WANTED: Someone to restore Arteri and give it 2nd life. Interested? Email: mail.sharonchin.com
I trickled in late, but still managed to catch the better part of Beverly Yong’s introductory talk on contemporary art in Malaysia at Galeri Petronas on Tuesday. The turn out was pretty good. I mean, all the seats were filled. This was 6.30pm on a weekday so… kudos to you fellow die-hards.
I only caught the tail-end of the first half, but I gathered it was a short overview of Malaysian art history – the 5 minute, pitch-it-to-me-quick version. The second part was nuts-n-bolts stuff, outlining parameters of the contemporary art scene today, such as it is. I felt like I’d heard it all before: the role of private galleries, support of collectors, independent spaces and collectives, grants and residencies, media coverage or lack thereof, etc. To be fair, it was a cursory introduction probably aimed at those completely new the scene, but if so, why have it barely after work hours on a weekday? It would test the dedication of the most dogged art enthusiast. I think the 20 – 25 people present were mostly artworld regulars.
What I missed most of all was a sense of engagement. The atmosphere felt like flat champagne – a sense of time having passed with little being gained. I tell myself that I shouldn’t expect too much from what was just a small event, but to not be able to discern any particular purpose to what transpired… that was a little depressing.
One interesting point that came up in the Q & A session was the fact that contemporary art is perceived as inaccessible, elitist and exclusive. I don’t mean exclusive in the snobby sense, but in pragmatic terms. As in, there are insufficient entry points for people to discover what what the visual art scene is about. Beverly rightly highlighted The Annexe Gallery at Central Market as having played a big role in the democratization of art. This led on to the logical conclusion that our public institutions are not doing what they should. At one point, a persistent member of the audience relentlessly pursued the question of why contemporary art continues to be inaccessible. ‘Is it because of a cultural block?’ she ventured. No, no, no. Eventually Beverly said what I also believe to be the truth: we don’t do enough. Artists and art workers don’t do enough to make the necessary difference.
With a new Prime Minister and Cabinet, who knows what sort of institutional support will be in place for the arts? We need to try and get whatever we can out of institutions, and use that to support each other. We can no longer rely on institutions to do what we need to do: whether its organizing platforms and forums, or developing audiences.
I was disappointed this time, but Beverly emphasized that the next talk in this Art Appreciation Series will provide a more meat and potatoes for hungry minds. Is it too much ask that the time be shifted to something more convenient, dare I say, accessible? We need all the critical mass we can get.
(SC)
~
Part I: The Malaysian Art Scene: Art Practice in Context was held at Galeri Petronas on Tuesday, 31 March, 6.30pm.
The next talk will be Part II: Painters, Sculptors on Tuesday, 14 April, 6.30pm.
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I think part of the problem also comes with how you define art.
Keep sticking to the idea that its something original you hang on a wall, or a unique object, and you’ll feel like its something that it’s stuck to the confines an elite group and art becomes a kind of damsel in distress that needs saving and introduced into the “clueless” mass.
Perceive it in slightly different terms and BAM! ART IS FUCKING SO MANY PEOPLE IN SO MANY PLACES IN SO MANY WAYS LIKE SWARMS OF GREMLINS ON REDBULL X 9000 till methinks its time people stop doing so much and spend more time just looking at what is around them.
Its a bit like this also :P
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA8drfZwnXQ
hi Daniel,
To be fair to Sharon, I don’t think, she has an object on the wall on her mind when she talk about art in malaysia, well certainly not LIMITED to a unique object.
The art that is fucking so many people which you talk about, does it reach audiences in Malaysia? are u talking about advertising? :)
The problem is I’m still not convinced by visual culture/visual studies or whatever u wanna call it that a lot of the noise that’s out there on youtube or the internet is art! I’m not discounting that the WWW is a valid platform for creating works, nor am I saying it takes a certain system (an institution) to validate something as art. I’m saying that a lot of these visual cultural stuff out there are just really boring visuals that doesn’t say very sophisticated or clever things.
Of course, this personal opinion hinges on my misplaced belief that art is a ‘thinking space’. Many things just elicit a smirk, and that’s not enough for me la.
