsibility for historical critique - if artists could

stand outside history through autonomy, then they,

like the angel of history, were uniquely capable of illuminating

it for those still dwelling in the catastrophe.

Certainly it is faith in the redemptive properties of this

mechanism's operation that seems to impel Benjamin's

writing about modernist culture. In Modernism's

obsolescence this articulation of parts of the apparatus

has become completely detached. This separation

allows artists to make a claim for the performance of

autonomy, inevitably rendered through the material of

the everyday. In this they are, supposedly, reuniting

art and life but without ever accepting the necessity of

critique except when, in acts of supreme nihilism -

typified on the one hand by Banksy's 'how you conform

whilst appearing to oppose' graffiti, and on the

other by the entire mode of 'institutional critique' -

presenting that destructive critique as, itself, a commodity

form to be consumed within the systems it

purports to destroy. The claim that was made for

Sherman and Prince in the 8os, that the very act of

transformation is understood as itself a critique,

neglects the degree to which the autonomous sphere

of art has been subsumed by celebrity, mass culture

and the marketplace.

(knowledge and spectacle)

Do not forget this

Ever

Is my work entirely narcissistic? Is there any point whatsoever in doing what I tried to do??

KATHARINA SEDA or ACADEMIA

What evidence is there, in fact, that art helps anything, affects anything?

Knowledge and spectacle, the article, makes a very, very good argument for the redundancy of the majority of ‘post modern art’. What does art actually do? Is it not fundamentally self expression, or else something aesthetic?

What I make is not devoted to technical skill. It is not clever. It is not about aesthetics. Many artists do not think about what they are doing. Why repeat something, why go over something that has already happened? What good does repeating things do? What does the audience get from seeing an old film, from making links, from answering a questionnaire? If the art is meant to be ironic, would that irony not be better expressed through writing?

The idea of an artistic intervention, with its implication of stoppages and blockages, has always seemed a little naïve to me. Why is this word so over-used in connection with art? I hope I am not being over-literal when I ask: since when did an artist actually stop anything to do with mainstream Capitalism? Insertions seems a much more useful and provocative term. It implies that the artist has the knowledge and the tactical cunning to define a system (perhaps by combining disparate systems) in formal, conceptual and indeed rhizomatic terms, and then find a gap from which to insert or divert something which reframes an understanding of the whole. Such a tactic exposes and manipulates the dynamics and asymmetries of power around us: a form of Kinetic art employing a systems aesthetic. This is art as software: it implies a potential reprogramming of the physical and the immaterial. We should explore this model further.

Carey Young

Involving the audience is a way of spreading the word, forging links or ‘merging art and reality’ I am looking at the area in which art and real life are forcibly brought together or separated, analysed. Real life is analysed, sometimes with a specific goal in mind, for example in Carey Young’s ‘Product Recall’. Other times, and not at all uncommonly, an artist uses their autonomy, their separateness, to explore the way in which people learn or interact, to explore these things unscientifically and to present them to the public in a way that might throw further light onto one, very particular, section of society. Phenomenology, art. We as artists are advised not to make work about horoscopes, or about the music we like, unless in very great detail and with some other motive such as the one mark Leckey has (to teach-IS THIS TRUE?). but we are encouraged, almost (are we?) to make work about our intimate relationships, or the crowd, or the herd. Is this because we are swept up in the craze of modernism or post modernism, funded by galleries?

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes both a set of cultural tendencies and an array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The term encompasses the activities and output of those who felt the "traditional" forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, social organization and daily life were becoming outdated in the new economic, social and political conditions of an emerging fully industrialized world.

A salient characteristic of Modernism is self-consciousness. This often led to experiments with form, and work that draws attention to the processes and materials used (and to the further tendency of abstraction).^[4] The poet Ezra Pound's paradigmatic injunction was to "Make it new!" However, the break from the past was not a clean break. Pound's phrase identified one Modernist objective, even as T.S. Eliot emphasized the relation of the artist to tradition.^[5]

Literary scholar Peter Childs sums up the complexity:

"There were paradoxical if not opposed trends towards revolutionary and reactionary positions, fear of the new and delight at the disappearance of the old, nihilism and fanatical enthusiasm, creativity and despair."^[6]

These oppositions are inherent to Modernism: It is in its broadest cultural sense the assessment of the past as different to the modern age, the recognition that the world was becoming more complex, and that the old "final authorities" (God, government, science, and reason) were subject to intense critical scrutiny.

Romanticism: emphasis on individual subjective experience, the sublime, the supremacy of "Nature" as a subject for art, revolutionary or radical extensions of expression, and individual liberty. By mid-century, however, a synthesis of these ideas with stable governing forms had emerged, partly in reaction to the failed Romantic and democratic Revolutions of 1848. It was exemplified by Otto von Bismarck's Realpolitik and by "practical" philosophical ideas such as positivism. Called by various names—in Great Britain it is designated the "Victorian era"—this stabilizing synthesis was rooted in the idea that reality dominates over subjective impressions

Romanticism fed into social thought, reason and realism became doctrine, people like the pre-Raphaelites and Kierkegaard and Nietzsche argued against r and r. Wagner and Ibsen criticised the idea that all progress is good, and were reviled (19^th century baudrillards and debords)

Two of the most significant thinkers of the period were, in biology, Charles Darwin, and in political science, Karl Marx. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection undermined the religious certainty of the general public, and the sense of human uniqueness of the intelligentsia. The notion that human beings were driven by the same impulses as "lower animals" proved to be difficult to reconcile with the idea of an ennobling spirituality. Karl Marx argued there were fundamental contradictions within the capitalist system—and that, contrary to the libertarian ideal, the workers were anything but free. Both thinkers would spawn defenders and schools of thought that would become decisive in establishing modernism.

. Clement Greenberg called Immanual Kant "the first real Modernist",^[9] but also wrote, "What can be safely called Modernism emerged in the middle of the last century—and rather locally, in France, with Baudelaire in literature and Manet in painting, and perhaps with Flaubert, too, in prose fiction.

A problem with modernism-so many changes occurred that some dodgy theories most likely slipped through. Freud seems dodgy to me, I should research him.

Out of this collision of ideals derived from Romanticism, and an attempt to find a way for knowledge to explain that which was as yet unknown, came the first wave of works, which, while their authors considered them extensions of existing trends in art, broke the implicit contract that artists were the interpreters and representatives of bourgeois culture and ideas. These "modernist" landmarks include Arnold Schoenberg's atonal ending to his Second String Quartet in 1908, the expressionist paintings of Wassily Kandinsky starting in 1903 and culminating with his first abstract painting and the founding of the Blue Rider group in Munich in 1911, and the rise of cubism from the work of Picasso and Georges Braque in 1908.

These developments began to give a new meaning to what was termed 'Modernism': It embraced disruption, rejecting or moving beyond simple Realism in literature and art, and rejecting or dramatically altering tonality in music. This set modernists apart from 19th century artists, who had tended to believe in 'progress'. Writers like Dickens and Tolstoy, painters like Turner, and musicians like Brahms were not 'radicals' or 'Bohemians', but were instead valued members of society who produced art that added to society, even if it were, at times, critiquing less desirable aspects of it. Modernism, while it was still "progressive" increasingly saw traditional forms and traditional social arrangements as hindering progress, and therefore the artist was recast as a revolutionary, overthrowing rather than enlightening.

Tread carefully with the ideas of revolution-kierkegaard and Nietzsche were anti the-mob. A revolution needs passion, what we have is an exercise in futility (a quote by n or k with this basic message)

Is today’s society left or right wing? Does it believe in retaining old values? Yes in that today society revives old styles (though the styles are modified). Politically, it is a little more complicated. Conservativism could be used to described as the desire to maintain a capitalist, industrially progressive society, OR the desire to promote individuality, or the desire for a traditional community. The left seems to be socialist, the right more feudal, but the central and ruling parties of both (at least in Britain and france) embrace capitalism. America is the spectacular society, all singing all dancing. Progress seems to win over colloquialism.

