BIO
Curt Cloninger is an artist, writer, and Associate Professor of New Media at the University of North Carolina Asheville. His art undermines language as a system of meaning in order to reveal it as an embodied force in the world. His art work has been featured in the New York Times and at festivals and galleries from Korea to Brazil. Exhibition venues include Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Granoff Center for The Creative Arts (Brown University), Digital Art Museum [DAM] (Berlin), Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art (Chicago), Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, and the internet. He is the recipient of several grants and awards, including commissions for the creation of new artwork from the National Endowment for the Arts (via Turbulence.org) and Austin Peay State University's Terminal Award.
Cloninger has written on a wide range of topics, including new media and internet art, installation and performance art, experimental graphic design, popular music, network culture, and continental philosophy. His articles have appeared in Intelligent Agent, Mute, Paste, Tekka, Rhizome Digest, A List Apart, and on ABC World News. He is also the author of eight books, most recently One Per Year (Link Editions). He maintains lab404.com, playdamage.org , and deepyoung.org in hopes of facilitating a more lively remote dialogue with the Sundry Contagions of Wonder.
Cloninger has written on a wide range of topics, including new media and internet art, installation and performance art, experimental graphic design, popular music, network culture, and continental philosophy. His articles have appeared in Intelligent Agent, Mute, Paste, Tekka, Rhizome Digest, A List Apart, and on ABC World News. He is also the author of eight books, most recently One Per Year (Link Editions). He maintains lab404.com, playdamage.org , and deepyoung.org in hopes of facilitating a more lively remote dialogue with the Sundry Contagions of Wonder.
Re: Re: im_mobile
Hi Michael (and Jess),
I like the music a lot and wouldn't have enjoyed the piece nearly as much without it. I think that song is very strong in and of itself, and I do agree that it is not background music for the visuals. If anything, the visuals are a sort of background meditation or visual commentary on the music. The piece foregrounds the song, treating it as something important, something worthy of serious consideration, contemplation, and dialogue. In so doing, it recontextualizes the song from yet another Bowie space song and it forces us to take this paraticular one seriously. The song is actually very profound, epic, and sweeping (about death via detatchment). All that import is already resident in the song (masked by pop music connotations). This piece just brings it out and makes us chew on it.
The piece makes me thing of Roeg's "The Man Who Fell to Earth" because both juxtapose cosmic themes with earthly normalcy. The Man Who Fell to Earth is ostensibly sci-fi, but it's got cowboy music, flashbacks to 1800s settlers, and a lot of normal mid-1970s settings. Bowie's car is a classic pimpmobile. Here's a favorite quote from the film which seems applicable to Jess's piece:
"The strange thing about television is that it doesn't tell you everything. You see everything about life on earth and yet the true mysteries remain. Perhaps that's in the nature of television, just waves in space."
curt
Michael Szpakowski wrote:
> Hi Jess
>
> <stand up on their own without the music
> (although its nice of you to suggest it does:)>
>
> well...I *do* absolutely think it does.. I suppose I'm
> just cautious ( and I take everything you say about
> the purpose of the series) of the visceral power of
> loud popular music ( which don't get me wrong, I like
> in many contexts) rather overwhelming what seems to me
> quite a delicate and intricate sensibility and piece
> of work. I suppose I've just spent lots of time
> recently thinking about & becoming more and more
> gripped by linear, non interactive, non generative
> sequences of images & moved and absorbed by the
> smallest detail in these - the music feels like it's
> competing for my attention in a rather unfair contest.
> <I have also seen a lot of
> your short movies in a group recently too.>
> thanks for looking!
> < talks about micro-
> narratives? is that what you are moving towards...?>
> I honestly don't have a plan -perhaps this is a
> weakness - I get up in the morning and if I have time
> and an idea I make a short movie, rather like making
> an entry in a diary - at the moment I'm doing stuff
> with found footage & -loosely- "remakes" but I'm not
> interested in plowing a furrow except the bare fact of
> continuing to make the sequence; content wise I try
> just to do something *I'd* like to watch..
