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/
Re: Eryk Salvaggio: September 11th, 2001
I wasn't going to post anything on Eryk's piece since
everytime I do it seems to be along the lines of how
great the work is and I feel that may be getting a tad
monotonous.
Nevertheless I am a signed up member of the Salvaggio
fan club for the reason that there always seems to me
something deeply human at the heart of the work.
This piece is no exception.
Of course it has technique and bravo for that but the
point is surely that the technique is at the service
of and works together with the content to produce
something that is both shocking and moving and however
much Eryk dislikes the word, is art ,and art of a high
order.
The use of names is, contrary to what Ivan asserts,
the thing that make it the most personal, the most
connected - a name is of course not at all an
abstraction -in the world as we experience it, it
stands for everything we are ( and if I had lost
someone then to see their name up there would fill me
with grief-I can quite understand why Eryk would feel
a little nervous about posting the piece.)
If the point you are making is that there are many
events in our world that require memorials and many
needless deaths then I couldn't agree more ( there's a
piece to made about all those murdered in the
Palestinian refugee camps, or the Iraqi kids who died
through bombing or sanctions) but that is not what
this piece is about. Because others have died does not
lessen the horror of what happened to perfectly
blameless people on September 11th .
I for one am pleased that there are artists around who
don't see art as simply a formal and self referential
game but as something that speaks to us about our
deepest concerns.
And I don't mean by that that I think our time should
simply be taken engaging with tragedy - I thought the
recent haiku piece and the town portrait both human
sized and joyous works, (not to speak of the gnomes).
regards
Michael
--- Ivan Pope <ivan@ivanpope.com> wrote:
>
> > I would appreciate feedback on this piece if
> anyone would like to
> > provide it. I have mixed
> > emotions concerning it, the way I do with every
> piece of work, but
> > obviously the subject
> > matter here is potentially larger than maybe I
> should have attempted to
> > grasp.
>
> Eryk,
> I really like the work, in the way it abstracts time
> based imagery and raw
> data listing and recombines them into a recognisable
> time based work.
>
> This is my personal view. There is so much hysteria
> surrounding the events
> of September 11th. I have no desire to be drawn into
> that hysteria. But,
> from an art/artist perspective:
>
> ... to connect those images of 9/11/01 to the actual
> lives that were lost
>
> I cannot interpret this. What does it mean, 'the
> actual lives that were
> lost'? I mean, I think we all understand that it was
> real people with real
> lives that died. But I can't connect that to a huge
> listing of names. That's
> not real people, that's about as abstract as it
> gets. I can't help watching
> the piece with a sense of 'cor, that's clever, how
> did he do that' and
> 'look, the 'plane' is made up of Xxxx's name. Does
> that mean anything?' etc.
> It is not really possible to connect names (which
> are surely abstract
> symbols) to 'actual' people (and what indeed is an
> un-actual life?).
>
> ... this is not intended to be
> a piece of work that you look at on a website and
> then move on; this is as
> close as I could create, to an online memorial, and
> I think the people who
> were killed deserve to have this piece looked at
> with contemplation as
> opposed to blind clicking.
>
> I do not think you can say that, that you can impose
> this view on the
> viewer. Honestly, people who are dead do not
> >deserve< anything. Dead people
> are just dead people, there are a hell of a lot of
> them about. Do you really
> think it is your role to create a memorial? And if
> you do, surely the work
> will stand or fall as that in its own right?
>
> To sum up, let the work speak for itself. Do not try
> to protect it by
> building a wall around it. Unless you are a
> commissioned state sculptor of
> course.
>
> Lovely piece of work though :)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ivan
>
> +
>
bostoniscoolerthannewyorkbostoniscoolerthannewyorkbostoniscoolerthanne
> -> Rhizome.org
> -> post: list@rhizome.org
> -> questions: info@rhizome.org
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe:
> http://rhizome.org/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.php3
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com
everytime I do it seems to be along the lines of how
great the work is and I feel that may be getting a tad
monotonous.
Nevertheless I am a signed up member of the Salvaggio
fan club for the reason that there always seems to me
something deeply human at the heart of the work.
This piece is no exception.
Of course it has technique and bravo for that but the
point is surely that the technique is at the service
of and works together with the content to produce
something that is both shocking and moving and however
much Eryk dislikes the word, is art ,and art of a high
order.
The use of names is, contrary to what Ivan asserts,
the thing that make it the most personal, the most
connected - a name is of course not at all an
abstraction -in the world as we experience it, it
stands for everything we are ( and if I had lost
someone then to see their name up there would fill me
with grief-I can quite understand why Eryk would feel
a little nervous about posting the piece.)
