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DEVELOPMENTAL RESEARCH
My work is constantly changing theoretically and therefore visually, I am a de-centered practitioner; working on multiple themes in various mediums with an indistinct style running through all of my work. I am constantly journeying, understanding, testing and hypothesizing concepts whilst, running parrallel, am attempting to express a concept relatively and objectively.
Using Joseph Beuys’ public persona as an example, that he created from fact and fiction, a contrived self-appointed personal stance thread that takes some of the objectivity away from the viewer. Yet this subjectivity may have been a prerequisite to his further works, in a similar way to my semester 3 (which in hindsight are art as therapy) creations. Art Theorist, Benjamin Buchloh criticises Beuys retreat into myths and symbolism and criticises Beuys’ rhetoric, calling it, ‘simple minded, utopian drivel’.

I am interested in art being a way of life and how much art and life can infringe and harmonise with each other. Bourriard states that, ‘contemporary art is definitely developing a political project when it endeavors to move into the relational realm by turning it into an issue.’
Spaces and accessing relational aesthetics
The aesthetic is predetermined by the site and by the found objects used to create the den and the control is a piece of vintage fabric, usually used for the dens roof. The intention upon initialising this project was to change spaces and integrate these spaces into the environment, with intention to leave the dens after initial creation to be evolved, de-created or untouched by the public, institution workers and nature. I am interested in what happens to the dens post-creation with more emphasis on how the work lives on in the viewers text or participation and less
of what the author states that the work means. with reference to Barthe’s essay, ‘From work to text.’ Barthes’ explained that, “the Text is radically symbolic: a work conceived, perceived and received in its integrally symbolic nature is a text.” What happens to the work after creation, socially, with audience participation or naturally, after the author leaves.
DEN5, Social Habitat
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Bourriard defines a relational art as, “an art taking as its theoretical horizon the realm of human interactions and its social context, rather than the assertion of an independant and symbolic space.” In my dens project, I am lessening the importance of a ‘symbolic space’, therefore the notions of Barthes’ ‘text’ become a lesser relevance compared to the ‘realm of human interactions and its social context’, that Barthes states as relational art.
Rikrit Tiravanija inhabited the gallery space and served up ‘pad thai’ to his viewers.
Bourriard states that, ‘art is a state of encounter.’
Bishop disregards Tirivanija’s work for targeting a niche audience only, an audience of ‘gallery-goers’ who do not fit the bill of a democratic relational art. She states that,”.....”. Bishop rates Santiago Sierra’s work for reflecting the “tension..... (art and social sphere)”, in ‘6 people paid to remain in cardboard boxes’, where he pays illegal workers $9 for occupying a box for 3 hours. She shuns) Bourriards vision of relational art as being harmonious and utopian, yet I think there is still a possibility here for relational art not to have serious undertones. According to Bourriard, a work is political as soon as it, “incorporates.....people socially,” and Bishop quotes ....... as ...... Sierra goes into public streets to find illegal workers before his exhibition gallery opens.
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Your own theories about your work are more interesting than the other
ReplyDeletetheorists notions of what art is. This is because you are the artist trying to understand your creative act and they are mere theorists, critics or philosophers.
arrr im trying not to make interpretation of work about symbolism, especially defined by the artist..
ReplyDeletei think its quite beautiful using theories to explain works, especially if they are written before the work is produced.
maybe will be better with more essay words, another 2000 to go.
x
We need to work out the reciprocal relations between art and theory. I don't think we should see them as "before and after" - theory doesn't simply find its objects, but actively constitutes them. Theory is about the importance of language, of words, to art. What an artwork is, what it becomes, is constructed in and by language - theory is the link between what an artist does and how that doing is understood. Theory is the representation in speech or writing of what has been made - it's essential, therefore, to the 'creative act'.
ReplyDeleteTrying hard to understand how a theory can be essential to a creative act, not something I would subscribe to, maybe thats why there is so few original art works now.