Hi Simon,
Pretty quiet here in the ‘art’ discussion room huh? I wonder what everyone out there is really thinking about? Well, I guess its us as usual :P
By the way, Sharon aiyah, of course I know she isn’t limiting herself to art as object lah, but after you see so many art works in cold storage in museums and galleries, art as object is the last thing you want it to be. So bravo to Sharon’s performances.
To me, art is a flux so it won’t stay in any space or time. Keeping it in a box and asking people to go there to learn what it is might have worked in a hierachial society but as the planet becomes more of a networked systems, I think its about time we be like parents who accept that their child has grown up and wants to go its own way. Its rebellious, changing its name and look on a whim. We think what it is doing now is nonsense and rubbish and we think we know what is best for it or what specific occupation it should have but we have to admit that some of the stuff it is doing now are just fucking amazing and unimaginable before. So let loose a little, as Sharon herself is saying these days ‘why so serious?’. So art is for thinking as much as it is for feeling, fighting, praying, raping, flying, pointing, advertising, parsing, walking, inspiring, shitting, programming, hugging, bragging, stalking…
People let go of old definitions of art all the time. The ancient greeks believed that creative inspiration came from the Muse. Who the heck really sees art in that way anymore? Time we study neuroscience and evolutionary psychology for some clues.
Furthermore, art is also artificial. Anything man touch, there’s a spark of art in it. If you feel that most of what mankind does can only give you a smirk, then you should clearify to us what is your value system and agenda for the future of mankind. If we agree to it, we can advocate or criticize artists and artworks according to those parameters. I guess it has to do with liberalizing Malaysia? If so, maybe a clear manifesto would be a good way to chart the way forward. I sense in your article about Eko’s shop the anti bourgeois romantic attitude of art I use to have….
I for example, am thinking if its necessary to desacrilize god, king and country as a way to break tribalistic perceptions of the world. Since advocate sensational and blasphemy in art has only confined these acts into the safe domain of the museum or gallery or private home, my support is now being turned to the mass media and the middle class. As you say, the world is noisy and boring, keep it that way and the old hierachies will slowly sink down into a kind of singularity. That is, I sense, what the Way is.
Simon, are there Indonesian or Pinoy blogs we can go visit and troll? :P So quiet here its creepy lah
Well, i dont know much about others but im quiet because im pretty much a ninja in training, but i is readinz all the articles on arteri and i is enjoyz allz of itz.(eh daniel, this internet talk is especially for youright)
Hi Simon:
just to be sure, since I’ve been thinking about this a fair bit myself:
are you saying that some things, even if there are self-defined as a creative / artistic pursuit, not art? as opposed to just being art that’s not great? categorical, as opposed to qualitative?
DANIEL:
Ya lor, our culturally liberal pie is really quite small huh? But to quote Sharon, ‘Give it time la.’
Yeah well I agree la that art is a flux and it’s a term that’s always contested and debated upon until everyone’s blue in the face. What I’m not convinced as I said is that whatever thing that’s happening out there in the network system doesn’t say a lot. Reactionary or not (these terms are relative anyway and not very useful) I’ve yet to be bought over by all the sort of things you find on the net. Moreover, I find it problematic that you want to aestheticise them when very often the authors themselves wouldn’t really consider what they do is art, now would they? Their refusal to even engage with the term art says something or at least should be respected – why do you insist on calling them art is beyond my ken la :P I may be dead wrong on this if so please correct me.
I also realise that we probably need a few examples at this stage in order to continue this conversation. If you have any, please share them. I’m thinking of 4chan as an example at the moment. But maybe we need more specific examples to hone our arguments.
I think I’ve clarified my very personal belief (and hopefully you can derive from it, my value system and agenda) of what art is in my previous post, hence it’s quite clear why I smirk.