> best
> michael
I like the music a lot and wouldn't have enjoyed the piece nearly as much without it. I think that song is very strong in and of itself, and I do agree that it is not background music for the visuals. If anything, the visuals are a sort of background meditation or visual commentary on the music. The piece foregrounds the song, treating it as something important, something worthy of serious consideration, contemplation, and dialogue. In so doing, it recontextualizes the song from yet another Bowie space song and it forces us to take this paraticular one seriously. The song is actually very profound, epic, and sweeping (about death via detatchment). All that import is already resident in the song (masked by pop music connotations). This piece just brings it out and makes us chew on it.
The piece makes me thing of Roeg's "The Man Who Fell to Earth" because both juxtapose cosmic themes with earthly normalcy. The Man Who Fell to Earth is ostensibly sci-fi, but it's got cowboy music, flashbacks to 1800s settlers, and a lot of normal mid-1970s settings. Bowie's car is a classic pimpmobile. Here's a favorite quote from the film which seems applicable to Jess's piece:
"The strange thing about television is that it doesn't tell you everything. You see everything about life on earth and yet the true mysteries remain. Perhaps that's in the nature of television, just waves in space."
curt
Michael Szpakowski wrote:
> Hi Jess
>
> <stand up on their own without the music
> (although its nice of you to suggest it does:)>
>
> well...I *do* absolutely think it does.. I suppose I'm
> just cautious ( and I take everything you say about
> the purpose of the series) of the visceral power of
> loud popular music ( which don't get me wrong, I like
> in many contexts) rather overwhelming what seems to me
> quite a delicate and intricate sensibility and piece
> of work. I suppose I've just spent lots of time
> recently thinking about & becoming more and more
> gripped by linear, non interactive, non generative
> sequences of images & moved and absorbed by the
> smallest detail in these - the music feels like it's
> competing for my attention in a rather unfair contest.
> <I have also seen a lot of
> your short movies in a group recently too.>
> thanks for looking!
> < talks about micro-
> narratives? is that what you are moving towards...?>
> I honestly don't have a plan -perhaps this is a
> weakness - I get up in the morning and if I have time
> and an idea I make a short movie, rather like making
> an entry in a diary - at the moment I'm doing stuff
> with found footage & -loosely- "remakes" but I'm not
> interested in plowing a furrow except the bare fact of
> continuing to make the sequence; content wise I try
> just to do something *I'd* like to watch..
> best
> michael
Re: Call for Proposals at Readme 100 Software Art Factory
This project actually beat me to the punch. My next post in the "_ this concept" series was going to be...
+++++++++++++++++++++
subcontract this concept: art-starz-r-us inc.
PRECEDENCES:
Corporations have been hiring marketing firms to make them look good forever. Those marketing firms in turn hire graphic design firms, many of whom turn around and hire freelance designers.
Damien Hirst, Mariko Mori, etc. subcontract out their larger installation pieces to be build by other folks.
Teen boy groups like Menudo and New Kids on the Block are created and pimped by A&R record executives to be the next new thing. "We make you big star."
CONCEPT:
You long since stopped "making" art. Why waste your precious time even coming up with the concepts! You just want to be an art star, no mucking about. Skip the middle man and simply subcontract out the entire lot -- ideas, craft, implementation, and marketing. If you meet our criteria (got the look, the verve, the drive, that special something), we'll make you an art star. Our generative semiotic software will come up with your name (N.N., dextro, stanza, eBoy, Linda Lovelace, etc.) and the name of your art movement (neen, telic, etc.). We will construct an artsy public persona for you, and even hire a good looking stand-in (think Matthew Barney or Bjork) should your newly found professional art lifestyle cause you to add on some unsightly pounds. We'll select the central theme of your life's work (based on our in-house marketing studies), and begin cranking out the "pieces" proper.
