Otherness & Perception

I recently heard it expressed during a group discussion that the prevelence of digital communications has created an even playing field in which to make art. Apparently because of a democratic and widely available sharing of art theory personal experiences artists have are no longer relevant contributers to art. Has concept driven art gone to far? Really! How can it be possible that experiencing the same intellectual location can nullify the experiences of the physical one?Why would you even want this to happen? Different art comes from different perceptions of the world and these different perceptions of the world come from seeing from different places.

Epeli Hau'ofa writes about the residents of Oceania who experience their universe as

'comprised not only of land sufaces, but the surrounding ocean as far as they could traverse and exploit it, the underworld with its fire-controlling and earth shaking denizens, and the heavens above with their hierarchies of powerful gods and named stars and constellations that people could count on to guide their ways across the seas.' (Hau'ofa 7).

Great news for them, for me its a slightly different story andI think the reason for my differing view of the Oceanic universe has alot to do with my personal history, most of which has unfolded here in New Zealand. As much as I would like to believe in an underworld of 'fire-controlling and earth shaking denizens' (Hau'ofa 7) I don't, I'm also lacking in any sort of confidence in my ability to exploit or traverse the sea and I can't name any stars. I am used to large living spaces and believe visible terrain to be the extent of my domain. To me Hau'ofa's Pacific Islands will always be 'islands in a far off sea' (Hau'ofa 7) . This empirical evidence of mine is reflected in Olu Ogauibe's ideas about the contribution of location to personal experience. In 'The Heart of Darkness' he writes that;

'The West is as much the Heart of Darkness to the Rest as the latter is to the West. Invention and contemplation of the Other is a continuous process evident in all cultures and societies. But in contemplating the Other, it is necessary to exhibit modesty and admit relative handicap since the peripheral location of the contemplator precludes a complete understanding' (Oguibe 23).

Ogauibe's highlights for us the fact of our current and continual seperation from each other. If artists will remember that this 'peripheral location' cannot be altered by a 10 gig internet connection then hopefully any further de-valuing of lifes contribution to art will be prevented.

Oguibe, Olu. “In the Heart of Darkness”, Reading the Contemporary: African Art from Theory to the Market Place. London: Institute of International Visual Arts, 1999. Print.

Hau’ofa, Epeli. “Our Sea of Islands”, A New Oceania: Rediscovering Our Sea Of Islands. Fiji: The University of the South Pacific, 1993. Print.

The Flower Vase Cut

In Michael Taussig's 'The Language of Flowers' he describes a work of artist Jaun Manuel Echavarria which is titled the Flower Vase cut. Echavarria cites the title of his work as '...referring to the name of one of the mutilations practiced in the Colombian violencia of the 1940's and 1950's in which the amputated limbs were stuffed, so it is said, into the thorax via the neck of the decapitated corpse.' (Taussig 189)

The fanciful titling of this brutal treatment rather than Echavarria's art in response to it is what catches my attention, it seems that somehow the naming of this psychotic deed as something so whimsical like 'The Flower Vase Cut' has removed it from the glaring reality of a killing which will shortly be followed by stinking decay and has instead changed it into something else entirely. This magical ability of language to transform is exhibited by Sigmund Freud in his essay 'The Uncanny' where he devotes four entire pages to an examination of different translations of the German word heimelich. Of his findings he writes that:

What interests us most in this long extract is to find that among its different shades of meaning the word heimlich exhibits one (meaning) which is identical with its opposite...In general we are reminded that the word heimlih is not unambiguous but belongs to two sets of ideas which without being contradictory are very different (Freud 132).

Freuds examination of language to help define the uncanny has in fact moved him further away from an exact meaning rather than closer to one, it is this ability of words to conceal rather than concede the truth that is both magical and menacing in its possibilities.

The Flower Vase Cut doesn't sound like a bloody, screaming, entrail dragging type of thing, giving it a whimsical title has moved it far from its existence as a brutal and violent death, its new name has placed it calmly in a new corner where it sits as a finished object, an outcome that has been achieved.

