ARTBASE (1)
BIO
Michael Szpakowski is an artist, composer, writer and educator.
CV:
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/szpakowski_cv.pdf
Video work:
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/vlog/ScenesOfProvincialLife.cgi
Stills:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/szpako
12 Remixes:
http://www.michaelszpakowski.org/mickiewicz/
CV:
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/szpakowski_cv.pdf
Video work:
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/vlog/ScenesOfProvincialLife.cgi
Stills:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/szpako
12 Remixes:
http://www.michaelszpakowski.org/mickiewicz/
Robert Roth on somedancersandmusicians.com
In a rationally ordered universe Robert Roth would be
a household name.
New essay at:
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/essays/random_thoughts.html
Previous essays:
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/essays/The_Museum.html
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/essays/car.html
by Carletta Joy Walker and Arnold Sachar & Robert
Other stuff:
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/5operas/smartandtartjuicing.html
a short opera , lyrics by Robert and Carletta;
starring Robert.
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/roughtalleys2003/poems.doc
2nd text by Robert and Carletta; sung by kids from
Coopersale Primary School, Epping UK:
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/roughtalleys2003/mp3s/Roughtalleys_Time_of_Year.mp3
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/self_portraits/three.html
three self portraits
a household name.
New essay at:
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/essays/random_thoughts.html
Previous essays:
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/essays/The_Museum.html
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/essays/car.html
by Carletta Joy Walker and Arnold Sachar & Robert
Other stuff:
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/5operas/smartandtartjuicing.html
a short opera , lyrics by Robert and Carletta;
starring Robert.
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/roughtalleys2003/poems.doc
2nd text by Robert and Carletta; sung by kids from
Coopersale Primary School, Epping UK:
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/roughtalleys2003/mp3s/Roughtalleys_Time_of_Year.mp3
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/self_portraits/three.html
three self portraits
Re: short movie (re-edited)
I agree completely Jim!
I've loved the three pieces by Doron I've seen
recently - simultaeneously warm & humane but also
strange and completely lacking in sentimentality.
michael
--- Jim Andrews <jim@vispo.com> wrote:
>
> > 'Tale of Crow' (re-edited)
> > duration: 4 min.
> > frame rate: 12.5 fps
> > speaks Hebrew with English subtitles
I've loved the three pieces by Doron I've seen
recently - simultaeneously warm & humane but also
strange and completely lacking in sentimentality.
michael
--- Jim Andrews <jim@vispo.com> wrote:
>
> > 'Tale of Crow' (re-edited)
> > duration: 4 min.
> > frame rate: 12.5 fps
> > speaks Hebrew with English subtitles
movie
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/Some_QuickTime_Movies/return_to_my_native_city.mov
has sound - tad bigger than usual, sorry, but please
look and listen.
best
michael
=====
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/Some_QuickTime_Movies/
'..and always let your unconscious be your guide.' - J.Cricket
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has sound - tad bigger than usual, sorry, but please
look and listen.
best
michael
=====
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/Some_QuickTime_Movies/
'..and always let your unconscious be your guide.' - J.Cricket
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: Re: Re: why so little discussion?
HI Curt
I don't particularly want to have a big ding dong back
and forth about this so these few observations will be
my last on this sub thread, by way of which I'll try &
return my contribution to the topic of art. I'll leave
you or Ryan the last word , should you want it.
(1)
<so all
of that
theoretical economic infrastructure (and the
cultural relationships
it implies) are overkill>
I disagree - trying to understand things is never
overkill.( and whether people are aware that what they
are doing conforms to our description or not is a red
herring -the question is, does our description lay
bare the mechanics of what is occurring? - I like to
think that you uncovered things as a critic in your
bravura contribution here on "five small videos" the
other day, that could well be news to MTAA).
Furthermore you're actually a lot closer in what you
concede here to a classically Marxist position than
you might think.
The key is
<Since the
time of Moses, 11 tribes supported a 12th tribe of
priests with their
tithes and offerings>
and this is *precisely* Marx and Engels account of the
beginnings of classes & the state: a separate caste of
people, living off the surplus created by others and
dedicated to ruling or ritual or religion.
( although they would date this substantially before
the time of Moses I think)
Prior to this although I've no doubt that people
worshipped, or attempted to placate, Gods or spirits
or whatever there was no separate body of people
devoted to this function simply because no society's
productive forces were developed enough to create a
surplus. Everyones labour: hunting, gathering, was
needed in order to guarantee everyones mere survival.