America-very multicultural. Therefore newcomers to America are absorbed into America, especially people from Europe.

Abstract expressionism-ways of seeing the world, relational, subjective, merging painting with geometry, more scientific ideas. Minimalism-focused on geometry etc, simplicity could communicate as well as or better than subjectivity. Almost as though abstract expressionism is tied to existentialism and minimalism to structuralism. Minimalism argued that extreme simplicity could capture all of the sublime representation needed in art. Though that sentence suggests links with the idea of leap of faith, and phenomenology, getting back to simplicity. Was realism trying to achieve truth? Realism could be linked to phenomenology. What would Kierkegaard make of modern art?

How does existentialism link with a) modernism b) minimalism c) postmodernism

How does it link to the nouvelle vague? –nouvelle vague can be seen as modernist as it rejects traditional forms of cinema. It plays with the existentialist concept of time (as lived, not measured). Spectacular story became less important (humanism, existence precedes essence, authenticity?) I am making bad links here, I need to research this idea further though I don’t think it has much to do with my essay. I should, in fact, get back to my essay.

Modernism may be useful only as background to this essay. Seda is not minimalist, she is not really even modernist. She does not ask anyone to reject anything, though she does challenge the way communities work, and reject traditional relationships between people within a community. She embraces the individual and gives us a good example of how repetition of image (and how, in fact, art interventions or insertions) can be a positive thing-it can reaffirm and reassure us of our place in the world, it can make us feel preserved, a part of something. The act of taking care over and spending time on something related to us can make us feel fond of our lives, or teach us something about our lives (art can give us time to reflect-DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY LESS SO). It can allow us to progress, to locate patterns and to find a next step. It is a form of problem solving which allows us to dream as we solve. It is involved yet distant, it is a form of meditation. This is the position of art in society.

The issue with art is that it does not evaluate pros and cons, necessarily. It only goes into an issue as far as it wants to. It is like reading ‘An Very Short Introduction to Existentialism’. Some readers will choose to progress to Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, but for others, an introduction was all they ever wanted. Perhaps they wanted to feel more learned. Perhaps they wanted to find out how, roughly, existentialism could link to something they were studying. Any reader of such a book will only get a snapshot, maybe an idea of where to go next. This is what contemporary participatory art achieves.

Seda does boss around her grandmother. She shouted orders at the old lady until she made work. Is this fair?

Look at seda in more detail

Seda’s work gives us a snapshot of her life as well as that of people in the area she grew up in. she takes members of her local community with her to perform in art festivals, acting as both artist and tour guide. She sends letters and gifts to locals and encourages them to converse with one another. Some people feel she is a nuisance, a waste of their time. Some participate with bewilderment. In ‘it doesn’t matter’, seda rather forcibly encouraged her grandmother to recollect through drawings and questionnaires dates, objects and events relevant to her own life. Sera’s reason for this was ostensibly to bring her grandmother out of a severe depression, to ‘show her herself’ (as Seda tries in all her work “ to show people each other”). The piece, however, brings to light an issue that has arisen in other works by the artist but is never so apparent. Seda’s grandmother had to be forced to answer questions. The name of the project is, in fact, Jana’s most frequent answer to her granddaughter’s questions. Seda has often challenged notions of privacy but is the dignity of the individual, particularly the grieving individual, not too private? What Seda puts her grandmother through seems cruel. What right does the artist have to assume she knows what is best for her grandmother, and indeed her neighbours? Is the whole project simply a way for the artist to feel she can do something about situations which seem out of her control?

The autonomy of the artist places the art world in an abstract somewhere, a place where anything is possible, where any fear can be overcome, where any social or political problem can, in theory, be challenged. The problem is that ‘in theory’ is as far as the challenge often goes

4.Interactive art is the latest manifestation of the "death of the author". The "interactive artist" is

merely a context-maker, who provides the basic incredients, sets up the situation, and then

disappears. The spectator-turned-into-the-user provides the meanings, in a sense creates the

work at the moment of the interaction.

Some critics wish this was true. However, there is much less openness in most interactive

artworks than they hope. Even though the presence of the artist is usually hidden behind the

scenes, it can be inferred. There are few interactive artworks which purport to give the user the

impression of being the (sole) creator. Kit Galloway's and Sherrie Rabinowitz's classic

telematic work Hole in Space (1980) was one of them - the situation was set up in a public

space, no learning process was involved, no announcements were made, no indicators of "art"

or "signatures" exposed. The two-way "hole" highlighted the actions of the users in both ends -

these were, however, hardly conscious of producing art.

Most artists have adopted a more "traditional" strategy, inscribing their presence in different

ways. Many interactive artworks are "unique" artefacts, "sculptures" or installations which can

be experienced in a certain time and space and are identified as somebody's creations. In

most cases there is an implied presence of the author in the work, which can be felt e.g. as

direct address to the user, but even in the restrictions introduced into the modes of interactivity,

thus deliberately positioning a "distributed" will (of the artist) against the will of the user. The

native Canadian artist Yuxweluptun has (in his VR installation Inherent Rights, Vision Rights)

given such restrictions an ideological significance by superimposing strict rules of movement

onto his "native" virtual world, thus demarkating his own territory from white man's territory of

cyberspace.

As artists' Net sites will develop, the question about the death of the author will appear again.

Some artists will probably prefer to disappear behind their sites, transforming themselves into

invisible figures of the webmaster, while some will "die" as the activity around the site

proliferates; some will do their best to impose their presence in the manner of the countless

private home pages, but with a product that makes a difference.

(seven ways of misunderstanding interaction)

Sweatshops, identical office workers

http://www.slideshare.net/Redseeds/participation-in-contemporary-art

http://www.springerin.at/dyn/heft_text.php?textid=1761&lang=en

http://www.google.fr/search?q=Kate%C5%99ina+%C5%A0ed%C3%A1+grandmother&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.google:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

This idea (existential monism) can be easily proven. We start with the premise that God is Spirit (John 4:24). We will prove first the lemma that the Universe is at the same time mental and real. Between the knower (soul, person) and the material things which he/she perceives, there are knowledge relations being established, links by which the things are perceived. If these links are neither ideal nor real, then the knowledge is the fruit of nothingness, so we would be in pure nihilism. Absurd, because the only substance of nihilism is the nothing, which, in its turn, it exists, so we are able to infer from the existence of the nothing, the existence of the principle of the existence: the to be (i.e. what enables the nothing to be).

If the links would be ideal but not real, then they could not establish the link between the observer and the objects. Between the links and the objects would then there are some other links, and so on, recursively, to infinity, again absurd, because we maintain that we can know something about the world.

We are not owners of the truth, since we cannot produce truth as we wish (at our own command). Instead, poor monkeys, all we can produce is at our pleasure is the lie. There are many theories about existence, yet they generalize each a particular truth. The only abuse here is saying such theories are complete and universal. Instead, they belong to the personalities of those who thought them as particular fleas belong to a particular dog. Of course, its complementary excess, which says there is no truth and all we can say is being relative, this is as pernicious as the former, since spirit needs truths as the eyes need the light.

(existentialist knowledge theory)

http://www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/2002/09/touch_sanitatio.php

· Until fairly recently, people were not expected to take part in art in any way other than to look at it. The history of participation in art, or interactive art, or community art.

· Kant’s autonomy of the artist

· Modernism / postmodernism and the idea that there is no creator. industrialisation

· Existentialism, phenomenology, etc-existence precedes essence. Everything is relative

· The spectacle, the society of the spectacle

· The internet, globalisation. The world becomes more specialised (says baudrillard)

· Baudrillard, comments on the society of the spectacle.