If the point you are making is that there are many
events in our world that require memorials and many
needless deaths then I couldn't agree more ( there's a
piece to made about all those murdered in the
Palestinian refugee camps, or the Iraqi kids who died
through bombing or sanctions) but that is not what
this piece is about. Because others have died does not
lessen the horror of what happened to perfectly
blameless people on September 11th .
I for one am pleased that there are artists around who
don't see art as simply a formal and self referential
game but as something that speaks to us about our
deepest concerns.
And I don't mean by that that I think our time should
simply be taken engaging with tragedy - I thought the
recent haiku piece and the town portrait both human
sized and joyous works, (not to speak of the gnomes).
regards
Michael
--- Ivan Pope <ivan@ivanpope.com> wrote:
>
> > I would appreciate feedback on this piece if
> anyone would like to
> > provide it. I have mixed
> > emotions concerning it, the way I do with every
> piece of work, but
> > obviously the subject
> > matter here is potentially larger than maybe I
> should have attempted to
> > grasp.
>
> Eryk,
> I really like the work, in the way it abstracts time
> based imagery and raw
> data listing and recombines them into a recognisable
> time based work.
>
> This is my personal view. There is so much hysteria
> surrounding the events
> of September 11th. I have no desire to be drawn into
> that hysteria. But,
> from an art/artist perspective:
>
> ... to connect those images of 9/11/01 to the actual
> lives that were lost
>
> I cannot interpret this. What does it mean, 'the
> actual lives that were
> lost'? I mean, I think we all understand that it was
> real people with real
> lives that died. But I can't connect that to a huge
> listing of names. That's
> not real people, that's about as abstract as it
> gets. I can't help watching
> the piece with a sense of 'cor, that's clever, how
> did he do that' and
> 'look, the 'plane' is made up of Xxxx's name. Does
> that mean anything?' etc.
> It is not really possible to connect names (which
> are surely abstract
> symbols) to 'actual' people (and what indeed is an
> un-actual life?).
>
> ... this is not intended to be
> a piece of work that you look at on a website and
> then move on; this is as
> close as I could create, to an online memorial, and
> I think the people who
> were killed deserve to have this piece looked at
> with contemplation as
> opposed to blind clicking.
>
> I do not think you can say that, that you can impose
> this view on the
> viewer. Honestly, people who are dead do not
> >deserve< anything. Dead people
> are just dead people, there are a hell of a lot of
> them about. Do you really
> think it is your role to create a memorial? And if
> you do, surely the work
> will stand or fall as that in its own right?
>
> To sum up, let the work speak for itself. Do not try
> to protect it by
> building a wall around it. Unless you are a
> commissioned state sculptor of
> course.
>
> Lovely piece of work though :)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ivan
>
> +
>
bostoniscoolerthannewyorkbostoniscoolerthannewyorkbostoniscoolerthanne
> -> Rhizome.org
> -> post: list@rhizome.org
> -> questions: info@rhizome.org
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe:
> http://rhizome.org/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.php3
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com
Re: Unfinished Haiku in Mpeg Format
beautiful!
smart, witty , totally modern yet with a sense of
continuity to a tradition, engaging, not about
computers or code...oh and moving...
more please.
--- Eryk Salvaggio <eryk@maine.rr.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> http://www.one38.org/mpeghaiku/
>
> Mpeg Video as Two Line Haiku.
>
>
>
> -e.
>
>
>
> + Madam. In eden, I'm Adam.
> -> Rhizome.org
> -> post: list@rhizome.org
> -> questions: info@rhizome.org
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe:
> http://rhizome.org/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.php3
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com
smart, witty , totally modern yet with a sense of
continuity to a tradition, engaging, not about
computers or code...oh and moving...
more please.
--- Eryk Salvaggio <eryk@maine.rr.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> http://www.one38.org/mpeghaiku/
>
> Mpeg Video as Two Line Haiku.
>
>
>
> -e.
>
>
>
> + Madam. In eden, I'm Adam.
> -> Rhizome.org
> -> post: list@rhizome.org
> -> questions: info@rhizome.org
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe:
> http://rhizome.org/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.php3
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com
Re: hektor
Max
I too love Benjamin. Not the obscurantist of post
modern manufacture but the guy who wrote like a dream
and the warp and weft of whose writing is often more
interesting than what it says ( see possibly the most
overrated of his works, beloved of media studies
departments- 'The work of art in the age of mechanical
reproduction'- wrong, wrong, wrong.)
The comparison with Hitler you quote is simply odious.