What would of course be totally ahistorical is to
speak of "capital" in any of this - capital and
capitalist are not terms of abuse but precise
technical descriptions of phenomena within
*capitalism*, something that has been with us for only
a few hundred years.
And of course you're right about people making gifts
to these ascetics of their own free will. They still
had to *produce* it though; their gifts still formed
part of a pattern of *distribution*.
I don't wish at all to deny or disparage the
contemporary description you give of simple good
neighbourliness -I experienced enough of that in my
fathers recent last months to both be very aware of
its reality and be profoundly grateful for it -indeed
it seems to me that in that sort of human decency, not
driven by need or greed, lies quite a lot of hope for
the future.
Where is the art in this?
Well, I suppose where I agree with Ryan is that on the
whole I feel the folk who gave up their dinners to
suport the guys on the pole got the rough end of the
deal.
Having said that though, I'm aware that my disapproval
or approval isn't going to alter the fact that it
happened and that I *do* think it has some bearing on
art, for reasons I explained in the post before this.
And coming almost full circle back to 1970s video I'm
struck by how much of it does seem to be involved with
an almost mystical strain of mortification of the
flesh - you can certainly see this in Acconci, but
there's also a pair of artists from what was then
Yugoslavia, whose names escape me, who did the most
alarming things to each other.
I'm absolutely not going to confine my notion of what
constitutes either great or interesting art ( or its
precursors and paraphenomena) to what pleases me
politically (in the narrow sense of the word).
best
michael
>
>
> Hi Michael (and Ryan),
> I'm just saying that most of these pillar-donating
> instances occurred
> in self-sustaining local agrarian economies, so all
> of that
> theoretical economic infrastructure (and the
> cultural relationships
> it implies) are overkill. To focus on the economic
> aspects of this
> situation is to apply one's pat contemporary grid
> backwards. It's to
> focus on something that these people weren't
> focusing on. Since the
> time of Moses, 11 tribes supported a 12th tribe of
> priests with their
> tithes and offerings. Call it specialization of
> spiritual services
> if you like. But these pillar ascetics weren't even
> priests. These
> were freewill offerings above and beyond the tithe.
>
> My family grow some of our own food here and we are
> surrounded by
> farmers. It's nothing for our back neighbor to
> bring by five bushels
> of corn and give it to us on a whim. These
> townspeope were giving
> the pillar ascetics the leavings/gleanings of their
> crop. It doesn't
> take much "capital" to live on top of a pole. The
> townspeople just
> had to be intentional enough to bring the food
> daily, which they were.
>
> Just like the MTAA year in a room project (getting
> back to it). It
> was more an issue of "mindshare" than of "growth,
> production,
> distribution."
>
> peace,
> 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
>
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The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free!
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I don't particularly want to have a big ding dong back
and forth about this so these few observations will be
my last on this sub thread, by way of which I'll try &
return my contribution to the topic of art. I'll leave
you or Ryan the last word , should you want it.
(1)
<so all
of that
theoretical economic infrastructure (and the
cultural relationships
it implies) are overkill>
I disagree - trying to understand things is never
overkill.( and whether people are aware that what they
are doing conforms to our description or not is a red
herring -the question is, does our description lay
bare the mechanics of what is occurring? - I like to
think that you uncovered things as a critic in your
bravura contribution here on "five small videos" the
other day, that could well be news to MTAA).
Furthermore you're actually a lot closer in what you
concede here to a classically Marxist position than
you might think.
The key is
<Since the
time of Moses, 11 tribes supported a 12th tribe of
priests with their
tithes and offerings>
and this is *precisely* Marx and Engels account of the
beginnings of classes & the state: a separate caste of
people, living off the surplus created by others and
dedicated to ruling or ritual or religion.
( although they would date this substantially before
the time of Moses I think)
Prior to this although I've no doubt that people
worshipped, or attempted to placate, Gods or spirits
or whatever there was no separate body of people
devoted to this function simply because no society's
productive forces were developed enough to create a
surplus. Everyones labour: hunting, gathering, was
needed in order to guarantee everyones mere survival.
What would of course be totally ahistorical is to
speak of "capital" in any of this - capital and
capitalist are not terms of abuse but precise
technical descriptions of phenomena within
*capitalism*, something that has been with us for only
a few hundred years.
