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: Re: new work: gloriousninth flaming
HI Kate and others
I agree that this looks both interesting and
pertinent..well.. to a point because I do not
understand what
<We are carrying in this second half of the
twentieth century enormous
traumatic weight, and wit(h)nessing in/by art
brings it to culture
I agree that this looks both interesting and
pertinent..well.. to a point because I do not
understand what
<We are carrying in this second half of the
twentieth century enormous
traumatic weight, and wit(h)nessing in/by art
brings it to culture
Re: Re: Peace Is Not a Game
HI Marc
personally I meant no more than I said.
Ruth's piece is a great piece & more people should
know it.
However I don't believe NAN or Rhizome is run
conspiratorially.
I love what you are doing on Furtherfield and with the
Netbehaviour list - but I continue to enjoy and
benefit from Rhizome -there's room for plenty of
different approaches in my view.
People keep saying , in various quarters, "Rhizome is
dead" or words to that effect -I can't say it seems
like that to me -I think there've actually been some
pretty interesting discussions here recently and for
breadth I think it still can't be beaten, and while I
entirely understand the argument about making the
content available, which does seem to need to be
addressed in some way, I still think $5 is actually
ridiculously cheap .
When we bandy words like collectivity or solidarity
whatever about I think its not some tribal thing- you
know -I'm loyal to *my* list( and definitely God help
us not a *national* thing like Brits V. US or whatever
) but that we should link arms with our fellow artists
in the interests at a minimum of useful discussion and
maybe at some point we might be able to collectively
work to improve opportunites and conditions for *all*
of us.
I think *this* list against *that* list or *this* way
of organizing a for want of a better word "curatorial"
site against *that* way of doing it is a pointless
distraction.
best
michael
--- marc <marc.garrett@furtherfield.org> wrote:
> Yes - an excellent piece of work - I was very
> surprised that it was not
> not covered on here, makes one wonder...mmm.
>
> marc
>
> >Haven't checked this out yet, sounds good ... on a
> >connected note I don't think Ruth Catlow's
> excellent
> >'Rethinking Wargames'
> >http://www.low-fi.org.uk/rethinkingwargames/
> > got NAN coverage -it should have!
> >michael
> >--- Net Art News <netartnews@rhizome.org> wrote:
> >
> >---------------------------------
> > NET ART NEWS May 24,
> 2004Peace
> >Is Not a GameAntiwargame, a free online game by the
> >San Francisco-based futurefarmerscollective, has a
> >simple premise: stay president of the U.S.A. while
> >thecountry is in crisis after a terrorist attack.
> The
> >presidentaE
personally I meant no more than I said.
Ruth's piece is a great piece & more people should
know it.
However I don't believe NAN or Rhizome is run
conspiratorially.
I love what you are doing on Furtherfield and with the
Netbehaviour list - but I continue to enjoy and
benefit from Rhizome -there's room for plenty of
different approaches in my view.
People keep saying , in various quarters, "Rhizome is
dead" or words to that effect -I can't say it seems
like that to me -I think there've actually been some
pretty interesting discussions here recently and for
breadth I think it still can't be beaten, and while I
entirely understand the argument about making the
content available, which does seem to need to be
addressed in some way, I still think $5 is actually
ridiculously cheap .
When we bandy words like collectivity or solidarity
whatever about I think its not some tribal thing- you
know -I'm loyal to *my* list( and definitely God help
us not a *national* thing like Brits V. US or whatever
) but that we should link arms with our fellow artists
in the interests at a minimum of useful discussion and
maybe at some point we might be able to collectively
work to improve opportunites and conditions for *all*
of us.
I think *this* list against *that* list or *this* way
of organizing a for want of a better word "curatorial"
site against *that* way of doing it is a pointless
distraction.
best
michael
--- marc <marc.garrett@furtherfield.org> wrote:
> Yes - an excellent piece of work - I was very
> surprised that it was not
> not covered on here, makes one wonder...mmm.
>
> marc
>
> >Haven't checked this out yet, sounds good ... on a
> >connected note I don't think Ruth Catlow's
> excellent
> >'Rethinking Wargames'
> >http://www.low-fi.org.uk/rethinkingwargames/
> > got NAN coverage -it should have!
> >michael
> >--- Net Art News <netartnews@rhizome.org> wrote:
> >
> >---------------------------------
> > NET ART NEWS May 24,
> 2004Peace
> >Is Not a GameAntiwargame, a free online game by the
> >San Francisco-based futurefarmerscollective, has a
> >simple premise: stay president of the U.S.A. while
> >thecountry is in crisis after a terrorist attack.