There have always, since history began, been examples of art with social as well as aesthetic aims and purposes. Participatory art emerged with Modernism, particularly ___.

work could also be viewed as a critique of postmodern art-nowadays, what is art? When anyone can be an artist provided they follow certain rules, how can anything be revered for its beauty? To this, one may respond that there are still artists who focus solely on making beautiful images; that the art world is simply becoming more diverse. As Robert Barry says of art in his piece ‘It has Order’;

There have always, since history began, been examples of art with social as well as aesthetic aims and purposes. Participative art is a post modern concept that could be connected with abstract expressionism in that it focuses on process, probes and re defines relationships

In ‘It doesn’t matter’ she tried to bring her grandmother out of her depression by giving her projects to carry out, for example drawing items from the hardware shop she worked in for __ years. In ‘There’s nothing there’, she encouraged, with some success, the whole village of Ponetovice to follow her devised daily routine for one day.

Bishop's reference to performers and audiences

(rather than artists and publics) indicates Bishop's debt,

here, to Allan Kaprow's militant elimination of the audience

in his development of the Happening. 'A group of

inactive people in the space of a Happening is just dead

space,' he said. Kaprow's persistent dissatisfaction with

the division between performer and audience - and the

unlikely experiments that this brought about - testifies

to a genuine and radical critique.

(include me out)

Before looking at the work of Katerina Seda, I must first clarify the differences between interactive, participative and participatory art. Interactive art is the broad term used to describe art which encourages or requires some viewer involvement. Participatory art is that which involves participation, and participative art that which specifically investigates participation, communication, exchange. (participation in contemporary art)

I would like to try to identify the value of participative art within society. It is worth saying that my findings may also apply to participatory and interactive art to degrees, but it is participative art which I will focus on.

This really applies to participatory art. In participative art, the artist in fact parodies participatory art, re enacting a situation but with the focus on the participants, to try to get to the bottom of what participatory art can achieve. Participative art is postmodernism to participatory art’s modernism.

Postmodern communities are localised, which for existentialism is not ideal.

, and her work has been praised for the subtle sociological themes it deals with

Seda’s piece, while provocative on paper, was, according to one reviewer, badly explained at the Berlin Biennale. The review questioned the lack of explanation offered by Seda for the piece, and suggested the work should have been shown differently if it was to be perceived as “social art” and not “an exhibition of sculptural objects”. In an interview about ‘Over and Over’, Seda says; “when I start a project the first input is a visual input, not social”, but her drive

WHERE WILL PARTICIPATORY ART GO NEXT?

As I said before, postmodernism, the arena of ideas which includes participative art can be compared to the development of realism as a response to romanticism or existentialism as a response to didacticism.

Of course, it is difficult to say where participatory art will go next as one can only guess where the world will go next, on which subject there are many theories. The influence of the internet seems set to continue growing.

The scale of sedas work is manageable, and bears in mind cultural differences

Postmodern art holds that all stances are unstable and insincere, and therefore irony, parody, and humor are the only positions that cannot be overturned by critique or revision

As Seda proclaims the purpose, above all others, of her work to be “to show people each other”, it seems justified to call her work ‘participative’, despite its clear aesthetic leanings. This essay’s specific purpose is to scrutinise art produced with the clear intention of encouraging connections between individuals, and to see how Seda’s piece fits………….

http://www.toysatellite.org/doods/txt/debord.htm -guy debord will not be missed

http://archiv.radio.cz/history/history15.html -velvet revolution

http://www.barbelith.com/cgi-bin/articles/00000011.shtml- situationism in a nutshell

http://www.janvaneyck.nl/0_2_3_events_info/arc_08_systems_exposed.html -systems exposed-systems theory

http://renaissancesociety.blogspot.com/2008/04/press-artforum-on-katerina-seda.html led me to

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_8_46/ai_n31487411/ -talking about ‘it doesn’t matter’

Every reasonably aware person of our time is aware of the obvious fact that art can no longer be justified as a superior activity, or even as a compensatory activity to which one might honorably devote oneself. The reason for this deterioration is clearly the emergence of productive forces that necessitate other production relations and a new practice of life. In the civil-war phase we are engaged in, and in close connection with the orientation we are discovering for certain superior activities to come, we believe that all known means of expression are going to converge in a general movement of propaganda that must encompass all the perpetually interacting aspects of social reality.

http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/detourn.htm -a user’s guide to detournement

http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/242 The Realization and Supression of Situationism

http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/315 Détournement as Negation and Prelude

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics#In_Sociology

http://www.janvaneyck.nl/0_2_3_events_info/arc_08_systems_exposed.html cybernetics-process led art

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism_(sociology)

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ez.html

http://www.artpolitic.org/?manifesto

ami writing about process led art?

Am I writing about

http://moma.org/collection/details.php?theme_id=10954&displayall=1

cobra

http://knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Psychogeography/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_Urbanism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanism

Consequently the Artworld has eaten and interiorized art-theory which should -- if taken seriously -- cause it to self-destruct. Galleries thrive (or at least survive) on a nihilism which can only be contained by irony, and which would otherwise corrode and melt down the very walls of the museums. This essay, for example, will be printed in the catalog of a gallery exhibition, thus perpetrating the irony of calling for the suppression and realization of art from within the very structure that perpetuates the alienation of the non-artist and the fetishization of the artwork. Well, fuck irony. One can only hope that each compromise will be the last.

http://www.hermetic.com/bey/palimpsest.html very nicely written, very thoughtful, bursts of light

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Autonomous_Zone

http://www.altheim.com/lit/taz/index.html

Art, throughout history, has kept more or less out of social and political affairs. In the last century, the work of artists, the questions artists put forward, have become more accepted by mainstream society. There are many reasons for this, which I will not attempt to go into, but the consequence is that art is no longer purely concerned with the creation of images, the telling of stories, and the exchange of status symbols. I say no longer purely concerned because these concerns still exist.

The ambiguity of art like seda’s fuels the majority of its criticisms.

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/renaissance.html

the renaissance, the elevation of art to above

Thewhereabouts is situationism still relevant? What went wrong? Did anything go wrong? The group itself may have disbanded and been picked apart by the art world but the ideas it introduced have been taken up by scattered groups around the world and through the last 30 or 40 years.

It does not seem rational to hope for the sudden dissolution of the art world, and as I have shown, there are a number of artists who, in different ways, have begun to address the position of art in relation to knowledge, to irony and to the ‘average joe’. As Bey says, using a quote from Coomaraswamy; “In a society without "malaise" (at least, in tragic proportions) one might expect to see that "the artist is not a special kind of person, but each person is a special kind of artist." Such utopianism has arguably been shown by Šedá , and others, and could symbolise a welcome break from postmodern irony. The image is, and has always been, capable of communicating that which language cannot. An image is capable of transcending language barriers, capturing attention, igniting enthusiasm, and expressing many things at once. As Plato said, “Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.” The Situationist politicos attempted to turn images on their heads, to reuse, to detour, with hopes of revolution, but they perhaps overlooked the power of the beautiful image. Hakim Bey’s image of the palimpsest captured my imagination and seemed to sum up a lot of my own feelings around the issue of irony and of the sharing of knowledge.

Isolation is something Šedá seeks to combat in her work. She expressly seeks ‘to show people each other’. While her work is very visual, with every project having a visual language, she seems to desire, without irony (FOOT NOTE ON POSTMODERNISM), to change her society for the better. QUOTE? In ‘Over and Over’, the image of the fence is used to set up a sort of physical discussion on intimacy, on personal barriers.

And, to remind myself that information gleaned from conversations must not be trusted, I will quote Robert Barry’s piece…

With this in mind, I will now mention some artists who deal with participatory art in different ways.

