Hi Rob,
That seems like a pretty open definition of "managerial," almost to the point of being tautological. You say the nature of the human relations may be positive, so may I infer from this that "managerial" is not always negative?
Is the circus managerial? Is http://mjt.org managerial? What kind of art is not managerial? Are you one who believes that to enter into dialogue is always an attempt to control another? If so, it seems any form of output or social engagement is inherently managerial. Even generatiive/reactive art that uses chance agency as a formal instrument still traffics in human relationships once a user begins to interact with it. Regardless of what the generative artist says about his own work and intentions, it can be easily argued that a modicum of "art" (or "aura") exists between the user and the artwork (simply because the artwork is purposefully reactive rather than static).
I see an analogy between the generative art I make ( http://computerfinearts.com/collection/cloninger/bubblegum/) and the networked/collaborative art I "make" ( http://www.playdamage.org/quilt ). Both invite chance. The former invites chance to play amongst formal elements and artifacts of personal memory. The latter invites chance to play amongst human releationships on the network. I don't ever know how either are going to turn out. My hope is that both turn out to the benefit of all involved, but this is not always the case. For example, some of the iterations of my Bubble Gum Cards are not always as well composed as I would like. And sometimes there are unscripted negative side-effects to my networked projects (cf: http://lab404.com/getty/ and http://lab404.com/misc/obits/ ).
If the artist whose art is primarily embedded in social relationships stopped calling what she does art, would it be any less managerial? Is it the art-whoring and institutional sanctioning of human relationships that you are critiquing?
Playing in punk bands, we always hoped that our music would affect somebody, but we nevertheless continued to play even after everyone had stopped their ears and left the room. If the "art" of your art is dependent upon social engagement, and everyone leaves the room, then I guess you stop playing. Which does seem kind of contrived to me. Also, the idea of putting some random passerby in an awkward, "artistically constructed" situation and then filming him to prove that your art put him in an awkward situation, thus extracting "your art" from the situation – I see how that is exploitatively managerial. But what if you just put a random passerby in an awkward situation and then don't film it or call it art? Malcolm McLaren filmed it and called it art. But John Lydon would not be so easily commodified. Debord, the San Francisco Suicide Club – there must be ways to do it right.
curt
Rob Myers wrote:
> Quoting curt cloninger <[email protected]>:
>
> > I assume this is referring to proposed aura relocation locus #4:
> "In
> > human relationships." Yes?
>
> It's in relation to one of the current major descriptions of art
> (Relational
> Aesthetics) and #4 is a good description of that so yes. :-)
>
> > What if the aura is not embedded didactically and managerially by
> the
> > artist into these relationships?
>
> The aura is not at the level of the precise variation of content. I am
> not
> talking about a blue or red aura, I am talking about the presence of
> a
> coloured
> aura, and what the preence of a coloured aura means. The managerial
> aura is at
> the level of the class of work (Relational Art) and how such works are
> structured. The artist doesn't have to be didactic and the managerial
> element
> is immanent to the nature of the work, not a chosen stance of the
> artist.
>
> > What if situations are constructed by the artist and then observed
> to
> > see what aura might arise from these relationships?
>
> They will have the aura of managed situations and evaluative
> observation
> motivated by the creation or extraction of value, which is managerial.
>
> > I liken it to generative art. The artist/author has a modicum of
> > control, but if he's in total control, it's not generative art.
> The
> > paradigm is one of research rather than auteur artmaking. Do you
> > deny that such art is possible?
>
> Given my generative background, not really. ;-)
>
> This is an interesting comparison. Certainly in both instances we have
> an
> artistic system of constraints and (claimed) non-artist agency. But
> in
> the case
> of generative art these are instrumental, whereas in relational art
> they are the
> art. Relational art is more like push polling that scientific
> research
> (or soft
> reseearch like market research).
