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: Materialism/Mysticism (was Re: No Web Art in the Whitney Biennial?)
>(weirdest change of subject I've seen in a while)
agreed. the common thread seems to be why and for whom do we make art.
Everybody wants to allegorize faith in God so they can analogize it
to some sort of humanistic position. I'm convinced that I'm
worshiping a God who is actually there. If I suddenly came to
believe he wasn't there, the idea of continuing to worship him just
to give myself some sort of morality or happy purpose or meaning or
sense of being or whatever would just be ridiculous. The whole
purpose of my faith is a dynamic, ongoing relationship with an actual
living entity. There's nothing else to it but that.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Let's say there is a such a thing as a generic modernist position --
people who are earnest and care and have some manifesto and want to
make things better in some way but they want to do it themselves and
leave God out of the equation.
I agree with that position in that at least they hope, and think
things can be better. I also hope and think things can be better.
I disagree with their position because they think they can make
things better without God. Often, they see "the myth of God" as part
of the problem. I don't think we can make things better in our own
natural wisdom and strength. As I've said before, things only get
better when I am able to love someone I can't stand and prefer them
over myself. I can't do that in the natural.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Let's say there is such a athing as a generic post-modern/late
modern/post-structuralist position that says all positions are
relative, there is no solution, things won't get better, so we might
as well have some fun and stop killing ourselves trying to solve a
problem without a solution.
I agree with that position because it despairs of humanistic
solutions. Which is why punk rockers and nihilists make sound
Christians. They despair of everything but their one thing. cf:
http://www.sarahmasen.com/dark/story.php/8
I disagree with that generic post-modern position because it tears
down and undermines hope, but it offers nothing but the void in
return. Furthermore, I find certain activist flavors of this
position inherently contradictory and cheesy. If the void actually
does await, then why bother passionately trying to convince people of
this fact? So they can be aware that the ship is inevitably going to
sink before it inevitably does sink so that...? What? So that they
can freely and bravely and definatly and with no delusions face the
sinking ship? Egad.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Why don't I like most pure conceptual art? All world views aside,
it's just boring to me. I get a lot more out of hiking in the woods
than I do from looking at a trail map. I go to a restaurant to eat
the food, not the menu. Most conceptual art tastes like the menu.
Gnostics believe in a separation of matter and spirit, that matter is
base and to be overcome. But Christians believe God made man in
three integrated parts -- body, soul, and spirit. At the fall, death
entered the world and the body started breaking. At the incarnation,
God entered the world and became a man in order to buy back the body
(among other things). Christian mysticism isn't about becoming
nothing or escaping the body. It is (in part) about using the senses
as a vehicle to spiritual stuff.
Senses can dialogue with media. Pure conceptual art seeks to eschew
the media object but actually winds up trafficking in its own thin
media object -- the prose artist statement. This might seem
spiritual to a gnostic. To me, it's actually a great way to avoid
engaging the spirit altogether. It engages the mind at a soulish
level. So does the McNeill Lehr Report.
I certainly don't presume to offer my personal position on conceptual
art as a definitive Christian position on conceptual art. It's just
my personal opinion. To answer your question -- no, I don't think
there is anything about conceptual art that inherently challenges
faith in God.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
peace,
curt
__
>Curt;
>
>The problem with a lot of moderate views of Marxism and Socialism is that
>they react to a very base element of spirituality (which many people do).
>This is really true with any secular movement. The interesting thing though
>is that revolution serves the same function that religion might.
>
>Erich Fromm suggested that there were two types of religion- humanistic and
>totalitarian; and that totalitarian religion is an escape from freedom,
>while humanistic religion allows an individual to look at their own freedom
>and not be afraid, but to embrace freedom for positive action. I think a lot
>of secular movements, like Marxism, look at totalitarian religion and
>mistake it for *all* religion- certainly Marx did. Totalitarian Religion is
>the opiate of the masses, indeed- but humanistic religion shares its aims
>with Marxism: Liberation of the human spirit. The underlying disagreement is
>unfortunate for both.
>
>Humanistic religion sees God as an idealized state for humanity to struggle
>towards; Revolution is about the struggle for an idealized state. God is
>within each follower and allows each individual to reach their greatest
>potential in Religion; just substitute "revolution" with "god" and you get
>the same thing. The key difference, from what I see, is that I see far more
>happy religious people than happy revolutionaries. Revolutionaries fall so
>quickly into totalitarianism; it is hard to turn down the power over others
>that comes with equating oneself with a state of righteousness, be it
>political or spiritual.