Sophie Calle?

Carey Young’s work questions, very knowingly, the relationship between the art world and the world at large. She is aware of the limits of artistic contributions to society and makes clear, through her comparison of ‘intervention’ and ‘insertion’ (FOOTNOTE) and works such as I AM A REVOLUTIONARY

Allan Kaprow could be credited with introducing the idea of participatory art, and in its synthesis thoroughly questions its nature (QUOTE ABOUT THE SENSE OF FUN, art being fun)

M. Lederman Ukeles deliberately avoided the gallery setting in ‘Re-Spect for Givers’ (FOOTNOTE-DESCRIPTION). She choreographed an event around…..

Black hole

In his essay ‘The Palimpsest’, Hakim Bey describes a ‘palimpsestic theory of theory’. A palimpsest is a manuscript whose surface has been written on, cleared and refilled with new information, with previous layers of information visible, but not discernible, underneath. Bey is proposing a solution to some of the ‘problems’ of contemporary art-irony, identity crises, attempts to synthesise art and society. He proposes an approach to art which is, first, to be well informed, second and consequently to be able to distinguish patterns, recurring themes in the history of art and to place ones own work, and thirdly to act “not looking for delicious ironies, but for bursts of light.” Such a combination of ideas seems to me to sum up what I have so far uncovered in the course of writing this essay. Of course, I am speaking from the perspective of an artist, someone who is a little Utopian, who enjoys the Romantic. Also, I personally am not well read in art history, philosophy, or politics. I am acting under the influence of bursts of light. And I am not the only one.

The present art world is timeless, and I would, for the moment, agree with Hakim Bey says in his essay ‘The palimpsest’, when he says that we should look to space for a ‘theory of theory’ informative to the present moment, comparing layers of history and looking for patterns.

Art has, since at least the Renaissance and Classicism, both questioned and separated itself. FOOTNOTE-CLASSICISM AND WILLIAM MORRIS. The art world still involves the trade of status symbols, though rather than having a painting of themselves commissioned, the rich now choose to buy pieces of art that ask big questions, that are revolutionary and controversial, that communicate to friends, acquaintances and employees their ability to keep in touch with the zeitgeist. Of course, there are genuine art enthusiasts who happen to be wealthy. As I have discovered in the course of researching this essay, there is ambiguity and paradox almost everywhere in the contemporary art world.

f the art world does disintegrate, or the narcissistic ideals of artists become so unavoidable that art becomes terrifying, wields power over people, is totalitarian, then we can only learn from it. But it is better for the art world to disintegrate than for falsehoods to reign supreme.

There's nothing specific to be achieved in a conversation, except that when the participants feel they are out of it - that is, when they finish a particular dialogue - they just cannot go back to the same places they left before (some transformation might have happened)..[1] WHO DID SHE TAKE THIS FROM?

http://situationist.cjb.net/

http://arttorrents.blogspot.com/2007/11/guy-debord-la-socit-du-spectacle-1973.html

the notes that led to my essay-alphabet pasta

2009-05-23T13:42:00.000-07:00

Alphabet pasta, rearrange letters and eat them

Write the essay in alphabet pasta

A problem relating to my work related to

Bum dum fizz ode to burt

Anything that happens, happens.

Anything that, in happening, causes something else to

happen, causes something else to happen.

Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again,

happens again.

`You cannot see what I see because you see what you see.

You cannot know what I know because you know what you

know. What I see and what I know cannot be added to what

you see and what you know because they are not of the same

kind. Neither can it replace what you see and what you know,

because that would be to replace you yourself.'

`Hang on, can I write this down?' said Arthur, excitedly

fumbling in his pocket for a pencil.

`You can pick up a copy at the spaceport,' said the old

man . `They've got racks of the stuff.'

`Oh,' said Arthur, disappointed. `Well, isn't there anything

that's perhaps a bit more specific to me?'

`Everything you see or hear or experience in any way at

all is specific to you. You create a universe by perceiving it,

so everything in the universe you perceive is specific to you.'

Arthur looked at him doubtfully. `Can I get that at the

spaceport, too?' he said.

`Check it out,' said the old man.

Sophists.THEUCIDITES phonecian war-recordings of behaviour. Scientists who were chiefly observers

Phenomenology- don’t think about the reality of a thing, just try to describe it as you see. Keep in mind that there may be things we don’t know about the thing. Think about consciousness, our experience. Husserl who was influenced by Kant and Descartes, who rejected relativism and who influenced heidigger.

Essence

How do we know that others have the same kind of consciousness as us

Knowledge has dimension?- communicating our experiences to others and how these others may experience them is something that comes up again and again in my work.

A broader concept of experience

THE CAT SAT ON THE MAT

Find an essence or a beginning

Experiential, phenomenological approach-I am aware that what I am showing is what I choose to see. There are problems and limitations of using a camera as an eye of sorts, as a way of expressing exactly oneself. The camera by no means duplicates what you see. For one, it is operated by the hands and not the eyes, and for another, unless ones viewer is totally immersed in the experience of the film (look into IMMERSION) they will by no means come into contact with anything like the sensory experience you have.

Another fundamental problem with trying to communicate exactly ones own feelings is the awareness one has of doing so. If you have been motivated to pick up a camera you have obviously considered using it for something, and thus you are more likely to be self conscious than if, say, the camera was a part of your body (even then your experience would be fundamentally different from that of most other people, unless everyone in the world were born with a built in camera which, interesting as it would be, is simply irrelevant for the time being).

One possible way of getting round the problem of how to communicate ones precise experience to others is to put them quite literally in your shoes, to have them live your life.* this could be done via sets of instructions sent from one person to another which must be followed as precisely as possible-maybe even to the extent that the person following the instructions should try to get a job as similar to that of the other person as possible.

· For me at the moment this is a possibility-I could ask charlotte for her diary perhaps, or just collect everything I can to do with her. I could even give myself a charlotte makeover. That would be very weird indeed. But I think it would be a good idea. Maybe I could go to her house and investigate her. Did that student at college do the same thing, following a person around? Could I perhaps edit out photos of charlotte and put my face in her place?

So assuming you have successfully immersed your audience, shown them what you see, shown them your very soul or whatever, what next? What if the audience is simply uninterested? The whole venture is, after all, egotistical and mundane. WHY DO I DO IT? Why is it what I want? Will the audience learn anything from seeing my point of view apart from exactly that, my point of view, at a specific moment in time, which will never be repeated. Crucially, actually, that particular moment will be repeated. It has been singled out to be run through again and again. Every time someone watches a pre-recorded bit of film of my life or walks in my footsteps, they are reliving a past moment (though of course this past moment is greatly changed every time it is re-enacted). Is this healthy? Is it healthy to watch re runs of Hollyoaks on a Sunday morning even when you know exactly what happened to libby or louise or whoever? Is it healthy to have someone walk along the exact same path you once did at aged 7, going to school with Theresa, for the sake of it? Why do I want to get people to relive things that are in the past? What do I hope people will get from it? Is it a vain wish to have all my memories preserved in some way? I actually believe it is, and am horrified with myself.

What happens to a moment when it has been pinned down for special consideration? In my recent subtitiled films, I was fascinated by the subtitles but also saw them as a way of cementing that conversation, archiving it, making it into a THING, a history, an object, so I could use that object to create a history. I plucked that conversation out of the babble and squall of day to day conversations, and held it up to a 100 watt light bulb. I drew red circles around all of its peculiarities. And why? THIS IS A PROBLEM.

I am sure it is a problem that has been gone over many a time. But maybe for my personal benefit I should begin to try and work it out.

In this essay I will investigate

· EGO, why people want to show other people what they have done

· Communicated images and ideas, why people use previously unused or unheard of methods to express themselves, and why does it leave us with such emptiness? Or does it? Is postmodernism a good thing or a bad thing?

