This is a very interesting discussion!
I like Alan's 'art as an ongoing process' and 'art as a way of knowing
the world' formulations, and I also like Aharon's idea about the alien
who has been told that art is something humans do, and who visits earth
asking to be shown examples and have them explained. I also like the
gallery curator's response - "art's the stuff I choose to hang on the
walls" - because in the post-Duchamp world, art can be anything, if we
can be persuaded to look at it with our 'art' spectacles on.
However, if the alien came to me and asked me to define art and explain
what it was for, I'd tell him to go and talk to some children. Because
art is something all children do, something all children recognise, and
something all children can identify as being different from other forms
of activity and discourse. This isn't to say that children aren't
dismissive or uncomprehending if you show them certain things like
conceptual art or abstract paintings: but I think we tend to confuse
ourselves by trying to define art in terms of what's on show in the most
advanced galleries at the moment, what's making money or not, what's
"in" and what's "out", what's being produced by the most cutting-edge
practitioners, or what's being espoused by the most advanced theorists -
instead of thinking about it in terms of its psychological origins,
where the impulse to produce art and to recognise things as art comes
from in the first place. Because all cultures and almost all human
beings have those impulses. All children draw, or doodle patterns; all
children tap out a rhythm or sing songs; all children tell stories, and
like to hear them told; all children like rhymes and jokes; and all
children, if you give them a bit of plasticine, will make something out
of it and then start to play with whatever they've made. Children will
also respond to something produced by someone else - a drawing or a
plasticine model, a tune or a story, a rhyme or a joke. They'll either
like it or dislike it, and if they like it they'll get a real sense of
pleasure from it. And those are the most fundamental forms of art and
engagement with art. So, I think it's got something to do with the urge
to divert ourselves and educate ourselves through creative play, and the
urge to create and recognise patterns. There's something deeply
satisfying about those two things - creative play and pattern - that
draws us to them, both as artists and as audiences.
Edward
On 15/07/17 16:08, Alan Sondheim wrote:
I want to thank aharon for the below, and Ruth, also, who wrote me,
asking about other humans, of course, in the network and media; this
is also a question of community and audience for me, for whom is one
making art, beyond navel-gazing? In relation to aharon, an art also
then of nothing perhaps.
So this relates on one hand to improvisation and music, which exists
in its moment or as a recorded after-effect, on one hand; and to an
internal process on the other. I described what the internal process
is for me; even in the midst of others (for example working in the
Eyebeam community in NY), one is working an interior, through and
within an interior consciousness. Part of sport and music is to place
that consciousness on hold, to live and abide in the audible and
physical, and the same for dance and I think theater as well. Things
begin within; when elsewhere, without, they become part of production
and then enter the seriation of art or the network. But too often for
me, they are created for that seriation, as product; and too often,
perhaps (and this is all a matter of taste), they're created with data
as a kind of mapping of one phenomenon onto another, for example
stock-market and clouds onto a system of lights and smoke. I'm more
concerned with the somatic within, and then what emerges is art that,
like dance or sport, has an uneasy relationship with the object? I see
the same thing in Michael's and aharon's rides/maps which beautifully
emphasize the lived experience, beautifully present that experience to
others. But the imminent is the experience which is presented.
Lived time has something to do with this.
I'm reading Angela Nagle's Kill All Normies, Online Culture Wars from
4Chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right, and here of course is
art/lit - if it be such at all, based fundamentally on the network, on
exteriority - she writes, for example, "Do those involved in such
memes any longer know what motivated them and if they themselves are
being ironic or not? Is it possible that they are both ironic
parodists and earnest actors in a media phenomenon at the same time?"
(p. 7)
I think of so much work I respond to (yes, this is a kind of
connoisseur- ship) as being an inversion of this exteriority, drawn
out not by the goal itself, but by questioning in the first place,
problematizing. If I gave the impression that I'm not interested in
audience or reception, I didn't mean to, just that audience or
reception are in relation to thinking through in a different way.
Think of a novelist for example; s/he writes, is immersed perhaps in
the diegesis of the world she is writing; if she has an aside to a
reader, that is also within the diegesis, etc. Mikel Dufrenne
described this. This is different than, for example, political writing
which is goal-oriented, drawn out by the appearance of the world. The
two intermix.
Everything I'm writing here can obviously be contradicted. I see the
novel and its world as also a form of network and networking, in a
very different way of course. Austen writes of and in networks.
