A Posteriori Art

A Posteriori Art



The majority of what we call art are a priori art. That is, they are art
even before the artists pick up any tools of their trade, because they are
products of self-acknowledged "artists". For something to be art, we look
for and expect meaning appropriate for the term "art". This meaning is a
prerequisite for any products of art to be made. If it doesn't exist prior
to production, their identity as "artists" is questioned.



This is a problem for some forms of artistic endeavor. It discourages
experimentation. It forces artists to plan everything in advance, leaving
very little room for the meaning to evolve in the process. It is
particularly a problem for a new breed of art that is highly interactive and
iterative. Since many interactive works, especially community-based works,
are highly unpredictable in their behavior and evolution, many ideas for
these works cannot be declared "art" in advance. They could be art after the
fact, not before they were actually built and deployed to the environment
they were intended for. This also means that they could turn out not to be
art, if nothing meaningful emerges out of it.



It seems apparent to me that the institutions and the communities of art now
need to foster this type of art–the activities and the products that are
not art until they turn into art in the process of interaction and
evolution–a posteriori art, if you will, so that certain projects that
possess the possibility of becoming a posteriori art can be funded or
supported. All too often certain projects are shot down, self-censored, or
criticized, because they do not possess any meaning in advance. Rather than
rationalizing the legitimacy of art in advance by using cultural, political,
or metaphysical theories, which breeds conservatism, we could do better by
judging the potential by our gut instincts.



Like having a wedding after 50 years of happy marriage, you declare your
work to be art only after it attains something meaningful for you. Until
then it is not art–perhaps we can call it "interim art"–and you are not an
artist, at least with regard to this particular work.



Dyske

http://www.dyske.com

Comments

, Pall Thayer

Hi Dyske,
Could you elaborate on some of your statements please? For instance:

> This is a problem for some forms of artistic endeavor. It discourages
> experimentation. It forces artists to plan everything in advance,
> leaving
> very little room for the meaning to evolve in the process.

I don't understand why this discourages experimentation nor why it
forces artists to plan everything in advance.

Pall

On Fimmtudagur, mai 1, 2003, at 04:12 , Dyske Suematsu wrote:

> A Posteriori Art
>
>
>
> The majority of what we call art are a priori art. That is, they are art
> even before the artists pick up any tools of their trade, because they
> are
> products of self-acknowledged "artists". For something to be art, we
> look
> for and expect meaning appropriate for the term "art". This meaning is a
> prerequisite for any products of art to be made. If it doesn't exist
> prior
> to production, their identity as "artists" is questioned.
>
>
>
> This is a problem for some forms of artistic endeavor. It discourages
> experimentation. It forces artists to plan everything in advance,
> leaving
> very little room for the meaning to evolve in the process. It is
> particularly a problem for a new breed of art that is highly
> interactive and
> iterative. Since many interactive works, especially community-based
> works,
> are highly unpredictable in their behavior and evolution, many ideas for
> these works cannot be declared "art" in advance. They could be art
> after the
> fact, not before they were actually built and deployed to the
> environment
> they were intended for. This also means that they could turn out not to=

> be
> art, if nothing meaningful emerges out of it.
>
>
>
> It seems apparent to me that the institutions and the communities of
> art now
> need to foster this type of art–the activities and the products that
> are
> not art until they turn into art in the process of interaction and
> evolution–a posteriori art, if you will, so that certain projects that
> possess the possibility of becoming a posteriori art can be funded or
> supported. All too often certain projects are shot down, self-censored,=

> or
> criticized, because they do not possess any meaning in advance. Rather
> than
> rationalizing the legitimacy of art in advance by using cultural,
> political,
> or metaphysical theories, which breeds conservatism, we could do better=

> by
> judging the potential by our gut instincts.
>
>
>
> Like having a wedding after 50 years of happy marriage, you declare your
> work to be art only after it attains something meaningful for you. Until
> then it is not art–perhaps we can call it "interim art"–and you are
> not an
> artist, at least with regard to this particular work.
>
>
>
> Dyske
>
> http://www.dyske.com
>
>
>
>
>
> + ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
> -> 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
>
>
_____________________________________
Pall Thayer
myndlistamadhur/kennari
artist/teacher
Fjolbrautaskolanum vidh Armula (www.fa.is)
http://www.this.is/pallit
_____________________________________

, Pall Thayer

Hi Dyske,
Could you elaborate on some of your statements please? For instance:

> This is a problem for some forms of artistic endeavor. It discourages
> experimentation. It forces artists to plan everything in advance,
> leaving
> very little room for the meaning to evolve in the process.