> The
> >presidentaE
Re: Peace Is Not a Game
Haven't checked this out yet, sounds good ... on a
connected note I don't think Ruth Catlow's excellent
'Rethinking Wargames'
http://www.low-fi.org.uk/rethinkingwargames/
got NAN coverage -it should have!
michael
--- Net Art News <netartnews@rhizome.org> wrote:
---------------------------------
NET ART NEWS May 24, 2004Peace
Is Not a GameAntiwargame, a free online game by the
San Francisco-based futurefarmerscollective, has a
simple premise: stay president of the U.S.A. while
thecountry is in crisis after a terrorist attack. The
presidentaE
connected note I don't think Ruth Catlow's excellent
'Rethinking Wargames'
http://www.low-fi.org.uk/rethinkingwargames/
got NAN coverage -it should have!
michael
--- Net Art News <netartnews@rhizome.org> wrote:
---------------------------------
NET ART NEWS May 24, 2004Peace
Is Not a GameAntiwargame, a free online game by the
San Francisco-based futurefarmerscollective, has a
simple premise: stay president of the U.S.A. while
thecountry is in crisis after a terrorist attack. The
presidentaE
metamorphosis/imagining ourselves
new movie:
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/Some_QuickTime_Movies/metamorphosis.mov
34 others:
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/Some_QuickTime_Movies/
ALSO...
lots more self portraits , including a rather
remarkable one by patrick lichty executed in bathroom
tiles...
take a look:
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/self_portraits/index.html
contribute:
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/self_portraits/contribute.html
best
michael
=====
*** You are asked for a jusqu'a car-portrait 'imagining ourselves' contribution.
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/self_portraits/contribute.html
It black and an empty image must be qu'avec null, he n'est become the methods and material digitali/fotografici, (acceptable = ink, matita, coal, varnish; acceptable not = computer the photography &c)
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/self_portraits/index.html ***
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Domains
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/Some_QuickTime_Movies/metamorphosis.mov
34 others:
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/Some_QuickTime_Movies/
ALSO...
lots more self portraits , including a rather
remarkable one by patrick lichty executed in bathroom
tiles...
take a look:
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/self_portraits/index.html
contribute:
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/self_portraits/contribute.html
best
michael
=====
*** You are asked for a jusqu'a car-portrait 'imagining ourselves' contribution.
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/self_portraits/contribute.html
It black and an empty image must be qu'avec null, he n'est become the methods and material digitali/fotografici, (acceptable = ink, matita, coal, varnish; acceptable not = computer the photography &c)
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/self_portraits/index.html ***
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Domains
Re: new work
Kate,Patrick,lists
< Are you saying that because you find
the work beautiful then
it can't adequately express emotion?>
Absolutely not! The emotion I tend to experience on
looking at quite a lot of your work I suppose I could
characterize as something near to joy -I find it
exhilarating, this piece particularly so.
Its to do with both the look and the manner of
unfolding of each piece.
Maybe its a kind of aesthetic joy in that I'm
responding to the enormously satisfying formal
attributes of each work first and foremost
< 'beautiful' is quite a complex concept surely ->
one that changes its
meaning through time,>
well ---yes--ok but for me subjectively I *know*
whether something is or isn't beautiful -its a bit
Wittgensteininan this isn't it- like I *know* when I'm
in pain.
< I know you fairly well Michael, so would be
surprised if you were advocated
a kind of illustrative response to war. >
I don't advocate or not advocate.
In *my* work my unconscious and my conscience
determines whether a piece is finished/satisfactory
-in the work of others its a combination of my inital
affective and subsequent intellectual response to the
complex of factors going on in any particular work
that leads me to find a work satisfactory ,
unsatisfactory or problematic.
"If This is a Man" is *the* 20th century work about
the depths barbarism -& one could say that it is
entirely illustrative -there are other works , made in
the same period that eschew direct description
partially or completely -the surrealists, a little bit
earlier, spring to mind. 'Guernica' although
illustrative is a halfway house. The place for the
beautiful for me is as a kind of counter example, it
offers us a kind of utopian possibility, plus that
hope that human intervention in the world *as art*
brings me anyway.