So there are artists who are immediately engaged, like Barbara Kruger
and Kara Walker; there are artists who are working with interiority;
and in every case, what one knows of what they're doing is the
relationship between their art and its modes of presentation. If I
hear a solo by Ras Moshe, who I've played with, it's going to be a
different world than if I see productions designed for a gallery.
They're different forms of being productive, different inhabitations,
different habitus. And for me, too often production tends, after the
fact, to canon/genre/etc. which restricts as much as it opens up.
In terms of what Ruth is asking, I do think about the appearance of
what I create, how it's received; this is critical to me, and comes
about in post-production to a limited extent; I'm influence by cinema
(Agnes Varda, Godard, Antonioni, Leslie Thornton) for example and
think (and have taught) cinematically. But if I don't begin from the
interior, somatic, somatic-political (terror, displacement, anguish,
lines of flight), I feel I've failed, and then end up riding on
another surface...
Aharon brings up sharing, and sharing, and being shared with, and
entering into the creation of sharing and its communality, is most
important; on a personal level, it's what creates a sense of despair
in us, being in Providence, where communities aren't welcoming, are
tight-knit, and where so many creative people, even since we've been
here (3 1/2 yrs) end up leaving. So here at least, I'm more than
dependent on the network; it's my lifeblood, and a lot of my work
early on (dealing with traceroute and the access grid etc.) was based
within it; I imagined, and still do, an enormous skein with its
resonances as basic to the digital planet. At the same time, Nagle's
book points out what I've seen all too often, that the network is
usually the body-at-a-distance, and this kind of deflection works well
in war-zones, both physical and virtual; there are many ways to resist...
I feel heavily jetlagged still, these thoughts are twisting and
turning around in me, but I wanted to write back now while I'm more or
less awake and hope I'm not too far off the mark.
And thanks so much, aharon and Ruth, for your responses.
- Alan
On Sat, 15 Jul 2017, aharon wrote:
Hiyas,
Thanks Alan for bringing up the question of - or from - art making
processes. Perhaps at a time when art is linked with The artworld,
and perhaps artworlds (as one with the T and the alternatives:
http://www.plausibleartworlds.org/ )? Or when people have some
double-takes on questions linked with art by claiming they use "art"
for a certain contextual ease, yet indeed whether whatever is done
might be art or not, is rather inconsequential - perhaps art-making,
as a processes is a question to elaborate and articulate?
Beuyes claimed something to the tune of "we haven't done art yet",
hence art was to be continually re-defined. This, in my mind seems
slightly linked with 20th century art-linked negations of any given
other negation, and so on - but am probably wrong on that level. What
seems to be interesting for me is that when an activity is unpolished
and does indeed go not-entirely-perceived-wisdom, or
not-entirely-common-place-imagination - when we get a sensation from
such as: "oh, i didn't know i could imagine this and that this way" -
we get the term art invariably popping up effortlessly. (when "this
and that" are stuff like an object, a process, an activity and so on..)
Am saying that cause some years back i used to go into art-linked
places and ask something like: "so.. i see here all sorts of objects.
but where is the art around here?" A question that was perceived
aggressive and had to change if it was to remain honest. So nowadays
the question is: "lets say i was an alien. i was told humans do art.
i was told here in this gallery/museum/house/field there is this art
thing, how would you help this alien?" The replies vary in terms of
focus and content. They vary by people, from a guard saying art is
the stuff i should not touch, and a curator claiming art is the stuff
she put up.
Nothing to do with stuff being particularly visual, but aspects of
how stuff is being, or came to be. Artists do not seem to need to be
making pictures or even have a visual link even in the desert. Asking
someone in a desert near jericho if she knew an artist in the city,
she said that as far she knew there were none. After I met a painter
in Jericho who indeed claimed to be the only artist in town, it
turned out to be they were both neighbours. Asked the 1st person how
come she didn't tell me about the painter, i was told that the
Quality of painting - not the fact they were paintings - made her
think it wasn't art. When in nicosia's UN controlled airport area's
dog rescue centre, the local dog artist did not make images but was
said to imagine "differently".
However, perhaps the question can also be slightly re-shaped? The
idea of production, of making. One might not make something visual,
but produce something. (I know duchamp had a bit of a friction with
that question of making, in the sense of having years/time when he
considered himself to not be doing stuff, or not producing. If anyone
has illuminations about that..?) When recently in Rio, I hooked up
and collaborated with Lara-that-does-nada. Doing nothing is her
research. The question of doing as a production, as a burden and over
requirement being placed upon people. Nada is ofcourse an impossible.