>
>Situatationists, Dadaists, and your beloved Conceptual artists; at their
>best, take the ideas that Fromm took as well- that the evidence of
>liberation is in spontaneity; which is a different realization from much of
>religion, though much-abused Zen thought lends itself towards understanding
>enlightenment as spontaneity as well. Have you read Meister Eckhart? He's a
>Christian Mystic from the 13th century, and a lot of the translations I have
>of him are decidedly Marxist. Here's his poem, written here in prose form to
>emphasize its Marxist nature:
>
>"Commerce is supported by keeping the individual at odds with himself and
>others, by making us want more than we need, and offering credit to buy what
>refined senses do not want. The masses become shackled, I see how their eyes
>weep and are desperate- of course they feel desperate- for some remedy that
>a poor soul feels needs to be bought. I find nothing more offensive than a
>god who would condemn human instincts in us that time in all its wonder have
>made perfect. I find nothing more destructive to the well being of life than
>to support a god who makes you feel unworthy and in debt to it. I imagine
>erecting churches to such a strange god will assure the endless wars that
>commerce loves."
>
>It strikes me as interesting that anyone with religious views would hold
>such a strong disregard to conceptual art, when I have always seen it as an
>extension of religion. I get in trouble for using the word "mysticism" in a
>secular way now and then, so maybe my pov hasn't allowed me to see how
>someone who is *truly* religious could find it offensive. Do you think
>conceptual art is challenging the position of actual faith in God? (I mean
>this in all sincerity- it has always been my understanding that conceptual
>art ala Cage, Beuys, Tzara and Duchamp is all about mysticism- I know Cage
>and Tzara say it pretty explicitly.)
>
>-e.
>
>
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "curt cloninger" <curt@lab404.com>
>To: <list@rhizome.org>
>Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 9:05 PM
>Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No Web Art in the
>Whitney Biennial?
>
>
>> Michael Szpakowski wrote:
>>
>> > All marxism at bottom asserts is that ideas don't come
>> > from nowhere but arise out of how we reproduce
>> > ourselves and the necessities of life - food,
>> > clothing, shelter.
>> > I'm not trying to fluffify it here - the consequences
>> > of these ideas are far reaching, but the ideas
>> > themselves are pretty straightforward.
>> > It's indubitably the case that without the things
> > > above listed then
>> > "love and intimacy and thanksgiving and
>> > creativity and celebration and barbaric yawpin'"
> > > which I too value in all their glorious human
>> > particularity and enormously varied manifestations
>> > throughout history, would not occur.
>>
>> Hi Michael,
>>
>> I'm not so sure that's true. There is no denying that reproduction,
>food, clothing, and shelter are ever with us on this earth, but I don't know
>whether their persistent presence makes them the underlying (or even prime)
>cause for every other thing we do. I've always had two eyeballs in my head,
>but not all my actions derive from that fact.
>>
>> If a spiritual world exists, but I don't allow for its existence, I will
>wrongly attribute spiritual influences to material causes. If a spiritual
>world doesn't exist, but I believe one does, I will wrongly attribute
>material influences to spiritual causes.
>>
>> I believe a spiritual world exists.
>>
>> local mileage may vary,
>> curt
>> +
>> -> post: list@rhizome.org
>> -> questions: info@rhizome.org
>> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
>> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
>> -> visit: on Fridays the Rhizome.org web site is open to non-members
>> +
>> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
>> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>>
agreed. the common thread seems to be why and for whom do we make art.
Everybody wants to allegorize faith in God so they can analogize it
to some sort of humanistic position. I'm convinced that I'm
worshiping a God who is actually there. If I suddenly came to
believe he wasn't there, the idea of continuing to worship him just
to give myself some sort of morality or happy purpose or meaning or
sense of being or whatever would just be ridiculous. The whole
purpose of my faith is a dynamic, ongoing relationship with an actual
living entity. There's nothing else to it but that.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Let's say there is a such a thing as a generic modernist position --
people who are earnest and care and have some manifesto and want to
make things better in some way but they want to do it themselves and
leave God out of the equation.
I agree with that position in that at least they hope, and think
things can be better. I also hope and think things can be better.
I disagree with their position because they think they can make
things better without God. Often, they see "the myth of God" as part
of the problem. I don't think we can make things better in our own
natural wisdom and strength. As I've said before, things only get
better when I am able to love someone I can't stand and prefer them
over myself. I can't do that in the natural.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Let's say there is such a athing as a generic post-modern/late
modern/post-structuralist position that says all positions are
relative, there is no solution, things won't get better, so we might
as well have some fun and stop killing ourselves trying to solve a
problem without a solution.