>
> Relational Art gives (claims) results (aesthetic phenomena) at the
> level of
> human relations. The nature of these relations may vary (and it
> doesn't matter
> whether they are positive or negative, emergent or imposed). But they
> are still
> relations. What gives these relations value is not their precise
> nature but
> their general existence as part of a class of phenomena, and their
> existence
> has been encouraged and identified as valuable by the artist. This
> creation of
> value by directing human relations for institutions in this way is
> managerial.
>
> - Rob.
>
Re: Re: Re: Re: notes for a hypothetical essay onrelocating the aura
-
Type: discussion
Comments
On May 31, 2006, at 12:57 PM, curt cloninger wrote:
>
> That seems like a pretty open definition of "managerial," almost to
> the point of being tautological. You say the nature of the human
> relations may be positive, so may I infer from this that
> "managerial" is not always negative?
i'm with curt on this question…
>
> Playing in punk bands, we always hoped that our music would affect
> somebody, but we nevertheless continued to play even after everyone
> had stopped their ears and left the room. If the "art" of your art
> is dependent upon social engagement, and everyone leaves the room,
> then I guess you stop playing. Which does seem kind of contrived
> to me.
i don't know about the contrived arg though… affective sincerity
and the "doing it for you" attitude can be just as contrived and
delusional. now, don't get me wrong, i don't say this in a cynical
way to disavow sincerity and "doing it for yourself," but if you
happen to believe that communicating and dialogue, or even conflict,
are what you're into, then why would you keep playing after
everyone's gone. of course, it's better if you practice and actually
get some kind of enjoyment out of what you do.
but i wonder what Rob's response to Warren Sack's take on the
"managerial" criticism of conceptual art (via Buchloh)
http://hybrid.ucsc.edu/SocialComputingLab/publications.php
http://hybrid.ucsc.edu/SocialComputingLab/Publications/wsack-network-
aesthetics.doc
as i understood it, he's attaching a critical function to the
adoption of the bureaucratic (or managerial as you call it), since it
's being used in order to create "intimate bureaucracies." and his
crit also contains arguments against RA (as Bourriaud champions it)
since it's about denying conflict and difference. So, he arrives at
an "aesthetics of governance" in which not all relations are equal,
and can be evaluated aesthetically and politically (well, he uses
"ethics" but i have problems with "ethics" as a discourse).
But, as Sack suggests, the "managerial element" can be a chosen
stance of the artist, at least it can be acknowledged. while you may
argue that the nature of the relations doesn't matter, i think it can
equally be argued that it does.
best - ryan
Hi Ryan,
We weren't bad or unrehearsed, we were just loud and perpetual. I'm thinking of one particular instance, a Voodoo Bar-B-Q reunion circa 1990. We hadn't played together in two years, and we were all back in town for Christmas. We played an hour-long version of "Sister Ray." After 15 minutes, the "audience" had adjourned to the neighbor room. We kept playing because we were celebrating existence. It was veritably transcendental.
ryan griffis wrote:
i don't know about the contrived arg though… affective sincerity
and the "doing it for you" attitude can be just as contrived and
delusional. now, don't get me wrong, i don't say this in a cynical
way to disavow sincerity and "doing it for yourself," but if you
happen to believe that communicating and dialogue, or even conflict,
are what you're into, then why would you keep playing after
everyone's gone. of course, it's better if you practice and actually
get some kind of enjoyment out of what you do.
On May 31, 2006, at 8:15 PM, curt cloninger wrote:
> Hi Ryan,
>
> We weren't bad or unrehearsed, we were just loud and perpetual.
> I'm thinking of one particular instance, a Voodoo Bar-B-Q reunion
> circa 1990. We hadn't played together in two years, and we were
> all back in town for Christmas. We played an hour-long version of
> "Sister Ray." After 15 minutes, the "audience" had adjourned to
> the neighbor room. We kept playing because we were celebrating
> existence. It was veritably transcendental.
hey curt - didn't mean to imply you would have been bad or
unrehearsed… i actually meant that you probably would have been
pretty good because of your statement (i don't take you to be the
solipsistic genius type i was disparaging ;) ). funny (getting back
to the origin of the discussion), benjamin once said in some lecture
that if a writer isn't teaching other writers, they're not writing
anything worthwhile (sorry for the horrible paraphrasing). i'm sure
the band, as a collective, was both a great audience and performer.
best,
ryan
On 31 May 2006, at 18:57, curt cloninger wrote:
> Is the circus managerial?