ReplyDeleteClinically I should wear a white coat for this one or an apron with another slogan of your choice:)
Hypothesis 2 - ISA's
by a marxist philosopher
Louis Pierre Althusser 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990
Ideological State Apparatuses:
Because Althusser held that our desires, choices, intentions, preferences, judgements and so forth are the consequences of social practices, he believed it necessary to conceive of how society makes the individual in its own image. Within capitalist societies, the human individual is generally regarded as a subject endowed with the property of being a self-conscious 'responsible' agent. For Althusser, however, a person’s capacity for perceiving himself in this way is not innately given. Rather, it is acquired within the structure of established social practices, which impose on individuals the role (forme) of a subject.[49] Social practices both determine the characteristics of the individual and give him an idea of the range of properties he can have, and of the limits of each individual. Althusser argues that many of our roles and activities are given to us by social practice: for example, the production of steelworkers is a part of economic practice, while the production of lawyers is part of politico-legal practice. However, other characteristics of individuals, such as their beliefs about the good life or their metaphysical reflections on the nature of the self, do not easily fit into these categories. In Althusser’s view, our values, desires and preferences are inculcated in us by ideological practice, the sphere which has the defining property of constituting individuals as subjects.[50] Ideological practice consists of an assortment of institutions called Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs), which include the family, the media, religious organisations and, most importantly, the education system, as well as the received ideas they propagate.[51] There is, however, no single ISA that produces in us the belief that we are self-conscious agents. Instead, we derive this belief in the course of learning what it is to be a daughter, a schoolchild, black, a steelworker, a councillor, and so forth.
We mustn't forget the innate/natural desire to create, free from all influence.
I think I was trying to understand art as something like an effect of all the statements that are made about it - as something constructed in and through language - rather than as an expression of creativity.
ReplyDeleteA consequence of your argument is that you reduce art and the artist to nature, and so risk losing art entirely, as something real human beings actually do.
I'm not quite sure how Althusser's theory of ideology is relevant here - I guess you're making a point about individuality, but it's a great essay you're referring to - talks about how we identify with and recognise ourselves in images - and the rather garbled exposition from Wikipedia does it no justice - it's much easier to read than the summary here too!
heyho
ReplyDeleteYes - thats the literal and academic viewpoint.
I don't have a problem with losing art entirely in theoretical terms, i've always argued that its a natural form of expression,
so I'm anti-art in that respect.
I used the Althusser ISA's (political) reference as a dig at education in this capitalist society. The apparatus which controls education at the moment is certainly not very helpful to individual development. Its the result of a New Labour ideal badly facilitated perhaps. Something I've become interested in since Berta, Amy Gil and Toni have told me what its like at BA art schools these days.
Identification is also something I'm particularly interested in relation to
film/media studies. Especially the 'news 24' idea -a serious form of image manipulation. The idea that perhaps the BBC tries to control the mental health of the nation 24 hours with an odd celebrity pop culture
thrown in for good measure.
Yes, I agree with what you say about Althusser's critique of the educational ISA, but he also talks about 'heroic' teachers. And of course, he was one too!
ReplyDeleteBut I think art schools would share your fairly romantic view of art and the artist! Griselda Pollock's essays from the 80s are still good on all this.
Cheers!
ReplyDeleteI am losing faith in art schools which is upsetting me after being a student in them for seven years and as a technician for three. Teachers learn from their students don't forget. The hero is mythical after all.
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ReplyDeleteYeah they are essentially a tool or vehicle if they are equipped or have some kind of engine.
ReplyDeleteSo I went to the Degree show/Foundation show last night. It was 30 years since I last went there (K block?) and there was less of it - yet they run a degree course as well?
I was scared to go back in a way and got drunk then sat in the shed for half an hour telling people to take their shoes off - the artist should really have been in there making something!
So before I forget here's some theory(did I say that Nicky's dad Vivian calls himself a linguistics theory theorist?)
fings wot i've read that tickled my mind :
'The Imaginary Signifier, Psychoanalysis and the Cinema' by Christian Metz and Jean-Louis Baudry's 'Ideological effects of the basic cinematic apparatus'.
These writings are essentially structuralist film theories but quite easily applied to any creative act :)
Anyway what did I expect after 30 years?
Colchester Art School BA Fine Art Degree show 2009
ReplyDeleteSorry to leave so soon - I think the conversation was getting passionate. I'm really concerned about the work I saw today as I thought it was on the whole pretty bad for BA standard. I love fine art so it got me angry and thinking.
BUT I don't want you and Gil to think that this is your destiny! You have both got a lot of insight to understand and tackle some of the issues which should be addressed about exhibiting Degree Shows. As an observer who DOESN'T KNOW the students I could rationalise these faults: (the shed being an exception).
1) Statements patronising the viewer with what you called 'context' or art babble which at worst is at odds with artists work on show and at best poorly illustrates it.
2) Little background information or other examples of the artists work due either to lack of space, resources or funding (probly all).
3) Over presented - almost to the point of clinical with the exception of the shed which I felt showed up this problem.
4) Just not enough to see - simple.
So lack of space, resources and work. Come on Colchester Art School!