Definition: In or into a single group, mass, or place: We gather together.
In or into contact: The cars crashed together. She mixed the chemicals together.
In association with or in relationship to one another; mutually or reciprocally: getting along together.
By joint or cooperative effort: We ironed the entire load of clothes together.
Regarded collectively; in total: She is worth more than all of us together. Considered together, the proposals made little sense.
In or into a unified structure or arrangement: put the food processor together.
Simultaneously: The bells rang out together.
In harmony or accord: We stand together on this issue.
Informal. Into an effective, coherent condition: Get yourself together.
Answers.com
"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."
- African Proverb
I chose the word together to investigate three branches of the same tree. Artists that work together to make work that is great than the sum of its parts, Artists that create work that provides a structure for the members of the audience to work with each other, and lastly, Artists that create work that is activated only when members of the audience work with together with the audience.
Artist 1: Doug And Mike Starn
The Starn twins work together on almost everything they do. They each bring their own interests to the table, generating a combined result that is indeed great than the sum of its parts. In their latest work, "Big Bambú", they're collaborating with rock climbers to create a growing, changing sculpture on the roof of the NY Met.
Gravity of Light, 2008, abandoned warehouse, carbon arc lamp
Big Bambú, 2010, bamboo, lashing, rock climbers
From April 27 through Oct. 31 the twin artists Mike and Doug Starn will be creating a site-specific installation that is part sculpture, part architecture and part performance. Called “Big Bambú” it will be a monumental bamboo structure in the form of a cresting wave rising as high as 50 feet above the roof. Throughout the summer the artists and a team of rock climbers will lash together an intricate network of 3,200 interlocking bamboo poles with nylon rope, creating on the roof’s floor labyrinthlike spaces through which visitors can walk.
“Big Bambú” is a perpetual work in progress — it will never quite be finished — that will evolve in three phases: first, the basic structure will be completed by the opening day; second, the eastern part will be built by the artists and rock climbers to a height of about 50 feet; third, the team will build the western part to about 40 feet high. Not only will visitors be able to watch the installation as it is constructed and walk through it, they will also be able to climb up the sides.
- New York Times, "See It, Feel It, Touch It, Climb It", Feb 2010
Artist Name: Oliver Herring
Oliver Herring's work, although it began as an isolated practice, has grown consistently collaborative. He doesn't address the people he works with as collaborators though.. they are participants; some of them have returned to work with them time and time again. These he considers friends.
i think one of the reasons so many people want to do this, subject themselves to my torture, is not just to play, but to present themselves in a format that is unusual from their everyday lives, to create a legacy of sorts.
Oliver Herring, 2009 Art:21
TASK parties, 2002, assigned activities, lots of people
"CHRIS AFTER HOURS OF SPITTING FOOD DYE OUTDOORS", 2004, C-print, 41 1/2 x 62 1/2 inches framed
"Herring's "Actions" at Meulensteen brought many viewers (including yours truly) back several times and I don't think it was the novelty. Charming, puzzling, odd, benign --- we couldn't get enough. When I Facebooked Herring's Color Spit Group video clip, someone responded that Herring was Warholian; another commented that I had to be kidding and it was the silliest thing he had ever seen. I permanently hid the latter "friend" (1462 friends and still counting, pulling ahead of Arthur Danto but not yet Jerry Saltz or Lady Gaga). It was the now-banned "friend" who made me realize I was on to something.
Herring must find some self-expression in the success of his efforts at enabling, facilitating the self-expression and the personal art-legacies of others....Dr. Herring. Do we not understand or have we simply forgotten -- in spite of Joseph Beuys -- that the artist is primarily a healer? Not a producer of trinkets and investment chits, but a healer......"
"Oliver Herring: Lights, Camera, Action", John Perreault, December 19, 2010
Artist Name: Erwin Wurm
Erwin Wurm's 1-minute sculptures turned into visitors coming to the gallery, finding instructions for various poses and arrangements, and then acting them out. The artist only generated the instructions and selected the materials. It was up to the visitor to activate the piece by following the directions. Wurm established a system over which he had influence, but not total control. More over, it was other people that completed the work, without which the work would remain a pile of objects on the floor and an unheeded set of instructions. While the idea retains most of its power, the piece is incomplete, its full potential unmet until it is activated by the public.
one minute sculptures, 1989-ongoing
"Visitors can become objects of art by holding a variety of household items in Erwin Wurm's One Minute Sculptures (2006)... These works suggest that "participation" is when art and audience are in a symbiotic relationship, mutually calling each other into being and giving each other purpose. And it cannot be an audience of just one; there has to be a crowd/collective/community for the works to find form."