I would say that it is a spectacle. And the circus has its own aura.
A clown walking up to you in a street would imply a circus. Someone
making a shed does not imply art.
> Is http://mjt.org managerial?
That's more 'pataphysical. (And very good.)
> What kind of art is not managerial?
Art that does not manage human relations (or their indexes) to add
value. Or that is not addressed to or situated in a managerial culture.
> Are you one who believes that to enter into dialogue is always an
> attempt to control another?
No, sir. ;-)
> If so, it seems any form of output or social engagement is
> inherently managerial. Even generatiive/reactive art that uses
> chance agency as a formal instrument still traffics in human
> relationships once a user begins to interact with it.
This is not however the primary medium or end point of the work. You
do have a relationship to a generative work, even if it is not Eliza.
But that is not the purpose or intended experience of the work.
> Regardless of what the generative artist says about his own work
> and intentions, it can be easily argued that a modicum of "art" (or
> "aura") exists between the user and the artwork (simply because the
> artwork is purposefully reactive rather than static).
I think that Eliza is at the heart of the generative experience. I
would resist calling the impression of intentionality in generative
work an aura, though.
> I see an analogy between the generative art I make ( http://
> computerfinearts.com/collection/cloninger/bubblegum/) and the
> networked/collaborative art I "make" ( http://www.playdamage.org/
> quilt ). Both invite chance. The former invites chance to play
> amongst formal elements and artifacts of personal memory. The
> latter invites chance to play amongst human releationships on the
> network. I don't ever know how either are going to turn out. My
> hope is that both turn out to the benefit of all involved, but this
> is not always the case. For example, some of the iterations of my
> Bubble Gum Cards are not always as well composed as I would like.
> And sometimes there are unscripted negative side-effects to my
> networked projects (cf: http://lab404.com/getty/ and http://
> lab404.com/misc/obits/ ).
I think that generative and relational art are usefully different in
terms of their intentions and the social experience they give.
> If the artist whose art is primarily embedded in social
> relationships stopped calling what she does art, would it be any
> less managerial?
I would say not, because it is the activity that makes it managerial
in spite of the claim of art, not because of it.
> Is it the art-whoring and institutional sanctioning of human
> relationships that you are critiquing?
Certainly that is part of the problem. Badiou actually discusses how
capital makes all human relationships client/server relationships in
"Relational Aesthetics" but he misses the managerialism inherent in
the art he identifies as standing against this (and indeed argues
against it being managerial).
> Playing in punk bands, we always hoped that our music would affect
> somebody, but we nevertheless continued to play even after everyone
> had stopped their ears and left the room. If the "art" of your art
> is dependent upon social engagement, and everyone leaves the room,
> then I guess you stop playing. Which does seem kind of contrived
> to me. Also, the idea of putting some random passerby in an
> awkward, "artistically constructed" situation and then filming him
> to prove that your art put him in an awkward situation, thus
> extracting "your art" from the situation – I see how that is
> exploitatively managerial. But what if you just put a random
> passerby in an awkward situation and then don't film it or call it
> art?
Then it is a nuisance, not art. The institutional context of
relational art helps make it art, but the need for the institution or
institutional intent is part of its managerialism.
> Malcolm McLaren filmed it and called it art.
<cough>Wannabe manager!</cough>
> But John Lydon would not be so easily commodified.
Hey he's cool.
> Debord, the San Francisco Suicide Club – there must be ways to do
> it right.
I hope there are. But they will not look like the ways of the past.
- Rob.