We'll come up with the ideas, implement them, pimp them around to galleries, and even hire degreed art critics to write obtuse essays about your work that reference at least five 20th century french philosophers, and of course McLuhan (out of context).
You didn't get into this artmtaking thing to explore existence or get your hands dirty with actual media. You don't really even want to say anything in particular. You just want to say it loudly where everyone can hear it. We feel you, dog. You're our kind of contemporary artist.
INSTRUCTIONS:
Don't call us, we'll call you. We're not looking for talent (we got the talent); we're just looking for someone willing to "sell their soul 4 rock n' roll," as the saying goes. We'll get 85% of all profits, and we'll have the option to use your (our) brand in the Japanese toy and t-shirt market. You'll get your 15 minutes, and then some! Pleased to meet you. Hope you guessed my name (no, not charles saatchi, the other one).
+++++++++++++++++++++
Leonardo wrote:
> Readme 100 software art factory presents
>
> Open Call for Proposals
> Get your Software Art Piece Done for Free
> OUTSOURCE ME!
> http://outsource.solaas.com.ar
>
> Have you ever dreamt of having a piece of software art (1) you could
> call truly yours? Or had the feeling that most media art is dull, and
> that you could do it better? Or had a marvelous idea you could not
> realize for lack of time, commitment or expertise?
> Well, your chance has come.
>
> No need to mess around with abstruse programs or bother with dreary
> code. The world is full of people willing to do the hard work for you.
> That’s what outsourcing is about. Those are the rules of the global
> electronic market.
>
> It doesn’t cost much. Actually, just for this time it will cost you
> nothing.
>
> Leonardo Solaas, an Argentinean programmer and net artist, suggests
> reversing the rules: only once it is not the programmer who is chosen
> by the employer but it is the employer who is chosen by the
> programmer. He is looking for someone to tell him what to do, thus
> himself outsourcing the task of getting an idea.
> Submit yours! Become his boss! Submit your ideas at
> http://outsource.solaas.com.ar till October 3rd, and you could be the
> lucky winner of a possibility to implement YOUR piece of software
> art.
> If Leonardo chooses your concept, he will become your outsourced
> Contractor for
> this work, and you will be his Employer.
>
> You could learn about Leonardo’s skills and interests (at
> http://solaas.com.ar/outsource/leonardo) to figure out whether your
> proposal would fit his experience.
>
> All this is made possible by Readme 100 Temporary Software Art Factory
> (2) (a.k.a. the MetaEmployer). The resulting piece will be presented
> at a festival taking place on November 4-5, 2005, in the State and
> City Library of Dortmund, Germany.
> _____________________________
>
> 1. For those who are not sure what software art is, please, learn more
> at http://runme.org/faq.tt2
> 2. http://readme.runme.org
+++++++++++++++++++++
subcontract this concept: art-starz-r-us inc.
PRECEDENCES:
Corporations have been hiring marketing firms to make them look good forever. Those marketing firms in turn hire graphic design firms, many of whom turn around and hire freelance designers.
Damien Hirst, Mariko Mori, etc. subcontract out their larger installation pieces to be build by other folks.
Teen boy groups like Menudo and New Kids on the Block are created and pimped by A&R record executives to be the next new thing. "We make you big star."
CONCEPT:
You long since stopped "making" art. Why waste your precious time even coming up with the concepts! You just want to be an art star, no mucking about. Skip the middle man and simply subcontract out the entire lot -- ideas, craft, implementation, and marketing. If you meet our criteria (got the look, the verve, the drive, that special something), we'll make you an art star. Our generative semiotic software will come up with your name (N.N., dextro, stanza, eBoy, Linda Lovelace, etc.) and the name of your art movement (neen, telic, etc.). We will construct an artsy public persona for you, and even hire a good looking stand-in (think Matthew Barney or Bjork) should your newly found professional art lifestyle cause you to add on some unsightly pounds. We'll select the central theme of your life's work (based on our in-house marketing studies), and begin cranking out the "pieces" proper.