These seem like very wide subjects, perhaps I could narrow them down by choosing my artefact. But first I would like to ask some more questions about why exactly I want people to watch something so mundane as a moment in my life, why I want them to look at my photos

It is partly because I want to become a part of that huge community whereby everyone shares everything and everything is on the internet. I don’t like it but I feel that I am a definite product of the internet generation and for this I apologise. Why don’t I like it? Because for one, people in the internet age do not seem particularly fulfilled (MARX), for two, the rise of the internet has shortened very, very rapidly almost every time scale. We have less time to think, less time to make decisions, less time to be romantic and to use adjectives, less time to learn the ins and outs of something. For three, the internet is abstract and removes any need for the senses of touch, taste and smell. For four, it opens us up to the entire world, thus making us face a hell of a lot of social norms and conventions, exposing us to much more of everything. I am not sure whether we can cope with this. Everything is accelerating and I wonder how happy we are. Idiosyncracies, stories, friendships, colloquialisms, flesh on flesh, these things we once took for granted now feel unusual.

The individual person interests me within all this. Where does the individual stand now that he or she can have multiple online personalities?

I should read baudrillard.

Perhaps what I am is basically someone struggling to identify themselves as an individual in the internet age.

Something about the internet and individuality.

Get someone to live your life in your shoes and to take photos of the experience.

An artefact to do with ISOLATION, THE INTERNET, INDIVIDUALITY

James ravillious took photos of one devon town for 40 years.

People who spend a long time in one place, who meticulously detail something or who make something very personal.

Art Brut. People who obsess.

Mike Nelson’s rooms

People who make meaningless repetitions of a thing

People who use their family photos

Mike Nelson might be a good person to look into as he has suspended time in his rooms.

John smith is another very good reference as he is aware of what he is doing with time and he describes his time in his words.

SLOWING TIME

People who make old and now unnecessary machinery, who spend time making something meticulous.

I get the feeling that I may be skirting around issues for the 10000 word essay rather than this 3000 word one.

What I should look for is a common theme, an ESSENCE of what it is I am looking for

I think this could well be the idea of the individual, the individual’s response to the world. The problem with this theme is that just about everyone is expressing themselves these days. Maybe what I should look for is not expressing but problem solving-a way of life. What I mean is, rather than looking at ways in which people have shown themselves to be absolute INDIVIDUALS (and in this essay I would probably include Carey Young who very much does this by displacing common experiences, making the usual somehow eerie, as does Mike Nelson) I should look at ways in which people deal with the problem of being in the world. This is more philosophy than art perhaps, hmmmm. Doesn’t every artist deal with being in the world? Doesn’t everyone? In one way or another, through the decisions they make or fail to make?

Aesthetic beauty, people who make beautiful things may do so as a refuge.

I would like to listen to some classical music. And then Nietzsche and Sartre because existentialism seems to have a lot to do with it.

When I get online I will look at why people make art. Maybe Art Brut is the way to go here

Slowing time

I have a personal interest in this and should do it thoroughly.

Internet democratized access to info

Depersonalised mode of interaction

Information overload

Social and economic rifts widening?

PROFUSION OF RESEARCH

More and more is being discovered but more and more SPECIALISATION

We are learning more and more about less and less.

How can I learn without the starting point of myself

The choice one has to make-what university course should one do?

Placing both modernity and the enlightenment on trial (is enlightenment late 19^th centrury?)

1 practice and theory of modern politics

2 ideal of objective scientific rationality and progress

=contemporary issues in philosophy

Look up contemporary philosophy online, in Athens etc.

An activist state. A state where everyone has a say

France

Conservatives preserve enlightenment ideals

Free markets?

I should not worry about this too much for the moment-I am writing an essay on art, not politics or economy.

Phenomenology, getting to an essence

Heidigger says that consciousness is a part of our existence (existence precedes essence)-this went against Husserl who said that consciousness was always focussed on another thing, but who seemed to say that consciousness is separate from existence (is this correct? Something that should be treated as separate from day to day function?)

DESCARTES-who agreed with Descartes, who did not?

While for Husserl, in the epochè, being appeared only as a correlate of consciousness, for Heidegger being is the starting point.

For Husserl, the phenomenological reduction is the method of leading phenomenological vision from the natural attitude of the human being whose life is involved in the world of things and persons back to the transcendental life of consciousness and its noetic-noematic experiences, in which objects are constituted as correlates of consciousness. For us, phenomenological reduction means leading phenomenological vision back from the apprehension of a being, whatever may be the character of that apprehension, to the understanding of the Being of this being (projecting upon the way it is unconcealed).[7]

Artists who slow time

http://www.pbs.org/art21/series/seasontwo/time.html

I dunno

I am downloading a lot about baudrillard etc which is wonderful of course

http://movementofexistence.blogspot.com/2007/05/architecture-art-and-meaning.html -a blog looking into art and existence

I have downloaded an essay of his called ‘the trees see me’ which could be very useful as it talks about how when we make something we alter objects

Also lifewithoutbuildings.net

http://farkyaralari.blogspot.com/ a blog full of heidigger related books

am downloading LOADS of stuff, will have to sort through it all when I get home

If I am waiting for something to download and I don’t have facebook to fill the time I get very restless and uneasy. I use it to distract from problems

http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/2008_home.shtml

http://www.pdf-search-engine.com/baudrillard-pdf.html

to look into how objects are transformed by art.

I could write a list of the books it would have been useful to have

Barthes

I am hovering around a number of areas, I will have to take time out and do some reading

Jacques henri lartigue

James ravilious

John cooper Clarke

In the pdf article ‘lindsey seers and a very good show’ the first section details a show that sounds very good to me-seems to be to do with slowing time.

Of course, all this mediocrity [of contemporary

art) claims to transcend itself by carrying

art to a second, ironic level. But it is just as

empty and insignificant on the second as on

the first level. The passage to the aesthetic

level salvages nothing. On the contrary, it is

mediocrity squared. It claims to be null-1"

am null! I am null!"-and it truly is null.

What we have here is a brilliant diagnosis

of the irony we see everywhere in

contemporary art, the idea that through a

kind of internal self-reflection art is somehow

able to distinguish itself from those

values it appears to be putting forward.

And faced with this irony, there is no point

in accusing the art of being bad because

it is just this judgment that it is already
about. Indeed, it is possible to argue that

this judgment is the real subject of the art,

that it would not exist,until after such a

judgment had been made-A. d yet-this

is Baudrillard's objection-it is e*actfy in"

doing this, in turning a bad judgment into

good art, that art forgets the fundamental

rule of symbolic exchange, which is that no

distinction between good and bad can ever

be made.There.is no outside position available

in the game between good and bad,

between value and the destructioR Ofvalue,

that contemporary art unleashes. The good

(value) can never definitively be separated

from the bad (the destruction of value).

(baudrillard good and bad)

Nevertheless, if`we rea4d

Baudrillard's text closely, we will see how'

those distinctions that he puts forward are

impossible to maintain. The same terms

and figures will play in both positive and

negative registers. For example, as we have

seen, Baudrillard can criticize the irony of

art's reflection on its own worthlessness, but

also praise irony as the "universal and spiritual

form of the disillusion of the world." He

can criticize the art world's "insider" trading,

but also approve of Warhol's "radical

snobbism." He can criticize the indifferent

exchange of objects, which "cease thereby

to exist in their finality;' but admire the

"fetishization" of pure forms that "can only

be exchanged among themselves." And

Warhol, Duchamp, and Baudelaire for their

part, if they are largely seen as positive, are

also viewed at times in a negative light

But in another

,sense it is Baudrillard himself who proposes'this

rule, who is able to putforward

a definition of "good" art in-a situation

where good and bad are inextricably united

(and in so doing reintroduces stakes

into contemporary art).

