R: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: is art useless?

how do you define "useful"?







xDxD



>—-Messaggio originale—-
>Dal: [email protected]
>Data: 28/02/2007 15.39
>A: <[email protected]>
>Ogg: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: is art useless?
>
>
>Hello,Rhizome list people.
>Just talking in terms of the useful/useless debate,
>I think in terms of how we see ourselves, we can sometimes ghettoize
ourselves
>in a very little, anti-functionalist corner.
>By positioning ourselves (in the da-da ist tradition) as "crazy artists"
who
>take everyday practices/techniques/technologies & subvert them, make them
>useless, we often create a dichotomy between the "real" useful (rational,
>practical,real looking, with a role in the world outside the art context)
>stuff, like businesses, technology, etc & "art", which is useless
(irrational,
>impractical,wacky looking, subversive, not effecting the wold beyond the art
>context).
>I know that a lot of people are doing really interesting stuff which
>challenges these ideas, but I do see a lot of work that just, takes a piece
of
>technology & then makes it go wierd.
>This can be a lot of fun, but dosent this way of thinking limit what we do?
>I'm only writing this as a kind of confession, personally I find myself doing
>this a lot.
>
>I'm not arguing that art should be functional in the traditional narrow sense
>of the word at all, just that we should stop
>doing the exact opposite of what functional society produces/does, as a knee
>jerk reaction. And find different, more expansive,
>complicated, fluid, aims for our selves.
>
>I would argue for an approach to one of the official aims of art (to be as
>creative as possible) similair to that Greek guy,
>approaching medusa. Never to look at her directly.
>er ,,
>what the hell am I on about?
>Oh yes,
>Not that I want to
> a)get into bringing up Greek mythological references that I plainly know
>nothing about, or
>b)start talking about the "muse" as a woman or anything as pathetic as that,
>Just that finding aims, functions, issues to focus on (your reflective shield
>- gedditt?) instead of "creativity",
>will,, er,
>slay the evil snake headed monster.
>Anyway,
>
>i was just thinking that tied in with the post about piero della francesca &
>to real world projects/applications/structures being more creative than ones
>made by artists.
>Like that experiment to represent atomic reactions, which had a scientist
>dropping a ping pong ball into a gymnasium full of 1000's of mouse traps with
>ping pong balls on them, or industry creating practicle structures that make
>lots of sculpture look really tame.
>what do y'all think?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>"Flunstellas Are All around Us."
>
> www.flunstellas.org
>
> www.myspace.com/rob_petrov
>
>
>
>+
>-> post: [email protected]
>-> questions: [email protected]
>-> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
>-> give: http://rhizome.org/support
>+
>Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
>Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>

Comments

, Salvatore Iaconesi

that piece of The Picture of Dorian Gray is really interesting, and it brings
up ne more qestion: is art "useful" if that single person throws-up, or gets
scared? or if he hurts himself?

i just guess things change with time, place and people.

useful in an "ordinary" context is one thing that seems simple, but it isn't:
different people see different degrees of usefulness in the same object.

but this is also true in an "artistic" context: i'm sure everyone can picture
two persons arguing about the importance/signifiance of a painting or of a
software art object, each of them convinced that his point of view is the
correct one.

i, for example, love toys. i make toys and i sell them.
i also do software art. and instllation. and performances.
i also cook quite well.
i can play the bass guitar.
i can have my dogs run like hell to catch a freesbee and take it back.
and several other things.

and i actually cannot tell the difference in "usefulness" of all of these
things.

maybe art is in the person, not in the "work of art". in the process of
creation, in the life of that person as a producer of art.

so should the question be changed?

one thing that i always asked myself:

people like Benjamin talked about the reproducibility of art.

and this is fine.

but i always tried to figure out how this statement fits in with the artistic
gesture that brings art to life.

is the gesture reproducible too?

if i make a software art object, that object can be copied millions of times.
but what about the "gesture" made to create it? is art in the object or in the
gesture?

and if it is in the gesture: what does "useful" mean?








>—-Messaggio originale—-
>Dal: [email protected]
>Data: 28/02/2007 18.57
>A: <[email protected]>
>Ogg: Re: RHIZOME\_RAW: is art useless?
>
>From: <[email protected]>
>> how do you define "useful"?
>
>Dictionary.com defines it as….
>————————————
>use·ful /ˈyusfəl/ [yoos-fuhl]
>-adjective 1.being of use or service; serving some purpose; advantageous,
>helpful, or of good effect: a useful member of society.
>2.of practical use, as for doing work; producing material results; supplying
>common needs: the useful arts; useful work.
>
>
>—Synonyms 1, 2. profitable, efficacious, beneficial.
>—Antonyms 1, 2. useless.
>————————————-
>
>I have always thought that the statement "All art is quite useless." was a
>very clever statement. It is clever because it can be interpreted as being
>relevant on many levels. It can be used to justify many arguments about art,
>like "Thomas Kinkade's work is not art because it is simply a useful
>component to a business model employed by the artist" and so on.
>
>But like most quotes, this quote is taken totally out of context with its
>origin as part of a quote from the preface to Oscar Wilde's work, "The
>Picture of Dorian Gray". Here it is in context:
>
>"We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not
>admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it
>intensely. All art is quite useless "
>
>So really what Wilde is saying is the only justification for making
>something useless (art for example) is that at least one person appreciates
>it. This is different from the common perception that art must be useless to
>be art.
>
>Regards,
>Don Relyea
>http://www.donrelyea.com
>
>
>+
>-> post: [email protected]
>-> questions: [email protected]
>-> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
>-> give: http://rhizome.org/support
>+
>Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
>Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>