"The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now", Kris Paulsen
I spoke to a friend who saw this interactive version of the show and she said people actually did participate (I was skeptical, thinking that people might be shy). She said they were nervous at first, having to step on the pedestal and become the art, but all it took was for one person to grab an object and do something silly, and then everyone else followed suit. Erwin Wurm is now my hero."
"One Minute Sculptures" by Erwin Wurm
Artist Name: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
Paragraph Explanation of Reason for Choosing this artist:
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's work is always completed by the public. Often, his work functions with data generated by the public- using visitors' pulse to control light, asking visitors to contribute what's in their pockets to a piece, or using their physical location to control a piece.
Pulse Park, 2008, surveillance system that measures pulse information, high powered lights
Please empty your pockets, 2010, conveyor belt, scanner, projection system
I think all art, technological or not, defines an "intersubjectively binding reference system". In my opinion, all good art questions any "autonomy" that this reference system may lay claim to. Autonomous from what? Duchamp nailed the impossibility of autonomy in art with his maxim "Le regard fait le tableau" (the look makes the painting). Everything is dependent on relationships, some of these relationships are established in an ad hoc way and others are carefully choreographed. Personally I am very motivated by the tensions and interplay arising from linking alien memories, that is, connecting intensely disparate planes of experience. I think this can be done with or without explicit technological dependence.
What is the significance for you and your work of seeing that realization of these projects is dependent upon the readiness of others to participate? Are there strategies to increase the readiness of others to participate?
Dependency on participation is a humbling affair. My pieces do not exist unless someone dedicates some time to them. Most people, with the exception of children, will opt to not participate in an installation in public space, —which may seem strange considering that we live in the age of reality TV and the society of the spectacle. This is due in part to shyness and living in a culture of rules like "do not touch", but I like to think that there are two other reasons. One is political: people are sceptical about the neutrality of public space. No one wants to go along with a culture of surveillance, even if they know that it is inevitable. The other is aesthetic: some people prefer the chaotic sights and sounds of an urban landscape, or silence, rather than some canned multimedia intervention that forces you to focus on one event, usually to sell you something.
For me dependency on participation is a way to "ground" an installation and this helps me conceive interfaces and strategies that demystify the spectacular. The key is to develop pieces that offer some degree of intimacy within an intimidating scale. Also to find participation metaphors that are relatively familiar or self-explaining. Finally to offer a wide range of entry points into the work, attempting to underline the incompleteness, uselessness and indeterminacy of the initiative.
"Interview with Rafael Lozano-Hemmer", Ars Electronica 2001 Catalog
Artist Name: Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz
Working as a team since 1975, Galloway and Rabinowitz have worked ahead of their time creating interactive/participation eletronic installations. They are commonly referenced as the bridge between Fluxus events and happenings to the post-digital work. They worked on some of the very first public video telecommunications projects and established a VHS distribution system.
Hole in Space, 1980, a live video link between New York and Los Angeles
Electronic Cafe, 1984, a cafe equipped with video phones, fax machines, and eventually video chat linked with places all over the world
Electronic Cafe created this new inversion of the art and life situation. The longer it ran the more it just became life, right? In a sense you could say the less it became art, the more it became life. Or the shorter it ran the more it became art, but the less it would be doing what it ought to really be doing, which is becoming life.
KG: Just look at this as interaction with a system. It's looking at creativity applied across the boards and at different levels. Even though Electronic Cafe had to go away, it's successful in that it empowered people in those communities with enough experience to describe what is desirable or what they would want as a system. It's politically hot, culturally hot. It created a lot of travel, an exchange between these communities, and used Los Angeles as a global model. When you look at the archiving aspect of it, this is important because the face of Los Angeles, the demographics, the dynamics of it are so wild that the face of history is going to change so fast that there's not going to be much of a record of it. But when you have environments where people can come and register their opinions and ideas and show their stuff and accomplishments-little kids breakdancing-whatever it happened to be, all that can be there to be looked at under the context of a social space, it's not private.
The other aspect of Electronic Cafe that was very important was that it created a public space in which one could participate in telecommunications anonymously. You could be among people without anyone knowing how many kids you have, how many points you have, what your income is. It was like a public telephone booth. It wasn't the privacy of your own home, where there's a wire right up your consumer tract. I t was a place to present you r ideas, register your opinions anonymously. You didn't have to sign your name. The artifacts you created-pictures, drawings, writing, computer text-either independently or collaboratively could be, if you desired, permanently stored in the community-accessible archive. People could have access to opinions without being monitored. There always exists the possibility of being monitored when it's in your home. A "commons" was created that was very important in terms of the freedom and what gets to define our personal freedom in this electronic space.