I agree with that position because it despairs of humanistic
solutions. Which is why punk rockers and nihilists make sound
Christians. They despair of everything but their one thing. cf:
http://www.sarahmasen.com/dark/story.php/8
I disagree with that generic post-modern position because it tears
down and undermines hope, but it offers nothing but the void in
return. Furthermore, I find certain activist flavors of this
position inherently contradictory and cheesy. If the void actually
does await, then why bother passionately trying to convince people of
this fact? So they can be aware that the ship is inevitably going to
sink before it inevitably does sink so that...? What? So that they
can freely and bravely and definatly and with no delusions face the
sinking ship? Egad.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Why don't I like most pure conceptual art? All world views aside,
it's just boring to me. I get a lot more out of hiking in the woods
than I do from looking at a trail map. I go to a restaurant to eat
the food, not the menu. Most conceptual art tastes like the menu.
Gnostics believe in a separation of matter and spirit, that matter is
base and to be overcome. But Christians believe God made man in
three integrated parts -- body, soul, and spirit. At the fall, death
entered the world and the body started breaking. At the incarnation,
God entered the world and became a man in order to buy back the body
(among other things). Christian mysticism isn't about becoming
nothing or escaping the body. It is (in part) about using the senses
as a vehicle to spiritual stuff.
Senses can dialogue with media. Pure conceptual art seeks to eschew
the media object but actually winds up trafficking in its own thin
media object -- the prose artist statement. This might seem
spiritual to a gnostic. To me, it's actually a great way to avoid
engaging the spirit altogether. It engages the mind at a soulish
level. So does the McNeill Lehr Report.
I certainly don't presume to offer my personal position on conceptual
art as a definitive Christian position on conceptual art. It's just
my personal opinion. To answer your question -- no, I don't think
there is anything about conceptual art that inherently challenges
faith in God.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
peace,
curt
__
>Curt;
>
>The problem with a lot of moderate views of Marxism and Socialism is that
>they react to a very base element of spirituality (which many people do).
>This is really true with any secular movement. The interesting thing though
>is that revolution serves the same function that religion might.
>
>Erich Fromm suggested that there were two types of religion- humanistic and
>totalitarian; and that totalitarian religion is an escape from freedom,
>while humanistic religion allows an individual to look at their own freedom
>and not be afraid, but to embrace freedom for positive action. I think a lot
>of secular movements, like Marxism, look at totalitarian religion and
>mistake it for *all* religion- certainly Marx did. Totalitarian Religion is
>the opiate of the masses, indeed- but humanistic religion shares its aims
>with Marxism: Liberation of the human spirit. The underlying disagreement is
>unfortunate for both.
>
>Humanistic religion sees God as an idealized state for humanity to struggle
>towards; Revolution is about the struggle for an idealized state. God is
>within each follower and allows each individual to reach their greatest
>potential in Religion; just substitute "revolution" with "god" and you get
>the same thing. The key difference, from what I see, is that I see far more
>happy religious people than happy revolutionaries. Revolutionaries fall so
>quickly into totalitarianism; it is hard to turn down the power over others
>that comes with equating oneself with a state of righteousness, be it
>political or spiritual.
>
>Situatationists, Dadaists, and your beloved Conceptual artists; at their
>best, take the ideas that Fromm took as well- that the evidence of
>liberation is in spontaneity; which is a different realization from much of
>religion, though much-abused Zen thought lends itself towards understanding
>enlightenment as spontaneity as well. Have you read Meister Eckhart? He's a
>Christian Mystic from the 13th century, and a lot of the translations I have
>of him are decidedly Marxist. Here's his poem, written here in prose form to
>emphasize its Marxist nature:
>
>"Commerce is supported by keeping the individual at odds with himself and
>others, by making us want more than we need, and offering credit to buy what
>refined senses do not want. The masses become shackled, I see how their eyes
>weep and are desperate- of course they feel desperate- for some remedy that
>a poor soul feels needs to be bought. I find nothing more offensive than a
>god who would condemn human instincts in us that time in all its wonder have
>made perfect. I find nothing more destructive to the well being of life than
>to support a god who makes you feel unworthy and in debt to it. I imagine
>erecting churches to such a strange god will assure the endless wars that
>commerce loves."
>
>It strikes me as interesting that anyone with religious views would hold
>such a strong disregard to conceptual art, when I have always seen it as an
>extension of religion. I get in trouble for using the word "mysticism" in a
>secular way now and then, so maybe my pov hasn't allowed me to see how
>someone who is *truly* religious could find it offensive. Do you think
>conceptual art is challenging the position of actual faith in God? (I mean
>this in all sincerity- it has always been my understanding that conceptual
>art ala Cage, Beuys, Tzara and Duchamp is all about mysticism- I know Cage
>and Tzara say it pretty explicitly.)
>
>-e.