I don't understand why this discourages experimentation nor why it
forces artists to plan everything in advance.

Pall

On Fimmtudagur, mai 1, 2003, at 04:12 , Dyske Suematsu wrote:

> A Posteriori Art
>
>
>
> The majority of what we call art are a priori art. That is, they are art
> even before the artists pick up any tools of their trade, because they
> are
> products of self-acknowledged "artists". For something to be art, we
> look
> for and expect meaning appropriate for the term "art". This meaning is a
> prerequisite for any products of art to be made. If it doesn't exist
> prior
> to production, their identity as "artists" is questioned.
>
>
>
> This is a problem for some forms of artistic endeavor. It discourages
> experimentation. It forces artists to plan everything in advance,
> leaving
> very little room for the meaning to evolve in the process. It is
> particularly a problem for a new breed of art that is highly
> interactive and
> iterative. Since many interactive works, especially community-based
> works,
> are highly unpredictable in their behavior and evolution, many ideas for
> these works cannot be declared "art" in advance. They could be art
> after the
> fact, not before they were actually built and deployed to the
> environment
> they were intended for. This also means that they could turn out not to=

> be
> art, if nothing meaningful emerges out of it.
>
>
>
> It seems apparent to me that the institutions and the communities of
> art now
> need to foster this type of art–the activities and the products that
> are
> not art until they turn into art in the process of interaction and
> evolution–a posteriori art, if you will, so that certain projects that
> possess the possibility of becoming a posteriori art can be funded or
> supported. All too often certain projects are shot down, self-censored,=

> or
> criticized, because they do not possess any meaning in advance. Rather
> than
> rationalizing the legitimacy of art in advance by using cultural,
> political,
> or metaphysical theories, which breeds conservatism, we could do better=

> by
> judging the potential by our gut instincts.
>
>
>
> Like having a wedding after 50 years of happy marriage, you declare your
> work to be art only after it attains something meaningful for you. Until
> then it is not art–perhaps we can call it "interim art"–and you are
> not an
> artist, at least with regard to this particular work.
>
>
>
> Dyske
>
> http://www.dyske.com
>
>
>
>
>
> + ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
> -> 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
>
>
_____________________________________
Pall Thayer
myndlistamadhur/kennari
artist/teacher
Fjolbrautaskolanum vidh Armula (www.fa.is)
http://www.this.is/pallit
_____________________________________

, Dyske Suematsu

> I don't understand why this discourages experimentation
> nor why it forces artists to plan everything in advance.

Hi Pall,

Artists are "artists", because they make art. Their products are art because
they are "artists". Art has evolved into a highly self-conscious act. When
we call something "art", we expect some form of profound meaning in it.
Suppose an artist says, "I'm going to make art." This is something most
artists do on a daily basis, whether they literally say it or not. What does
it mean to say that you are going to make art? It means that you are going
to create something profoundly meaningful. So, even before you pick up your
brush, you are assuming that you are creating something profoundly
meaningful. If you think about it, this is quite conceited, but our current
art world essentially requires you to do this. By "art world", I don't just
mean the institutions of art, but everyone in the art world including the
artists themselves.

Because artists want to be "artists", because they see themselves to be
artists, what they make by default must be profoundly meaningful from the
get-go. This leaves out certain possibilities. Say, an engineer made
something fun for himself. It was a big hit among his friends, so he decided
to make more of them to give them out. They started using his device daily,
and eventually had a profound impact on their lives. One day the engineer
realized that what he had created was something more than a piece of device;
it was something more profound and meaningful. He decided to call it "art".
The current art world does not have any means of supporting, or even
recognizing, activities like this. The intentions of any activities in the
art world must be to make "art". I feel that this is quite limiting. As a
modern artist, you must be able to explain why what you are about to make is
profound and meaningful. Otherwise you won't be able to get any support or
recognition.

Again, the institutions of art are not to be blamed for this, because the
artists do this to themselves. They want to be recognized as "artists", so
they would only do something if it can be profound. They would not waste
time with something in which they can't see any meaning in advance, even if
they felt that it could be fun or interesting. If they are just doing
something for fun by following their own passion, they won't be recognized
as "artists", and that is not something that they want to accept. First and
foremost, they want to be called, and be able to call themselves, "artists".
And, there is a price for that.

