CamLab's final Engagement Party, Two in the Bush. 2012.
Last Thursday saw the final epitaph in a series of intellectual discussions on social practice put on by MOCA, a conversation between scholar Grant Kester and artists Janet Owen Driggs and Suzanne Lacy. With that contextualizing afterword (plus an upcoming book), we bid adieu to MOCA’s four-year engagement with Los Angeles social practice collectives in the form of Engagement Party.
I feel a resonant sadness at the passing of this platform, one of the few dependable spaces for rigorous socially-engaged practice within a major art museum in this city. Perhaps the work was not always so rigorous, and the structure was problematic, the collectives were not always collectives, the “social practice” looked more like straight-up performance at times, and MOCA itself became increasingly unstable territory for experimental work to find purchase. But Engagement Party mirrored my own love affair with social practice, way back when I saw the backwards lettering of the Finishing School poster suddenly clarify in the mirror of the USC IFT building’s women’s bathroom.
In the years since Engagement Party first took the ring, socially-engaged art practice has emerged in force - in critical writing, in MFA programs, in museums, in endless panels and symposia and professional conferences. It is far from ubiquitous, but the blank stares (or worse, scoffs) are less frequent. In some arenas, particularly contemporary art museums that like to push the envelope of audience engagement, the interest is quite rabid. “Machine Project, you say? Fallen Fruit, eh?” and so on.
But it is worth taking a moment to critically reflect on this platform, and what it means in the context of museum programming. First of all, working with collectives takes a lot of time, goes against the grain of how museums are used to working, and can be quite radical. Collectives necessarily have quite specific processes (after all, they had to figure out how to work and get along with each other) that can be challenging–and ultimately rewarding–for any institution willing to put in the time and effort. MOCA should also be congratulated for the consistency of its program - three to four artists per year, three month residencies, three events per artist. This platform has created a set of clear parameters for artists to work within and dependability for audiences. It has functioned to effectively raise the profile of these artists via its specific circumstances, its formal presentations of their work, its branding and marketing. The Engagement Party became a stage on which to launch a collective’s work to new publics and new heights.
Ojo's Engagement Party at MOCA. 2009.
Yet I am cautious in my lauding of Engagement Party, because I am not sure that it is actually a platform for social practice at large, and this is one reason that I was a bit confused by the Engagement Party Art Talks. Engagement Party’s structure is excellent for a specific type of events-based, performative collective, but problematic as a flexible and supportive curatorial program for socially engaged art. I never thought it was proposing to be such a program, but this is implied in the talks and the book. I am a little wary of every kind of “engaging” or performative work being shoe-horned into social practice. There is no hierarchy or judgment in this–just distinction. I have been reading Pablo Helguera’s clear and precise primer Education for Socially-Engaged Art and love this quote where Helguera gives his take on Jürgen Habermas’s A Theory of Communicative Action:
Habermas argues that social action (an act constructed by the relations between individuals) is more than a mere manipulation of circumstances by an individual to obtain a desired goal (that is, more than just the use of strategic and instrumental reason). He instead favors what he describes as communicative action, a type of social action geared to communication and understanding between individuals that can have a lasting effect on the spheres of politics and culture as a true emancipatory force. (7)
There is a difference between politically or socially motivated works that address these issues on a symbolic level, and those that control, direct, manipulate, or influence social situations by strategically orchestrating the relations and communicative actions therein in order to achieve some set purpose. The structure of Engagement Party makes this kind of social action difficult–it is a Herculean task for artists (and supportive administrators, in the Engagement Party Think Tank) to actively buck the audience’s party-at-a-museum expectations and resultant social codes. The product of the Party becomes the symbolic realization of a set of social and aesthetic circumstances, but can rarely go beyond to what Helguera calls “actual” practice: as he succinctly writes, “socially-engaged art depends on actual–not imagined or hypothetical–social action.” (8) Liz Glynn most appropriately played with this paradox of feeling uneasy and implicated in the structure of the museum yet still participating, though her events were very effective symbolic practices and did not attempt (purposefully) social action; The Los Angeles Urban Rangers broke out of the museum altogether, shifted everything possible about the context and relations available within the parameters of the project, perhaps coming closest to Helguera’s definition.
The Los Angeles Urban Rangers. 2011.
Ryan Heffington and the East-siders' Engagement Party, Get Your Lead Out. 2010.
Still, this critique does not mean that Engagement Party was not innovative and important to this city and to the field. I would love to see more such platforms. But this acknowledgment must be balanced with the understanding that work that more closely approaches social practice rather than performative or participatory art, cannot be effectively sustained within such a format. No one pretends that social practice is easy, and as a field, museum professionals do risk resting (as it were) a bit on their laurels. How is it possible to sustain social action as well as symbolic practice, as a Habermasian “emancipatory force” with reverberations beyond our own insular worlds? Probably in something beyond three parties…but man, were they a blast.
Today I’m thrilled to publish an interview with Matias Viegener, artist, writer, teacher, and member of the collaboration Fallen Fruit. As a critical theorist and long-time activist, Matias feels the historical weight of the Occupy movement in comparison to other moments of solidarity and protest that he has experienced in his lifetime. Through his writing, one feels his struggle to contextualize and make sense of disparate events unfolding with lightning rapidity before his eyes - the result is a complex picture of the movement at this moment in time, enfolding the performative artworks of his colleagues, theoretical and historical precedents, political actions, and personal impact into a compelling narrative.
What are you making/interested in making with regards to Occupy LA & the Occupy movement in general? Why?
MV: Things have been moving so fast that mostly it’s all I can do to keep up with the daily developments, locally and internationally. I’ve been politically active in various forms all my life, but as I look back on my involvements with the culture wars, ACT UP, abortion clinic defenses, the Gulf War and Iraq and Afghanistan protests, it seems to me I was only ever working on 5 or 10 percent of the problem – on aspects, symptoms and expressions of the problem. For the first time in my life, I feel like there is a movement that has taken on if not all of the problem, 60, 70 or 80 percent of it. A movement global in scope that connects war, unemployment, poverty, gender, racism and plutocracy with capital and global, corporate statism. The implications of this critical matrix, and what it could lead to, has the oligarchy running more scared than I’ve ever seen it. And for good reason.
What role do you feel you/your work plays in interfacing with the protest? What role would you like it to play?
