ok, gotcha. thanks
 
best
sjn

________________________________

From: Sean Cubitt [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Mon 29/01/2007 10:22 PM
To: Sally Jane Norman
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] value for money?


Kia Ora Sally, hi everyone 

Imeant
a) Brecht, Eisenstein and Mayakovsky (and we cd add a lot more names from Charles Parker's radio ballads to the ecopolitics of Captain Beefheart) use deep familiarity with the high culture to make work for popular audiences. I'm thinking of Eisenstein's lecture series on adapting Crime and Punishment or his notes on Dickens; Mayakovsky's appreciation of Pusjhkin; Brecht's deep knowledge of the theatrical tradition all turned towards mass audiences (check the UPenn sound archives for recording of Mayakovsky reciting)

b) By contrast, Koons steals from popular culture to provide an elite audience with the refined gratifications of irony. he and many other artists of the fine art tradition use folkloric or mass culture motifs, materials etc , not for the benefit of the mass of the population, but in order to make class specific entetertainments for their rulers

c) I cd be wrong about Bourriaud's curatorial practice but i get the impression that consciously or not it makes fine art available to ordinary people. 

I wanted to make the suggestion that the distinguishing feature is who the work is for, and what kind of experience it tries to enable. If the experience involves encouraging socio-political change in favour of ending poverty, oppression and injustice, that's one kind of art for the majpority of the world's population. If it involves contemplating how distinguished you are by your ability to appreciate the ourobouros of irony, its probably another kind of art for a minority. 

sorry for the obscurity Sally

s

On 29/01/2007, at 7:04 PM, Sally Jane Norman wrote:


	Hi all

	following this with a mixture of interest and irritation that's more due to the inevitability of this resurgent subject - albeit spun out in slightly different forms each time - than anything else.

	intrigued by your near-end words Sean: "Brecht loots the glories of the Western Tradition for the benefit of factory workers. Ditto Mayakovsky and Eisenstein." could you please tease out a bit? 

	I find it hard to throw the three together in quite a few ways and even harder to put them in the same bag as Koons and Bourriaud. - to reassure, this isn't backed by idle purism on my side and I'm also happy to differentiate between off the cuff arguments and theoretical statements that delve so deep there's no position to be had from them any more - perhaps am curious as to how actively/ passively "looting" might sometimes occur in these contexts? 

	kia ora

	sjn





	There are already works in the new media field which, like Bert Brecht's
	plays, are crowd-pleasers _and_ go on producing ideas, experiences,
	emotions, sensations that you never had before. And, in Robert Lowell's
	phrase, 'commence in delight and end in wisdom'. Koons loots the
	supermarkets of pop culture for the delectation of Manhattan socialites.
	Brecht loots the glories of the Western Tradition for the benefit of
	factory workers. Ditto Mayakovsky and Eisenstein. Though I disagree with
	relatonal Aesthetics, Bourriaud seesm to be doing this kind of work 
	at the
	Palais de Tokyo.




Sean Cubitt
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Director
Media and Communications Program
Faculty of Arts
Room 127 John Medley East
The University of Melbourne
Parkville VIC 3010
Australia

Tel: + 61 3 8344 3667
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M: 0448 304 004
Skype: seancubitt
Web: www.mediacomm.unimelb.edu.au <http://www.mediacomm.unimelb.edu.au/> 

Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Book Series
http://leonardo.info <http://leonardo.info/>