And of course you're right about people making gifts
to these ascetics of their own free will. They still
had to *produce* it though; their gifts still formed
part of a pattern of *distribution*.
I don't wish at all to deny or disparage the
contemporary description you give of simple good
neighbourliness -I experienced enough of that in my
fathers recent last months to both be very aware of
its reality and be profoundly grateful for it -indeed
it seems to me that in that sort of human decency, not
driven by need or greed, lies quite a lot of hope for
the future.
Where is the art in this?
Well, I suppose where I agree with Ryan is that on the
whole I feel the folk who gave up their dinners to
suport the guys on the pole got the rough end of the
deal.
Having said that though, I'm aware that my disapproval
or approval isn't going to alter the fact that it
happened and that I *do* think it has some bearing on
art, for reasons I explained in the post before this.
And coming almost full circle back to 1970s video I'm
struck by how much of it does seem to be involved with
an almost mystical strain of mortification of the
flesh - you can certainly see this in Acconci, but
there's also a pair of artists from what was then
Yugoslavia, whose names escape me, who did the most
alarming things to each other.
I'm absolutely not going to confine my notion of what
constitutes either great or interesting art ( or its
precursors and paraphenomena) to what pleases me
politically (in the narrow sense of the word).
best
michael
>
>
> Hi Michael (and Ryan),
> I'm just saying that most of these pillar-donating
> instances occurred
> in self-sustaining local agrarian economies, so all
> of that
> theoretical economic infrastructure (and the
> cultural relationships
> it implies) are overkill. To focus on the economic
> aspects of this
> situation is to apply one's pat contemporary grid
> backwards. It's to
> focus on something that these people weren't
> focusing on. Since the
> time of Moses, 11 tribes supported a 12th tribe of
> priests with their
> tithes and offerings. Call it specialization of
> spiritual services
> if you like. But these pillar ascetics weren't even
> priests. These
> were freewill offerings above and beyond the tithe.
>
> My family grow some of our own food here and we are
> surrounded by
> farmers. It's nothing for our back neighbor to
> bring by five bushels
> of corn and give it to us on a whim. These
> townspeope were giving
> the pillar ascetics the leavings/gleanings of their
> crop. It doesn't
> take much "capital" to live on top of a pole. The
> townspeople just
> had to be intentional enough to bring the food
> daily, which they were.
>
> Just like the MTAA year in a room project (getting
> back to it). It
> was more an issue of "mindshare" than of "growth,
> production,
> distribution."
>
> peace,
> 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
>
__________________________________
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The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free!
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Re: Re: Re: why so little discussion?
HI Curt, Ryan
Curt - erecting straw men is an entirely
uncharacteristic method for you, so it's a shame to
see you doing it with "Marxist economics" -
<"Growth, production, distribution" are all
anachronistic
Marxist ways of thinking about it.>
How are Ryan's 'growth, production and distribution'
specifically Marxist concepts? -you can find these
concepts in *any* account of economics.
How does anyone eat, without production? - or, as soon
as society reaches any level of complexity, without
distribution? How can a society that grows in numbers
( & hence mouths needing to be fed) therefore ignore
the concept of "growth"?
Far from being anachronistic, production, distribution
and exchange (to use the more common Marxian triad)
are actually *universal* questions in any society
other that Robinson Crusoe's.
Of course I'm sure you'd disagree cogently with where
Marx takes us from those premises but your original
point is both mistaken and unworthy of your normal
level of debate.
I suspect what you have encountered is several doses
of the particularly poisoned marxism of the academy -
I recommend reading some of the original stuff, you
wouldn't agree with it, but the man is an invigorating
read & not at all the dullard of myth.
Ryan - although I agree with your general point, I can
hear the sound of baby and bath water here:
< performance art isn't "devotional living." whatever
that
means. it's art - a contrived activity designed to be
seen as art. >
This does rather tend to write off the roots of art as
a practice in religious ritual ( often designed
precisely to *do* something) and its development along
those lines for thousands of years ( and not only in
Western culture).
This therefore:
< it's art - a contrived activity designed to be seen
as art>
does seem to me to be demonstrably an anachronism.
And personally speaking, though I don't have a shred
of religious belief, my life would be a much poorer
experience without, say, Monteverdi's Vespers.
best
michael
--- curt cloninger <curt@lab404.com> wrote:
> ryan:
> Yeah, lots of things capture the imagination of an
> entire community.