MV: My work has become increasingly participatory over the years, both with Fallen Fruit and my own practice. I’ve been working on a group of meditations or visualizations that have grown out of my long history with them. Despite my cynicism for them (I could kindly say they’re a core New Age “technology”), they helped me greatly during a long hard depression about 15 years ago. I tried everything from psychiatric drugs to cognitive therapy, psychoanalysis (the luxury option), hypnosis, tarot cards, and self-help books. What I found was that self-help was often the most populist and certainly the cheapest of all forms of assistance. I developed great respect for it while holding my so-called aesthetic judgment in abeyance. I’ve been working on a series of visualizations, one of which is a Fruit Meditation, generated together with my collaborators in Fallen Fruit, David Burns and Austin Young. Though led by a facilitator, the audience participates in a collective experiment that moves from the body and embodiment (through food in the case of Fallen Fruit) to our connectedness, our interdependence: the way we feed each other.
Frankly, I am quite puzzled as to how to make work about the moment in which we find ourselves. This feels like nothing else. The velocity is enormous. There is far too much information to absorb. Everything feels immediate and highly mediated; the reaction is often one of intense engagement and also alienation. We need new forms to express this.
I experience most of this historical moment not by being there but through various media. Perhaps this was always true for people, but it feels especially pronounced now – perhaps because of a shift in social media technology. I remember watching the Oliver North Iran-Contra hearings in the 80s, over the then-new CNet and CNN. Suddenly the public was in the courtroom with the camera, unmediated by television news edits. It was a new level of visibility, no commercials, no editing – just being there.
I’m attaching an example below of the kind of work that interests me: group authored, multi-vocal, and participatory. Last Thursday (Nov 17, 2011) I was watching the protests in downtown LA at work, on my laptop, over livestream and ustream. I was so agitated at what I saw I posted my thoughts on Facebook and many people began responding and cross posting. What happened over that hour is reflected in the document below. To me it offers a glimpse of both the time we live in and one way to convey it to others.
Many recent actions seem based on performing “scores” – why do you think this is, and how do you think these performances “perform” in the Occupy context?
MV: People at Occupy LA and at all the OWS-related movements around the world understand that they are not the first to organize in an oppositional way. We’re not the first to recognize the diabolical link between politics and capital, nor the first to make connections between micro and macro, personal and political.
The performative aspect of protest has been around since at the least the 1960s. Martin Luther King was assassinated when I was very young, and one of my earliest memories is of my mother taking us to a protest at which people of all races held hands, wept and sang together. I didn’t understand what it meant, but I felt the power of the moment. It was a social ritual, an unauthored performance, but definitely with a kind of script: the spirituals and folk songs everyone sang by heart (or learned on the spot). It took decades before I felt the social intensity of that moment again, despite the anti-war protests of my childhood and the (South African) Divestiture protests I went to in college and grad school. ACT UP was galvanizing in part because of the exceptional tactics that it developed, from performance protests to the Stop the Church action at St, Patrick’s Cathedral to the storming of newsrooms reporting on the Gulf War. The Wall Street intervention and shouting down Bush Sr.’s Secretary of Health at the World Aids Conference in 1989 were the peak of this for me. Perhaps because it was literally gay men’s bodies that were in question, we developed an embodied activism that in a silent, deadly time (the late 80s) that felt more powerful than anything I had experienced before then.
Recently a few artists, spearheaded by Tucker Neel (via AAAAAA), staged a cleaning performance at City Hall. Inspired by the Maintenance Art of Mierle Laderman Ukeles and an Angeleno feminist collective from 80s, Mother Art, we took soap, water, mops and brooms downtown to clean the contested sites of the Occupy movement. It was a few days after the eviction of Zucotti Park, and we were thinking of the charges of uncleanliness and sanitation by which Bloomberg justified his decision. Whose dirt is this, we wonder, especially in the age of reduced city and social services everywhere. The dirt is pervasive. It’s not so much on us, but all over the system. Cleaning actual dirt was energizing: doing something that is mostly private in public. We worked silently for the most part, except when people questioned us. The silence was important to me, as I hear too much, read too much, and my head often feels as if it’s bursting at the seams. Three women from Mother Art joined us, and we were able to talk to them afterwards. The connection with other generations working on similar issues with related strategies was amazing.
The Mic Check is a powerful new tactic, speaking in unison, speaking without or around technology. But it sometimes makes me nervous, and I know I’m not the only one. It can feel Orwellian or something, a groupspeak. Performances like Mathew Timmons’ Credit readings really resonate with and interrogate the idea of the choral and how it both opposes and echoes state capitalism. Credit is Timmons’ 2008 conceptual writing project, collecting all the offers of credit cards and loans he received in mailings, advertisements and letters. The personal information is blocked out, and the assembled volume of appropriated texts demonstrates both the vocabulary and the urgency with which credit is pushed on us. It resonates strongly in this era of unemployment, credit default and poverty. Timmons readings at OLA and other sites are usually choral, with the text spoken and sung by at least two performers, at turns harmonic and dissonant. The effect is church-like and disruptive, highlighting the spell of credit, how monetized our world is, and how pervasive the tentacles of capitalism.
I see Owen Drigg’s Octupy in a related light. The octopus is a tangible way of describing corporate power, a useful metaphor, but turning it into a participatory performance re-appropriates it. Built with garbage, it becomes a public toy; it may be playful, but it’s serious play. The octopus’s deployment works on multiple levels: the one vs. the many, the controller vs. the controlled, and the opposition between corporate bodies and natural bodies. This “body” is both natural and artificial, a corporate body (lots of people in there) and a mythical body. Without making an actual sound, it is both monophonic and polyphonic.
How do you feel the AAAAAA list is operating? What role is it playing? What are the challenges or benefits of this loose grouping?
MV: I’ve been reading and posting to the AAAAAA list since the beginning, through the fiasco of the naming process. It’s still called “ART BLOC LA (name tbd)” of course, because there was never a final consensus on adapting AAAAAA. I was both interested in and detached from the naming process. I understood the desire for a name, and agreed that ART BLOC was not great (“bloc” is hard to swallow; East Bloc, voting bloc, etc) but provisionally adequate. My desire since Sept 17th (the start of OWS) has been to be a citizen first, and then perhaps an artist. The political weight of this moment so greatly exceeds the parameters of the art world that I am reluctant to spend time either talking with or critiquing it. The art world has a lot to answer for, both in its treatment of artists and its complicity with plutocracy (“1% for art,” etc) – but at the moment the art world I inhabit is a local, temporary, often nomadic, artist-organized one, in which remarkable things are happening.
There was a frenzy of activity, participation and resentment around the naming process, so in essence it remains without a name. This is symptomatic of Occupy overall, its trouble with names (the echo of “occupation”), leaders, and the formulation of a fixed agenda. Jen Hofer and Rob Ray, who worked hard to organize the group and come up with a name (and more than a name but not actually a platform), were so battered by the experience they seem to have withdrawn from the conversation. Things like this are lamentable. While at the start I saw what seemed like parochialism in our conversations, things have broadened out a lot. I’m on AAAAAA every day and it’s a primary source for me, along with Martha Rosler, McKenzie Wark and Jodie Dean on Facebook. My ambivalence toward Facebook has evaporated for now: I’d never be able to find and filter this information alone, and I suddenly find the argument on the role of social media in new forms of activism more plausible.
There has been criticism of the Occupy movements and the horizontalism of the General Assembly – a polyphony of voices and lack of clarity in message or goal. What are your thoughts on this critique?
MV: I haven’t been to many General Assemblies, and few for their entire duration. I find them hard, in part because I’m too cynical. I’ve been through these processes before, most intensely with ACT UP. Consensus and radical democracy are exhilarating because they differ so greatly from our failed system of representational politics. They’re especially electrifying now because we’ve reached a threshold of dissatisfaction. I went through consensus-based activism in my 20s and haven’t yet found a way to engage actively with the Occupy GAs or the committees. So I just witness passively, and with love when I can. Everyone needs to learn first-hand how hard it is to organize and to create truly democratic structures. Active listening is probably the hardest thing of all, and I think that’s what makes organizing hard for artists and intellectuals. We think we understand what’s being said before it’s finished, or that we could state it more succinctly, with more efficacy. It doesn’t matter if we can. In fact it’s often not productive for us to do so. This is why I appreciate Vera Brunner-Sung, Elana Mann, Kristen Smiarowski, and Juliana Snapper’s collective ARLA, which has been so active at OLA. They utilize the listening strategies developed by composer Pauline Oliveros along with Jungian psychology; they wear large papier-mâché ears and their sonic performances are followed by discussions of listening and silence – all aspects to active listening, manifesting presence and connectedness. Adam Overton (with Signify, Sanctify, Believe and the Experimental Meditation Center) and his collaborative work with numerous artists embodies a different strain of the social practice I’m so compelled by. From a background in experimental sound practices and energetic work, Adam’s projects articulate new collective modalities. His work is gentle and immersive and more than anything, heterotopic.
Utopian leftist movements mostly speak in terms of homogeneity (who are we and what are our demands, what is the platform?), while I am interested in heterogeneity, contradiction and what Foucault calls heterotopia: where a single space swells up to contain contradictory and unlocatable possibilities, as in a city park that becomes a cruising zone for gay men at night. I see Occupy as an accumulation of differences, a site of condensed difference. This interaction of unionists, anarchists, the homeless, artists and grass-roots activists creates proximate density: a form of intelligence. There’s a frenzy of transformative systematic thinking, a liveliness and almost delirium – what Lefebvre describes as Dionysian Marxism. A sort of carnival in which things are turned topsy-turvy and beggars speak to burghers. I’m still observing more than I’m responding, and as I said above, I’m wondering if this new historical moment, this heterotopic moment, requires us as artists to create new forms and new modalities, participatory, performative and expressive modalities, not just to represent the moment but just to keep up with it. It feels to me like history is moving faster than we are.
What are your own hopes for the Occupy movement?
MV: I’ve been lucky enough to be in New York, Amsterdam and London in the last two months, and visit the Occupy sites there. Since Sept 17th every spare moment has been devoted to visiting, reading on and thinking about the movement. It infuses my teaching. I think this is the great political moment of our time, and probably of our lives. For a long time the determining historical event of this century seemed to be 9/11, and the decade that followed it was a terrible, fearful time, a deceitful decade. With our fear-mongering politicians, a stunned electorate bounced between the center and the far right, with barely a flash of activism. The power of the Occupy movement comes from its pioneering tactics and innovations in form – its amoebic shape – a refusal to be pigeonholed into one thing, and its resistance to speaking in terms the media insists on (an agenda of issues, a clear list of demands, a designated leader). It posseses an organic form, a bottom-up structure, and an appropriate contempt for our governmental, political and legal institutions. Most vitally, it has thrust the issue of wealth inequality onto an international stage. This gives me hope that another world is possible.
“People are being arrested.”
This is a transcript from Nov 17, 2011 of an hour-long conversation on Facebook during the Occupy protest in downtown LA. I was watching the protest over livestream and ustream, live video feeds (on the ground, so to speak), while sitting in my windowless office at CalArts. Posting my impressions and reactions on Facebook turned into a remarkable public conversation of 40 to 50 people, including various students, artists, poets, political activists, journalists, former students, academics, friends from college, friends from New York, my brother, and acquaintances from Mexico, Brazil, Switzerland and Sweden. It runs chronologically backward in time, with the last things first, and the first things last. It reads in either direction. Something is captured here better than in any other form I can think of.
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Matias Viegener In cafeteria there’s a mob too. Faces I know, all more or less the same age. Hard to talk. Stirfry or salad? My head is bursting at the seams. People are on the streets.
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Bonnie Engdahl likes this.
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Matias Viegener “Camera quality is shit at night.”
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David Reed likes this.
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Matias Viegener Both cameras are offline. One channel has a commercial. I’m going to get food. I thank you all, interlocutors and friends. People are being arrested.
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Millie Wilson, Steven Reigns and Alex Forman like this.
Matjames Metson what link are you watching? 11 minutes ago · Like
Matias Viegener www.livestream.com/owslosangeles and www.ustream.tv/channel/occupy-los-angeles-live. they are back online. · 10 minutes ago · Like · Comment
Matjames Metson thank you sir 8 minutes ago · Like
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Matias Viegener The being there and not being there at the same time. It’s like 9/11 but not so extreme. Watching but feeling as if you’re there. Knowing you’re not there. Knowing others are there. Others like you. And like me.
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Française Maischic, Chris Sollars, Harold Abramowitz and Jonathan Skinner like this.
Jonathan Skinner I particularly liked watching (here in solitary Ithaca) the live helicopter feed from NYC with the soundtrack of the LA feed, that crossover, its making perfect sense 14 minutes ago · Like · Comment 1
Matias Viegener Jonathan, sense now is different from sense then isn’t it? 13 minutes ago · Like
Jonathan Skinner making perfect senses (plural) 11 minutes ago · Like
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Matias Viegener “Our street.” “Whose street?” “Our street.”
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Kim Holleman Art and Sara Wintz like this.
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Matias Viegener The aesthete in me loves the blurred camera. Streaks of light. Chanting “from New York to LA, occupy the USA.” Rattling of the equipment.
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Stephen van Dyck, Marc Allen Herbst, Dont Rhine, Catalina Fog, Dizaster Royale, Anita Marie, Billy Hamilton, Millie Wilson, Harold Abramowitz and Alexandra Wagman like this.
Matias Viegener aesthetes, everywhere 9 minutes ago · Like · Comment 1
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Matias Viegener So we’re watching this together.
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Cara Baldwin it’s more than watching. 21 minutes ago · Like
Cara Baldwin but carry on. 21 minutes ago · Like
Matias Viegener more than watching, yes. but not being present. being other and being there at the same time. 18 minutes ago · Like · Comment 1
Anita Marie Thanks for the play by play. I’m stuck at work and dying to know what’s going on! 14 minutes ago · Like
Matias Viegener So many conversations. Cameras. Social media. How do you rally a crowd? No words to describe what I’m feeling. Connected and disconnected at the same time.
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Millie Wilson, Cara Baldwin and John Sevigny like this.
Matt Dunnerstick The voices are calling out my name, asking me to Occupy Vapor Street. 26 minutes ago · Like · Comment 1
Cara Baldwin I’ve wanted to find a new word, at least an adequate word for this feeling for some time. 24 minutes ago · UnLike · Comment 1 Matias Viegener an intensity. eerie. an event formation. uncanny. dialogic. disembodied. 23 minutes ago · Like
Cara Baldwin i have a handwritten list to my right. a third set of terms to describe our present condition. it begins with embodiment/durational performance/poesis 21 minutes ago · Like
Matias Viegener no, it begins with handwriting! 20 minutes ago · Like · Comment 2
David Weiner What’s the URL? 17 minutes ago · Like
Matias Viegener www.livestream.com/owslosangeles and www.ustream.tv/channel/occupy-los-angeles-live 15 minutes ago · Like · Comment 2 ·
David Weiner Thx 12 minutes ago · Like
Matias Viegener People are being arrested. Police put up a tent so no one can see. It’s peaceful they say (the camera people). All you see onscreen is lit office buildings. Streaks. White t-shirts.
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Matt Dunnerstick And there is a face on the screen. But it yet has no shape. The camera is too close and shaky for discernible edges. 27 minutes ago · Like
Matias Viegener I hear voices but no bodies. City has declared where the cameraman is standing “closed.” Move or get arrested. 26 minutes ago · Like
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Matias Viegener Helicopters. Chanting “you are the 99%.” So many people talking to me here, online, right now. Colin. Kim. Matt. Linda. Doug. We’re all here, aren’t we?
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Millie Wilson, Edeevardian Ear, Rose Kernochan, Kim Holleman Art, Jonathan Skinner, Alex Forman and Doug Rice like this.
Kim Conner When it is up, you can see NY on http://www.ustream.tv/theother99 The Other 99 on Ustream.TV: -Twitter- @TheOther99 @Iwilloccupy This channel i…See More 31 minutes ago · Like · Comment
Matt Dunnerstick I’m here it’s true. 30 minutes ago · UnLike · Comment 1
Colin Dickey Here here! 29 minutes ago · UnLike · Comment 2
Matias Viegener There is no there here. 27 minutes ago · Like · Comment 2
Linda Pollack present! 26 minutes ago · UnLike · Comment 2
David Reed I, yes, me too. 21 minutes ago · UnLike · Comment 1
Matias Viegener yes, you too. and you. and. 21 minutes ago · Like
Matias Viegener Chanting again. “We are the 99%.” Camera on the move. Very blurry. Thanks to the viewers. (me). (you).
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Millie Wilson likes this.
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Matias Viegener Is this the way it ends?
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Shoghig Halajian likes this.
Kim Conner not with a bang? 36 minutes ago · Like
Matias Viegener just with blurred cameras 36 minutes ago · Like
Colin Dickey Not with a bang, but a whimper. 35 minutes ago · Like Matias Viegener and the dying of the light 34 minutes ago · Like Matias Viegener (couldn’t resist a line of poetry) 34 minutes ago · Like Kim Conner (me neither) 32 minutes ago · Like
Kim Conner (either) 32 minutes ago · Like
Kim Conner (or) 31 minutes ago · Like
Jonathan Jackson Poe … 27 minutes ago · Like
Colin Dickey At least it wasn’t The Doors. 26 minutes ago · Like 1 Matias Viegener it’s not the End either 25 minutes ago · Like 2
Ovsei Tender Berkman that is how it begins. 21 minutes ago · Like 2
Luiz Ricardo It’s the beginning. Re-evolution. 12 minutes ago · Like · Comment 1
Denise Knee-Sea Li Yes, and now it’s time to do some bardo-travelling and rebirthing into the next life… 7 minutes ago · Like
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Matias Viegener Much quieter. Camera has backed away, camera people are talking. Legal observers in green hats. A rabbi. People are being arrested. It’s not very climactic.
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Matt Dunnerstick I mistook this for an inventory of dreams 41 minutes ago · Like
Matias Viegener It is like dreaming. I’m here, they’re there. You’re somewhere else. 40 minutes ago · Like · Comment 1
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Matias Viegener “How many officers here are reserves” the camera man asks. “How many officers here really want to be here” an invisible bystander says. “They’re doing their job.” “At least they have jobs” another one says.
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Valentin Viegener, Susannah Copi, Tiffani Snow, Colin Dickey, Kim Conner, and Doug Rice like this.
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Matias Viegener Is it 400 protesters? Can’t see them all. Lots of cops. 300 for sure. Now the cop on the bullhorn is joking to the protestors. A moment of levity.
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Harold Abramowitz likes this.
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Matias Viegener Black uniforms, but the protesters are in every color. It’s a stand-off. It’s not a riot. Why are the cops wearing riot gear? Their helmets look like lolly pops.
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Dizaster Royale and Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson like this.
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Matias Viegener Protestors hold hand-held cameras. Shaky pics, look like there are thousands of police and it’s hard to see how many protesters (would it be inverted if we saw police cameras?) Protesters chanting “the whole world is watching.”
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Harold Abramowitz likes this.
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Matias Viegener Protesters chanting “the whole world is watching.” I’m watching on my laptop, in my office, at work. It feels like just me watching them. This can’t be the case. Alone and together at the same time.
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Tiffani Snow, Millie Wilson, Stephanie Taylor, Linda Pollack, Anita Marie and Stephen Krcmar like this.
Linda Pollack I’m watching on MY laptop in my studio in the garment district, on the 11th floor facing north, direction of the plaza- I can hear the helicopters, watch the live stream and read other’s comments. Surround sound / surround experience. 56 minutes ago · Like
Matias Viegener At CalArts, deep underground. I think my desk faces NY though. 56 minutes ago · Like
Brian Bauman the personal is political, but the personal is electronic because i keep my blog online, i upload my video diary, i find my sex in chat rooms and now i get my revolution on ustream. 21 minutes ago · Like
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Gino De Young Frequently inside the building being occupied, conflicted.