We'll come up with the ideas, implement them, pimp them around to galleries, and even hire degreed art critics to write obtuse essays about your work that reference at least five 20th century french philosophers, and of course McLuhan (out of context).
You didn't get into this artmtaking thing to explore existence or get your hands dirty with actual media. You don't really even want to say anything in particular. You just want to say it loudly where everyone can hear it. We feel you, dog. You're our kind of contemporary artist.
INSTRUCTIONS:
Don't call us, we'll call you. We're not looking for talent (we got the talent); we're just looking for someone willing to "sell their soul 4 rock n' roll," as the saying goes. We'll get 85% of all profits, and we'll have the option to use your (our) brand in the Japanese toy and t-shirt market. You'll get your 15 minutes, and then some! Pleased to meet you. Hope you guessed my name (no, not charles saatchi, the other one).
+++++++++++++++++++++
Leonardo wrote:
> Readme 100 software art factory presents
>
> Open Call for Proposals
> Get your Software Art Piece Done for Free
> OUTSOURCE ME!
> http://outsource.solaas.com.ar
>
> Have you ever dreamt of having a piece of software art (1) you could
> call truly yours? Or had the feeling that most media art is dull, and
> that you could do it better? Or had a marvelous idea you could not
> realize for lack of time, commitment or expertise?
> Well, your chance has come.
>
> No need to mess around with abstruse programs or bother with dreary
> code. The world is full of people willing to do the hard work for you.
> That’s what outsourcing is about. Those are the rules of the global
> electronic market.
>
> It doesn’t cost much. Actually, just for this time it will cost you
> nothing.
>
> Leonardo Solaas, an Argentinean programmer and net artist, suggests
> reversing the rules: only once it is not the programmer who is chosen
> by the employer but it is the employer who is chosen by the
> programmer. He is looking for someone to tell him what to do, thus
> himself outsourcing the task of getting an idea.
> Submit yours! Become his boss! Submit your ideas at
> http://outsource.solaas.com.ar till October 3rd, and you could be the
> lucky winner of a possibility to implement YOUR piece of software
> art.
> If Leonardo chooses your concept, he will become your outsourced
> Contractor for
> this work, and you will be his Employer.
>
> You could learn about Leonardo’s skills and interests (at
> http://solaas.com.ar/outsource/leonardo) to figure out whether your
> proposal would fit his experience.
>
> All this is made possible by Readme 100 Temporary Software Art Factory
> (2) (a.k.a. the MetaEmployer). The resulting piece will be presented
> at a festival taking place on November 4-5, 2005, in the State and
> City Library of Dortmund, Germany.
> _____________________________
>
> 1. For those who are not sure what software art is, please, learn more
> at http://runme.org/faq.tt2
> 2. http://readme.runme.org
wayne coyne was my andy warhol
[in keeping with the series]
wayne coyne was my andy warhol
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0007NN6J2/
..........................
the meat puppets were my allman brothers
the minutemen were my mingus
roald dahl was my robert louis stevenson
vaughan oliver was my david carson
nick cave was my bob dylan
lou reed was my bruce springsteen
athens georgia was my greenwich village
entropy8.com was my jodi.org
neil young was my walt whitman
lester bangs was my thoreau
bosch was my dali
the stooges were my grateful dead
arvo part was my john cage
captain beefheart was my duke ellington
the secret garden was my paradise lost
terry gilliam was my fellini
emily dickinson was my ferlinghetti
augustine was my derrida
henry rollins was my nietzsche
radiohead was my sartre
coltrane was my coltrane
i had no yoko ono
wayne coyne was my andy warhol
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0007NN6J2/
..........................
the meat puppets were my allman brothers
the minutemen were my mingus
roald dahl was my robert louis stevenson
vaughan oliver was my david carson
nick cave was my bob dylan
lou reed was my bruce springsteen
athens georgia was my greenwich village
entropy8.com was my jodi.org
neil young was my walt whitman
lester bangs was my thoreau
bosch was my dali
the stooges were my grateful dead
arvo part was my john cage
captain beefheart was my duke ellington
the secret garden was my paradise lost
terry gilliam was my fellini
emily dickinson was my ferlinghetti
augustine was my derrida
henry rollins was my nietzsche
radiohead was my sartre
coltrane was my coltrane
i had no yoko ono
Re: Re: two things (not an exhaustive list) about which I was wrong on this list
Thanks Michael,
That all makes sense.