Baudrillard thus introduces

a distinction that lies not so much within

the existing field of art as between this

field and what allows it. Art-appearance

as such-is precisely the failure to represent

that "nothing" for which it stands

in or replaces, just as this nothing could

not be visualized without its art. And

certain artworks and artists-Warhol,

Edward Hopper, Duchamp-come closer

than others to bringing appearance

and nothingness together, although they

too could never finally do so, inevitably

falling short of the mark.

distinction between good and bad must

be made, the exchange between them

must stop somewhere, yet we can never

exactly say where this distinction falls,

what lies on one side of it or the other.

As Baudrillard says, "You can no more

identify the instigator of this plot than you

can identify the victim. The conspiracy

has no author, and everyone is both victim

and accomplice."

Such is the power of Baudrillard's

thought: that henceforth the world is not

as it is but only the failure to realize a

kind of rule. To suggest that the world is

a simulation is not to change anything

about the world or to oppose anything to

it, but is only to demonstrate that the world

inevitably falls short of itself, can never be

entirely realized. It is to introduce a gap

between the world and itself, to make it

seem as though the world is the effect of a

prior crime or conspiracy

(baudrillard good and bad)

Nouveau roman- enclose the real in a vacuum

An objectivity at last liberated from the object

(the hyper realism of simulation-a very useful doc describing what happens to reality when it becomes hyperreality)

Baudrillard is talking about the pure gaze, objectivity etc

A blank stare

A possible definition of the Real-
That for which it is possible to provide an equivalent representation

(scientific definition)

Classical representation was not so much a matter of equivalence as of transcription, interpretation,commentary

The hyperreal=that which is always reproduced. Ie if I take a photo, then that photo is published online, the image published (and also the photographic image) is hyperreal

Personal note- I find it difficult to say whether a photograph is ‘real’. In as far as that it is a piece of paper of some sort then yes, it is real, it can be held. Its surface is different from that of other pieces of paper-so we can say that paper treated in such a way, that has undergone a chemical process so that some of the areas of silver have reacted and some have not can be called a photograph. It is interesting that the photographs that are kept and those thrown away then have slightly different values. A photograph that is overexposed to the point that it is destroyed, or that the photographer simply discards it, will probably never be seen again. (I suppose the word value is simplistic-maybe I should say influence). A photograph taken by a famous photographer will probably have a large amount of influence-it will reach more people, it will probably trigger ideas. It will have a much longer life span than a photograph thrown away. It may be reproduced on different paper, with different ink and different chemical processes.

Very rarely does a photograph’s influence and value come from how it was made-the image is the influential thing. This I suppose is what Baudrillard is talking about-a photograph is an object but how it is made is only part of its identity. The same can be said for any thing, really, which explains why people buy imitation Luis Vuitton handbags or wood pattern linoleum, or indeed why in roman times foods would, at the most extravagant banquets, be made to look like other foods. Of course in roman times this would have been seen as trickery, a clever amusement, whereas today people take their fake wooden flooring much more seriously.

Imitations of objects surround us today, from the aforementioned laminate flooring to a large printed replica of a building hung on fabric over the scaffolding of the building, to the photographs of food at London Bridge station. Why have these imitations been created? The printed image is perhaps there to hide the current ugliness of a treasured building; the photographs of food are probably an attempt to make busy London commuters subconsciously desire the products waiting for them around the next corner. Images sneak in, they are cheekily emblazoned, unquestioned, they dominate the landscape. We, for the most part, get on with our lives, and whatever impact the profusion of images has on us is not immediately obvious (CAN I FIND STATISTICS? HOW DO PEOPLE FEEL ABOUT BEING SURROUNDED BY IMAGES?-CAPITALISM-PEOPLE ARE TOLD BY THE GOVERNMENT THAT ADVERTISING IS BAD AND YET ADVERTISING IS ALLOWED AND ENCOURAGED. IS ADVERTISING FREEDOM OF SPEECH? DO COMPANIES HAVE THE RIGHT TO SHOUT OUT THE NAME OF THEIR PRODUCT? IS THIS ALL AN UNHAPPY SIDE EFFECT OF CAPITALISM? OUI)

Now I will go back to the photograph, taken by the famous photographer, printed onto chemically treated paper smeared with silver halide ions and reproduced on different paper. I did not mention it before but the reproduction is on a larger scale from the original and is mounted. This image, now, may adorn the wall of an apartment, to influence and inspire whoever happens to visit the owner. Is this not a small scale version of a billboard poster? The owner displays her image as a peacock unfurls his tail. Perhaps the image will alter the way visitors to her flat perceive her. Maybe it will make them think she is discerning, dramatic, or colour blind. People use images as masks, emblems and personality extensions. They hope perhaps that the images they choose will subtly communicate something they hope or feel about themselves.

(I AM PROBABLY PARAPHRASING ROLAND BARTHES OR SUSAN SONTAG)

Phenomenology !!!

AESTHETIC FASCINATION IS SIMPLY EVERYWHERE

Why is karaoke embarrassing?

Reserved, polite

Ritual

Zen is to be dedicated, to appreciate and to simplify,

Ritual and repetition

Sending perfect little packages

A dried flower in an envelope

Haikus

My work is sort of about ritual, or about imperfection, or about peace.

Peace and illness

Haikus are regulated, they must contain a certain number of syllables and a word to do with spring.

I could perhaps write my essay on haiku. Or something similar, something that simplifies. Maybe something English as I am English, and I could mention the Japanese concept of wabi sabi, the un named thing

Britain has something similar.

And a corrupt history, and bloody warfare, and everything can be removed

Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’

What is the difference between the autonomy of modernist and postmodern works?

*What do we understand by the word ‘simulation’?

*How does it differ to ‘representation’?

*To what extent can artists’ use of existing objects (i.e., readymades) be considered acts of ‘intellectual consumption’?

BRANCUSI

DT: Tate Modern recently paired your neon

piece, Work No. 232: the whole world + the

work = the whole world, 2000, with Carl

Andre's 144 Magnesium Square, 1969, which

set up an interesting dialogue.

MC: I was happy with the pairing - partly

because he's a hero ofmine. I think he's a great

artist and his work has been an inspiration to

me, so in that way the pairing was very exciting.

But I think you could just about pair anything

with anything and it would make something.

MARTIN CREED

DT: That's an intriguing concept - the life model

as the artist'sa udience, or 'audient'perhaps.B ut

when the work is exhibited that process and those

thoughts become hidden, that meaning is lost -

all people see is afigurative portrait.

MC: Exactly, and that's always been something

that bothered me. I think that's why I

started making the kind of work I made

because it bothered me that the process was

not necessarily evident in the final work - I

thought the process was the important part.

In other words, if I could tell someone the

story of my attempt to make this thing -

including the final product - that would be

something worth seeing, whereas just seeing

the final object might not be. I often think of

the final work as actually being the bit left

over, after the artist has finished working.

DT: I think that notion relates to Work No.

61o: Sick Film, 2006, which marked a radical

departure from your previous work, in both fonn

and content.

MC: That came directly from doing slide talks

about my work. Over the years, as I was

doing more and more of these talks, I
realised that the slides were a kind of escape

route for me, a way of avoiding actually talking

about something, away from a dialogue.

So I started doing talks without slides and I

decided that the best way of talking about

making work was to try and make a work in

front of people, using words.

DT: Like apiece of pefornance?

MC: Aye, but I was just talking about my

work without slides - I was trying to make a

work using words. I would improvise, there

would be questions and often it would just

end up as a bit of a conversation, but it was

to try to take away some of the conventions

in order to make it more of a direct experience.