53 minutes ago · Like
Matias Viegener Gino, that’s another kind of intensity. All of this is so new. And fast. 53 minutes ago · Like
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Matias Viegener 300 police, green guns with rubber bullets, batons, riot helmets, guns cocked. 400 protestors chanting “this is what a police state looks like.”
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Cara Baldwin, Jacquelyn Davis, Jacob Wren, Floriaat Bleuin, Allison Carter, Harold Abramowitz, Millie Wilson, Joe Bussell, Amarnath Ravva, Edeevardian Ear, Francesca Penzani, Nicholas Grider, Ryan Majestic, Kim Holleman Art, Hamish Danks Brown, Rob Ray, Robert Frashure, Marcus Ewert, Christopher Hershey-Van Horn, William Dinan, Gretchen Frazier, Dizaster Royale, Chola Con Cello, Luiz Ricardo, Steven Nelson and Franck Perry like this.
Amy Tofte Wow. Be careful. 1 hour ago · Like
Matias Viegener I’m watching all this online. Scary too, tho in a very different way. 59 minutes ago · Like · Comment 1
Française Maischic in other news, the Brooklyn Bridge right now http://twitpic.com/7fk5ss The scene at the Brooklyn Bridge right now: on Twitpic 59 minutes ago · Like · Comment
Matias Viegener intense but I am staying with/in LA right now 59 minutes ago · Like · Comment 1
Matias Viegener (a New Yorker finally lets go of NY) 58 minutes ago · Like · Comment 2
Bruce Christopher Carr don’t let go!!! 52 minutes ago · UnLike · Comment 2
Susannah Copi sounds eerily like Tompkins Square Park in 1988. 10 minutes ago · Like
Anna Joy Springer Talk about good art. 2 minutes ago · Like
Matias Viegener Agonizing, and energizing, to watch people I know, half recognize, don’t recognize, getting hassled, arrested, resisting and persisting RIGHT NOW in downtown LA
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Anna Joy Springer, Sara Wintz, Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson, Doug Rice, Millie Wilson, Harold Abramowitz, Ruben Verdu, Luiz Ricardo and Ed Giardina like this.
Ruben Verdu keep it on!!! about an hour ago · UnLike · Comment 1
Doug Rice to break on through to the other side. the only real hope. 57 minutes ago · Like
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Matias Viegener Watching OLA protesters - people I know, half recognize, coming & going – being arrested, hassled, and trying to keep moving RIGHT NOW in downtown LA www.livestream.com Occupy Wall Street Los Angeles brings you live stream coverage and and pre-recorded video coverage from independent journalists on the ground at nonviolent protests around the world. The team is made of local supporters who are inspired by the movement by NY…
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Yesterday and the day before, the Getty held a conference entitled “Perspectives on Progressivism and the Museum,” which was a laudable effort to gather museum educators and scholars from around the country (and from the UK) to reconsider the progressive role of the art museum in civic politics and social justice, with an eye towards the sweeping national initiatives of the Progressivist era of the 30s and 40s. I moderated an artist panel this morning called “Social Practice and the Institution,” which gathered David Burns from Fallen Fruit, Edgar Arceneaux from Watts House Project, and performance artist Elana Mann in conversation about their own socially-engaged practices and interfaces with institutions. At the very end of the panel, a comment from a respondent struck me deeply - how can the local efforts of these artists - whose progressive practices eke out new ways of thinking, leverage new networks, and build new capacities in the ways people live and interact - translate to sweeping changes in our greater institutions? How can we scale up progressive practices in order to change the way economies or states operate in relation to their people?
It is fitting to be writing this post just after Guy Fawkes day, with the Occupy movements in their fervor invading city streets and city halls. I have become aware of many artist friends who have seized upon this moment of protest and discontent along with so many others. In an effort to understand how artists with social practices who have been engaging with protest and activism and issues of social justice throughout their careers are organizing in response and/or solidarity, I have asked several artists involved in the Occupy movements to send me their thoughts. I will post several of these interviews every week for the next few weeks, and through the varied perspectives of these very smart and creative people, coalesce my own understanding of art and protest in this context. As the polyphony of these occupations seem to be moving from incoherence to some actionable goals - like National Bank Transfer day (which was yesterday) - I am interested in how process becomes message becomes action, how aesthetics becomes symbol becomes division or solidarity, and how leaderless protest translates to progressive policy (and if that’s even possible anymore). The conversations are complex and layered and entangled, and they are happening right now.
Adam Overton is the first artist I want to highlight - a performance artist focused on the subtle and meditative, Adam is part of a loose self-organized group of artists and other cultural producers performing actions and organizing events in solidarity with Occupy - they are called AAAAAA. His positive and laid-back message is a response to the criticism of Occupy’s drawn-out decision-making process and lack of centrality. He is pondering here as well on his role as an artist in the midst of such protest energy - how he both feeds upon and reflects it.
What are you making/interested in making with regards to Occupy LA & the Occupy movement in general? Why?
AO: Personally, I’m primarily interested in occupying space, with others, and also by myself. I’ve been going down to Occupy LA and working on stuff on the lawn (mostly writing) – I think of it as chillaxistance: engaging with everyday endeavours, and art-production, while basking in the occupy-energy.
Beyond city hall, I’m interested in the Occupy-movement continuing to spread into everyday life and surroundings – but not in some sort of manifest destiny, grabby, selfish sort of way. Rather, I’m interested in seeing folks reclaim various facets of their lives, big and small, and continuing to share (resources, skills, knowledge, energy, etc) the way i see people sharing downtown. Among other things, I’m interested in making nice-nice (as we say in the massage biz).
What role do you feel you/your work plays in interfacing with the protest? What role would you like it to play?
AO: I’m not really sure. I’m not that interested in serving as an example of any kind, but I am interested in being myself – an artist – down at Occupy LA, whatever that’s worth. This all somehow feels important to me to be down there, to be a part of what’s going on – both giving and receiving. There’s a lot of learning going on, a lot of witnessing. Many of the things I’ve done down there so far performance-wise have been pretty subtle; many things have been more like gentle quiet activities (giving out a hollah to the touchy-feely committee!!); I’m sure I could do some more “direct” and spectacular actions, but I’m not sure yet if I want to go there. I somehow feel very humbled by it all. Perhaps that will change with time? Maybe I’ll have more to share, or a more outspoken approach at some point? For now I’m just barely there, but still there (which feels like a lot more than not being there).
Many recent actions seem based on performing “scores” – why do you think this is, and how do you think these performances “perform” in the Occupy context?
AO: Well, not all of the scores that have been created and announced have been performed [yet]. Many of them are very thought-full, and represent how I’m processing everything intellectually. There’s a lot to process right now. A lot of the things I notice are subtle, or rhetorical, things that seem glaringly funny, or odd, or depressing, or troubling. The scores are sometimes a way to notice these things out loud, to transcribe them, to replay them, to turn them upside down, to play with them, etc – to critique them. And then they can be passed along electronically via email, facebook, etc. Sometimes it’s enough for the instructions/descriptions to simply be read/imagined. Some of the scores I’ve been enjoying reading/imagining/performing are by my friend Mikal Czech:
That said, I am interested in performing scores down there, and I have been, off and on. When performing alone, it’s been an interesting way of altering my sense of space, or reality, or personal interactions. Dérives are like that – they’re like drugs minus the drugs. They heighten my senses, draw out subtexts, present alternative ways of existing/playing in space – without all the forgetfulness and side-effects. It can sometimes be hard to notice where certain scores start and end, and I find that useful in terms of trying to expand the movement from Occupy LA to Occupy Everything.
When performing with others, it’s been a fun way of engaging socially in much in the same way that games do. Games/scores seem odd – they’re often life-like, but surreal, and give the persons involved permission to do and notice things they wouldn’t normally think they’re allowed to. They push you into another perspective. A lot of learning happens in scores/games. I’m not sure what is to be learned, but I’d like to think that the human population and/or spirit is somehow evolving with each game/score. It feels magical. I think it’s important to engage with magic and an evolutionary spirit in this space. Games/scores seem to be an aeffective way to engage serious matters playfully, and to model different ways of thinking, acting, and interacting.
How do you feel the AAAAAA list is operating? What role is it playing? What are the challenges or benefits of this loose grouping?
AO: AAAAAA is nice – people write emails back and forth, facebook posts back and forth – right now we mostly seem to be sharing information, knowledge, opinions, ideas, videos, articles, proposals for action, critiques of things that have happened so far, etc. For me, its foremost role has been to encourage me to continue thinking about all this Occupy stuff, everyday. I read messages when I wake up, during my breaks, on my phone, when I’m procrastinating, and before I go to bed. I’m immersed. If I was just on my own, not engaged with this group, I might only hear about things every few days or weeks; in other groups I’d likely encounter the kind of uncritical rhetoric that really turns me off, and that further alienates me. If I didn’t have people sending me stuff, I might think that everything had petered out, or that it’s not my movement, not for me. But instead I see my friends thinking about it all, being concerned, being excited, being worried, wanting more, asking for help, proposing meetings, encouraging discussion, and going down there and doing things. I can’t help but feel infected by this and want to stay involved. AAAAAA encourages my continued engagement.
I’m fairly wary of the rhetoric of large groups. I like mission statements, but only up to a point. As much as I like scores, I generally don’t like to participate in things I’m not concerned enough with or connected enough to. I generally don’t like being a part of things that involve a lot of finger-pointing, finger-waving, or righteous indignation. Except on a handful of issues, I’m just really uncertain about how to aeffect change in a way that agrees with me. So, as a whole, AAAAAA is really working for me right now. It so far seems to simply represent a group of concerned beings, mostly [only?] artists from our community. People tend to function autonomously, doing things when they want, or not. There has been no specific pressure placed on anyone to participate. I like this. A challenge of this is that it can be hard to keep certain kinds of momentums going. For instance, I spoke to a friend today about how we had wished there had been more large group meetings (there were only 2, right around the start - the rest has been small clusters of folks). There are several reasons why folks haven’t met as a large group since then – people are busy, and there have been a lot of calls for “action” rather than more meetings – but I actually think the main reason more large meetings haven’t been called is that folks have been afraid that calling a meeting might push them into some sort of leadership spotlight. I certainly feel that way – if I’m always the one pushing for meetings, do the meetings then become “Adam’s meetings”? I don’t think anyone wants to become seen as an owner of the group. I think it’s a nice sentiment, but it can also slow things down, and fewer meetings are called – everyone waits for someone else. I might be totally wrong about this – this might just be my own paranoia. Anyways, I’m a firm believer that unexpected things emerge when people meet, both online and off.
Another challenge has been catching folks up, making newcomers feel welcome. It’s hard to do that on a mailing list. I get the feeling that most of the people who have been participating lately on the list and on-site have been participating from the start. Folks coming to the list late might be more hesitant to jump in to something that feels like it’s already moving, or something that feels dominated by folks who are already active. I think those sorts of boundaries get lessened when we actually meet in the space – but not that many physical meetings have been taking place. Again, I might just be assuming a lot of bullshit! But there are challenges, and I think it’s been mostly good.
There has been criticism of the Occupy movements and the horizontalism of the General Assembly model – a polyphony of voices and lack of clarity in message or goal. What are your thoughts on this critique?
AO: Sure, I think the argument is that the clearer the message gets, the more easily the “problems” can be treated – but who’s going to treat them? And if they whittle it down to the 2 most popular ones and then treat them, does that mean we go home? What happens to all the other concerns? There are so many issues at play, so many to deal with – to dumb it down into one thing seems incredibly frustrating, and exclusive. I love how many voices there are. I think there should be even more. I cannot stand when folks say dumb things like “we’re all here for the same reason.” No, we’re not! Stop trying to unite us into your false karass! Things are much more complicated and nuanced, and the confusion of not having a clear message has caused people to talk, and talk, and talk, and talk – and debate. People are learning a buttload. From each other. At least those willing to listen. Many people down there are much worse off than I am, economically-speaking, educationally, politically, etc, so I’m mostly there to listen. Simplifying their many arguments into a few, dumbing them down is not the answer. Answers are not necessarily the answer (though that might be a privileged thing to say…).
To anyone complaining about the messiness of horizontalism – get over it. It’s giant fucking sandbox. Get dirty. And, it’s only reeeeallly messy if you’re in a hurry and trying to get-things-done. Trying to set a deadline is often an exercise in futility and frustration. The General Assembly and endless dialogue at Occupy LA and online suggests that folks move from being end-focused to being more process-focused – shifting things away from
fast-food politics, rhetoric, and discourse. If you’re only looking for results – for immediate change – then you’re going to hate life while attending a General Assembly, or an affinity group meeting. I’m there for the process, to learn from people, to hear voices that I haven’t heard before, to consider their arguments I haven’t considered. And to state my mind, to support others, to point out things that rub me the wrong way. I’ve witnessed some hard-blocks down there – and more often than not they’ve brought up really interesting and valid critiques of the action or decision that was about to be made, that everyone seemed to be completely on board with a moment earlier. If anything, in this day and age when
libertarian, anti-government messages seem to be all the rage, the messiness of the process at least makes me appreciate the level of skill and attention to detail and process that seems to go into making government a not-as-messy place. The messiness of Washington makes a different kind of sense.