> genocidal acts take lots of willing participants,
> for example. So did
> the civil rights movements. What doesn't?
>
> curt:
> contemporary performance art.
>
> ryan:
> i didn't realize that economics was
> anachronistic.
>
> curt:
> not economics, just marxist economics.
>
> ryan:
> whatever - performance art isn't "devotional
> living." whatever that
> means. it's art - a contrived activity designed to
> be seen as art. i
> don't understand the comparison. a "performance
> artist" could make bad
> art and live a devotional life.
>
> curt:
> devotional living is moment-by-moment living devoted
> to someone or something. the ascetic on the pole
> suggests to me that one's art (even one's
> performance art) could be more holistically bound up
> in / derived from one's personal inner life. It
> could be more idiosyncratically passionate and less
> tactically contrived:
> http://www.narrowlarry.com/page1.html
> http://www.interestingideas.com/roadside/artenvi.htm
>
http://cgee.hamline.edu/see/goldsworthy/see_an_andy.html
>
> is this approach "artist-as-hero"? is it "modern"
> (the scarlet "m")? i think such dismissals are too
> convenient. maybe it's pre-pre-pre-modern. Maybe
> it's more punk and less poser. Maybe it's just
> generally more interesting. maybe it's just me.
> +
> -> 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
>
__________________________________
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Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today!
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Curt - erecting straw men is an entirely
uncharacteristic method for you, so it's a shame to
see you doing it with "Marxist economics" -
<"Growth, production, distribution" are all
anachronistic
Marxist ways of thinking about it.>
How are Ryan's 'growth, production and distribution'
specifically Marxist concepts? -you can find these
concepts in *any* account of economics.
How does anyone eat, without production? - or, as soon
as society reaches any level of complexity, without
distribution? How can a society that grows in numbers
( & hence mouths needing to be fed) therefore ignore
the concept of "growth"?
Far from being anachronistic, production, distribution
and exchange (to use the more common Marxian triad)
are actually *universal* questions in any society
other that Robinson Crusoe's.
Of course I'm sure you'd disagree cogently with where
Marx takes us from those premises but your original
point is both mistaken and unworthy of your normal
level of debate.
I suspect what you have encountered is several doses
of the particularly poisoned marxism of the academy -
I recommend reading some of the original stuff, you
wouldn't agree with it, but the man is an invigorating
read & not at all the dullard of myth.
Ryan - although I agree with your general point, I can
hear the sound of baby and bath water here:
< performance art isn't "devotional living." whatever
that
means. it's art - a contrived activity designed to be
seen as art. >
This does rather tend to write off the roots of art as
a practice in religious ritual ( often designed
precisely to *do* something) and its development along
those lines for thousands of years ( and not only in
Western culture).
This therefore:
< it's art - a contrived activity designed to be seen
as art>
does seem to me to be demonstrably an anachronism.
And personally speaking, though I don't have a shred
of religious belief, my life would be a much poorer
experience without, say, Monteverdi's Vespers.
best
michael
--- curt cloninger <curt@lab404.com> wrote:
> ryan:
> Yeah, lots of things capture the imagination of an
> entire community.
> genocidal acts take lots of willing participants,
> for example. So did
> the civil rights movements. What doesn't?
>
> curt:
> contemporary performance art.
>
> ryan:
> i didn't realize that economics was
> anachronistic.
>
> curt:
> not economics, just marxist economics.
>
> ryan:
> whatever - performance art isn't "devotional
> living." whatever that
> means. it's art - a contrived activity designed to
> be seen as art. i
> don't understand the comparison. a "performance
> artist" could make bad
> art and live a devotional life.
>
> curt:
> devotional living is moment-by-moment living devoted
> to someone or something. the ascetic on the pole
> suggests to me that one's art (even one's
> performance art) could be more holistically bound up
> in / derived from one's personal inner life. It
> could be more idiosyncratically passionate and less
> tactically contrived:
> http://www.narrowlarry.com/page1.html
> http://www.interestingideas.com/roadside/artenvi.htm
>
http://cgee.hamline.edu/see/goldsworthy/see_an_andy.html
>
> is this approach "artist-as-hero"? is it "modern"
> (the scarlet "m")? i think such dismissals are too
> convenient. maybe it's pre-pre-pre-modern. Maybe
> it's more punk and less poser. Maybe it's just
> generally more interesting. maybe it's just me.
> +
> -> 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
>
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today!
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