Amy Whitaker

Amy whitaker writes for the Art 21 Blog mostly on economics and art.

[ http://www.cca.edu/academics/faculty/awhitaker ]

 

Its a curious combination. I am yet to read her stuff properly though

Reece Terris

i dont know why i like this but i really do

Bridge (2006) from Reece Terris on Vimeo.

the artist today

Isn't the result of the ethical turn to say that the role of the artist today is to live and embody the role of the human being proper? As everyone else is instrumentalised by work and increasing specialisation, isn't the artists role not so much to produce art anymore but to exist as both:

 

a) the personification of a united society in general as a grounding for that society - that is, to display the unification of society on the representational level; and

 

b) the last arena left for any humanist/modernist/unmediated life project - that is, while everyone else is to keep society running, experiences life through mediated sensibility and totalising systems, the artist is the only one that can be said to be living life proper, for-itself. The role of the artist would thereby br to register, embody, live and actualise the avowed goal of societal labour, that being to live a life propoer to life itself, and accordingly one th registers and embodies the advancement of human ethics, self-actualisation, and collective actualisation.

 

 

http://www.gallup.com/poll/148142/International-Migration-Desires-Show-Signs-Cooling.aspx

 

 

artistic practice

SO can you give me an example of different approaches to doing the artistic production process?

 

If people do not start with a concrete idea then you must surely have some sort of production process, or a rule of thumb thought process at least?

 

I mean i definately dont believe i for one could ever do something good by sort of researching and then intuitivle interpreting by some process of osmosis/sublimation.

Israel

Just out of interest, what's your take on Israel? I am not just asking because you're jewish, I was thinking about it the other day and I am pretty sympathetic to the arabs and Palestine in general, and Israel don't exactly go out of their way to make themselves appear in a sympathetic light in their actions. At the same time, I can see the reasoning and historical logic which gives the Iraelis their conviction in a Jewish state.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12347050]

I watched this Louis Theroux doc on ultra Zionists who have settled on the Palestinian westbank, and there's really horrible Sydney Jew who sells property to families in this area who he interviews who is so unlikable and whose ideology is so extreme I 'd like to get your take on it to see if I'm not just being anti-Semitic.

Music, Media and Adolescent Sexuality in Jamaica

[http://blogs.nyu.edu/projects/materialworld/2011/06/book_review.html]

Information Workers

So I have a concommitant question. What is it like to have a real, proper job, recognised broadly by society? What is it like being a wage worker? What does office work involve? What do you do all day? It seems to me like everyone I know who works in an office spends a lot of their time goofing off on the internet. Do you feel useful to society, that you are contributing to it's wellbeing in some small way? Or do you feel llike you're getting away with something? Is there any guilt invovled? Whats your daily routine in an office?I can't evern imagine what it's like working in that environment...I am kind of intimidated and awestruck by bureacracy.

this is pretty utopian

man i get annoyed when the ted audience go gaga though

artists

can i ask a serious question. How do most artists support themselves to live? Do most work? What sort of jobs do they do ? How do the ones that don't work survive? How does this vary between young artists such as you, and slightly more established ones like the ones whose websites we'd often visit?

 

 

Daito Manabe

adam curtis

do you like adam curtis? - he was recommended to me at the pub last night.

worth watching?

[ http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/ ]

[ http://chisinau.ch/forum/79-14250-1 ]

Public school

[ http://nyc.thepublicschool.org/about ]

Im abig fan if all things Autodidactica these days, as I know you've been all along. I feel so let down by institutions and I just wish I'd been on this wavelength much earlier.

Has peak oil peaked?

 

[ http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/jun/16/peak-oil-labour-government ]

 

Living in the end times....?

Dr Beat-Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine

I love everything about this.

Graham Harman

Good interview in Mute Magazine with Graham Harman, proponent of OOP, Speculative Realism offshoot. Of particular interest is the way he talks about entering academia.

[http://www.metamute.org/en/articles/missives_from_the_fortress_of_uncertainty]

Venice Biennale Thoughts

Agamben co-curated the Italian Pavillion at the biennale this year and apparently it's an ultra conservative, Berlusconi  influenced, show of figurative paintings and sculptures. Discuss.

PHD Idea #1

Not a winner but a starting lens from which to possibly work:

 

Economic history of the law

Holidays

Another socio-ultural phenomenon I would like to research:

 

- when did the concept of vacation emerge?

- how did it become a middle class phenomenon? (baby boomers?)

- exactly what social laws are suspended wehn on holiday?

- is there a homology between the suspension of social laws (sittlichkeit) on holidays and the suspension of proper (moral/contractual/legal) law in states of exception?

 

 

Video Games

What of the cultural role of video games?

What about their narrative structures?

Do you think there is a link between video games and heirachy, given that they have levels and are Japanese and all?

theatre

What is the role for theatre today?

 

My feeling tends to think that it is interesting when used in art projects and really dead when used "on stage".

 

So i guess what I am asking is what is the role of a theatre (as physical place) , does it have any use today?

 

http://www.creativetime.org/programs/archive/2007/chan/artist_statement.pdf

 

 

Word of the Day: Cupidity

cupidity [kjuːˈpɪdɪtɪ]n strong desire, esp for possessions or money; greed. As in 'she was foolish and cupid'

Kharkov LIve at Loop 28/05/11

Point and counterpoint

Johnothan Jones's review of Mark Lecky's retrospective and 300 comments.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2011/may/23/mark-leckey-exhibition-serpentine-gallery?commentpage=5#start-of-comments]

A post-mortem in Frieze Magazine

[http://www.frieze.com/comment/article/jonathan-jones-on-mark-leckey/]

Tactics and Critics Series presents Nato Thompson

I really like Nato Thompson the head of Creative Time. I think he uses his goofiness to disarm people and push his political activist agenda as a curator.

Australia's incredible parliament

I always knew there was something essentially barbaric about Australia! Though this almost makes me proud.
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13615751]

Anti-Semitism vs Philo-semitism

[http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/68556/frenemies-2/]