It just happened that in those talks I

kept talking about vomiting as being a good

example of what I thought making work is

like - getting from the inside out, trying to

make something on the outside of me that

rhymes with the inside of me. Vomiting is a

convulsion, it isn't a thought-through

process.

Guy Debord is pessimistic, hinting that bad faith has pervaded society as a whole. What did Sartre say about this? About bad faith in SOCIETY?

TO LOOK UP ONLINE

· The original society of the spectacle or Debord’s subtitled film

· Haikus

· Write up on Rebecca wheeler and the gasworks thing

· Artists who work with repetition

· Is guy debord an existentialist ora structuralist or neither nor

· Who was barthes influenced by?

· Find pdfs of nietzche (useful because he says that all knowledge is interpretation so might be a good source for a quote to link with psychogeorgraphy)

· Pdf of Sartre, kiirkegaard, heidigger (for possible quotes)

· Pdf of georges perec

· The names listed in the below article

· foucault

Authors who describe things exactly- the author of A Box Of Matches

Haiku still seems like a good idea

Haiku in relation to the internet age. Though still to consider an English equivalent. ?

Haiku in comparison to a photograph, wabi sabi, time passing

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/rebecca_warren.htm

The photograph reveals a singularity by capturing the punctum, a surprising

moment in time (that once was and is no longer). It is subject to history, belongs

to a certain culture and, above all, can be used as an instrument: photography

becomes an anthropological object.

(riley roland barthes pdf)

The image that knowledge can be reduced to a formula is bound to be criticized by some

and Barthes, himself, refused the universal for the singular. He asks: why could there not be, in some

way, a new science for every subject? A Mathesis singularis (and no longer universalis)?

This is perhaps similar to Husserl? No? it certainly goes against what baudrillard says, that we are becoming specialists who know a lot about a very little

Existentialist view of knowledge-knowledge is the collected experiences of an individual which can be proved ABSOLUTELY TRUE (existentialism book p71, Sartre, bad faith)

Although computer-mediated communication allows for greater connectivity to resources and information, some critics argue that life on the net, contribute to an incomplete lifestyle that

• Department of sociology, Tarbiat Modarres University. Email: info@mmohseni.com

^**Iranian information and documentation center. Email: Dowran@irandoc.ac.ir

^***Department of sociology, Tarbiat Modarres University. Email: m_hadisohrabi@yahoo.com Bangladesh e-Journal of Sociology. Volume 5 Number 1. January 2008 2

withdraws people from the full range of in-person contact and by getting them so engulfed in a simulacrum virtual reality, disconnects them from their families, friends and communities (Kraut, Lundmark, Patterson, Kiesler, Mukopadhyay and Scherlis 1998; Nie and Erbring 2000). There have been fears that by immersing people in the monitors, the Internet would weaken face-to-face community and domesticity.

(does the internet make people socially isolated pdf)

In light of this opposing sentiment, one can delineate two grand scenarios about how the Internet will affect people's social connections; pessimists and optimists. The Internet pessimists fear the creation of a post-modern world plagued with anomie and loneliness. They believe that global village finally destroys local communities. Internet optimists believe that the Internet provides new opportunities to meet people and increases the efficiency and speed of so many transactions that in turn saves time for other activities, including face-to-face interactions. The purpose of this article is to revisit this issue among Persian Internet users.

Is this article useful? Maybe only as a neat summary and provider of names

The current debate over the impact of Internet use on social ties can be traced back to the publication of Rheingold's (1993) influential book on virtual communities where the Internet was described as capable of bringing strangers together to form infinitive online network.

The debate was later extended to arguments about whether or not the growth of online connections is at the expense of offline relationships. Some studies have suggested that Internet use encourages the creation of online relationships, which in turn replace face-to-face contacts. Some quantitatively oriented researches sought to test the various hypotheses using survey data. Based on a longitudinal quasi-experiment study of 169 people in 73 households over a 2-year period in which they were each given a free computer and free access to the Internet, Kraut et al (1998) found that Internet use was detrimental to offline interpersonal relationships. According to their findings “greater use of the Internet was associated with declines in participant's communication with family members in the household, declines in the size of their social circle and increase in their depression and loneliness". Kraut et al (1998) have laid out a tentative theory that offers two main Bangladesh e-Journal of Sociology. Volume 5 Number 1. January 2008 3

explanations for the negative consequences observed. The first involves displacement of social activities, because the time spent online is unavailable for other activities. The second explanation advanced by Kraut is that Internet users replace strong face-to-face ties with weak online ties. In a sense, depth of social relationship is traded for breadth. Kraut and his associates dubbed the findings as "Internet paradox" because use of the Internet, a technology for social contact, actually led to reduction of offline social ties. This paradox argument received further support from "Nie and Erbring" report by the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society (Nie and Erbring, 2000). It shows that on average, the more time spent on the Internet, the less time spent with friends, family and colleagues.

However, the opposite findings have been reported as well. More surprisingly, in a follow up study of their earlier sample, Kraut et al (2001) discovered the exact opposite of what had previously been reported. Participants who used the Internet more, had larger increases in the size of their social network and face to face contacts and interaction with friends and family increased.

Maybe this means that initially the internet was seen to have a detrimental effect but as more and more people had access to it the lack of the internet became the disadvantage

The Internet supports the new society in which the interpersonal connectivity is based on social networks. The developed world is in the midst of a paradigm shift in the ways in which people, organizations and institutions are connected. The traditional human orientation to neighborhood and village-based groups is moving towards communities that are oriented around geographically-dispersed social networks.

Typically, analysts approach social networks in two ways: one approach considers the relations reported by a focal individual. These ego centered (or personal) networks provide views from the perspective of the persons (egos) at the centers of their networks. Members of the network are defined by their specific relations with ego. Analysts can build a picture of the network by counting the number of relations and diversity of relations. This ego-centered approach is particularly useful when the population is large or the boundaries of the population are hard to define. The second approach considers a whole network based on some specific criterion of population boundaries, such as a formal organization, department, club, or kinship group. A whole network describes the ties that all members of a population maintain with all others in that group. Egocentric network studies have often meshed well with traditional survey techniques. Researchers have typically interviewed a sample of respondents inquiring about composition, rational patterns and contents of their network. This approach is used in this research to study personal network of the respondents.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.htm

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/

The society which rests on modern industry is not accidentally or superficially spectacular, it is fundamentally spectaclist. In the spectacle, which is the image of the ruling economy, the goal is nothing, development everything. The spectacle aims at nothing other than itself.

This could be an important point- maybe I could look at some artists for whom the process is as important as the outcome, who fit in with this idea of the spectacle, but perhaps who are religious about their processes. What about those things in life for which ritual has always been important? Religion and ceremonies? Is following a religion or a ritual something vital for people and why? I think it is, perhaps because it is comforting, because the world seems so huge. In the spectacular capitalist world rituals include shopping and communication (people feel lost if they are isolated). What is isolated? What is being without ones phone in this world? What about people who have few friends and little money, who cannot even afford the expense of the internet café? What are rituals for these people?

Going for a walk?

Going to the library (assuming they can use the library)

They would, if they desired, make friends, probably people they met in the library, people who want to speak to them. Everything is left to chance really.

Are there artists who deal with isolation, with feeling alienated?

I don’t think it is so much the rituals I am interested in, though they are important as everyone has rituals, makes connections in a particular way, has routes they take (or methods for getting from one place to another). What is interesting for me at this second is the question ‘Is being isolated today any different from being isolated 200 years ago?’ Of course, most people confess to being lonely, everyone in fact is lonely, really, because everyone is different. There seems to be more emphasis on the individual today and yet there is still a common language we use to profess our individuality. Facebook and myspace, clothes, the places we go. Status symbols. It is all the same. People see the world differently, there is this layer of the abstract over everything now which was not there in the 18^th century. We have more acquaintances, but the same numbers of friends.

