Liza Sabater
Since the beginning
Works in New York, Nebraska United States of America

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DISCUSSION

Re: Pondering the social sculpture, P1


At 7:25 PM -0800 11/16/02, Jim Andrews wrote:
>
>
>The moment Beuys "thingifies" creativity and exhibits it in front of
>a gaggle of curators and critics, that is the moment that he has
>created art.
>
>This seems rather cynical to me, Liza. Perhaps you are
>tongue-in-cheek, however?
>
>I attended my first meeting of curators (I am not a curator) some
>months ago. A prominent Canadian curator (I cannot remember his
>name, Jean somebody-or-other from the National Gallery) said that
>"an artist without a gallery is nothing".

Which is my point. Nowadays, art is about recognition within a
certain social and economic framework. It has nothing to do with the
power of creativity.

>
>There are basically two types of personal power. There's power that
>can be bestowed on one by institutions or critics or curators or
>publishers or awards committees and so on, or, in the case of other
>occupations, there are other sources of power that can be bestowed
>on one. The other type of power is one's own power. Not over others
>but within oneself.
>
>It seems to me that Jean what's-his-name is no friend of artists
>when he says what he said, for it seems to me a negation of the
>notion that art is first and foremost an expression of an
>individual's own power and human dignity, power not over others, but
>power to realize what they themselves wish to realize. It is a gift
>to others of insight or song, intense perception or joy, sadness or
>mystery...
>
>The precondition of art is not exhibition and acknowledgement or
>place within the institutions of art.

It should not be but it is these days.

It's funny but a lot of the artists who took to the web did so
because they were outsiders of the "art world". Now some enjoy being
inside it, others not. What I find interesting with what is being
produced on the web is that, regardless of what we call it, it is
radically changing the way we perceive creativity. That is why I am
most drawn to interactive pieces; because they blow the lid on what
is acceptable as art. I always go back to Maurice Blanchot's line
about reading: "A book that has not been read is a book that has not
been written". In other words, a book (and one could say a work of
art) is a physical, intellectual and emotional experience.

As a witness to what happens inside places like the National Gallery,
I can attest that net.art is a thorn in a lot of curators sides for
this very no-thingness. Software is not a thing. HTML is not a thing.
Even if you decided to renounce the code jockey route to net.art,
just because it is on the Internet it is not consider a thing, a
commodity (unless you print it out, put it on a CD and create a deed
to the code).

This no-thingness is what I find most exciting about the medium.
That's why, in the end, this movement is signaling the end of, not
only the gallery, but the art "world" as we know it.

/Liza

DISCUSSION

Re: Pondering the social sculpture, P1


ABSOLUTELY!
Point taken!

Liza

At 11:33 PM +0100 11/16/02, unbehagen.com wrote:
>Hi Liza
>
>well it's good to hear the opinion of a mother
>
>and indeed FATHERHOOD, which is the topic of the whole discussion,
>is much more problematic
>
>Christophe
>

DISCUSSION

Pondering the social sculpture, P1


>--- "t.whid" <twhid@mteww.com> wrote:
>
>> beuy's idea of social sculpture.
>
>Just to help locate this thought:
>http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/apm/social_sculpture/
>
>"Social Sculpture refers to a conception of art,
>framed in the 1970s by Beuys, as an interdiscplinary
>and participatory process in which thought, speech and
>discussion are core 'materials'. With this perception,
>all human beings are seen as 'artists' responsible for
>the shaping of a democratic, sustainable social order.
>Social Sculpture lifts the aesthetic from its confines
>within a specific sphere or media, relocating it
>within a collective, imaginative work-space in which
>we can see, re-think and reshape our lives in tune
>with our creative potential."

I have been following the thread and have been pondering ponderous
thoughts, especially because I am so ambivalent about Beuys and
Conceptual Art in general. When reading your definition of social
sculpture, I could only think of monasteries and convents as work
spaces where people can reshape their lives in tune with their
creative potential. Which is probably why Beuys' work has always
struck me being a bit too monastic ---not religious but monastic; as
in focused on the process of become a saint, not so much on the
theology.

Then I read something like the following (found at
http://www.walkerart.org/beuys/hyper/set_artlife.html):

>Beuys rejected Duchamp's critique of Fluxus--that their ideas lacked
>ingenuity since he had anticipated them. He also rejected Duchamp's
>anti-art concept, or the notion that ordinary objects are elevated
>to the status of an art object simply by being deemed as such by an
>artist. Beuys did not believe in the elitist isolation of the art
>object from everyday life, saying, "It has become the territory of a
>few intellectuals, far from the life of people." He renounced the
>distinction of the category "aesthetic" by claiming "aesthetics is
>the human being in itself." In moving beyond this limitation, he
>hoped to apply the artistic principle of creativity directly to
>society.

And I cannot but help but say, yeah, but, boy oh Beuys, you're work
is collected in museums and you're included in art history books.