I entirely accept that its possible to view your piece
as a response to the current sitatuion and hence to
war in general and lots of other related topics -I
think that what bothers me is your attempt to direct
us there in the accompanying atatement -I find these
things a closing off of meaning -I think I'm in favour
of a division of labour between artist and
viewer/critic -artist makes and critic/viewer
interprets/responds -I don't feel puritanical about it
though -I think its perfectly reasonable, for example,
for us to benefit from an interview with an artist
about her intentions in a particular work or group of
works.( see the interesting discussion on Rhizome
initiated by Curt Cloninger a bit back)
SO -intentionality.. I'm totally unconvinced that the
makers of the most interesting works of art either can
or should try and delineate what those works are
about, what those works contain -why? because the best
art, it seems to me, is a dialogue between the
artist's unconscious ( and I don't just mean a
freudian unconscious but one that contains all sorts
of social/political/historical/cultural debris from
the artist's life in the world) and that wider world ,
mediated thorugh the ability to urgently engage us
through the conscious patterning of the raw material
by the exercise of a high degree of craft.
Ultimately I think we make our boats and set them sail
on the water without a fixed itinerary - they might
reach ports of call we never dreamed of.
warmest
michael
--- Kate Southworth <katesouthworth@gloriousninth.com>
wrote:
> Hi Michael
>
> Thank you for your interest in our work, and for
> your comments.
>
> I'm really interested in what you're saying, but not
> quite clear exactly
> what you mean. Are you saying that because you find
> the work beautiful then
> it can't adequately express emotion?
>
> And 'beautiful' is quite a complex concept surely -
> one that changes its
> meaning through time, just as 'art' and
> 'creativity', for example, change
> their meaning.
>
> I know you fairly well Michael, so would be
> surprised if you were advocated
> a kind of illustrative response to war. I've played
> the piece a few times
> since your post, and the more I look at it, the more
> I understand my own
> response to the war. It is response that draws on
> emotion, intuition,
> analysis, sensations, and relates, like all our work
> tries to, to the
> constant changes and interactions, processes and
> relations that make up our
> world.
>
> Intentionality of the artist is something I am
> becoming increasingly
> interested in, and it seems to be quite a contested
> area amongst art
> historians. A real understanding of the
> implications of the different
> positions regarding intentionality seems to me to be
> critically important
> right now, because so many of the processes, tools,
> methods etc. that
> artists use are being increasingly incorporated.
>
> So, I'm open to any ideas whatsoever regarding
> intentionality.
>
> kindest regards
> Kate
>
>
>
> 5/14/04 17:09Michael Szpakowskiszpako@yahoo.com
>
> > For a cry of rage, Patrick, it's extraordinarily,
> > viscerally beautiful.
> > ( and this is true of the sound too, the intensity
> of
> > which complements the visuals wonderfully)
> > There's a real intentionality problem for me with
> > yours and Kate's work - I just find it
> gobsmackingly
> > gorgeous.
> > best
> > michael
> >
> > --- Patrick Simons
> <patricksimons@gloriousninth.com>
> > wrote:
> >> http://www.gloriousninth.com/flaming.html
> >>
> >> Glorious Ninth
> >> Flaming (our/your/their rage) 2004
> >>
> >>
> >> All debate about ownership and empowerment,
> >> democracy and accountability, long term
> perspectives
> >> and global, environmental issues are trodden
> >> underfoot and a chilling efficiency in
> dehumanising
> >> whole societies and populations, is allowed to
> >> remove any possibility of debate and empathic
> shared
> >> existence with those about to die.
> >>
> >> Flaming (our/your/their rage) is a release of
> anger
> >> and frustration against the powerful. Power and
> rage
> >> smashes a country already suffering. A lack of
> >> power to control everything provokes this rage.
> >> Artist, activist, freedom fighter, terrorist -
> where
> >> do our liberal values start and stop? Rage of the
> >> new yorkers, rage of america as they experienced
> >> violation. Rage at our collective lack of insight
> >> and our/your/their crouched/couched response.
> Rage
> >> that they/you/we want revenge. Rage at the
> twittery
> >> of politicians, their sell-out, and our stupidity
> to
> >> think they might be something they could be.
> Rage
> >> at our own hypocrisy. Rage at the defeat of the
> >> left, and at the utter abandonment of real hope.
> >> Rage at the inadequacies of intellectual
> arguments.
> >> Rage that there isn't an easy answer. Rage that
> >> it???s complex and there's not enough time in a
> >> life-time. Rage that there's no serious debate
> about
> >> what we actually want and about how it can be
> >> achieved and about how we understan!
> >> d the world.
> >>
> >>
> >> What is dished out from our representatives is
> >> simplistic, fundamentalist medieval crap. How can
> it
> >> be that I am either with you or against you? How
> can
> >> the means justify the ends justify the means? How
> >> can there be an axis of evil? How can this axis
> of
> >> evil shift so much that it obliterates
> ???allies???
> >> who ???stood by our side??? so recently. How can
> >> this be the path of righteousness and the act of
> a
> >> democratic society when carpet bombing, depleted
> >> uranium shells and the full might of the very
> latest
> >> technologies - which we spend so much time
> >> discussing in terms of the alienating nature of
> its
> >> inherent logic - is used to incapacitate
> >> people/countries/societies in the name of
> progress
> >> and future generations?
> >>
> >> +
> >> -> 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!?
> > SBC Yahoo! - Internet access at a great low price.
> > http://promo.yahoo.com/sbc/
> > +
> > -> 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
> >
>
=====
*** You are asked for a jusqu'a car-portrait 'imagining ourselves' contribution.
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/self_portraits/contribute.html
It black and an empty image must be qu'avec null, he n'est become the methods and material digitali/fotografici, (acceptable = ink, matita, coal, varnish; acceptable not = computer the photography &c)
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/self_portraits/index.html ***
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! - Internet access at a great low price.
http://promo.yahoo.com/sbc/
< Are you saying that because you find
the work beautiful then
it can't adequately express emotion?>
Absolutely not! The emotion I tend to experience on
looking at quite a lot of your work I suppose I could
characterize as something near to joy -I find it
exhilarating, this piece particularly so.
Its to do with both the look and the manner of
unfolding of each piece.
Maybe its a kind of aesthetic joy in that I'm
responding to the enormously satisfying formal
attributes of each work first and foremost
< 'beautiful' is quite a complex concept surely ->
one that changes its
meaning through time,>
well ---yes--ok but for me subjectively I *know*
whether something is or isn't beautiful -its a bit
Wittgensteininan this isn't it- like I *know* when I'm
in pain.
< I know you fairly well Michael, so would be
surprised if you were advocated
a kind of illustrative response to war. >
I don't advocate or not advocate.
In *my* work my unconscious and my conscience
determines whether a piece is finished/satisfactory
-in the work of others its a combination of my inital
affective and subsequent intellectual response to the
complex of factors going on in any particular work
that leads me to find a work satisfactory ,
unsatisfactory or problematic.
"If This is a Man" is *the* 20th century work about
the depths barbarism -& one could say that it is
entirely illustrative -there are other works , made in
the same period that eschew direct description
partially or completely -the surrealists, a little bit
earlier, spring to mind. 'Guernica' although
illustrative is a halfway house. The place for the
beautiful for me is as a kind of counter example, it
offers us a kind of utopian possibility, plus that
hope that human intervention in the world *as art*
brings me anyway.
I entirely accept that its possible to view your piece
as a response to the current sitatuion and hence to
war in general and lots of other related topics -I
think that what bothers me is your attempt to direct
us there in the accompanying atatement -I find these
things a closing off of meaning -I think I'm in favour
of a division of labour between artist and
viewer/critic -artist makes and critic/viewer
interprets/responds -I don't feel puritanical about it
though -I think its perfectly reasonable, for example,
for us to benefit from an interview with an artist
about her intentions in a particular work or group of
works.( see the interesting discussion on Rhizome
initiated by Curt Cloninger a bit back)
SO -intentionality.. I'm totally unconvinced that the
makers of the most interesting works of art either can
or should try and delineate what those works are
about, what those works contain -why? because the best
art, it seems to me, is a dialogue between the
artist's unconscious ( and I don't just mean a
freudian unconscious but one that contains all sorts
of social/political/historical/cultural debris from
the artist's life in the world) and that wider world ,
mediated thorugh the ability to urgently engage us
through the conscious patterning of the raw material
by the exercise of a high degree of craft.
Ultimately I think we make our boats and set them sail
on the water without a fixed itinerary - they might
reach ports of call we never dreamed of.
warmest
michael
--- Kate Southworth <katesouthworth@gloriousninth.com>
wrote:
> Hi Michael
>
> Thank you for your interest in our work, and for
> your comments.
>
> I'm really interested in what you're saying, but not
> quite clear exactly
> what you mean. Are you saying that because you find
> the work beautiful then
> it can't adequately express emotion?