Perhaps how we acquire knowledge has changed more significantly than how we acquire friends. Today newcomers to a subject do not have to search for our information in a library, as a summary of almost anything can be found online. Professors have email addresses, there are websites that allow you to download essays, and there are forums for almost anything. The internet makes it easier to access the learning basics and one could assume that this is a good thing-the more people are exposed to learning, the more they are likely to continue learning. The internet makes learning available to everyone, not only the rich. The same can be said for the structure of university learning nowadays. Universities are no longer available to only the rich.

Am I a product of the spectacular society? Am I blind to things? Am I not allowed as much freedom of speech as I was a hundred years ago? How should I know? It seems to me that things have improved in terms of freedomof speech. Although I really can see how much of a difference capitalism has made, shopping is such a big part of our lives-rather than all becoming more comfortable peasants, we have become shabbier aristocrats. I suppose the rich are who people would have aspired to be but why? Why did we follow those who have forgotten how to look after themselves, who know what they want but not necessarily how to get it? Was it the nice clothes? Or the air of superiority? Or simply the fact that these guys were the ones who had the power? It is hard to say. In one of Socrates’ dialogues an opponent of Socrates suggested that virtue was whatever the people in power suggested it was. (the sophists?) is this true? I really do not know.

I would like to hold a series of conversations about a vase

Classes

Discussion groups

Can we discuss this picture of x?

IDEAS in situationism-

Them moment, the transitory moment, how important is this actually in situationism?? The fundamental choice. The feeling of being someone in the world who is able to make choices.

My work is about capturing a moment of time but surely that is invalid when the only people whose it are art students?

Existence, ritual etc

Maybe this initial essay could address problems of participation

Then my dissertation could look at the moment in time, the idea of ritual and of existing and the disorientating ‘spectacular’ world.

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/confused-bow-down-north-korea-obama-where-are-you

It is important to distinguish

between the concepts of participative art and

participatory art projects. The latter describes artworks

in which the artist uses participation as a component of

art making. In participative art projects however,

participation IS the project and the artist creates the

framework allowing for participation with no preconceived

ideas of the outcome. As in participative

democracy or participative management it is not so

much the fact that people participate that matters but

rather the fact that participation is the main principle

governing human interactions in such models.

(participation in contemporary art)

An essay on participation would have to take into account relational aesthetics

http://www.springerin.at/dyn/heft_text.php?textid=1761&lang=en

(Participatory Art: A Paradigm Shift from Objects to Subjects, Suzana Milevska)

Theorists

of "participatory" democracy such as jean-Jacques

Rousseau in the eighteenth century, John Stuart Mill in

the nineteenth, JDrgen Habermas in the twentieth, and

today's Cass Sunstein have stressed that active and

civil give-and-take among people of differing views is a

bedrock of informed and socially responsible citizenry.'

(interactive art for a challenged democracy)

Traditionally artworks last and can be seen or

experienced at any time. Contemporary artists have

explored time sensitive artworks that can only be

experienced under specific conditions or at a specific

date and time.

Robert Barry - Sent a message to let the public know

that “This morning half a cubic meter of helium was

released in the atmosphere”. The artwork only exists

through that message and the connection it created.

Christian Boltanski - Mail-art. Sent a vague and

alarming letter to his friends and acquaintances and

documented their reactions.

On Kawara - Sent numerous telegrams to inform his

public that “he is still alive”.

Liam Gillick - Designed a conference room in 1999 with

geometric furniture and specific walls configuration. A

real symposium was held in the room as part of the

installation.

Karen Kilimnik - Created a series of drawings are based

on her address book thus creating connections between

people on many levels.

Meetings and Conviviality

Artworks can also work as machines generating

encounters or meetings of all kinds. Here are a few

examples:

Braco Dimitrijevic - “Casual Passer-by” a series of giant

advertising posters based on photos of anonymous

passer-by and giving the status of celebrity to unknown

and unaware individuals.

Sophie Calle - Most of her work is based on meeting

with people she doesn’t know: followed passer-by,

hired as a maid in a hotel she searched hotel rooms

etc..

Philippe Parreno - Organized a party at the Consortium

exhibition in Dijon France. His project aimed at using

time rather that space during the art fair. The “party”

generated meetings and conviviality.

Rirkrit Tiravanija - In one famous instance, in a Cologne

gallery, Tiravanija re-created his East Village

apartment, where he cooked and served food for 24

hours. In another instance he created a relaxation

space for artists during an art fair.

Contract and Collaboration

Other contemporary artists have explored contractual

relationship and collaborative art processes.

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster - “Welcome to what you

believe you see” (1988) the artist documented his

relationship with various gallery owners he worked

with.

Noritoshi Hirakawa - Created forms based on chance

encounter – for a show in Geneva (1994) he placed an

ad in a newspaper seeking a travel companion to

Greece. Documenting the travel was the material of his

artwork.

Alix Lambert - Wedding piece (1992) – got married four

times in six months as part of her exploring marriage

relationships.

Maurizio Cattelan - Designed a costume of a rabbit for

gallery owner Emmanuel Perrotin who had to wear the

costume in his gallery as part of the project.

(participation in contemporary art)

Tonight online-

· search the names of those psychologists from the ‘internet’ article

· search some of the above artists to find an artefact

· pdf interactive art

http://www.bookforum.com/

There was, as a characteristic

feature of modernist life and thought, a belief

in the autonomous agency of the artist, transcending

history, to speak on behalf of the other. While challenging

western culture's myth of autonomy, especially

as the individual was subjected to the ideological and

economic constraints of modernity, the artist nonetheless

presumed a freedom from those limits. However,

linked with agency in its operation seemed to be a

responsibility for historical critique - if artists could

stand outside history through autonomy, then they,

like the angel of history, were uniquely capable of illuminating

it for those still dwelling in the catastrophe.

Certainly it is faith in the redemptive properties of this

mechanism's operation that seems to impel Benjamin's

writing about modernist culture. In Modernism's

obsolescence this articulation of parts of the apparatus

has become completely detached. This separation

allows artists to make a claim for the performance of

autonomy, inevitably rendered through the material of

the everyday. In this they are, supposedly, reuniting

art and life but without ever accepting the necessity of

critique except when, in acts of supreme nihilism -

typified on the one hand by Banksy's 'how you conform

whilst appearing to oppose' graffiti, and on the

other by the entire mode of 'institutional critique' -

presenting that destructive critique as, itself, a commodity

form to be consumed within the systems it

purports to destroy. The claim that was made for

Sherman and Prince in the 8os, that the very act of

transformation is understood as itself a critique,

neglects the degree to which the autonomous sphere

of art has been subsumed by celebrity, mass culture

and the marketplace.

(knowledge and spectacle)

Do not forget this

Ever

Is my work entirely narcissistic? Is there any point whatsoever in doing what I tried to do??

KATHARINA SEDA or ACADEMIA

What evidence is there, in fact, that art helps anything, affects anything?

- Narcissism in thinking that everyday life can be used as art.

An issue I have is that my work is partly very personal, a collection of things I like, and partly a critique, albeit a weak one, on postmodernism. I clearly do not love the practical side, therefore it makes sense for me to concentrate on the thought

Heraclitus-you never step in the same river twice…in current society,or the society of the spectacle, you run the risk of stepping into the same river again and again.

Guy Debord's thesis number 19o concisely

defines the paradox at the heart of twentiethcentury

art practices-the demand for an impossible

permanent revolution, the mediation of an

unmediated, authentic experience, and the constant

pull of both past and future, progress and

decadence. The recent spate of artists' re-enactments

of historical events and performances

seems caught up in this dialectic, haunted by

Debord's paralyzing circular discourse

Art in the period of deconstruction