Re: [-empyre-] From Randall

[Norie Neumark]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Hi all,
This month is so rich and exciting, I’m not sure where to begin. Randall’s post 
is so fruitful in so many ways — terroirism is such a wonderful concept and 
important for freeing us from neoliberalism art-making.  The emphasis on the 
local, the soil, feeling obligations to the earth resonated with a work that 
Maria Miranda and i are doing with our worms — Waiting. We came to it both from 
the joy of having a back yard and compost bins (after years of living in 
appartments) and thinking about how, as artists, to work with animals in ways 
that could be a collaboration rather than instrumental use. We were delighted, 
too, that our worms love the same things as us — lots of vegetables and (too 
much) coffee. What we found that was really interesting, too, was that when 
when we set up a new worm cafe  we had to attune to their rhythms — they 
couldn’t be rushed, we just had to wait til they were ready to come out from 
under the blanket and start working their way through our food. Composting 
(yes, Donna Haraway), co-composing (yes Erin Manning), attuning (yes Vinciance 
Despret), waiting (yes, WORMS!) We’ve been thinking about the work as it goes 
along in our blog https://workingworms.net/  
Really looking forward to the rest of this month… such rich soil for thinking 
and for work
Norie Neumark

www.out-of-sync.com


> On 4 Oct 2017, at 11:31 pm, margaretha haughwout 
>  wrote:
> 
> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> Hi all,
> 
> I am posting this for Randall, while we try and sort why his emails aren't 
> coming through:
> 
> 
> Hello all. I am looking forward to speaking with, and alongside, everyone. I 
> hope to think a bit about each of the separate concepts in this week's title: 
> Radical Aesthetics, EcoAesthetic Systems and Entanglements. This message will 
> focus on the first concept with the other concepts to follow unless the 
> conversation takes us elsewhere!
> 
> 
> RADICAL AESTHETICS: 
> Radical is not a word I have much to do with, except in its Latinate origin 
> (having roots). So, I take it quite literally when asked to think about 
> radical aesthetics. But it might better capture my sense of things to say 
> "radicle aesthetics." In contemporary art, what passes for "radical" is too 
> often built on sand, not soil and thus is not amenable to truly radical 
> (radicle) life. 
> 
> In introducing me, Margaretha mentioned another particular word usage that I 
> have found useful - terroir. That is a term many of you may recognize from 
> wine making, which refers to the total environmental influence on multiple 
> facets of a wine's characteristics. I take up the term as a political stance, 
> as a terroirist. In the Capitalocene, I would argue that to embrace locality 
> and to reject the cosmopolitan art system (or the broader global habitus for 
> meaning making) makes one subject to accusations that make such a term 
> resonate with its obvious (near) homophone. I would further argue that just 
> as we live in specific watersheds, and foodsheds, we also live in specific 
> noösheds. This fact, necessitates a radicle (radical) re-thinking of 
> aesthetics.
> 
> Thus, Liberalism’s (or "art making wholly tied to neoliberalism" as mentioned 
> in the intro) obsession with institutionalizing, economizing, and 
> professionalizing every sphere of human endeavor leaves us out of love’s 
> reach. We need human scale, affectionate practices that generate enchantment, 
> and numinous experience.The liberal project is a dead end (or Entzauberung).
> 
> Ronald Osborn (quoting Wendell Berry):
> “Our politics and science have never mastered the fact that people need more 
> than to **understand** their obligation to one another and the earth; they 
> need also the **feeling** of such obligation, and the feeling can come only 
> within the patterns of familiarity.”
> 
> The affection and skill necessary to prevent the depletion of top-soil, for 
> example, only arises through intimate knowledge of and devotion to a concrete 
> locality and its supporting natural and human relationships. There simply are 
> no technical or global solutions to the crisis of soil loss brought on by 
> extractive chemical and machine-based farming methods. What are needed are 
> cultural solutions that take diverse local forms and emerge as a deeply 
> rooted and affectionate responsiveness to place.
> 
> “When one works beyond the reach of one’s love for the place one is working 
> in and for the things and creatures one is working with and among, then 
> destruction inevitably results,” Berry writes. “An adequate local culture, 
> among other things, keeps work within the reach of love.”
> 
> Attempts at definition:
> 
> noöshed - an area of land in which ideas are formed and (eventually) collect 
> into larger flows of ideas forming yet larger noösheds. 
> 
> terroirist - proponent and defend

[-empyre-] From Randall

[margaretha haughwout]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Hi all,

I am posting this for Randall, while we try and sort why his emails aren't
coming through:


Hello all. I am looking forward to speaking with, and alongside, everyone.
I hope to think a bit about each of the separate concepts in this week's
title: Radical Aesthetics, EcoAesthetic Systems and Entanglements. This
message will focus on the first concept with the other concepts to follow
unless the conversation takes us elsewhere!


RADICAL AESTHETICS:
Radical is not a word I have much to do with, except in its Latinate origin
(having roots). So, I take it quite literally when asked to think about
radical aesthetics. But it might better capture my sense of things to say
"radicle aesthetics." In contemporary art, what passes for "radical" is too
often built on sand, not soil and thus is not amenable to truly radical
(radicle) life.

In introducing me, Margaretha mentioned another particular word usage that
I have found useful - terroir. That is a term many of you may recognize
from wine making, which refers to the total environmental influence on
multiple facets of a wine's characteristics. I take up the term as a
political stance, as a terroirist. In the Capitalocene, I would argue that
to embrace locality and to reject the cosmopolitan art system (or the
broader global habitus for meaning making) makes one subject to accusations
that make such a term resonate with its obvious (near) homophone. I would
further argue that just as we live in specific watersheds, and foodsheds,
we also live in specific noösheds. This fact, necessitates a radicle
(radical) re-thinking of aesthetics.

Thus, Liberalism’s (or "art making wholly tied to neoliberalism" as
mentioned in the intro) obsession with institutionalizing, economizing, and
professionalizing every sphere of human endeavor leaves us out of love’s
reach. We need human scale, affectionate practices that generate
enchantment, and numinous experience.The liberal project is a dead end (or
Entzauberung).

Ronald Osborn (quoting Wendell Berry):
“Our politics and science have never mastered the fact that people need
more than to **understand** their obligation to one another and the earth;
they need also the **feeling** of such obligation, and the feeling can come
only within the patterns of familiarity.”

The affection and skill necessary to prevent the depletion of top-soil, for
example, only arises through intimate knowledge of and devotion to a
concrete locality and its supporting natural and human relationships. There
simply are no technical or global solutions to the crisis of soil loss
brought on by extractive chemical and machine-based farming methods. What
are needed are cultural solutions that take diverse local forms and emerge
as a deeply rooted and affectionate responsiveness to place.

“When one works beyond the reach of one’s love for the place one is working
in and for the things and creatures one is working with and among, then
destruction inevitably results,” Berry writes. “An adequate local culture,
among other things, keeps work within the reach of love.”

Attempts at definition:

noöshed - an area of land in which ideas are formed and (eventually)
collect into larger flows of ideas forming yet larger noösheds.

terroirist - proponent and defender of one's noöshed, but also an advocate
for reinhabitation of one's place, resisting globalization.

- Randall


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