I haven't seen Emin's drawings, so I can't comment.
Regarding MTAA, I'm surprised at how frequently I wind up showing
their work to students as an example of this or that conceptual
approach. For whatever reason, it is pedagogically illustrative and
object-lesson oriented (while still being funny). We had a lively
discussion in class the other day about the relative merits of:
http://www.mccoyspace.com/201/
vs.
http://mteww.com/RAM/
(but my favorite is still:
http://mteww.com/five_small_videos/on_then_off/ )
peace,
curt
At 3:47 PM -0700 9/8/05, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
>Hi Curt
>< I'm not trying to put you on the spot or anything,>
>
>well I pretty much invited it..
>
><what you thought about the works before...2. what you
>think about them now...3. (most interestingly) what
>changed in your understanding that caused you to
>appreciate them>
>I *was* pretty splenetic about Data Diaries - a few
>things came together on that but the gist of my
>position was that it was a one liner - essentially
>fairly disposable conceptualism with some almost
>optional visuals and sounds ( and way too many of
>them, in that I felt then that they were there just to
>*illustrate the point*) that came with the "idea".
>Furthermore Alex Galloway in his intro piece made a
>big point, indeed a virtue, ( and of course it was
>entirely unfair of me to take this out on the work
>itself) of that fact that it stemmed from a clever but
>essentially very quick hack.
>I would want to say that I find the one liner culture
>in general a depressing thing & that I see lots of
>work that gives me no reason to feel any more
>charitable to it than I did then. The artistic one
>liner currently comes, as you know, almost inevitably
>with some sort of explicatory statement, usually by
>the artist her/himself although in this case the
>honours were done by Alex Galloway. In general, its
>something I'm pretty uncomfortable with since the
>pairing of one liner and usually theory laden
>explanation is often at kindest banale.
>Nevertheless I was wrong about Data Diaries.
>The main reason is that I was blind then to the fact
>that the work is simply enormously beautiful - I've
>spent a lot of the past two years thinking about film
>and video both theoretically and practically and I
>think that this has perhaps improved my *looking* - I
>do see the piece in a completely different way now
>-I've also recognised ( and said elsewhere) that I've
>come to understand that artists whom I don't greatly
>care for have made it possible for me to use -rather
>conservatised -forms of their innovations within my
>own work and this has made me less ready to rush to
>judgement.
>Secondly I feel less dogmatic than I did about the
>artist statement, again partly through personal
>experience; whilst I hope never ever to be caught
>quoting Baudrillard in speaking about my work I
>realised practically that when people ask me questions
>about it I'm not averse to answering, either
>artistically and technically, so it seem both
>hypocritical and perverse to rail *on principle*
>against those who provide such answers in advance (
>when they write crap, as is so often the case, because
>someone has told them that what artists do is to write
>inpenetrable artists statements, they are of course
>entirely fair game). I also have thought a great deal
>about how art fits into society more generally,and
>the more I think about it the more it seems to me that
>the life of any artwork exists way beyond the
>boundaries of the work itself, indeed way beyond the
>artworld - it's part of an huge ongoing conversation
>between human beings, some of whom are members of the
>"artworld" many of whom are not -this is what a
>"tradition" is, or rather this is what a tradition is
>part of. "Everything is connected" as good old
>Vladimir Ilyich so rightly said.