>
> And 'beautiful' is quite a complex concept surely -
> one that changes its
> meaning through time, just as 'art' and
> 'creativity', for example, change
> their meaning.
>
> I know you fairly well Michael, so would be
> surprised if you were advocated
> a kind of illustrative response to war. I've played
> the piece a few times
> since your post, and the more I look at it, the more
> I understand my own
> response to the war. It is response that draws on
> emotion, intuition,
> analysis, sensations, and relates, like all our work
> tries to, to the
> constant changes and interactions, processes and
> relations that make up our
> world.
>
> Intentionality of the artist is something I am
> becoming increasingly
> interested in, and it seems to be quite a contested
> area amongst art
> historians. A real understanding of the
> implications of the different
> positions regarding intentionality seems to me to be
> critically important
> right now, because so many of the processes, tools,
> methods etc. that
> artists use are being increasingly incorporated.
>
> So, I'm open to any ideas whatsoever regarding
> intentionality.
>
> kindest regards
> Kate
>
>
>
> 5/14/04 17:09Michael Szpakowskiszpako@yahoo.com
>
> > For a cry of rage, Patrick, it's extraordinarily,
> > viscerally beautiful.
> > ( and this is true of the sound too, the intensity
> of
> > which complements the visuals wonderfully)
> > There's a real intentionality problem for me with
> > yours and Kate's work - I just find it
> gobsmackingly
> > gorgeous.
> > best
> > michael
> >
> > --- Patrick Simons
> <patricksimons@gloriousninth.com>
> > wrote:
> >> http://www.gloriousninth.com/flaming.html
> >>
> >> Glorious Ninth
> >> Flaming (our/your/their rage) 2004
> >>
> >>
> >> All debate about ownership and empowerment,
> >> democracy and accountability, long term
> perspectives
> >> and global, environmental issues are trodden
> >> underfoot and a chilling efficiency in
> dehumanising
> >> whole societies and populations, is allowed to
> >> remove any possibility of debate and empathic
> shared
> >> existence with those about to die.
> >>
> >> Flaming (our/your/their rage) is a release of
> anger
> >> and frustration against the powerful. Power and
> rage
> >> smashes a country already suffering. A lack of
> >> power to control everything provokes this rage.
> >> Artist, activist, freedom fighter, terrorist -
> where
> >> do our liberal values start and stop? Rage of the
> >> new yorkers, rage of america as they experienced
> >> violation. Rage at our collective lack of insight
> >> and our/your/their crouched/couched response.
> Rage
> >> that they/you/we want revenge. Rage at the
> twittery
> >> of politicians, their sell-out, and our stupidity
> to
> >> think they might be something they could be.
> Rage
> >> at our own hypocrisy. Rage at the defeat of the
> >> left, and at the utter abandonment of real hope.
> >> Rage at the inadequacies of intellectual
> arguments.
> >> Rage that there isn't an easy answer. Rage that
> >> it???s complex and there's not enough time in a
> >> life-time. Rage that there's no serious debate
> about
> >> what we actually want and about how it can be
> >> achieved and about how we understan!
> >> d the world.
> >>
> >>
> >> What is dished out from our representatives is
> >> simplistic, fundamentalist medieval crap. How can
> it
> >> be that I am either with you or against you? How
> can
> >> the means justify the ends justify the means? How
> >> can there be an axis of evil? How can this axis
> of
> >> evil shift so much that it obliterates
> ???allies???
> >> who ???stood by our side??? so recently. How can
> >> this be the path of righteousness and the act of
> a
> >> democratic society when carpet bombing, depleted
> >> uranium shells and the full might of the very
> latest
> >> technologies - which we spend so much time
> >> discussing in terms of the alienating nature of
> its
> >> inherent logic - is used to incapacitate
> >> people/countries/societies in the name of
> progress
> >> and future generations?
> >>
> >> +
> >> -> 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!?
> > SBC Yahoo! - Internet access at a great low price.
> > http://promo.yahoo.com/sbc/
> > +
> > -> 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
> >
>
=====
*** You are asked for a jusqu'a car-portrait 'imagining ourselves' contribution.
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/self_portraits/contribute.html
It black and an empty image must be qu'avec null, he n'est become the methods and material digitali/fotografici, (acceptable = ink, matita, coal, varnish; acceptable not = computer the photography &c)
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/self_portraits/index.html ***
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