Benjamin died facing almost certain death at the hands
of the nazis as both a jew and a communist fellow
traveller and one of his more lasting observations is
a very telling one about the nazis' aestheticization
of politics ( which he did not like one bit and which
should still give pause for thought to anyone engaged
in either politics or art).
When in the marvellous 'Theses on the Philosophy of
History'
http://www.tasc.ac.uk/depart/media/staff/ls/WBenjamin/CONCEPT2.html
he talked of blasting open the continuum of history he
was talking about neither nazi nor stalinist barbarism
but something else altogether - an extremely
idiosyncratic use of jewish messianism as a metaphor
for a revolution that would make possible real human
liberation and which it cannot be stressed too highly
for him had none of the connotations of Russian tanks
that it did for period of the cold war years.
That activist ( although that seems rather too strong
a word for a man who spent half of his life dithering
anout whether to learn hebrew or not) dimension has of
course been totally marginalised by both the post
modern confusion merchants and the 'end of history'
brigade but it's a -the- central axis of all his later
thought and writing.
best
michael
--- Max Herman <maxherman@zipmail.com> wrote:
>
> "Viewed from a certain distance, the great, simple
> outlines
> which define the storyteller stand out in him, or
> rather,
> they become visible in him, just as in a rock a
> human head
> or an animal's body may appear to an observer at
> the
> proper distance and angle of vision."
>
> --Walter Benjamin, "The Storyteller," (83) *
>
>
> Sorry Nathaniel, I was responding to your post and
> then
> went to Google and lost the post. So I have to
> guess a
> bit.
>
> The phrase "Benjaminian Storytelling" jumped out at
> me.
> Benjamin thought that the novel was leading/has
> lead us
> to a bleak, mechanical, sterilized world in which
> evil
> dominates every single function and expression is
> dead.
> For Benjamin, in his essay the Storyteller, the
> Novel
> represents an implosion or collapse of expression
> under
> its own gravity, like a black hole. He said that
> the
> novel took narrative out of a data-mingling
> ecosystem and
> put it into an absolutist one. He thought that was
> bad.
> However, most of the smart people of his day and
> ours say
> that it was WB who was bad! He promoted Messianic
> Jetztzeit. I stole the idea for Genius 2000 from
> him,
> from Walter Benjamin.
>
> I looked at your site briefly, Nathaniel, but I am
> at work
> so I don't care to load any Quicktime in case there
> are
> sex sounds on it--sex in the workplace issues and
> all.
> I'll look again when I get home, and do a real
> review.
> After all, by rights I should support and praise
> expression that has a similar worldview to Genius
> 2000,
> insofar as we ascribe value (by fairness) to that
> which is
> similar to that which we value.
>
> Non-Aggressive Narrative, I hear that phrase too.
> I'm not
> certain that this is strictly Benjamin however--he
> struggled long and hard with the idea of "holy
> violence"
> and "blasting open the continuum of history." NAN
> seems
> more of a Fluxus or Cageian math of indeterminacy.
> I
> accept some Fluxus but I have to say I think that
> Benjamin
> puts a huge-ass twist on Fluxus that
> poststructuralism
> never did. Benjamin is not a poststructuralist in
> my
> opinion; he was not at all popular with the Great
> Theorists like Foucault, Derrida, and Baudrillard.
>
>
> I've based my academic career on trying to
> recuperate
> Benjamin. He's my main man. I'm backing him a
> hundred
> percent.
>
> WB was about storytelling, yes, and against the
> novel
> (which by absolutizing the novelist reduced
> expression and
> perception to a solid point, killing its mingling
> potentials). But where he got into some hot
> boiling
> water, among both Hitler and the free french, was
> when he
> talked about blasting open the continuum of history
> with
> holy violence.
>
> This dead-world hypothesis is a true one, according
> to some
> people. Who knows. When I was in school everyone
> hated
> Benjamin. There's an article in the New Republic
> from
> 1999 or 2000, called "The Failed Messianism of
> Walter
> Benjamin," good reading. They essentially compare
> Benjamin to Hitler--a utopian liberator who had
> abandoned
> "the ethics of responsibility." They argue that
> Benjamin
> was insecure and unstable, and in the face of the
> dismal
> certainty of National Socialism he reverted to a
> kind of
> mythic fetal position and gripped the methods of
> his
> terrorizor--myth, heroism, apocalypse, redemption,
> spectacle--like a momma's boy would grab onto his
> mom's
> dysfunctional loving habits.
>
> They also say Hitler was a momma's boy, who loved
> pastries
> and creampuffs and other sweets more than any other
> food.