> So I now accept the factual content of Galloway's
>introduction as a helpful and enlightening contexting
>of the piece.
>Lastly, I think I was rather stuck up about craft -
>I'm not recanting here, it's something I'll continue
>to fly the flag for *but*
>(a) Data Diaries *is* *very* clever -and a bit like
>jazz improvisation, which we've discussed before, the
>act of creating a particular, apparently effortless (
>not quite effortless, I'm trying to say something like
>apparently-unstriven-for) piece has to be put into
>the context of all the preparatory work on pieces or
>solos that necessarily prepared the artist for *this
>one*
>(b) which of us has not made work that contains whole
>strings of accidents? I think my former , rather
>prudish, account of how an artist worked, couched in
>terms of an initial vision realised through a highly
>controlled craft process simply doesn't match up to
>the evidence of my own making experience ( and what my
>increasingly educated eye reads in the work of
>others.)
>which is maybe 50-80% planning and craft, 20-50%
>accident.
>Another factor that helped along my change of mind was
>my growing appreciation of the work of MTAA, to which
>I was originally quite hostile, but which gradually
>really got under my skin for a number of reasons -
>wit, a way of generating real substance from quite
>flimsy conceptualist premises and last but not least
>the fact that craft-wise their work is always *so*
>irreproachably made.
>I think my essential postition and tastes have not
>substantially altered from those I've argued and
>displayed here on a number of occasions - what I think
>has changed is that I'm looking and thinking better -
>I've understood that work I intially dismissed has
>merits that with a little bit of wriggle room are
>pretty much within my consciously articulated tastes
>-of course enjoying them viscerally is the key test,
>the thing that always come first.
>This brings me on to Emin. Didn't like her at all -now
>a lot of what she does, I do like -especially the
>drawings & the embroidery pieces & it's a visceral,
>not an intellectual change - the drawings were the way
>in.For the last year or so I've been struggling with
>drawing, which I find *really* difficult but also
>fascinating and absorbing - I saw some of Emin's a few
>months back and they *moved* me.
>'Bed' seems to me pretty dull, derivative and lazy &
>but I now think this is the exception and that I was
>wrong about her in general.
>The reason that I posted the original "recantation"
>was that I enjoy enormously the stimulation of being
>involved with discussions here about work - I don't
>think *my* change of heart is of any great
>significance to anyone but I did want to say in all
>honesty that I think I did make two serious errors of
>judgement - I don't feel guilty or anything but I
>wanted to offer testimony of a mind changing through
>doing, looking, thought and discussion.
>warmest wishes
>michael
That all makes sense.
I haven't seen Emin's drawings, so I can't comment.
Regarding MTAA, I'm surprised at how frequently I wind up showing
their work to students as an example of this or that conceptual
approach. For whatever reason, it is pedagogically illustrative and
object-lesson oriented (while still being funny). We had a lively
discussion in class the other day about the relative merits of:
http://www.mccoyspace.com/201/
vs.
http://mteww.com/RAM/
(but my favorite is still:
http://mteww.com/five_small_videos/on_then_off/ )
peace,
curt
At 3:47 PM -0700 9/8/05, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
>Hi Curt
>< I'm not trying to put you on the spot or anything,>
>
>well I pretty much invited it..
>
><what you thought about the works before...2. what you
>think about them now...3. (most interestingly) what
>changed in your understanding that caused you to
>appreciate them>
>I *was* pretty splenetic about Data Diaries - a few
>things came together on that but the gist of my
>position was that it was a one liner - essentially
>fairly disposable conceptualism with some almost
>optional visuals and sounds ( and way too many of
>them, in that I felt then that they were there just to
>*illustrate the point*) that came with the "idea".
>Furthermore Alex Galloway in his intro piece made a
>big point, indeed a virtue, ( and of course it was
>entirely unfair of me to take this out on the work
>itself) of that fact that it stemmed from a clever but
>essentially very quick hack.
