curt cloninger
Since the beginning
Works in Canton, North Carolina United States of America

ARTBASE (7)
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.
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DISCUSSION

Re: Re: The Myth of Meritocracy in Fine Arts


Your analogy falls apart in this not insignifigant respect:
a house is rarely intrisically related to the location on which it's built (unless it's a frank lloyd wright, etc.). Whereas an argument is always intrinsically related to the assumptions on which it's built. To refuse to discuss one's assumptions as if they can be considered hermetically separate from one's argument is convenient but disingenuous.

the last word is yours if you want it.

Dyske Suematsu wrote:

> Hi Curt,
>
> From my perspective, this is what happened to our discussion:
>
> I chose a location and built a house on it. I am not sure if it makes
> sense
> to build a house on that location but I did it anyway because I cannot
> prove
> the legitimacy of the location even if I tried. Rather than wasting
> time
> trying to prove that the location is legitimate, I decided to go ahead
> and
> build a house.
>
> Now, I would like to discuss the house, not the location, but you
> decided to
> pick on the legitimacy of my location, because you cannot accept that
> fact
> that someone would build a house on a location other than where you
> believe
> to be legitimate.
>
> You accuse me of wasting your time, but from my perspective, you are
> the one
> who insisted on getting into this pointless discussion about the
> assumptions
> we cannot prove.
>
> However, "pointless" as it may technically be, I enjoyed this
> discussion.
> Until you actually play with a real opponent, you cannot see where
> your true
> weaknesses are. There is only so much you can read ahead in chess
> without
> actually making a move. Your move was unexpected.
>
> -D
>
>

DISCUSSION

Re: Re: The Myth of Meritocracy in Fine Arts


c:
> Personally, all I get from talking with hardcore situationists is
> wasted time.

d:
Because you believe there is only one truth, and anything else is a waste of
time.

c:
that's an inaccurate characterization of what I believe. To lay my cards on the table, I believe some things are absolutely true, some things are relative, and some things don't involve proof or truth at all. And I fruitfully dialogue with people who disagree with me all the time. What wastes my time is talking to people who aren't personally invested in what they espouse. It's all some sort of semiotic front to them. There's no vulnerability, no personal accountability, no face behind the words. Because no position is taken other than a temporarary, hypothetical one. And no higher ground is sought through discourse, because no higher ground is thought to exist.

You raise points in your essay regarding scenes and peer review and collaborative artistic communites that might bear fruitful exploration from any perspective other than your "famous people are good at being famous" perspective.

I sought to see if you actually, personally believe in your assumption that there is no aesthetic aspect to art, and you immediately plead the fifth amendment of relativism -- "you have assumptions too!" So we wind up talking about boring crap like belief systems and rhetoric when we could be letting down our guard and talking about something much more interesting, like art.

I find myself agreeing with what Rob said earlier in the thread:
"Relativism serves The Market and Cultural Studies. Neither have much to do with art.

DISCUSSION

Re: Re: The Myth of Meritocracy in Fine Arts


d:
Now, when I frame an argument from the perspective of 'there are no absol= ute truths

DISCUSSION

Re: Re: The Myth of Meritocracy in Fine Arts - addendum


Dyske,

I believe in right and wrong. Am I right or am I wrong?

You say there are no absolute truths. Do you believe that truth absolutely?

These are academic/rote philosophical disagreements. You start your essay by assuming that all aesthetic criteria for evaluating art are totally subjective and relative. You never expound on this assumption or attempt to justify it, you merely posit it as if we all took the same courses you took and were led to the same conclusions. You then proceed to base the rest of your argument on that one assumption. I disagree with your assumption. The fact that no one can "prove" that their opinion of a piece of art is "right" doesn't de facto "prove" that all opinions about art are totally subjective and relative.

Yes, if it's all totally subjective, then there is no merit (except in foot races, spelling bees, and algebra tests). In that case, why limit yourself to merely admiring saatchi's system-manipulating abilities? Britney Spears -- creative genius (fame, $, and breasts)! Jeffrey Dahmer -- master of the social sculpture! The unabomber -- hybrid machine/man improvisationist extraordinaire! And you'd say, "I guess so, if they wind up in a lot of art history books." Kooky.