What are your own hopes for the Occupy movement?
AO: More conversation, more learning, more hope, more minds changing, more radical juxtaposition, more reframing, more rehashing, more investigating, more restating, more paraphrasing, more mediation, more meditation, more introspection, more disbelief that a person like “that” actually exists, more awe with how many people are here and actually care deeply about some of the same things as me, more gentleness, more humble occupation, more complexity, more creative approaches to radical everyday existence, more acceptance, etc.
Less aping of politicians’/pundits’ rhetorical flourishes, less demonizing of the Other, less finger-wagging, less interrupting, less yelling, less anxiety, less stress, less worry, less anger, less simplification, less declaration, etc.
Patterns in my life have emerged recently that have only intensified in their synchronicity; for some reason my work, teaching, and personal lives have encountered questions of collaboration and collectivity again and again. When I look more holistically, this synchronous set of overlapping concerns likely began with my Quaker education (a denomination and philosophy rooted in consensual decision-making), but more recently has emerged in my interest in collective artistic practices and organizational methods here in Los Angeles, which have seen a gradual increase in acceptance and interest over the past 10 years. I understand that collaboration and the collective is deeply rooted in human society and instinct, but also struggle with collective decision-making within hierarchical and individualized structures in American society. Collaboration is at once heralded as essential to any responsible organizational or educational practice, yet at the same time is so often poorly understood and implemented.
I teach “Art in the Public Realm” at USC to undergraduates, an art theory course focused on artistic practices that permeate the public sphere, and each semester I require my students to interview an artist/project/organization that does this. My class list has evolved over time, and is focused (by necessity) in Los Angeles. I struggle each semester to draw connections between such practices, partially because their disparate modes of working are so far beyond the traditional studio practices that my students are familiar with. Some look like galleries, non-profits, or tour groups – most have collective names and many members. All are formally trained in fine art but may have additional concerns related to architecture, urban planning, community organizing, pedagogy, activism. This collectivity and the forms it takes are hardest for students trained in traditional art historical models to grasp – as a member of a collective I admire, Fallen Fruit, expressed, “collectivity in art has always existed, but always on the fringe of art history.”
I invited members of that collective (David Burns, Matias Viegener, and Austin Young); Jade Gordon, Malik Gaines, and Alexandro Segade of My Barbarian; and Sara Daleiden and Sara Wookey of Being Pedestrian (and, at different times, of the Los Angeles Urban Rangers) to participate in a workshop at the Hammer Museum on February 12th on this very topic. In planning the structure for the workshop, this stimulating group of multidisciplinary artists brought up some excellent points, both conceptual and logistical, about working as collectives. They spoke about collectivity as a choice with an aesthetic logic and a formal capacity – the aesthetic of the group, of the group dynamic, of the peculiar relationship of group to audience. They also spoke about it as an act of resistance against the paradigm of the individual artist, and here made the observation that perhaps radicality within art was made possible contemporaneously with adherence to group authorship. This conversation led to more logistical concerns as well – the coping mechanisms in decision-making (My Barbarian spoke of yes-anding and then simplifying, allowing the strongest ideas to rise to the top), the perplexity of institutions and funders when confronted with collective authorship, and the constant negotiation of power dynamics within and without the group.
Hearing the experiences of these long-time collaborations was enlightening, as I now find myself participating in several multidisciplinary “think tank” like bodies where the group dynamic alternately hinders or helps, obfuscates or clarifies the decision-making process. This is both frustrating and gratifying, but much can be gained from considering the group dynamic itself rather than striving to escape it. In the midst of a fruitful and reflective conversation about group authorship, a member of one of these bodies mentioned an example from psychotherapy, the Tavistock Method as developed by Wilfred Bion in 1961. Bion observed that any group working towards a goal or the completion of a task can be undermined by what he terms “basic assumptions” – dependency, fight or flight, and pairing. These primitive responses are defensive measures triggered by the anxiety of being in a group, and underlines how collaboration can be both socially useful and distinctly unsettling, resonating in our deepest instincts. The dependency assumption relies on a dominant figure within the group as holding all the answers, whereas the fight or flight assumption causes group members to behave as if there were some external threat. This can both unite group against a perceived threat but also hinder productiveness. Finally, the pairing assumption is a form of domination that occurs when two members hijack the conversation and relegate the rest of the group to passivity – hoping that the dynamic between the pair will solve the problem or task at hand without action from the rest of the group.
This simple categorization has broad usage, and Bion urges that true group productivity comes only when all such basic assumptions are suppressed. This can be a nearly impossible task without the time, effort, and reflection it might take to break down dominant power structures and reach a rational working mode. But taking collectivity itself seriously, taking the process of collaboration seriously, and allowing for the time and experience required for actual results, seems a necessity to this way of working. Even so, it does not always work, and failure must be actively embraced. This is utterly relevant to a society focused on expansion over depth, and one that is swayed by the group but inspired by the individual.
There are too many events for me to keep track of. My Facebook events page, my calendar, my mailboxes are overwrought. I have stacks of printed calendars on my desk that remain unopened from various arts institutions. Such choice, such variety is wonderful on the surface! Why, just this weekend, I have to hit up the LA><ART opening of two solo exhibitions by Kelly Barrie and Terry Chatkupt; Edgar Arceneaux’s opening and dinner at Suzanne Vielmetter (both Saturday at 6pm); and the Fallen FruitLet Them Eat LACMAevent on Sunday. And I will miss three cool-looking events at LACE (especially the interesting Museum of Public Fiction panel) and a friend’s sketch comedy show. And these are just the events in which I feel a real investment, those I am truly interested in and want to attend for my own edification. And these are only the ones I know about.
But with this overabundance of endless panels, participatory artworks, workshops, presentations and performances comes a heavy pressure on limited time, with the reciprocal need to feel a part of the various temporary communities produced by such events.
I know I am not alone in this contemporaneous moment, as colleagues and friends have complained of the same slightly distressing pull on their time. Some are masterful at balancing children, relationships, jobs, friends and art world events – but surely there are others like me who feel constantly overwhelmed. In many ways, we can chalk this up to the increasing ease of information distribution - and thus perhaps overdistribution? I was recently clued into the block of html code that allows one to invite all of one’s friends on Facebook to an event without discriminately selecting each invitee.
Perhaps because of this knowledge, I get the feeling that I am sometimes invited to events not because I am necessarily expected or even desired at the event itself - if I were to go to [cite potentially uncomfortable art event], I would feel out of place. Rather, these forms of distribution are yet another way in which to increase one’s cultural capital – to show that one is active on the scene, out there, working and gathering and networking and advancing one’s creative agenda.