Ya I do have an anti-bourgeois romantic attitude, but being a complex being, I guess that’s one of the possible strategies I would still like to explore and I don’t find it as an exhausted model. Are you saying that having divested yourself of that attitude means that you’ve progressed? :/ Btw, a Eko’s cottage industry is as petit-bourgeois as it can get! Certain middle class values (not all of them) which I detest are however, another thing altoghter :)
The problem I feel that turning to mass media and the middle class equate democratisation of values sounds better as a rhetoric la. Yes, old hierarchies sink and you’ve offered suggestion that it might sink into a kind of singularity. What kind of singularity is this? What carries this singularity? A culture of consumerism? A headless, clueless and amorphous body of networks that feed on the mass media? Sounds awfully scary to me! Sounds like Malaysian media indeed.
I have a feeling that our arguments boil down to this: that you’ve given more credit to the potential for intervention, the possibility of agency, within such networks. I’m unconvinced that it is the most effective platform and believe that given the two choices, I choose the anti-bourgeios romantic attitude as a form that is more instructive. Solely because, there are aesthetic values from the old hierarchies that has not become irrelevant to our times, because they can help us navigate through the frightful notion of singularity that is subsumed under what I ultimately believe to be an uncritical consumerist culture.
Having said that I must also qualify that there are of course a number of interventions through the mass media that are more successful than the others and I give credit when credit is due la. But to say this is the only possibly instructive way to go and that most of the interesting stuff that’s going on out there is achieved through this model, I don’t buy it lor.
If there are any pinoy or indonesian blog we can visit and troll, I really am not aware of la… ahaha why don’t you troll on facebook??? :P
ZEDECK:
Well, art is always a relative term right? :P I am assuming that you’re referring to my previous statement on how I am unconvinced the sort of visual cultural stuff on youtube is art. Part of my reservation really stems from the fact that a lot of these works are not self-defined as artistic pursuits, are they? Correct me if I’m wrong.
Actually you’ve caught me there :P A more politically correct way of putting it should really be ‘art that’s not great’ la, for the sake of inclusivity. But you know, it’s always cooler to just dismiss things straight out. More drama. :D
Simon:
(this discussion is framed by the word “art” being confined to the visual art tradition, yes?)
i do think that, while few internet exploits necessarily define themselves as “artistic”, most would probably agree that they are “creative” pursuits.
the distinction strikes as similar to the distinction between journalism and blogging: while usually separate, they sometimes overlap — and when these overlaps happen it can be spectacular.
anyway, on point two: heh, only too true.
Hi Zedeck,
To answer your first question, largely it’s a yes – since my thinking is formulated around ‘visual’ art discourses. but it would be interesting though if we are able to expand this beyond the visual art, would that have prompted you to think otherwise?
In many ways your analogy makes sense, when journalism and blogging overlaps sometimes it results in some pretty powerful engagement. i tend to think that the hallmark of its success is in the importing of the criticality and intelligent rigour associated with good journalism into a domain or format (blogging) that is accessible. otherwise blogging can also take the form of http://www.xiaxue.blogspot.com/ (good journalism? hehehe)
Hi Simon,
If Arteri is serious about growing its audience, I suggest that some of its articles somehow be tide with sites like The Nut Graph or Annexe website. Playing ding-dong-ding-dong with you and having Mun Kao the Ninja watching is going to wear out if other players don’t come in.
Sure there aren’t any interesting regional art blogs we can go trolling? If something as big as kakiseni is in a coma, what chance can such a site have? Now back to our topic on what art is.
Art is more than a thinking space, art is a flux, we agree then.
Nonetheless, you are disinterested in the things I’ve posted and you do not think they have anything worthwhile to say. The bigger problem is that you think I present such things as ‘art’ when the authors themselves would not do such things.
Hmm, which things are you referring to specifically? I’ve posted several links and made plenty of comments. I’m guessing the video of Boxxy really got to you huh :P Should the Toy Museum or Ghibli Museum articles be problematic too since they fell outside the traditional realm of contemporary art?
First of all, if you accept the idea that art is a flux, then no one has final authority on what art is or is not, not even the maker since its status is ever changing. As such, African tribal magic ritual pieces can become objects of appreciations by foreign collectors; works by animals, children or mentally insane can chosen by curators or gallerists to become an exhibited items; mass produced products and junk can turn into art at the word or hand of an artist. I’m not sure if it ties in properly but its basically a ‘dead of the author’ point of view, so a maker’s permission should not be such a big problem in engaging in an artistic discourse. It’s like expecting a child who finds a bunny in a cloud formation to respect the fact that clouds are merely condensed water vapour.
So in my case, I decide for myself what is art, and I accept that others may disagree. I am not going to wait for something to appear in an art gallery or museum before I start to see its artistic merits. Usually, by then, its like cold and soggy Maggie. I would like to think that what I am seeing is like the fresh graffiti that was drying on the walls of New York in the 1980s, long before it became fashionable and acceptable in the art community and institutions. So yeah, if you want to see what is shaking in the ghetto of the internet, I suggest 4Chan.
I must say thought that 4chan is actually more than art, it’s a total subculture. I frankly do not visit that place that often since it’s pretty dangerous on your psyche. Some of the trashiest people hang there. If Tulouse Lautrec or Picasso was around, I figure he’ll enjoy such a space instead of the kinda place like Jacky Chan Cafe at Starhill’s art gallery floor. The Annexe maybe, but think of all the suburbs in the world Simon. Are you expecting art spaces to open at each and every one of these cultural dead zones?
As to your personal belief, value system and especially agenda, I really am not clear about it. For example, after you agree to my label of the romantic anti-bourgeois, you then explained that it is actually pretty complex so I would prefer if you expanded your view on this. I hope you can see that I too still have lingering sentiments like yours, it is just that I try not to be nostalgic and see how the kind of attitude and strategies of the bohemians might evolve to in today’s globalized context. If I did not readjusted my views on art, and clung on to the hope that the public’s pastime will shift from the mall to the museum and galleries, I would have shoved two garpu in my eyes already.
If commercialisation is a big problem for you (and me too), it should be obvious that shifting to digital media is way better strategy to counter the problems of commoditization. The mass media has created a vast network around the world, and I wish more artists will use that network and work on a creative commons platform instead of sticking to ‘original’ art objects for sale to the highest bid of a collector.
I imagine the singularity as something that feeds on information. Art and science helps make that information into knowledge. Old hierachies fear this as the final outcome is a fully conscious planet, aglow with a light so bright and beautiful that it will call out to intelligent extraterrestrials or trans-dimensional beings :) Are you scared now?
DC
DC and ya silent readers,
Your comments + posts are much appreciated. No doubt about that. Don’t you dare think about stopping! What everyone’s personal value system is about art can and will be incorporated on ARTERI.
That’s why ARTERI will pwn Kakiseni and will continue to grow.
Give it time. And dammit, give it some love.
In terms of trolling – yeah. I want to! But the thing is, that ain’t one of my or Simon’s strengths. And ARTERI is all about playing to each of our strengths. I don’t want to come off as some poser doing something I’m not into just to up our readership. But that’s why we got (or tried to get or am STILL in the goddamn process of trying to get) OTHER people on our ‘team’ (like your good self), who have those kinds of ability/viewpoints/insight/power… to helps us do what we can’t do. So far however, due to everyone’s busy schedules, it’s mostly me and Simon holding the fort. Logically, our viewpoints come out as stronger, but by no means do we mean to stick to this small little party. Rest assured, I hear you, and I’m hearing all the rest of the feedback (such as it is)… and we are working working working on it.
We are right now trying to apply for funding, trying to make links with the rest of the artworld we don’t hear from too often, trying to find contributors, trying get people to write in BM and Chinese, trying to up our readership and a million other things.
Now, will you find time to write us another one of your posts please? Or troll on our behalf. Whatev.
Hi again Daniel,
So far promotion for the site has been word of mouth, and we do get about 100 – 150 unique visitors a day. So there are quite a number of people watching out there. Again, patient a bit la – when people get to know the site a bit better, they’ll start commenting. :)
I don’t know how to troll la, but if u do, go ahead la. afterall, u are part of the team right, so you should also find the best means to become a representative of the site :D
Okay back to the art thing. I think we’re talking about too many different things now. Let me try to understand and respond as systematically as I can (don’t count on it :P).
I don’t think ultimately it’s a topic about what art is, it’s really about the qualitative value of art and perhaps whether we can still apply judgement if let’s say you put Boxxy beside Titian’s Venus of Urbino. In my university days, I thought it’s a f**king great idea – then if you want to teach Britney’s lyrics alongside say Virginia Woolf, that’s when the problem becomes so much more apparent.
True enough no one has the final authority, but we are speaking specifically about contemporary art here, aren’t we? Not just art in general? I understand that there is a discursive limit to what contemporary art is and it is dialogical. Of course different critics/historians/curators have different ideas and this boundary gets pushed. My personal stance is that it is seldom useful to claim something that’s not art as art – unless it has an aesthetic predicate. African ritual objects and statues often do, and its vocabulary is quite extensive. But non-Western art often has a discourse of its own.
ghibli museum is pretty much an institutional thing, so it hardly falls outside the boundary of what’s acceptable or not. For things like toy museums, grocery shopping list – I’ve actually found Randall Scott’s (http://hesaid-shesaid.us/) description and insistence of them being ‘cultural production’ quite interesting, rather than using the ‘art’ label to describe these cultural manifestation.
Again, I want to emphasise how much this is about qualitative value of a ‘cultural phenomena’. If you’re saying all of them are valuable on a site like 4chan, then I obviously disagree, but I’m not discounting that it is a valid platform for people to engage on a creative and artistic level.
What exactly are the ‘artistic merits’ that you see? You have this idea whatever that’s out there is definitely more authentic and more ‘vanguard’ that whatever is in the institutional space, still holding on to the possibilities of an avant-garde model without considering that it might already have been an exhausted model of inquiry and thinking about art.
I’m not entirely sure what you’re referring to when you speak of 1980s New York graffiti. Are you referring to the forms of graffiti as vandalism + graphic art or are you referring to graffiti as an style employed by artists? They are of course two different things. I don’t see the former becoming fashionable or acceptable in the arts community as much as the latter. If it’s the latter that’s becoming fashionable and big, then isn’t it referring to a very specific and small group of people employing a style or platform or strategy but is not representative of the style, platform or strategy in toto?
Similarly with 4chan, are there people (fine if you don’t wanna use the word artist) who are able to maintain some criticial distance and incorporate that model into their artmaking/thinking/raping/fucking? I wouldn’t dare imagine what Lautrec or Picasso’s penchants are but are you saying that the format in total is liberating?
Are you saying because of its accessibility, by default, whatever is in there is therefore useful and meaningful? And therefore needs to be aestheticised?
or are you saying that this a platform that can be used as a form/medium/conduit for artistic/creative engagement? I’m thinking that we’re agreeing on this, but I might be wrong.
Back to my values, using language that was already part of this discussion. The singularity you mentioned is disconcerting to me only because it produces a very very very homogenised society where differences are flattened out and dissent replaced by apathy. So the romantic anti-bourgeois is a particular stance, a model of identity and agency (as token a a form as it might be) that could counter this herd-like apathy. So very simply put, I still believe my individuality, my ability to judge, to form opinion and to discriminate to be an important faculty.
The mass media has created a vast network around the world, and I wish more artists will use that network and work on a creative commons platform instead of sticking to ‘original’ art objects for sale to the highest bid of a collector.
don’t we all? but is this what we’re going in circles about?? isn’t this qualitatively different from a teenage girl squirming to a camera?
I imagine the singularity as something that feeds on information. Art and science helps make that information into knowledge. Old hierachies fear this as the final outcome is a fully conscious planet, aglow with a light so bright and beautiful that it will call out to intelligent extraterrestrials or trans-dimensional beings Are you scared now?
