FrontLine Digital Nation

There are so many things to talk about here! My flight is boarding so I can't really concentrate on this, but I know that I've thought a lot about multi tasking since I've watched it. Also one of the speakers, Douglass Rushkoff, who Jeffrey pointed out to me is someone worth looking into. I can't stop thinking about the talk he gave. It's really so right on point!

I strongly urge you to watch this video. It's probably more important to watch than the frontline video, which I did thoroughly enjoy, by the way.

http://rushkoff.com/videoaudio/diy-days/

questions to come later. I'm traveling through time now.

RUMSFELD'S UNKNOWN KNOWN, OR IRAQ'S INITIATION INTO DEMOCRATIC PRACTICE by Slavoj Zizek

Culture within the US practices a strange way of voluntary torture through methods like performance, hazing, television shows, etc. Torture functions within the military in the same way, humiliating the victim, however in this case, it is not voluntary. Zizek argues that it works on a widespread level because this is a common American practice, that Americans would antagonize and force an action out of the opponent, only to use that action as an excuse of self-defense. Then they would also argue that the treatment (torture) would be a better fate than death. Zizek says that is an especially dangerous to not worry about the "unknown knowns", the things that we allow ourselves to do but choose not to see.

1. I am about to board a plane
2. When I purchased my coffee I accidentally knocked over the half & half, but they were nice about.
3. "I don't feel like dancing" by the scissor sisters is playing throughout the airport.

Among the Inept, Researchers Discover, Ignorance Is Bliss By Erica Goode

I am constantly fearing that I don't know where I stand!
This article is about the discovery that the same qualities required for competence, are the same ones required to recognize it. I read this article in the studio program and I'm not sure why but it seems to come up in conversation with Patrick fairly often.......

1. Is anyone reading the blogs?
2. How can you run the test on yourself?
3. Why is all the crappy food in airports so expensive?

Sound of Music / Central Station Antwerp.

This is a public intervention in a train Station in Antwerp. The caption reads that the stunt is a promotion for a television program. I think that this is more of a spectacle, and is a tool that can be used successfully in fine art, but in this case, I think the point of the act doesn't seem to go far beyond brightening a stranger's day and advertising. 

Also see:

www.improveverywhere.com

I love unexpected art, and especially when it involves reclaiming a public space. 

1. Is this art? ( I vote no, because they do not claim it as such)

2. In what way could an act like this be seen as something offensive or unwanted?

3. What are some examples of the ways that artists can use spectacles involving the public, but also introduce larger ideas and questions? 

Zizek on Crossdressing to the Sound of Music

In this 2 min video clip, philosopher Slovaj Zizek discusses the movie The Sound of Music and its representation of Jews and Nazis. He asserts that the nazis represented in the film are for the most part not soldiers, but carry the image of "exquisitely dressed, decadent, cosmopolitan, corrupted Jews" creating a mirror image of the culture that it wanted to dominate. At the same time however, he states that this can also be seen as the opposite which is "honest fascists resisting decadent Jewish takeover". The Austrians that play the central role in the film are seen as small minded and anti-intelectual creating a role-reversal for Nazis and Jews.
I'm not sure that this video changed anything about my studio practice, but Zizek's other writings may have more of an effect on me.

1. In the case of this film and argument, who is the "other"?
2. Do individuals (or individual artists) try to fill a cultural void?
3. When attempting to dominate a person or group of persons, is it unavoidable that you would assume their characteristics?

How Marina Abramovic’s Red-Velvet Rope at MoMA Works Mark Byrne

Summary:  Not everyone has a fair chance at sitting across from the goddess that is Marina Abromovic. Famous people, friends, and family have priority.

 To me, this is a large part of the work. Although Abromovic has created an intimate experience for the viewer who sits across from her, the line-waiters are equally as important. Does the participant sitting with her become the priviledged? Are the queued the proletariats in this situation? I don’t think that is what the work is intended to present. To paraphrase Jeffery: if you had a performance at a museum, you would want your friends and family to see it. I agree, however, this seems to be different. It seems to me that she has broken her own rules just by having this museum show (maybe just changed her rules). Her older performances, which often involved self-inflicted pain, or audience participation, had social and political implications very relevant to the time and place of them. By having a show where actors recreate some of those works, seems to change them entirely. Although I still would have loved to be there to see them and her.

And after copying this into the blog, I would like to retract everything and rewrite. 

Claire Bishop Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics

Claire Bishop discusses artists that utilize what Nicolas Bourriaud has identified in his essay as “Relational Aesthetics”. Through artists such as Rirkrit Travanija, Liam Gillick, Bishop explains that relational works have the ability to be so open-ended that in the end, they can be superficial, as the situations are constructed for an audience that isn’t able to get to the question of ‘what for?’

“What for? If you forget the ‘what for?’ I’m afraid you’re left with simple Nokia art-producing interpersonal relations for their own sake and never addressing their political aspects.”

This is a quote from Bourriaud that Bishop uses to prove a point about Tiravanija’s work. Artists that utilize relational aesthetics tend to create “microtopias” rather than utopias, where a situation is constructed for a specific audience to become involved in.

“’It seems more pressing to invent possible relations with our neighbors in the present than to bet on happier tomorrows’ (RA, p. 45). This DIY, microtopian ethos is what Bourriaud perceives to be the core political significance of relational aesthetics.”

Bishop argues that within a fully successful democracy (which these ‘microtopias’ aim to illustrate), antagonism, defined by Bishop as conflicts and instabilities inherent to any society or community, is necessary to sustain possibilities of "radical imagination." She uses Santiago Sienna as an example of an artist who achieves this. Without antagonism, you are left with an authoritative order. According to Bishop, the works that do not contain “relational antagonism” do not consider political and social aspects and are therefore lacking in relevant content. 

statement

My drawings and paintings are time capsules with sparse content. I am exploring the way that I specifically find and retain information. The imagery is created by literally tracing information from materials such as photographs, newspapers, and audio files.  Although I begin with a very specific location, the imagery becomes obscured and abstracted. In creating the overall picture I begin to rely more on my own intuition, attempting to relate myself to the environment. It is both a mental and literal landscape.