Relativism generally leads to poor art, because poor art is easy to make, and if no one is allowed to call poor art "poor," then poor artmaking is the course of least resistance most artists will take; particularly if they are assured that there is no aesthetic criteria by which they may be judged, and that it's all about the $. Portrait of the artist as gangsta rap promoter.

Ryan has more subtle disagreements with you, but allow me to summarize our disagreements:
I understand what you are saying, and we fundamentally disagree.

peace,
curt

Dyske Suematsu wrote:

> Let me add to my last comment, which I believe would summarize our
> disagreements here:
>
> Both Curt and Ryan seem to believe that relativism leads to a circular
> logic, therefore it is inferior. What I am saying is that both would
> lead to
> a circular logic. Since I have no problem with accepting circular
> logic, I
> can write from both perspectives. You two seem to believe that one
> side is
> flawed and the other side isn't. That is what I call "myth".
>
> -Dyske
>

DISCUSSION

Re: RE: The Myth of Meritocracy in Fine Arts


Dyske Suematsu wrote:

> Even your own subjective opinions about art, in the end, would be
> tautological, if you deconstruct them well enough. In the end, all it
> would
> say is: "It's good because I say so." You will end up making a
> circular
> reference to yourself. Think about it, no matter how well you frame
> your
> arguments, how would you prove them? To prove something, you'll need
> to have
> a standard. And, that standard is exactly what I am arguing not to
> exist in
> fine arts. Whereas in the Olympics, I could express my opinion about
> who is
> going to win the gold, and I could be proven right or wrong.

Art is not there to provide knowledge in direct ways. It produces deepened perceptions of experience. More must happen than simply logically understandable things. Art is not there to be simply understood, or we would have no need of art. It could then just be logical sentences in a form of a text for instance. Where objects are concerned it's more the sense of an indication or suggestion.
- Joseph B.

People who look for symbolic meanings fail to grasp the inherent poetry and mystery of the image. By asking, "what does this mean?" they express a wish that everything be understandable. But if one does not reject the mystery, one has quite a different response. One asks other things.
- Rene M.

I can express an opinion about a piece of art concisely and convincingly enough to cause people to agree with me. Or they can disagree and we can dialogue about it. The fact that none of these opinions can be "proved" scientifically does not relegate aesthetic criticism to total relativism. Beauty isn't science, but that doesn't mean that beauty fails.

> "9-11" is famous, but not as a piece of art. I never said that
> anything
> famous is a good piece of art. Is Charles Manson a pretty successful
> performance artist? I'm not familiar with him as a performance artist,
> so I
> can't say, but it would be relatively easy to find out. Just look him
> up in
> a number of art history books. How often does he come up as a
> performance
> artist? If he does come up often, I would say, yes, he is a successful
> performance artist.

MTAA are sarcastically attempting to define beauty as a scientific contstant (cf: http://www.thisisamagazine.com/issue_12.htm ). They should factor in the "appears in a number of art history books" criterion to their equation.

> > As in thermodynamics, graphic design, and spirituality -- 80% of
> > the workings of a system may be totally unquantifiable, chaotic,
> > non-linear, and subjective. Art is no different. Yet we as
> > humans want to fixate on the 20% that is quantifiable and put it
> > on a pedestal, to inflate the value of that quantifiable 20%.
> > Because we must have something to clearly and visibly track, even
> > if that quantifiable something is only a small percentage of what
> > actually makes the sytem work [and by "system," I don't mean the
> > contemporary British gallery "system" (a relatively null node),
> > but the "system" of human artmaking throughout history and space].
> >
> > So a few contemporary artists decide it's all about the
> > quantifiable 20% and start making their art accordingly. And
> > then a few contemporary critics point to this truncated, 20%-art
> > (which arose in response to their own truncated, 20%-criticism)
> > and say, "we told you it was all about the 20%." So you get
> > shitty art (marketing ploys) and shitty criticism (tautological
> > academic blah blah) back and forth in some high-profile,
> > sick-joke, self-fulfilling prophetic ballet. As Laurie Anderson
> > said, "It's a closed circuit, baby / you've got the answers in
> > the palms of your hands." As Sonic Youth said, "I can understand
> > it but I don't recommend it."
>
> I do not get the point you are trying to make here. Does this have
> anything
> to do with my essay, or is this a separate comment?

It has something to do with your essay.