The moment Beuys "thingifies" creativity and exhibits it in front of
a gaggle of curators and critics, that is the moment that he has
created art. The limitation that I see in Beuys is that he is more
like the an evangelist-cum-madman in the attic of academia,
struggling to show the way to those who have not seen the light.
Testifying that, YES, creativity can be found everywhere AND THUS
should be embraced by the museum, the academy and the salon. He
cannot but help to function within that socio-economic framework.

That's great if you want to be an artist but ART is not Life. It is
an aspect of it. Actually, Art is a spec in the multiverse of LIFE.

If everything is art, then DOMESTIC LIFE is art. MOTHERHOOD is art.
Why is it then that motherhood is still considered breeding and not a
creative process? Because mothers have had bad PR. Art is a commodity
and the more you market your work as art, the more people will agree
with you that, yes, but of course, how can I not see that it is
indeed art! If I had spread my greatness to the world and called the
birth of my children performances, then I would have the cachet of
being a artist. Alas! a breeding Annie Sprinkle I am not.

If life is creativity and creativity is life, it cannot be sculpted,
molded, qualified or quantified. Life and creativity cannot be art
because they cannot be curated nor collected. Art is the attempt to
apprehend the unattainable. It is a failure that some make it look
more fabulously than others.

Liza

DISCUSSION

Re: Membership fee?


Tribe and all,

Let me clarify this.

Rhizome can choose to go the Salon.com way of having certain content
for free and then make juicier parts available for a fee. I'm not
sure that making RAW free would be such a great idea because it is
probably the single most used service offered by Rhizome. Having RAW
open to anybody but not the website is going to split Rhizome into
two communities. Do we really want that?

As it is, I have to remind myself to go to the website because my
contact is through the list. So, if people are going to pay to
support the website but not the list, guess which one will have the
highest subscription.

Still, let's say that RAW remains free but the membership would allow
people to join e-lists that deal with issues in coding, design or
critical theory. More streamlined lists, with a better focus. The
question is, can Rhizome support that with the resources it has now?
I doubt it.

Anyhow, an additional 2 cents.

liza

>i disagree. if we pay a fee it has to be all or nothing.
>
>liza
>
>>An annual fee is fine. I would be willing to pay up to say $15. But what
>>about access to the Artbase? I think that should remain free. I think some
>>of us who have work in the Artbase look at it as sort of a venue for our
>>work. I for one get lot's of hits on my site from Rhizome and am concerned
>>about what might happen if only paying members were allowed access to the
>>Artbase. And yes, I think Raw should be free. I think it attracts a lot of
>>curious people who just want to find out what the new media art scene is
>>about or up to and I doubt that they're willing to pay for it.
>>
>+ new media rugby
>-> post: list@rhizome.org
>-> questions: info@rhizome.org
>-> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
>-> give: http://rhizome.org/support
>+
>Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
>Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php

DISCUSSION

Re: Membership fee?


Hey Jess,

>I have a couple of points and suggestions that come out of your
>message that I'd like to raise - please excuse the long email. I don't ta=
lk
>much but when I do, it's difficult to put the lid back on...

Yeah right :-)

You know we all await your words of wisdom...

<snip>

>Firstly the web hosting packages,
>Although this is a good package and the hosting company seem fine,
>I'm wondering if it could be targeted better to the meet the needs of the
>'starving artists' who I would guess would claim to make up quite a
>considerable amount of the rhizome membership.

I am a writer who gets paid very little for her articles. Last big
check was $50. I have to choose (and maybe so do you) between
$15/month web hosting and diapers (still need those for the little
one). Unless rhizomers are willing to clean the poop off my floor,
you know which one is my choice. It's not so much that we are
starving but many are living had to mouth (and clothed baby loins
too).

>After all there are lots
>of ISPs out there, why choose to go through rhizome?
>What is being offering seems to me to be a nice, sensible business
>package for web hosting.

completely agree.

>The trouble is that many of the the users of
>rhizome probably aren't running 'nice, sensible' projects or if they are
>(or using web hosting for their own businesses) by the time they join
>rhizome they are already sorted with their own tried and trusted ISP.

Exactly. Nothing short of free web hosting is going to make the
resident netArtist switch to another ISP.

>Perhaps, what the users of rhizome really need (and what would make
>rhizomes packages 'different') is a package targeted specifically for
>net. artworks/projects. By this I mean, that when producing a
>small/medium web-based
>work/projects in my own experience, what I can't afford is a monthly
>outgoing, even when as little as $14 (which seems the minimum on this
>account). Many of the web hosting companies now provide a 'bottom-
>rung' package That is a one off payment including 1-2 yr domain
>registration and setup and $0 monthly hosting and (typically) 20 -40
>MB space. No frills no service (outside basic tech support and
>forwarding email accounts) but ideal for web based artworks as the fee
>is small and you can be set upand be online in 24hrs. I myself currently
>have 3 projects set up like this. For example my cyber-kitchen (which
>involves 72 artists) has cost me in total