>
>
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "curt cloninger" <curt@lab404.com>
>To: <list@rhizome.org>
>Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 9:05 PM
>Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No Web Art in the
>Whitney Biennial?
>
>
>> Michael Szpakowski wrote:
>>
>> > All marxism at bottom asserts is that ideas don't come
>> > from nowhere but arise out of how we reproduce
>> > ourselves and the necessities of life - food,
>> > clothing, shelter.
>> > I'm not trying to fluffify it here - the consequences
>> > of these ideas are far reaching, but the ideas
>> > themselves are pretty straightforward.
>> > It's indubitably the case that without the things
> > > above listed then
>> > "love and intimacy and thanksgiving and
>> > creativity and celebration and barbaric yawpin'"
> > > which I too value in all their glorious human
>> > particularity and enormously varied manifestations
>> > throughout history, would not occur.
>>
>> Hi Michael,
>>
>> I'm not so sure that's true. There is no denying that reproduction,
>food, clothing, and shelter are ever with us on this earth, but I don't know
>whether their persistent presence makes them the underlying (or even prime)
>cause for every other thing we do. I've always had two eyeballs in my head,
>but not all my actions derive from that fact.
>>
>> If a spiritual world exists, but I don't allow for its existence, I will
>wrongly attribute spiritual influences to material causes. If a spiritual
>world doesn't exist, but I believe one does, I will wrongly attribute
>material influences to spiritual causes.
>>
>> I believe a spiritual world exists.
>>
>> local mileage may vary,
>> curt
>> +
>> -> post: list@rhizome.org
>> -> questions: info@rhizome.org
>> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
>> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
>> -> visit: on Fridays the Rhizome.org web site is open to non-members
>> +
>> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
>> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>>
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No Web Art in the Whitney Biennial?
Michael Szpakowski wrote:
> All marxism at bottom asserts is that ideas don't come
> from nowhere but arise out of how we reproduce
> ourselves and the necessities of life - food,
> clothing, shelter.
> I'm not trying to fluffify it here - the consequences
> of these ideas are far reaching, but the ideas
> themselves are pretty straightforward.
> It's indubitably the case that without the things
> above listed then
> "love and intimacy and thanksgiving and
> creativity and celebration and barbaric yawpin'"
> which I too value in all their glorious human
> particularity and enormously varied manifestations
> throughout history, would not occur.
Hi Michael,
I'm not so sure that's true. There is no denying that reproduction, food, clothing, and shelter are ever with us on this earth, but I don't know whether their persistent presence makes them the underlying (or even prime) cause for every other thing we do. I've always had two eyeballs in my head, but not all my actions derive from that fact.
If a spiritual world exists, but I don't allow for its existence, I will wrongly attribute spiritual influences to material causes. If a spiritual world doesn't exist, but I believe one does, I will wrongly attribute material influences to spiritual causes.
I believe a spiritual world exists.
local mileage may vary,
curt
> All marxism at bottom asserts is that ideas don't come
> from nowhere but arise out of how we reproduce
> ourselves and the necessities of life - food,
> clothing, shelter.
> I'm not trying to fluffify it here - the consequences
> of these ideas are far reaching, but the ideas
> themselves are pretty straightforward.
> It's indubitably the case that without the things
> above listed then
> "love and intimacy and thanksgiving and
> creativity and celebration and barbaric yawpin'"
> which I too value in all their glorious human
> particularity and enormously varied manifestations
> throughout history, would not occur.
Hi Michael,
I'm not so sure that's true. There is no denying that reproduction, food, clothing, and shelter are ever with us on this earth, but I don't know whether their persistent presence makes them the underlying (or even prime) cause for every other thing we do. I've always had two eyeballs in my head, but not all my actions derive from that fact.
If a spiritual world exists, but I don't allow for its existence, I will wrongly attribute spiritual influences to material causes. If a spiritual world doesn't exist, but I believe one does, I will wrongly attribute material influences to spiritual causes.
I believe a spiritual world exists.
local mileage may vary,
curt
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No Web Art in the Whitney Biennial?
