A late-night posting, but here goes...
dear simon et al
i reamin sceptical as to whether the valuing of 'craft skill' can be
attributed exclusively to any particular discipline, but i'm sure
that it's no coincidence that this is discussed here, on a 'new
media' mailng list, given our relationship to the business models
that place high value on such skill.
In this sector it's possible for a mode of production, considered
elsewhere, (in the food industry for example) to be 'artisanal' and
yet still be a valid, viable way of working. There is an increasingly
clear understanding of the ways that such small-scale, faith- rather
than money-driven* practices can have parity with corporate- or state-
scaled operations. Rather than simply providing fodder for larger
enterprises, through take-over and merger as in older business
models, these small-scale, artisanal practices are recognized as
playing a vital developmental role and can do so over a relatively
extended period of time.
Equally, if it is your intention to be 'eaten', to become a aborbed ,
to in-corporate, then other business models are as important and
appropriate.
Whatever sector you operate within, there is a choice to make:
whether to have your personal relations industrialized; or whether to
have your industrial relations personalized.
Perhaps in the new media sector the latter model is prefered, or at
least more familiar, and subsequently we are sensitized to the threat
of an of industrialization through which we might be estranged from
things that we know acrue immense value when done by us, among
others. We also know that, whether artist, programmer, inventor,
entrepreneur or whoever, we can have an impact that would be denied
to us under other industrial models of production and distribution.
We know how to make efficiencies in the supply- chain; we can shorten
it, manage it, re-imagine and re-engineer it.
in several instances, in talking to those involved in what we are
have previously called the 'mainstream' , people are sensitized to
the inverse: that they may become caught-up in trivialities and
technicalities; not just in coding or casting, but in sales, in
marketing, in evaluating, in validating. But even here there are
examples of the artisanal scale of production bearing great
influence: you need only look to the legacy of arte povera to sense
this; witness solo-exhibitions by penone & kounellis last year in the
uk as well as the continued success of anya gallacio for example. The
'craft skill' of securing commissions and sales may be out-sourced,
but the artists hand still leave its mark elsewhere in the artwork.
(And it is perhaps important to assert that the artwork does not end
at the art-object - I have to stress that the marketing, sales,
validation, historification, evaluation and so on are equally 'the
work' and are routinely undertaken by people other than the artist -
in whatever sector.)
Neither of the models caricatured here should operate exclusively;
indeed, we should vigorously assert our agency here, in choosing the
model appropriate at any moment - for any of the work we make. If we
require peer-to-peer development, production, distribution and
evaluation, then the new media sector prefigures ways-of-working
which will satisfy. If we need external validation, sales and hard-
sell, then perhaps older ways of doing business are better-suited.
See some of you in liverpool on friday, when I hope we can continue
this thread in person...
Best,
Simon
www.ambulantscience.org
* (thanks, steve fossey, for this insight)
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