>I would want to say that I find the one liner culture
>in general a depressing thing & that I see lots of
>work that gives me no reason to feel any more
>charitable to it than I did then. The artistic one
>liner currently comes, as you know, almost inevitably
>with some sort of explicatory statement, usually by
>the artist her/himself although in this case the
>honours were done by Alex Galloway. In general, its
>something I'm pretty uncomfortable with since the
>pairing of one liner and usually theory laden
>explanation is often at kindest banale.
>Nevertheless I was wrong about Data Diaries.
>The main reason is that I was blind then to the fact
>that the work is simply enormously beautiful - I've
>spent a lot of the past two years thinking about film
>and video both theoretically and practically and I
>think that this has perhaps improved my *looking* - I
>do see the piece in a completely different way now
>-I've also recognised ( and said elsewhere) that I've
>come to understand that artists whom I don't greatly
>care for have made it possible for me to use -rather
>conservatised -forms of their innovations within my
>own work and this has made me less ready to rush to
>judgement.
>Secondly I feel less dogmatic than I did about the
>artist statement, again partly through personal
>experience; whilst I hope never ever to be caught
>quoting Baudrillard in speaking about my work I
>realised practically that when people ask me questions
>about it I'm not averse to answering, either
>artistically and technically, so it seem both
>hypocritical and perverse to rail *on principle*
>against those who provide such answers in advance (
>when they write crap, as is so often the case, because
>someone has told them that what artists do is to write
>inpenetrable artists statements, they are of course
>entirely fair game). I also have thought a great deal
>about how art fits into society more generally,and
>the more I think about it the more it seems to me that
>the life of any artwork exists way beyond the
>boundaries of the work itself, indeed way beyond the
>artworld - it's part of an huge ongoing conversation
>between human beings, some of whom are members of the
>"artworld" many of whom are not -this is what a
>"tradition" is, or rather this is what a tradition is
>part of. "Everything is connected" as good old
>Vladimir Ilyich so rightly said.
> So I now accept the factual content of Galloway's
>introduction as a helpful and enlightening contexting
>of the piece.
>Lastly, I think I was rather stuck up about craft -
>I'm not recanting here, it's something I'll continue
>to fly the flag for *but*
>(a) Data Diaries *is* *very* clever -and a bit like
>jazz improvisation, which we've discussed before, the
>act of creating a particular, apparently effortless (
>not quite effortless, I'm trying to say something like
>apparently-unstriven-for) piece has to be put into
>the context of all the preparatory work on pieces or
>solos that necessarily prepared the artist for *this
>one*
>(b) which of us has not made work that contains whole
>strings of accidents? I think my former , rather
>prudish, account of how an artist worked, couched in
>terms of an initial vision realised through a highly
>controlled craft process simply doesn't match up to
>the evidence of my own making experience ( and what my
>increasingly educated eye reads in the work of
>others.)
>which is maybe 50-80% planning and craft, 20-50%
>accident.
>Another factor that helped along my change of mind was
>my growing appreciation of the work of MTAA, to which
>I was originally quite hostile, but which gradually
>really got under my skin for a number of reasons -
>wit, a way of generating real substance from quite
>flimsy conceptualist premises and last but not least
>the fact that craft-wise their work is always *so*
>irreproachably made.
>I think my essential postition and tastes have not
>substantially altered from those I've argued and
>displayed here on a number of occasions - what I think
>has changed is that I'm looking and thinking better -
>I've understood that work I intially dismissed has
>merits that with a little bit of wriggle room are
>pretty much within my consciously articulated tastes
>-of course enjoying them viscerally is the key test,
>the thing that always come first.
>This brings me on to Emin. Didn't like her at all -now
>a lot of what she does, I do like -especially the
>drawings & the embroidery pieces & it's a visceral,
>not an intellectual change - the drawings were the way
>in.For the last year or so I've been struggling with
>drawing, which I find *really* difficult but also
>fascinating and absorbing - I saw some of Emin's a few
>months back and they *moved* me.