> He could not get into architect's school and spent
> his
> allowance brooding and festering in Viennese music
> halls,
> sticking a pin in his tie and starching his collar
> for a
> trip to hear Wagner 1900-1910. Getting angrier day
> by
> day, so the story goes. Hitler was also fascinated
> with
> blasting open the continuum of history by force.
> He was
> or became a "by any means necessary" kind of man,
> or
> compulsive arrested teen, after WWI.
>
> Maybe the main difference between Hitler and
> Benjamin is
> that Hitler crowned himself Emperor, whereas
> Benjamin did
> not. This also ties in to the Anakin Skywalker
> mythos.
> Not sure if it ties into the Fox Mulder or the
> Paul
> Atreides movies "X-Files" and "Dune: Desert
> Planet."
>
> I think Benjamin will become more popular as a
> critic and
> academic precedent as people accept that we are "in
> empire" literally not just theoretically. Maybe
> not
> popular in the perfect way but nothing is perfect.
>
> May I ask in closing what your thoughts are,
> Nathaniel,
> regarding Benjamin's Storyteller and his idea of
> "holy
> violence"? I hear the non-aggressive narrative
> idea and
> think it has potential--like NN's idea "retreating
> in your
> direction"--but I'm not sure.
>
> Maybe one way to put it is that Benjamin's
> storyteller is
> nomadic and viral, less an author than a carrier
> and
> mingler. The narrative then is non-aggressive,
> like 1001
> Arabian Nights, on one level but viral and
> systemically
> apocalyptic on another.
>
> So, best of luck and I'll check the site again
> later.
>
> Meanwhile, if you care to check out my own version
> of
> non-aggressive narrative, please go see
> www.electrichands.com/genius2000 or
>
>
http://www.geocities.com/genius-2000/SFMOMA82700.html.
>
> Or, even my regular original website of
> http://www.geocities.com/genius-2000. You scratch
> my back
> and I'll scratch yours. We can be a team, a
> glorious team
> for peaceful non-aggression.
>
> More non sequiturs include Joey Ramone "sittin' here
> in
> Queens, eatin' refried beans;" Woody Guthrie's
> guitar
>
=== message truncated ===
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience
http://launch.yahoo.com
I too love Benjamin. Not the obscurantist of post
modern manufacture but the guy who wrote like a dream
and the warp and weft of whose writing is often more
interesting than what it says ( see possibly the most
overrated of his works, beloved of media studies
departments- 'The work of art in the age of mechanical
reproduction'- wrong, wrong, wrong.)
The comparison with Hitler you quote is simply odious.
Benjamin died facing almost certain death at the hands
of the nazis as both a jew and a communist fellow
traveller and one of his more lasting observations is
a very telling one about the nazis' aestheticization
of politics ( which he did not like one bit and which
should still give pause for thought to anyone engaged
in either politics or art).
When in the marvellous 'Theses on the Philosophy of
History'
http://www.tasc.ac.uk/depart/media/staff/ls/WBenjamin/CONCEPT2.html
he talked of blasting open the continuum of history he
was talking about neither nazi nor stalinist barbarism
but something else altogether - an extremely
idiosyncratic use of jewish messianism as a metaphor
for a revolution that would make possible real human
liberation and which it cannot be stressed too highly
for him had none of the connotations of Russian tanks
that it did for period of the cold war years.
That activist ( although that seems rather too strong
a word for a man who spent half of his life dithering
anout whether to learn hebrew or not) dimension has of
course been totally marginalised by both the post
modern confusion merchants and the 'end of history'
brigade but it's a -the- central axis of all his later
thought and writing.
best
michael
--- Max Herman <maxherman@zipmail.com> wrote:
>
> "Viewed from a certain distance, the great, simple
> outlines
> which define the storyteller stand out in him, or
> rather,
> they become visible in him, just as in a rock a
> human head
> or an animal's body may appear to an observer at
> the
> proper distance and angle of vision."
>
> --Walter Benjamin, "The Storyteller," (83) *
>
>
> Sorry Nathaniel, I was responding to your post and
> then
> went to Google and lost the post. So I have to
> guess a
> bit.
>
> The phrase "Benjaminian Storytelling" jumped out at
> me.
> Benjamin thought that the novel was leading/has
> lead us
> to a bleak, mechanical, sterilized world in which
> evil
> dominates every single function and expression is
> dead.
> For Benjamin, in his essay the Storyteller, the
> Novel
> represents an implosion or collapse of expression
> under
> its own gravity, like a black hole. He said that
> the
> novel took narrative out of a data-mingling
> ecosystem and
> put it into an absolutist one. He thought that was
> bad.