I freely admit the existence and influence of hierarchical structures, and the importance of accurately understanding their dynamics. My problem is taking love and intimacy and thanksgiving and creativity and celebration and barbaric yawpin' and reducing them to sociological-driven responses to these power structures.
sometimes the dolphins just frolic and the lambs just leap.
http://lab404.com/misc/echoed.gif
http://designforfreedom.com/substitud/Movies/typevsm_small.html
peace,
curt
__
Eduardo Navas wrote:
I am glad you dismiss structuralism (rather turning into
> poststructuralism at the time Foucault was writing his text) with an
> understanding of language difference. I really appreciate your
> honesty. I
> would say, however, that, since many people are not religious, trying
> to
> understand how we live within the dynamics of hierarchies is a
> necessity. I
> do not think we should get into a religious discussion here however,
> because
> you already stated the language difference.
sometimes the dolphins just frolic and the lambs just leap.
http://lab404.com/misc/echoed.gif
http://designforfreedom.com/substitud/Movies/typevsm_small.html
peace,
curt
__
Eduardo Navas wrote:
I am glad you dismiss structuralism (rather turning into
> poststructuralism at the time Foucault was writing his text) with an
> understanding of language difference. I really appreciate your
> honesty. I
> would say, however, that, since many people are not religious, trying
> to
> understand how we live within the dynamics of hierarchies is a
> necessity. I
> do not think we should get into a religious discussion here however,
> because
> you already stated the language difference.
Re: Re: Re: Re: No Web Art in the Whitney Biennial?
Hi Eduardo,
I think Foucault is useful in critiquing marxist understandings of power, showing that social power is fluid and not wed to de facto institutions. The problem with social theorists as art critics is -- there is (or can be) a decidedly idividualistic aspect to an artwork, an artist, an act of artistic creation. But the social theorist has to see everything as derived from and in dialogue with society.
But what about the idea of private, contemplative worship as a form of art? This is certainly not a new concept. I believe in God and improvise vocally and instrumentally (on my precious Fender Rhodes 73 acousto-electric keyboard), just thanking him and celebrating my existence. Nobody hears these "performances." I don't record them. I only mention them here by way of an example of some form of art not seeking to impose social power.
playdamage.org is a more overtly public but no less personal form of worship. The social theorist would say I'm fooling myself and I'm really acting according to this or that social rule, but then the social theorist has already decided that God as an actual living entity is irrelevant, that religion is a form of class control, and a number of other assumptions that allow him to re-interpret (he would say "rightly" interpret) these forms of individual expression and fit them into whatever his social theory happens to be.
Not all individuals are so subject to such ordnances of social power. Not all people live in a city. Not all people desire to exercise power. Some people desire to cede power. (Anybody who says Francis of Asissi or Mother Theressa performed their acts of sacrifice as some kind of subconscious potlatch to gain social or spiritual power is removed from the street and has been drinking his own theoretical cool aid).
One can focus on society and museums and galleries, and on artists making activist or scene-aware art about society and museums and galleries, and one could understandably conclude that art can't exist outside of dialogue with these institutions. But art (of all things) need not be political. Art can and reguglarly does exist outside of these institutions:
http://www.deepyoung.org/sister/
Howard Finster and Clementine Hunter also come to mind.
Such art may be called "outsider" by the institutions, but the folks making such art don't call it outsider, or folk, or anything other than "this stuff I'm making because I just feel like making this stuff." In such arenas of personal expression, marxist and neo-marxist criticism seems forced when applied. And the internet has been and can be such an arena.
peace,
curt
Eduardo Navas wrote:
> > I think that if an artist is able to do the work that they want to
> do, is
> > able to create a situation where that is possible, and is able to
> get the
> > work out there, then the rest is gravy. Aspirations to 'make it', if
> they're
> > not centred around the work itself, or all that the work stands for,
> can
> > easily be quite disappointing. The idea that 'an artist is nothing
> without
> a
> > gallery' is as fatuous as the notion that a writer is nothing
> without a
> > publisher. Waiting on the approval of others is not the way to one's
> own
> > power. There are basically two types of power. There's power that
> can be
> > bestowed on you by others. And then there's your own power. As an
> artist.
> As
> > a person. As a moral agent. To my way of thinking, its finding and
> > exercising the latter that the practice and production of art is all
> about.
> > The power of the fundamentally human amidst the machines (and
> machinations).
> >
> > ja
> > http://vispo.com
>
> Just a brief comment on power. check this out:
>
> "...The political and economic conditions of existence are not a veil
> or an
> obstacle for the subject of knowledge but the means by which subjects
> of
> knowledge are formed, and hence are Truth relations. There cannot be
> particular types of subjects of knowledge, orders of truth, or domains
> of
> knowledge except on the basis of political conditions that are the
> very
> ground on which the subject, the domains of knowledge, and the
> relations
> with truth are formed."
>
> --from Michel Foucault's "Truth and Juridical Forms" in the book
> Power, p.
> 15
>
>
> Here Foucault is revisiting a Nietzschean narrative to better
> understand how
> knowledge functions within the dynamics of power shifting.