GY: If this isn't political I don't know what is. They gave people a living experience of one of the hottest political issues of our time-how can we move into electronic space and still be anonymous? Are we going to be anonymous? Is anyone even talking about that? Has the issue even come up? No. You gotta join The Source, you got to give all your data to Compuserve. Anonymity is a possibility that could just vanish, except for those people in East L.A. now who've had that experience, who are therefore much hipper than probably most of the consultants to AT&T who never thought...
"defining the image as place- a conversation with kit galloway, sherrie rabinowitz & gene youngblood" by steven durland
Artist Name: Harroll Fletcher
Harroll Fletcher seldom creates things for self expression. He's often given a space to show in, and then looks for ways to incorporate the community into a work of art that will be shown there. He often creates systems that will facilitate members of the community creating things themselves, often around a theme. Their creations are often assignment-based- "Hello Friend" participants walk around their neighborhood with the artist, picking up things from the ground, and "Humans at War" connects elementary students with war vets. It's impressive to see how skillfully Harold deflects attention from himself, onto others.
Hello Friend (Queens NY) 2004, video, people, the time it takes to take a walk with them
Humans at war, 2005, kids drawings, war vets, mixed media"I have to go back a ways to when I was in graduate school about seven years ago at California College of Arts and Crafts. I got frustrated with what I felt was an inaccessibility between the art that was being shown and the general population. I was having difficulty myself relating to a lot of things I was seeing in galleries and museums. I wanted to address that by figuring out a system that people who didn't have art backgrounds could relate to and interact with contemporary art.
[...]
For instance, the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco commissioned me to do a piece with Jon Rubin and what we decided to do was, when people came through the door and bought their ticket, we then asked them if we could see the photographs they kept in their wallets. Within about six hours we re-photographed about 150 photographs that people kept in their wallets. They were photos of dogs and kids, girlfriends. Some really amazing vernacular photography. We picked ten of those and blew them up pretty big - three by four feet. We framed them, and they went in to the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
Visitors would come in looking for art but realize that it was actually already there on them. They were the carriers of the art themselves. We created a reciprocal relationship between what is normally considered the viewing audience and what is considered the artist. It sometimes is very subtle. It's not making anyone do anything all that different than what they would do normally by showing someone a picture of their grandchild.
In Motion Magazine: What were their responses?
Harrell Fletcher: The piece is going up in July so it hasn't been seen yet, but they were really excited about participating in it. Each of them gave their piece a title - just through naming it. "Sam's dog Spot." It created a relationship between the owner of the picture and the person or thing that was in that picture and that became the title of each piece. I don't know exactly the response but based on other pieces that have been like that people are generally thrilled. I've never had a participant in any project I've worked on that hasn't been thrilled with the outcome of it.
"An interview with Harrell Fletcher-Merging art, functionality and education", Interview by Nic Paget-Clarke, 2001
Artist Name: Anne Wilson
Anne Wilson also culls her audience for data to use in her works. Much like the "Learning to Love You More" piece by Miranda July and Harroll Fletcher, she's placed calls to the public to send in responses to questions she's written. She also creates environments where audience participation more effectively communicates the ideas she's trying to communicate.
"Hair Inquiry", 1996-1999, proposed questions, responses from public
"Local Industry", 2010, thread, weaving equipment, audience participation
"EXHIBITION SPACE 2 will present LOCAL INDUSTRY. One large museum space will be set up as a textile factory -- multiple tables with fiber bobbin winding tools at regular intervals for groups to work (adults, university students and school-age children), to wind hundreds of weaving bobbins of colorful fibers donated from textile mills. Using one loom within the factory, experienced weavers from Knoxville and surrounding states are invited to take turns weaving a continuous bolt of striped cloth. Once one weaver has completed a passage of stripes, the next weaver responds to that passage, making a color transition that moves into new striped color passages of individual choice. Proceeding this way, although abstract, relates to the Surrealist exercise of "exquisite corpse" drawing. The completed woven cloth bolt will be given to the KMA collection with a comprehensive archive of all who participated.
Participation in this collaborative group process invites discourse and debate about the contemporary production of textiles, and the crisis of production, worldwide. Rich histories of both handcrafted and industrially produced textiles in the Southeast are a key reason to locate this project at the KMA. "Local Industry" also engages in the multi-faceted discussions about new participatory forms in contemporary art."
[...]
"Do you see a pardox between human fallibility and the striving for perfection in craft?
"I do not see a paradox between fallibility and craft. I don't think of craft as "the striving for perfection." I think of craft being employed as appropriate to content or to a conceptual structure. I place no inherent value in either sloppiness or perfection. When I was at the V&A Museum in London last year I wrote down the text that arches over the grand entry doors. It says: "The excellence of every art must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose."
As an artist making conceptually generated work, the craft or the technology/method of fabrication, be it refined or very sloppy, is most appropriate in its critical relationship to the intended concept."
"Anne Wilson: A Portable Interview", by Alex Rauch, 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment