Just to add to ryan's post and to echo it somewhat,
Speaking as an artist and art school lecturer, I believe what's most
important is building from the ground up and just getting on with
it. This may seem glib (perhaps it is) but by this I mean more
shows, more work, more art, more reviews, more specific curated
projects, more local critique, more stuff on a day to day basis. It
can only be from there that taxonomies, geographies, over-arching
philosophies, institutions, post-institutions, non-institutions and
histories can fully emerge and then change, evolve, change again,
evolve a bit more, change again again and so on and on...
What's 'not just art' today is probably not going to be 'not just
art' tomorrow, and while this is certainly worth thinking about and
important to consider for some of the time (REFRESH is one type of
place to do it in), I do feel sometimes there is a propensity in our
community to get bogged down in trying to preempt it all, to think
too many moves ahead, to second guess too much, and to think too much
before the fact. All this at the expense of the day to day delivery.
best wishes,
Jon
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Decorative News; a permanent public artwork, London.
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> I would have to agree with everyone who has expressed interest in
> the exchange started by the Refresh! commentary. threads like this
> seem pretty rare.
> Following from Matthew, Marc and Ana's last posts, i think there
> are some questions that still seem untouched if still very much in
> discussion.
> As someone who's written a lot of reviews of art and exhibitions
> that would be considered "formerly known as new media," i do think
> there is somewhat of a vacuum of critical writing on works in an
> immediate sense - though no shortage of larger, grand theorizing.
> Marc and Ruth provide a good starting point for immediate criticism
> on futherfield, which they graciously let me contribute to a while
> back.
> but i wonder what the expectations are of those of us involved
> here. i can relate to Ana's experience in the Academy, but at the
> same time, i expect that as part of an embrace of (how i
> understand) Matthew's notion of "not just art." Not as a sign of
> authenticity, or outsiderness, but as the contextual condition that
> governs the relationship between my desires and those of the
> institutional Academy.
> so i guess my question is what is to be gained from greater
> professional assimilation (of "new media art"), as would be
> represented by more well funded publications, conferences,
> exhibitions?
> certainly professional mobility, from a pragmatic perspective. i
> don't mean to repeat the "why would we want in the institution,
> only to become part of it" diatribe, which is really pretty
> ridiculous i think.
> certainly, there are parallels to broader trends in academia and
> institutional education, with the increasing celebration of inter-
> disciplinarity (if only on the surface) and its relation to funding
> structures and competitive economics.
> i find Matthew's closing point in his earlier presentation
> particularly poignant:
> "So in short, yes, there are potential parallels to conceptualism,
> as if this were a marker of anything particularly significant, but
> as a question of understanding the particular conditions and
> capacities of art systems and the particular historical conditions
> in which a crisis of multiplicity might be made. On such a basis we
> can, not recapitulate stylistics, but, make art."
> I'm interested in embracing the "not just art" as a way of
> navigating the field(s) in ways that lead to something other than
> fulfilling the needs of a stylistic regime linked to "particular
> historical conditions" that thrives on competitive crisis.
> where do the professional desires collide with the values
> attributed to the work we make/support/criticize that i've heard
> from many in discussions like this (including myself)?
> best,
> ryan
>
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