Freud, Sigmund. The Uncanny. Britain: Antony Rowe Ltd, 2003. Print

Taussig, Michael. The Language of Flowers,Walter Benjamin’s Grave. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006. Print

I have spent years feeling outraged at Michael Freids nasty swipe at minimalism as to 'theatrical'. As if a piece of art had to keep all its artness sealed up inside it and remain calmly aloof and distant from the viewer who couldn't, by his presence, have any part in the creation of its genius. I have always felt that minimalism was saying "hey guys, roll on up! jump on! anyone can have a go, its fun!" and it was as if, in reply, Fried with a high disdain for a good time was saying, "NO!" and then trying to take the art and lift it up above our heads and take it away from the new deliciously phenomenological thing it had become. What a bastard.

I could have been wrong.

You see I never actually read the article. I have managed to traverse my four years of tertiary education making work heavily influenced by minimalism with an interpretation of what that kind of work is, based entirely on an excerpt taken from Art in Theory; 1900 - 2000, an abbreviated, easy to read snapshot of all the salient points in Frieds article prefaced by an explanatory paragraph written by the editors which informed me exactly of what Fried was on about.

...or maybe not exactly..

You see I have since read the article and I discovered that by not reading it I had missed quite a bit, including the one where Fried wasn't trying to take the art away from everyone, as it turns out he just didn't really like what he refers to as art that is '...perverted by theater'. (Fried 845). Fair enough, there are lots of different types of art I don't like either.

So I don't hate Fried quite so much anymore. The problem I have now is not that Fried is a big meanie, its that making the effort to travel to the purest source of knowledge didn't change anything for me. My pilgrimage resulted in no transcendent evolution in regards to my thoughts on minimalist art, what it did do however was force a new consideration of information, the way it travels, the places it can be found and the validity and usefulness of ideas taken from a secondary source

Delueze and Guattari's rhizomatic approach to research seems to take into account this refusal by information to stick to one place and instead supports the validity of information that is found in third or forth hand forms. A rhizomatic approach to research that allows for the constant shifting of information seems more appropriate for art making where it is often not the precision of the information but the influence or inspiration it provides that is important. It seems much more sensible to knowingly engage in this kind of rhizomatic research and avoid the anxiety created by rigorously trying to reconstruct the path of every piece of inspiration narratively from end to beginning, the time would be better spent just making something. According to D&G its like making 'a map and not a tracing'(Rhizome), according to me its more like reading the conclusion. Its faster and you'll get more stuff done!

Art has crisis of faith. Again.

Its true, logically art school shouldn't be part of a university grading system, the process of trying to use marking frameworks to grade things based on subjective responses is just plain silly and its not surprising that it causes dissatisfaction. Why then when it's so blindingly obvious that grading art is like trying to insert a cucumber into a database do we continue to get upset about this constant failure of art education? Lets blame modernism.

As artists we have spent the last century gleefully hacking to bits any institution whether existing or of our own creation so that we can put something shinier and newer in its place, it's no surprise really that the institution of art education should come under the same scrutiny from time to time. After all, as much as art is a passionate belief system it is also a really great way to pass the time, and as artists in the modernist tradition we have discovered that one of the best activities to become involved in to this end is a passionate rending of institutional frameworks. If you happen to be ensconced within an art institution while learning the joys of this deconstruction than it is only natural that you would scratch the itch by rubbing against the institution in closest proximity, most commonly that of the art school.

Seriously though, is the university grading system having an effect on art? It does seem as if the popularity of historically laden, self-referential art that values content over aesthetic value must come from somewhere, could it have come from the institution in which it is learned? The tertiary systems grim determination to apply value through letter grades mean that artists often have to take a double pronged approach when making art. The first prong includes the art and all the necessary research required to produce the art, the second prong includes the carefully referenced, thoroughly researched and documented pedigree for the art work to sit on looking convincing come marking (or applying for shows in project spaces) time.

The second prong of this approach is like an info-plinth; a protection, which with repetition during the course of tertiary study becomes a 'habitable defense system against real or imagined external forces that variously tyrannize us'. (Smith.59) Allen Smith describes this kind of defense system in his exploration of the various motives and types of hoardings that individuals embark upon and the inclusion of this method and aesthetic in art. In this case the 'hysterical stacking up' can be seen to reside in the process of making art rather than the outcome with the collection of documentation an effort to resist the pressure of university grading.

So there you are with your double pronged approach to art making which looks a lot like a roasting fork and comes from an art education that requires a substantial info-plinth to prove that real work has been done. Sitting quietly on top of this you will find the actual art.

Smith, Allan. “Stacks on the mill, more on still: Eve Armstrong and a short history of heaps, stacks and piles.” Artspace v.1 (2007): 57-80