>
> Based on this, both powers that you refer to in your above premise are
> dependent upon a particular dynamic of wanting to be part of a
> particular
> narrative (particular type of knowledge). If this were not true, then
> the
> Whitney debate would not ever come up. What this means is that the
> artist
> has no power unless there is some form of recognition by the
> establishment
> (the domains of knowledge, and the relations with truth...). If we
> are
> going to dismiss this, then we should not even deal with artmaking at
> all,
> and move on to another practice. But whatever practice one chooses,
> there
> is a certainty that one will have to deal with similar processes of
> legitimation. One of the reasons why it is hard to see this in art
> practice
> is because the artist is often seen as an emancipatory figure, that
> can
> enlighten the masses. This narrative has become problematized by the
> business aspects that accompanies art practice today -- the career of
> the
> artist, that some are more comfortable suppressing than acknowledging
> it as
> part of art making. The aim should be to produce work that is pushing
> our
> culture in unexpected ways, the institution is bound to notice at some
> point. And if it does not, then the artist will figure out a way to
> be
> noticed. Is this not what this thread is about? The recurrent
> question is
> why the whitney is treating net art in a specific way -- is it
> accepting it?
> why or why not? This means that some people want in. As a matter of
> fact,
> if we are honest, everyone wants "in."
>
> This following quote deals with post-colonial narratives, but it can
> easily
> be implemented to the above situation:
>
> "What does need to be remembered is that narratives of emancipation
> and
> enlightenment in their strongest form were also narratives of
> integration
> not separation, the stories of people who had been excluded from the
> main
> group but who were now fighting for a place in it."
>
> -- Edward Said from the introduction to Culture and Imperialism p.
> xxvi
>
> This integration is what all new forms seem to want implicitly -- even
> when
> some people in the movement are not willing to admit it and decide to
> move
> on to create yet another movement, while being fully aware that they
> are
> already part of a system that is following their displacement of
> methods
> (Hail the Avant-Garde!!). I thin it is best to just make art and be
> aware
> of how such dynamics come into play into the personal life. If one
> feels
> one should get recognition, then one should be honest about it and
> deal with
> the narratives appropriately.
>
> We are bound to function from within, look now, here we are
> corresponding
> through a mailing that is now afilliated with a non-profit
> institution. (And
> who know who is silently reading this...)
>
> Best,
>
> Eduardo Navas
>
>
>
>
I think Foucault is useful in critiquing marxist understandings of power, showing that social power is fluid and not wed to de facto institutions. The problem with social theorists as art critics is -- there is (or can be) a decidedly idividualistic aspect to an artwork, an artist, an act of artistic creation. But the social theorist has to see everything as derived from and in dialogue with society.
But what about the idea of private, contemplative worship as a form of art? This is certainly not a new concept. I believe in God and improvise vocally and instrumentally (on my precious Fender Rhodes 73 acousto-electric keyboard), just thanking him and celebrating my existence. Nobody hears these "performances." I don't record them. I only mention them here by way of an example of some form of art not seeking to impose social power.
playdamage.org is a more overtly public but no less personal form of worship. The social theorist would say I'm fooling myself and I'm really acting according to this or that social rule, but then the social theorist has already decided that God as an actual living entity is irrelevant, that religion is a form of class control, and a number of other assumptions that allow him to re-interpret (he would say "rightly" interpret) these forms of individual expression and fit them into whatever his social theory happens to be.
Not all individuals are so subject to such ordnances of social power. Not all people live in a city. Not all people desire to exercise power. Some people desire to cede power. (Anybody who says Francis of Asissi or Mother Theressa performed their acts of sacrifice as some kind of subconscious potlatch to gain social or spiritual power is removed from the street and has been drinking his own theoretical cool aid).
One can focus on society and museums and galleries, and on artists making activist or scene-aware art about society and museums and galleries, and one could understandably conclude that art can't exist outside of dialogue with these institutions. But art (of all things) need not be political. Art can and reguglarly does exist outside of these institutions:
http://www.deepyoung.org/sister/
Howard Finster and Clementine Hunter also come to mind.
Such art may be called "outsider" by the institutions, but the folks making such art don't call it outsider, or folk, or anything other than "this stuff I'm making because I just feel like making this stuff." In such arenas of personal expression, marxist and neo-marxist criticism seems forced when applied. And the internet has been and can be such an arena.
peace,
curt
Eduardo Navas wrote:
> > I think that if an artist is able to do the work that they want to
> do, is
> > able to create a situation where that is possible, and is able to
> get the
> > work out there, then the rest is gravy. Aspirations to 'make it', if
> they're
> > not centred around the work itself, or all that the work stands for,
> can
> > easily be quite disappointing. The idea that 'an artist is nothing
> without
> a
> > gallery' is as fatuous as the notion that a writer is nothing
> without a
> > publisher. Waiting on the approval of others is not the way to one's
> own
> > power. There are basically two types of power. There's power that
> can be
> > bestowed on you by others. And then there's your own power. As an
> artist.