Actually, I’m suspecting you’re a bigger anti-bourgeios romantic than I am! :D
With BOXXY on board? :P Sounds more like sci-fi to me. I don’t know what you mean by old hierachies la, it sounds like a monster. Agree to how art and science helps make information into knowledge, hence the value of artist/interpreters/translators whatever, and their work offers a second level of reading to our cultural phenomena but is not the cultural phenomena itself. it’s POP art 101 la :)
but this is all about dissent and antagonism, no? hardly singular?
on another note re: commodification of art. i think either way, digital or traditional means, it’s inescapable la. to say that something on a creative common platform is ethically superior to a work in thrown into the auction misses the whole point of talking about art right? are we talking about ethics now?
What does ‘trolling’ the net mean? seriously. i dont get it?
Is it the same as ‘surfing’ or about adding links/twinning programs to other sites?
i have a fav site here: http://www.startdrawing.org/
“startdrawing.org is a web resource portal for Asia’s artists and drawings. This site was started with the aim of showcasing and sharing drawings from talented artists in Asia, and in the process, promote the joys of drawing.”
PS: i am also curious how y’all think artists make money that helps them focus and concentrate and make more work or simply ‘Go Play’. Freedom is mahal boss. Graffiti artists need to pay the rent too. How come an artist is at risk of being called ‘not ethical’ for wanting / needing to make money from their work – like any other profession?
Weebum, trolling is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)
yeah. startdrawing is nice
Simon,
Here we goooooooooooooooo
“True enough no one has the final authority, but we are speaking specifically about contemporary art here, aren’t we?…”
>>>> I prefer a non reductionist discussion and see where the boundaries between art and life blurs. 4Chan is an “imageboard” that has different boards separated mainly to different artistic mediums and genres. Is that enough of an ‘aesthetic predicate’? At its most extreme, people have gone there to announce the video cast of their suicide or their intention to perform killing sprees. I’m not supportive of such extremes but it does give me a sense of what the Die Brucker depressive expressionists Germany was really like. This time, it’s planetary.
The flip side to this is the presence of Annonymous (please see the entry in Sharon’s why so seriousss.) Its a sign for me of how certain contradictory goals of the individuals and teh collective can be resolved. How the ego can exists and ‘not-exist’ at the same time.
“I don’t think ultimately it’s a topic about what art is, it’s really about the qualitative value of art and perhaps whether we can still apply judgement if let’s say you put Boxxy beside Titian’s Venus of Urbino. In my university days, I thought it’s a f**king great idea – then if you want to teach Britney’s lyrics alongside say Virginia Woolf, that’s when the problem becomes so much more apparent.”
>>>> Your earlier definition of art as ‘thinking space’ meant that you value an art work for its conceptual content more than anything else. Thus it was necessary to draw some blood on that topic. We then moved to the agreed perception that art is a flux. If so, the status of art can readily shift or be shared between Boxxy and the Venus of Urbino depending on the viewer’s perspective.
I agree with the more open minded ‘University’ Simon that it is a ‘fucking great idea’ since both are symbolic ‘whore’ figures of sorts. As much as I enjoyed looking at paintings of reclining nudes in the museum during my own university days, I’ve forgotten these ‘one off’ objects, it’s Boxxy accessibility, spontaneity and schidzoid personality that speaks clearer to me than a patron’s favorite mistress disguising herself as a goddess. Furthermore, Boxxy made her own self portrait and does not need saving from a burning museum. I am not familiar enough with Britney or Virginia Woolf to see where the problem becomes ‘apparent’. Be open enough anything enough and anything can be learning materials for students i believe. Its the stuffiness that kills the learning environment.
>>>> So are you really supportive of the definition that art is a flux or do you prefer ‘art’ that requires a fixed set of value judgments? I guess we actually have a debate on what constitutes ‘high’ art and ‘low’ art then?
“What exactly are the ‘artistic merits’ that you see? …”
>>>> The thing about authenticity and being rebellious of standard norms was based on the ways you championed Eko.
>>>> Hmm, since we spoke of art’s ‘fluxis’ character, lets use what Wikipedia says about the fluxus group philosophy:
– Fluxus is an attitude. It is not a movement or a style.
– Fluxus is intermedia. Fluxus creators like to see what happens when different media intersect. They use found and everyday objects, sounds, images, and texts to create new combinations of objects, sounds, images, and texts.
– Fluxus works are simple. The art is small, the texts are short, and the performances are brief.
