Hello,
Just talking in terms of the useful/useless debate,
I think in terms of how we see ourselves, we can sometimes ghettoize ourselves
in a very little, anti-functionalist corner.
By positioning ourselves (in the da-da ist tradition) as "crazy artists" who
take everyday practices/techniques/technologies & subvert them, make them
useless, we often create a dichotomy between the "real" useful (rational,
practical,real looking, with a role in the world outside the art context)
stuff, like businesses, technology, etc
& "art", which is useless (irrational, impractical,wacky looking, subversive,
not effecting the wold beyond the art context).
I know that a lot of people are doing really interesting stuff which
challenges these ideas, but I do see a lot of work that just, takes a piece of
technology & then makes it go wierd. (Some of which rocks, lots of which
dosent)
This can be a lot of fun, but dosent this way of thinking limit what we do?
I'm only writing this as a kind of confession, personally I find myself doing
this a lot.
I'm not arguing that art should be functional in the traditional narrow sense
of the word at all, just that we should stop
doing the exact opposite of what functional society produces/does, as a knee
jerk reaction. And find different, more expansive,
complicated, fluid, aims for our selves.
I would argue for an approach to one of the official aims of art (to be as
creative as possible) similair to that Greek guy, approaching medusa. Never to
look at her directly.
er ,,
what the hell am I on about?
Oh yes,
Not that I want to
a)get into bringing up Greek mythological references that I plainly know
nothing about, or
b)start talking about the "muse" as a woman or anything as pathetic as that,
Just that finding aims, functions, issues to focus on (your reflective shield
- gedditt?) instead of "creativity",
will,, er,
slay the evil snake headed monster.
Anyway,
what do y'all think?
Michael Szpakowski <
szpako@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi
> this is possibly dull & old hat & not at all witty or
> fashionably cynical but quite straightforwardly I
> think that art (maybe culture would be a broader,
> better term) is pretty central to what makes us human.
> Of course strictly for a defining feature we're
> probably talking some kind of tool use/language
> combination but it is significant that those cave
> paintings still speak to us ( well, they do to me..)
> "Use" is difficult - I think it's the very
> uselessness of art, in every sense except this central
> one, that makes it so important, so defining, indeed
> that allows it to be so -precisely *because* the best
> art doesn't have a one dimensional "use": it can carry
> the most rich & varied freight of meaning, reference,
> history & prophecy..( Which is why art is *not*
> culture bound; why as a card carrying atheist I can
> still be shaken to the core by Piero della Francesca
> or Giotto)
> I'm not dogmatically opposed to the idea of usefulness
> in other more limited senses but as a cautionary note
> I would point out both Stalinism/Zhdanovism (tragedy)
> & Blairite "cultural" policy in the UK of the last ten
> years (farce).
> The fact also that art continues to be made, to be
> discussed, under the most appalling circumstances
> -think of the Dante section of Primo Levi's Auschwitz
> memoir "If This Is a Man" - suggests that is is
> something with enormously deep roots in us..
> I just did an arts outreach project( & *there's* an
> interesting byway of this discussion!) in Tottenham,
> Lnodon & I got some footage, first take, of six young
> men from 13-16 years old, MCing, unprepared &
> completely impromptu, with a panache & skill that
> filled me with both joy & I have to say, a degree of
> envy.
> I'm still idealist enough to want a world where I make
> myself unemployed as a specialist - where *everyone*
> has the basic material necessities & so is able "to
> hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear
> cattle in the evening, criticise [or perhaps make
> art!] after dinner"
> michael
>
> --- richard willis <
m81l1ngl1sts@richtextformat.org>
> wrote:
>
> > well quite.
> >
> > art is useless cos it can't help me fix my boiler.
> > and i'm cold.
> >
> > ...hey, wait a sec, i could burn the damn paintings!
> >
> > i take it all back.
> >
> > also: blah
> >
> > r.
> >
> >
> >
> > > Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
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> > >
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"Flunstellas Are All around Us."
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