> However, most of the smart people of his day and
> ours say
> that it was WB who was bad! He promoted Messianic
> Jetztzeit. I stole the idea for Genius 2000 from
> him,
> from Walter Benjamin.
>
> I looked at your site briefly, Nathaniel, but I am
> at work
> so I don't care to load any Quicktime in case there
> are
> sex sounds on it--sex in the workplace issues and
> all.
> I'll look again when I get home, and do a real
> review.
> After all, by rights I should support and praise
> expression that has a similar worldview to Genius
> 2000,
> insofar as we ascribe value (by fairness) to that
> which is
> similar to that which we value.
>
> Non-Aggressive Narrative, I hear that phrase too.
> I'm not
> certain that this is strictly Benjamin however--he
> struggled long and hard with the idea of "holy
> violence"
> and "blasting open the continuum of history." NAN
> seems
> more of a Fluxus or Cageian math of indeterminacy.
> I
> accept some Fluxus but I have to say I think that
> Benjamin
> puts a huge-ass twist on Fluxus that
> poststructuralism
> never did. Benjamin is not a poststructuralist in
> my
> opinion; he was not at all popular with the Great
> Theorists like Foucault, Derrida, and Baudrillard.
>
>
> I've based my academic career on trying to
> recuperate
> Benjamin. He's my main man. I'm backing him a
> hundred
> percent.
>
> WB was about storytelling, yes, and against the
> novel
> (which by absolutizing the novelist reduced
> expression and
> perception to a solid point, killing its mingling
> potentials). But where he got into some hot
> boiling
> water, among both Hitler and the free french, was
> when he
> talked about blasting open the continuum of history
> with
> holy violence.
>
> This dead-world hypothesis is a true one, according
> to some
> people. Who knows. When I was in school everyone
> hated
> Benjamin. There's an article in the New Republic
> from
> 1999 or 2000, called "The Failed Messianism of
> Walter
> Benjamin," good reading. They essentially compare
> Benjamin to Hitler--a utopian liberator who had
> abandoned
> "the ethics of responsibility." They argue that
> Benjamin
> was insecure and unstable, and in the face of the
> dismal
> certainty of National Socialism he reverted to a
> kind of
> mythic fetal position and gripped the methods of
> his
> terrorizor--myth, heroism, apocalypse, redemption,
> spectacle--like a momma's boy would grab onto his
> mom's
> dysfunctional loving habits.
>
> They also say Hitler was a momma's boy, who loved
> pastries
> and creampuffs and other sweets more than any other
> food.
> He could not get into architect's school and spent
> his
> allowance brooding and festering in Viennese music
> halls,
> sticking a pin in his tie and starching his collar
> for a
> trip to hear Wagner 1900-1910. Getting angrier day
> by
> day, so the story goes. Hitler was also fascinated
> with
> blasting open the continuum of history by force.
> He was
> or became a "by any means necessary" kind of man,
> or
> compulsive arrested teen, after WWI.
>
> Maybe the main difference between Hitler and
> Benjamin is
> that Hitler crowned himself Emperor, whereas
> Benjamin did
> not. This also ties in to the Anakin Skywalker
> mythos.
> Not sure if it ties into the Fox Mulder or the
> Paul
> Atreides movies "X-Files" and "Dune: Desert
> Planet."
>
> I think Benjamin will become more popular as a
> critic and
> academic precedent as people accept that we are "in
> empire" literally not just theoretically. Maybe
> not
> popular in the perfect way but nothing is perfect.
>
> May I ask in closing what your thoughts are,
> Nathaniel,
> regarding Benjamin's Storyteller and his idea of
> "holy
> violence"? I hear the non-aggressive narrative
> idea and
> think it has potential--like NN's idea "retreating
> in your
> direction"--but I'm not sure.
>
> Maybe one way to put it is that Benjamin's
> storyteller is
> nomadic and viral, less an author than a carrier
> and
> mingler. The narrative then is non-aggressive,
> like 1001
> Arabian Nights, on one level but viral and
> systemically
> apocalyptic on another.
>
> So, best of luck and I'll check the site again
> later.
>
> Meanwhile, if you care to check out my own version
> of
> non-aggressive narrative, please go see
> www.electrichands.com/genius2000 or
>
>
http://www.geocities.com/genius-2000/SFMOMA82700.html.
>
> Or, even my regular original website of
> http://www.geocities.com/genius-2000. You scratch
> my back
> and I'll scratch yours. We can be a team, a
> glorious team
> for peaceful non-aggression.
>
> More non sequiturs include Joey Ramone "sittin' here
> in
> Queens, eatin' refried beans;" Woody Guthrie's
> guitar
>
=== message truncated ===
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience
http://launch.yahoo.com