There is nothing necessarily bad about this at all, but I do find myself overwhelmed at times by the reciprocal expectation - ostensibly to enjoy, but also to attend, to be seen at, to expand my own network, to enter new communities, to advance my own creative agenda at such events. This circulatory system of venues, people, organizers, producers, audiences, and artists is an excellent vehicle through which to increase presence and thus capital – and the expansion of synapses within such a system speaks to a dynamic art world and is indicative of current modes of operation.
These events share the “situational characteristics of contemporaneity” defined by Terry Smith as “prioritizing the moment over time, direct experience of multiplicitous complexity over the singular simplicity of distanced reflection.” As Claire Dougherty explains in her introduction to the anthology Situation, “these properties are displayed by a complex network of artworks, projects, events, interventions, happenings, small gestures and spectacular intrusions over time.” There is great slippage between artistic and political concerns that demand engagement, participation, conversation, and pedagogical situations as modes of working, and the importance of the social event to fundraising, marketing, and self-promotion.
Yet, I find myself wondering as I consider the increasing demands on my time - does the frequency and overdistribution of such events present dangers of dilution and a resulting lack of “distanced reflection”? Is there a destabilizing effect on the fragile produced communities of small experimental spaces and oft-marginalized cultural producers? Or, because of the rapid expansion and increasing professionalization of the art world, heightened in Los Angeles because of the presence of half a dozen world-class MFA programs in the immediate vicinity, is there a never-ending capacity to absorb such events? An ever-flowing stream of new art students and new work and new experimental spaces, a constant refreshment of the circulatory system of this event-driven cultural production?
I worry that scholarly reflection and distance will become impossible (or at least, difficult) with such oversaturation, and that too many critical projects simply die away without hardly a peep. I also worry that this lack of distance and criticality inevitably leads to a constant reinvention of the wheel – regurgitated events and concerns that are continually cycled through instead of built up and studied and critiqued. These worries are probably somewhat unfounded, and the proliferation of artists also means a proliferation of engaged critics and writers and publications through which to address such projects. The more the merrier, but the deeper the better. For myself, I must become okay with my own discrimination, and define how I want to function tactically in this swirl of constant production.
If you didn’t catch my recent Huffington Post contribution, I wanted to re-post it here. It is a reworking and reapplication of the post below from March 6th. The HuffPo are shortly adding an Arts Page (about time!), and a number of colleagues and friends that I greatly respect have been asked to post to it, so check it out in mid-May. Once June hits and I have a little time again, I will be up and posting again like crazy. With the Open Engagement conference coming up in Portland on May 14-17, the American Association of Museums conference here in LA, and some other social practice-related sideline research I am working on this month, there will be plenty to write about. Stay tuned!
Excerpt:
How Art Museums Are Striving to Stay Relevant for a New Generation
As I’ve been perusing my upcoming spring of various arts-related conferences (both academic and professional), a common question emerges again and again throughout these disparate events: how must art institutions change to re-engage current cultural audiences?
The upcoming American Association of Museums (AAM) conference (happening here in Los Angeles in late May) is called “Museums Without Borders” accompanied by some fuzzy language about “connection, community, cultural identity, and the power of the imagination,” but many of the actual session titles betray an overriding preoccupation: how to get new and younger audiences in interface with museums in innovative, user-generated, participatory ways.
The overwhelming consensus (as evidenced by the alarming aging of audiences to traditional arts venues - like museums, the opera, performing arts) is that younger generations of Americans eschew the largely passive role of audience, and demand participation from their art institutions. A recent article by Diane Ragsdale for the Stanford Social Innovation Review analyzes this trend in detail.
I’ve recently been talking to several cultural practitioners about how to educate those with a more traditional notion of art in understanding and contextualizing today’s social practice. The notion of expanded or post-studio has been around for some time now, but the historical contextualization of social practice is still very much in formation. My own efforts in this realm have been mostly trial and error, guided by some very sharp and inquisitive theoretical minds, but the way I trace the development of social practice seems to find some resonance with others striving to do the same thing.
Now, I must give a disclaimer – there are so many multiple influences and complex practices that contribute to how we understand social practice today, but from a purely pedagogical standpoint the following seems most useful for bridging the gap. I start at Beuys, simply because he is a well-known albeit controversial historical figure who was able to encapsulate his paradigm-shifting work in a few useful phrases. Most notably, the phrase “social sculpture,” which illustrates Beuys’ idea that activities which structure and shape society are a form of art no longer confined to a material object or artifact. From this radical notion (and buttressed by decades of expanded, non-object based conceptual practice) arose a variety of mostly non-object based practices engaged in social and spatial issues.
These follow several major veins that are relatable but manifest in varied ways. I would describe them as such:
Relational aesthetics – projects focused on congenial gatherings like making and distributing food or beer, discussions, invitations, and exchange (i.e. Rikrit Tiravanija)
Systems analysis – projects focused on uncovering, analyzing, criticizing and/or celebrating current systems that contribute to a deeper understanding of how society works, often with the goal of shifting those paradigms (i.e. Merle Laderman Ukeles, LA Urban Rangers, the work of Teddy Cruz, Urban China)
Pedagogical Practice – projects focused on sharing information in a non-traditional format, often user-generated and multi-disciplinary (i.e. The Public School, SOMA, The Mountain School of Arts)
New Models – related heavily to systems aesthetics, these practices focus on modeling new (or forgotten) societal systems that undertake issues ignored, perpetuated, or inadequately addressed by current systems (i.e. Project Row Houses, Watts House Project, Victory Gardens, Fallen Fruit, various eco urban farming collectives, the work of the Harrisons)
There are of course many variations and overlaps amongst these categories, and work that does not fit so well in any of these. The semantics of these categories can also be argued about – the titles are working titles and may not adequately encapsulate the definitions I have put forth. Nevertheless, I find this framework useful as a starting point. In terms of current work, I do believe that research-based analysis of social and spatial systems (Systems Analysis) is very much where it’s at – though plenty of relational aesthetics practice still exists, more model-based and solution-based practices are prevalent.
This framework still brings up some questions for me, questions that solidified when I examined the very interesting “Map for another LA” put out by the Llano Del Rio Collective just recently. The map is meant to describe growing “collectivist activity” that in many ways fall into the “New Models” category of social practice – though the practitioners may identify as artists or not. I will post further about my thoughts on this map, but now I leave you with a few questions:
1)What core values run throughout these different practices – and why?
2)Are these infrastructural practices?
3)What institutional or civic strategies that may be focusing on the goals described above (systems analysis, new models, new forms of pedagogy) are not considered social practice – and why?
4)Are the “new models” that strive for reproducibility actually spread? Or do they only perpetuate other “new models”?