> As
> > a person. As a moral agent. To my way of thinking, its finding and
> > exercising the latter that the practice and production of art is all
> about.
> > The power of the fundamentally human amidst the machines (and
> machinations).
> >
> > ja
> > http://vispo.com
>
> Just a brief comment on power. check this out:
>
> "...The political and economic conditions of existence are not a veil
> or an
> obstacle for the subject of knowledge but the means by which subjects
> of
> knowledge are formed, and hence are Truth relations. There cannot be
> particular types of subjects of knowledge, orders of truth, or domains
> of
> knowledge except on the basis of political conditions that are the
> very
> ground on which the subject, the domains of knowledge, and the
> relations
> with truth are formed."
>
> --from Michel Foucault's "Truth and Juridical Forms" in the book
> Power, p.
> 15
>
>
> Here Foucault is revisiting a Nietzschean narrative to better
> understand how
> knowledge functions within the dynamics of power shifting.
>
> Based on this, both powers that you refer to in your above premise are
> dependent upon a particular dynamic of wanting to be part of a
> particular
> narrative (particular type of knowledge). If this were not true, then
> the
> Whitney debate would not ever come up. What this means is that the
> artist
> has no power unless there is some form of recognition by the
> establishment
> (the domains of knowledge, and the relations with truth...). If we
> are
> going to dismiss this, then we should not even deal with artmaking at
> all,
> and move on to another practice. But whatever practice one chooses,
> there
> is a certainty that one will have to deal with similar processes of
> legitimation. One of the reasons why it is hard to see this in art
> practice
> is because the artist is often seen as an emancipatory figure, that
> can
> enlighten the masses. This narrative has become problematized by the
> business aspects that accompanies art practice today -- the career of
> the
> artist, that some are more comfortable suppressing than acknowledging
> it as
> part of art making. The aim should be to produce work that is pushing
> our
> culture in unexpected ways, the institution is bound to notice at some
> point. And if it does not, then the artist will figure out a way to
> be
> noticed. Is this not what this thread is about? The recurrent
> question is
> why the whitney is treating net art in a specific way -- is it
> accepting it?
> why or why not? This means that some people want in. As a matter of
> fact,
> if we are honest, everyone wants "in."
>
> This following quote deals with post-colonial narratives, but it can
> easily
> be implemented to the above situation:
>
> "What does need to be remembered is that narratives of emancipation
> and
> enlightenment in their strongest form were also narratives of
> integration
> not separation, the stories of people who had been excluded from the
> main
> group but who were now fighting for a place in it."
>
> -- Edward Said from the introduction to Culture and Imperialism p.
> xxvi
>
> This integration is what all new forms seem to want implicitly -- even
> when
> some people in the movement are not willing to admit it and decide to
> move
> on to create yet another movement, while being fully aware that they
> are
> already part of a system that is following their displacement of
> methods
> (Hail the Avant-Garde!!). I thin it is best to just make art and be
> aware
> of how such dynamics come into play into the personal life. If one
> feels
> one should get recognition, then one should be honest about it and
> deal with
> the narratives appropriately.
>
> We are bound to function from within, look now, here we are
> corresponding
> through a mailing that is now afilliated with a non-profit
> institution. (And
> who know who is silently reading this...)
>
> Best,
>
> Eduardo Navas
>
>
>
>
Re: Re: No Web Art in the Whitney Biennial?
Hi Jim,
Eastgate Systems ( http://eastgate.com ) publish ROM-based hypertexts in the US. They seem open to moving toward hypermedia, but their emphasis is decidedly narrative.
Web designers publish ROM compilations containing interactive design experiments, homemade software, and such:
http://www.codexseries.com
http://youworkforthem.com/product.php?sku=P0034
http://www.designerdock.de/designershock/ds003/inhalt.html
http://www.shift.jp.org/factory/choice/09.html
Then there is the "autogenerative meta-art as commercial software" paradigm:
http://www.auto-illustrator.com
http://www.dextro.org
https://order.kagi.com/cgi-bin/store.cgi?storeID=3WJ&&
We're pretty far off topic, but if anybody knows of any interesting, commercially available new media ROM-based projects (not linear DVD, not linear audio, not Quake or Doom), I'd love to hear about them.
+++++++++++++
Regarding the artist/curator & writer/publisher conundrum, i'll introduce another dichotomy that cuts across both pairings -- academic/popular.
In print, I can write an article for Wired magazine that earns me some thousand dollars and is read by half a million people, or I can submit a much more thoroughly footnoted article to a peer-reviewed journal that few (albeit well-degreed) people read, and if my article is accepted, I get the pleasure of putting that fact on my CV.