>'Bed' seems to me pretty dull, derivative and lazy &
>but I now think this is the exception and that I was
>wrong about her in general.
>The reason that I posted the original "recantation"
>was that I enjoy enormously the stimulation of being
>involved with discussions here about work - I don't
>think *my* change of heart is of any great
>significance to anyone but I did want to say in all
>honesty that I think I did make two serious errors of
>judgement - I don't feel guilty or anything but I
>wanted to offer testimony of a mind changing through
>doing, looking, thought and discussion.
>warmest wishes
>michael
Re: two things (not an exhaustive list) about which I was wrong on this list
Hi Michael,
I'm not trying to put you on the spot or anything, but it would be interesting to hear you expound a bit more on:
1. what you thought about the works before
2. what you think about them now
3. (most interestingly) what changed in your understanding that caused you to appreciate them.
Personally, I like data diaries on several different levels, not the least of which is abstract/aesthetic.
Tracy Emin's work still seems awkward. So much of its alleged impact is derived from Emin's alleegedly self-aware situationing of the work vis-a-vis the context of the artworld stage she's been given, which in turn undermines any endearing outsider impact the work might otherwise have had. I love the rhetorical deftness of this dis (by Richard Dorment): "What interests me about Emin is not her relentless self-absorption, limitless self-pity or compulsion to confess the sad details of her past life, but that all of this adds up to so little of real interest." Ouch.
Are you up to defending "My Bed," or is it her entire oeuvre that need be considered?
peace,
curt
Michael Szpakowski wrote:
> For anyone who cares:
> I was wrong about Tracey Emin - it's a body of work of
> real substance & I'm now especially taken by her
> drawing.
> I was also dead wrong about Cory Arcangel's Data
> Diaries -I've been looking at these again prompted by
> a post on Doron's DV Blog & I think they're great ( I
> love the sound in particular, but its all good)
>
> In both cases it was a combination of personal
> experience ( so, getting stuck into drawing & also
> doing hard practical thinking about lots of different
> approaches to video) but also mulling ( over some
> time) over stuff discussed , points made, here on RAW
> that made me (a) appreciate the value of stuff I
> hadn't really got before & (b) come to slightly more
> nuanced positions on some of the philosophical issues.
> best
> michael
>
I'm not trying to put you on the spot or anything, but it would be interesting to hear you expound a bit more on:
1. what you thought about the works before
2. what you think about them now
3. (most interestingly) what changed in your understanding that caused you to appreciate them.
Personally, I like data diaries on several different levels, not the least of which is abstract/aesthetic.
Tracy Emin's work still seems awkward. So much of its alleged impact is derived from Emin's alleegedly self-aware situationing of the work vis-a-vis the context of the artworld stage she's been given, which in turn undermines any endearing outsider impact the work might otherwise have had. I love the rhetorical deftness of this dis (by Richard Dorment): "What interests me about Emin is not her relentless self-absorption, limitless self-pity or compulsion to confess the sad details of her past life, but that all of this adds up to so little of real interest." Ouch.
Are you up to defending "My Bed," or is it her entire oeuvre that need be considered?
peace,
curt
Michael Szpakowski wrote:
> For anyone who cares:
> I was wrong about Tracey Emin - it's a body of work of
> real substance & I'm now especially taken by her
> drawing.
> I was also dead wrong about Cory Arcangel's Data
> Diaries -I've been looking at these again prompted by
> a post on Doron's DV Blog & I think they're great ( I
> love the sound in particular, but its all good)
>
> In both cases it was a combination of personal
> experience ( so, getting stuck into drawing & also
> doing hard practical thinking about lots of different
> approaches to video) but also mulling ( over some
> time) over stuff discussed , points made, here on RAW
> that made me (a) appreciate the value of stuff I
> hadn't really got before & (b) come to slightly more
> nuanced positions on some of the philosophical issues.
> best
> michael
>