– Fluxus is fun. Humour has always been an important element in Fluxus.
You can basically remove fluxus and replace it with 4chan :P
“Again, I want to emphasise how much this is about qualitative value of a ‘cultural phenomena’. If you’re saying all of them are valuable on a site like 4chan, then I obviously disagree, but I’m not discounting that it is a valid platform for people to engage on a creative and artistic level.”
>>>>> Man, you are making me into a 4Chan spokesperson or something but I really don’t hang around there that much…(ok, often but not as much as Zedeck :P) I’m just saying that it is an really interesting place to look and think about but arteri kept itself pretty safe in its choice of features.
I’m just answering some questions here, tell me which ones I missed taht you really want to hear.
About the Singularity, don’t worry about some kind of homogenious society. Imagine if each and every sound possible was given a chance to exist, sure there’s be noisy but it’ll rise up and up till its at the same height as the gods, the kings, the presidents, the corporations etc. This is already the age of the consumer king. We are a few more steps away. Boxxy is just one of the a voice of the mass, give everything a chance.
The idea isn’t about giving a piece of art to everybody. The whole Kinkaide approach is totally wrong.
Not everyone can be a doctor or a scientist or designer, but everyone be an artist, let them taste that joy of creation. Let them taste that power. Didn’t you think that Earth Hour was pretty powerful form of happening? Its a total environmental disaster and marketing BS sure but at least that mass action was amazing step forward towards planetary consciousness.
Okay, we continue to highlight the more gifted ones but this is the age where Wikipedia was build. Planetary collective creations in various forms is now possible but we keep worrying about who should qualify attention.
If so, consider than that 4Channers were able to vote the board’s creator Moot as TIME’s 2009 most influential person. TIME recognizes the site as “a bare-bones, id-liberating and reliably profane IMAGE board”. That’s where the most distrubing elements of our planetary consciousness may reside, and it would be nice if more of us faced it now rather than dismiss it as something juvenile and less worthy than Virginia Wolf or The Venus of Urbino.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,1883644,00.html
Maybe all this does make me a bigger romantic than you but if there’s a more rational and viable model, please share.
Arteri just got interesting!
Hi Daniel,
Looks like we have reached some sort of impasse. You know saying the other Simon is more open minded than the Simon now doesn’t really say anything about discussion :P I prefer not to work within this sort of paradigm as they are relative at best.
If I understand you correctly, and I hope I do, please correct me if I’m wrong, what you’re essentially saying is that all of the visual material out there can be read as a sort of cultural material, clues of what our ethos, zeitgeist, times, values, thoughts are like. Following this logic, I suppose Boxxy can be read alongside Venus as an example because the emphasis of the reading is based on a subject, an elaboration of a subject, so to speak. In this instance, one of your suggested reading is the symbolic whore, which is very much part of our cultural phenomenon. But what I don’t understand is the need to aestheticise it, the reason for calling it art when in fact other disciplines – cultural studies, sociology, media studies have much more relevant methodologies – since what you’re interested in is ultimately the subject rather than the system of representation in a particular cultural production?
Is an art as a definition that is in flux and art as a discipline that aspires towards criticality (I prefer to consider this way rather than saying it requires a fixed set of value judgement) mutually exclusive? I think not. It’s not so much what’s ‘high art’ or ‘low art’ anymore, we’re way past that whole aristocratic demarcation already. But does this mean that we should do away with criticality? With the ability to say that one work is much more complex than the other? Is this bad taste today, and that we’re required to believe that everything is just an equivocal ‘interesting’?
I’m not entirely sure why you brought up the fluxus group. I understand their approach as a manifesto and hence prescriptive but it doesn’t illustrate the debate around what art is, does it?
Okay, I won’t treat you as a 4chan spokesperson anymore :) Rest assured! I guess Arteri is pretty safe if you want to put it that way. But only because what’s safe and unsafe is pretty relative la. Are you expecting shock, dismay, anger, sensation from the materials that you’ve posted? I don’t think the artworld is that insular :) Fei’s comment sums it up pretty much.