One breaths, one produces excrements, one is a witness to the other.
One has frictions. One is a live and moves in time and at others in
space. Nada? Nothing? What else is there to do? I can be Your
imagined gaze. I can wait for you? Wait with you? Wait linked with
you? Maybe together we can make a queue?
Question being is how we can share. Share nothing. Share that that
seems like nothing? In my mind, perhaps wrongly, this nothing idea
links to european oriented art-linked image making from the earlier
part of 20th century when it became more common to leave white spaces
on a canvass. Spaces of nothing seemed a controversial idea despite
the fact it was widely practised in south-east asian art-linked image
making. However, perhaps the white spaces the untouched are part of
an object size rather than doing nothing? I recall, while in Nairobi
noticing the prevalence of Bollywood cinema, i was surprised as
communication is based on translation. So asked how come its so
popular, i was told that for the same amount of money one might pay a
Hollywood film, one can get twice or even more film-time! The
enlarged object?
Reading the occasional interview with sports people, I noticed that
for some - in my mind the more successful ones - the focus of Making
is not the time and occasion of performance, but keeping up the
practice. Current wimbledon pricked an interest with the issue of
sexism, language and money. I noticed one of the players was slightly
dissed by the writer for claiming her success was due to years of
work - of making her - rather than her recently appointed ex
wimbledon champ. I think her point was somehow similar to Alan's -
focus on the processes, not the show. However, this is precisely kind
of a magician's nightmare. If people managed to view and review the
processes employed, "magic" will be uncovered.
Is this linked to art? In german, as far as i seem to understand,
Kunst is indeed linked to magic. But check this.. In polish, art is
always a piece. The object is always a bit of some other stuff.
sztuka. In Czech sztuka is a ceiling ornament. In arabic the word for
art sounds like Fun - which takes us back to english and a sense of
fun? Art as a thrill?
Being a thrill or is it making a thrill? Having to produce a sense of
fun - or some other sensation - or being that very sensation? Making
as a kind of performing? Performing as a kind of being?
Here's another little story before I shut up. A story from a
different culture to the one i tend to experience in "the west" and
perhaps laced in misreadings - but here you go.. Brazil 2017 is a
post coup brazilian life. Post coup, for example, means that people
that could survive somehow around a years ago - can not anymore. Post
coup brazil is stark and violent. Now.. Here I am.. I am
skateboarding between brasilia and rio. doing some abstract
040-language stuff along the way. Stuff that when I asked goteo.org
to get a croudfunding campaign for - i was told its not possible
because there is no viability for people. However, I was surprised by
hearing from people i met something to the tune of: OH! This is
Precisely what we need here and now in brazil! Yes I thought
sometimes my leg is being pulled, and at others i asked to record the
conversation, while at all cases I did try to critic. (eg
suspiciousness about people claiming that if x occurs, then surely Y
and Z will follow.. Which is, to be honest, precisely not what
http://ifxyz.xyz languages are..) However, the point remains and
remained - I think - that the "just being", simply going on and
doing-that-which-a-person-is, seems to have been, to a certain extent
at least, possibly taken as a common understanding of art. There was
no need to produce images, nor sounds, words, nor performances for
the practice to be taken as some kind of art. (I am not entirely
comfortable with that, but perhaps its a different question..)
So yes.. For me this kind of making process by Alan, is Uber
inspiring before Uber might have been imagined as an occupying
venture... Perhaps indeed, there are, these are, dynamics. Knowledge?
Of knowledge? A knowing as a sensation of knowledge? As a
non-knowledge? the time before a knowledge becomes known? Before any
clear image comes?
Perhaps there is a process, a category or a search, a direction or a
movement, a gesture that is in and from itself? Not "pure", but
requires else but itself? Does love need an image? Does a need for
help requires anything else but? Does a movement of a body asks for
other stuff but a chance to be? ..and a chance to be while it is
being - how is it shared? As a witness? As a story? As an image that
is other than a body? Pictures do not make art, but art can, at
times, make pictures along its way? Art as a species? a category?
Well.. I hear doors open for questions of specificity and forms..
Hopefully there are other opinions, maybe even written clearer and
more succinctly that I just managed.. ;)
Have fun!
aharon
xx
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