In art, I can make and self-publish net art that attracts thousands of unique visitors per day, but unless that art is funded or commissioned by some academically recognized, taste-arbiting institution, it means little to the academy.
In Rennaissance Italian painting, if the Pope hired you, you had arrived. In 70s disco music, if your new single went tripple platinum, you had arrived. In mid-90s net art, if you got some hits and the odd email from a confused but amused visitor, you had arrived. But now, net artists are "real" artists, subject to the same funky, academically-derived arbitration machinations as every other gallery-desirous contemporary artists. Or are we?
http://www.easylife.org/netart/catalogue.html
tyrannosaurus rex,
the eater of cars
_
Jim Andrews wrote:
> I come mainly from a background in writing. And radio. Consider the
> situation concerning publishers/net.art in relation to
> curators/net.art.
>
> There are very few publishers of literary or literary-related texts
> with any
> significant involvement in net.art. In Canada, where I live, there's
> Coach
> House Books ( http://www.chbooks.com ) out of Toronto. They do quite a
> bit
> of production for the Web. Yet they are pretty hypertext-oriented, ie,
> not
> much image or javascript or sound etc used in ways that don't 'go by
> the
> book'. Which is fine and dandy but there aren't too many writers who
> use
> hypertext to any effect. An exception being Kate Armstrong (Vancouver)
> whom
> I don't think has anything out from Coach House.
>
> In the States, there's Alt-x. Again, they're pretty pdf or
> hypertext-oriented, but there's a sense that they could be more
> net-art
> oriented in the future, given that Mark Amerika seems to run that
> show.
>
> MIT press seems to be the most interesting publisher of new-media
> related
> books.
Eastgate Systems ( http://eastgate.com ) publish ROM-based hypertexts in the US. They seem open to moving toward hypermedia, but their emphasis is decidedly narrative.
Web designers publish ROM compilations containing interactive design experiments, homemade software, and such:
http://www.codexseries.com
http://youworkforthem.com/product.php?sku=P0034
http://www.designerdock.de/designershock/ds003/inhalt.html
http://www.shift.jp.org/factory/choice/09.html
Then there is the "autogenerative meta-art as commercial software" paradigm:
http://www.auto-illustrator.com
http://www.dextro.org
https://order.kagi.com/cgi-bin/store.cgi?storeID=3WJ&&
We're pretty far off topic, but if anybody knows of any interesting, commercially available new media ROM-based projects (not linear DVD, not linear audio, not Quake or Doom), I'd love to hear about them.
+++++++++++++
Regarding the artist/curator & writer/publisher conundrum, i'll introduce another dichotomy that cuts across both pairings -- academic/popular.
In print, I can write an article for Wired magazine that earns me some thousand dollars and is read by half a million people, or I can submit a much more thoroughly footnoted article to a peer-reviewed journal that few (albeit well-degreed) people read, and if my article is accepted, I get the pleasure of putting that fact on my CV.
In art, I can make and self-publish net art that attracts thousands of unique visitors per day, but unless that art is funded or commissioned by some academically recognized, taste-arbiting institution, it means little to the academy.
In Rennaissance Italian painting, if the Pope hired you, you had arrived. In 70s disco music, if your new single went tripple platinum, you had arrived. In mid-90s net art, if you got some hits and the odd email from a confused but amused visitor, you had arrived. But now, net artists are "real" artists, subject to the same funky, academically-derived arbitration machinations as every other gallery-desirous contemporary artists. Or are we?
http://www.easylife.org/netart/catalogue.html
tyrannosaurus rex,
the eater of cars
_
Jim Andrews wrote:
> I come mainly from a background in writing. And radio. Consider the
> situation concerning publishers/net.art in relation to
> curators/net.art.
>
> There are very few publishers of literary or literary-related texts
> with any
> significant involvement in net.art. In Canada, where I live, there's
> Coach
> House Books ( http://www.chbooks.com ) out of Toronto. They do quite a
> bit
> of production for the Web. Yet they are pretty hypertext-oriented, ie,
> not
> much image or javascript or sound etc used in ways that don't 'go by
> the
> book'. Which is fine and dandy but there aren't too many writers who
> use
> hypertext to any effect. An exception being Kate Armstrong (Vancouver)
> whom
> I don't think has anything out from Coach House.
>
> In the States, there's Alt-x. Again, they're pretty pdf or
> hypertext-oriented, but there's a sense that they could be more
> net-art
> oriented in the future, given that Mark Amerika seems to run that
> show.
>
> MIT press seems to be the most interesting publisher of new-media
> related
> books.