Noise rising up against gods, kingds, aristocrats, yes. This is what a big portion of the pre-war avant-gardes were about anyway. From Picasso recognising the ‘noise’ in his use of newspaper in his collage, to Dada, Mondrian to the dissident surrealism of Bataille, to Pollock. What were their art by systematic structural assault on subjectivities?
Corporations, I’m not so sure. What sustains the noise, what is the system that allows this noise to emerge and surface is simply capitalism. It is its logic, no?
Noise as a total field is not a dissenting, argumentative, antagonistic space. It is a field of equivalences. It drowns rather than allow us to think or feel.
If we want a democratic space, we need a space that we can fight, not a place where we are submerged into sameness, consensus born from apathy and herd-mentality.
I have my reservations about earth hour. I’m not even sure if it is empowerment when a large part of it is mindless adherence and peer pressure. If this is so, what sort of planetary consciousness is this? I like the idea of a planetary consciousness, but I’m not sure if it’s achieving it.
Also, I’m not worrying who should qualify for attention. I just know that I don’t have enough time to absorb everything, after all, we live in an age of information overload. so I want the best :)
If the most disturbing elements of our planetary consciousness is in 4chan (just using your analogy) then yes, perhaps we should face it, confront it by all means, but what action are you going to take? calling it art? I think there are other methodologies (from other disiplines using different frameworks) that are more suitable to answer these questions.
A more rational or viable model for what? You mean an art practice that can counter these tendencies?
A more rational model? I have none. A more viable model, in my opinion, would be to look at works that are more complex. how they communicate these issues to us. Works that appeal to me personally draw on history, geography, social and cultural models. They are about subjectivities, differences, not sameness. But it’s not so much what is being said but how it is being said that interest me.
Afterall, I like good story tellers. They can make a boring or bad story good. We have only so much time.
Hi Simon,
I made my first post here because I felt the idea there was a lack of art in Malaysia was getting way too tiresome, old and untrue. If I were to die tomorrow, I will not die believing that my country was a cultural dessert that I needed to escape from, or that I have wasted my life because I had not seen all of Titian’s painting or read a word of Virginia Woolf. I prefer to close my eyes for the last time glad with the fact that humanity is going through the most image and information saturated age ever. This, I think is an amazing chapter in the story of mankind and I am interested in looking at as many different kinds of stories and storytellers possible because that opportunity is finally available.
I want to see the big picture, not the ‘best’ picture. 4Chan is an example of a kind of place where I go to stretch my visual horizon. I’ve found pictures so dark and disgusting there that the shock tactic that so many contemporary art works took be as powerful critiques became mere amusements. On the plus side, the Thomas Kinkades and carp paintings do not harm my eyes (as much) anymore. I’ve the impression your style is to build a tower filled with the best artistic treasures ever and expect the rest of the world to go to it because of its pure brilliance.
Why do I insist on classifying this phenomenon as art instead of categorizing them neatly into advertising, animation, fashion, graphic design, movies, architecture and studying them using methods developed in anthropology, sociology, media studies etc? Because art is way more fun term to think about visual connections. Wasn’t this post and this entire blog about reaching to the mass. If you could sense the sublime in your experience at the subway in New York, can’t it be possible that many people have seen something deeper and more touching in the Boxxy’s video than you did? Art is a giant playground and I am not fond of setting fences.
I think it’s nice to do reviews and spotlight exceptional talents but I don’t think it’s realistic to expect the mass go to every exceptionally complex and critical art exhibition picked by our expert team. I concede that there are those avant-gardists who’ll need some exposure. I’m just suggesting that we also critique what the mass is actually seeing and find out what are the aesthetic qualities in them that attracts them so. I think the recent fashion entry is a step towards this approach. You might say that the newspapers and magazines are there for such mundane things but I’m sure arteri can inject elements that are missing from the traditional media.
In the end, I’m just more interested looking at art as a way to make connections that can go everywhere and anywhere. Having a rigid and limited sense of what constitutes an ‘artist’, ‘quality’ and ‘intelligent’ makes things difficult and creates impasses such as this.