Interactive art, especially when the interaction is with other people, your
message as an artist is often the medium itself. That is, the artistic
meaning is not in the content of the interaction, but in the way the medium
influences the way people think, feel, and live. Mediums like radio, TV,
transportation, cell phones, email, and the web had profound impact on our
lives, but it was not always clear how these mediums were going to change
our lives. A medium that was invented for one purpose often ends up being
used for an entirely different purpose. Where you thought it would have
meaning, end up having more meaning elsewhere.

Today with the help of technology, we can create a medium that can be used
by millions of people without getting millions of dollars in funding. That
is, a medium no longer needs to be a physical device. A piece of computer
software is a medium that is entirely intellectual, and can have an enormous
impact on our lives. Although most applications are written with specific
profit-making goals, one could build an application that has a potential to
create a profound meaning. However, as with any medium, whether it achieves
that goal or not is not something you can accurately predict. The only
guidance you have in this endeavor is your gut instinct, curiosity, and
passion. If your primary concern is with being called an "artist" or being
able to call yourself an "artist", then you are probably better off not
pursuing something like this.

Dyske
http://www.dyske.com

, Pall Thayer

I understand what you mean by the artist setting out to make art and
voila… it's art. But I don't understand why that discourages
experimentation. I think the way most artists work is that they begin with
either a concept or some idea of an image (I'm talking visual artists) but
as the work begins to take form, experimentation and, in many cases, chance
occurances enter into the work which can cause it to evolve in a certain
direction. I doubt that there are many artists that start out with a
detailed plan of what their artwork is going to look like or how it's going
to work (if that's the case). Yes, they have already decided that they are
going to make art. If the question is whether we should wait till the work
is finished and then see and decide if what has been made is in fact art,
isn't that a rather old debate?

As far as your example about the engineer goes, that would be pretty tough,
wouldn't it? Support something when the creator doesn't even know on what
grounds it should be supported? Although I understand what you mean, I fail
to see how this might be possible. Another thing comes to mind as well, if
someone accidentally stumbles onto something "profound and meaningful" when
he was in fact trying to do something else, then does that really mean that
the creator did something "profound and meaningful"? I mean, didn't it
actually take someone else to figure out that it was "profound and
meaningful"? Usually, support is offered as encouragement to "do it again".
If this great feat was accidental, then there's no reason to believe that
the person could do it again, so what would the institutions be supporting?
That of course is aside from the fact that given the unpredictable
circumstances, why should the institutions bother? Why would the creator
even think to contact the institutions and say "I may or may not
accidentally create something that may or may not become profound and
meaningful a couple of years after I make it."

I think that for something to be truly "profound and meaningful", it has to
be the intention of the creator to create something profound and meaningful.
Otherwise it would be like an alchemist who, in a drunken fury, manages to
throw a bunch of stuff into a bowl and accidentally turn on the bunson
burner before passing out. When he wakes up, he discovers that, to his
astonishment, he managed to make gold! The only problem is, he can't
remember how he did it. There was no logic behind his method so he can't
even speculate on what he may have done. Has he done something remarkable?
Not really. For all he knows, maybe he didn't even make the gold. Maybe it
was something he bought off a street merchant the night before and just put
it in the bowl because he couldn't remember the combination to his safe. But
maybe that's why artists decide, before they do anything, that they're going
to create something "profound and meaningful". They do it just in case they
actually do create something "profound and meaningful". To make sure the
intent is there.

Best regards,
Pall
—– Original Message —–
From: "Dyske Suematsu" <[email protected]>
To: "Pall Thayer" <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2003 11:50 PM
Subject: RE: RHIZOME_RAW: A Posteriori Art


> > I don't understand why this discourages experimentation
> > nor why it forces artists to plan everything in advance.
>
> Hi Pall,
>
> Artists are "artists", because they make art. Their products are art
because
> they are "artists". Art has evolved into a highly self-conscious act. When
> we call something "art", we expect some form of profound meaning in it.
> Suppose an artist says, "I'm going to make art." This is something most
> artists do on a daily basis, whether they literally say it or not. What
does
> it mean to say that you are going to make art? It means that you are going
> to create something profoundly meaningful. So, even before you pick up
your
> brush, you are assuming that you are creating something profoundly
> meaningful. If you think about it, this is quite conceited, but our
current
> art world essentially requires you to do this. By "art world", I don't
just
> mean the institutions of art, but everyone in the art world including the
> artists themselves.
>
> Because artists want to be "artists", because they see themselves to be
> artists, what they make by default must be profoundly meaningful from the
> get-go. This leaves out certain possibilities. Say, an engineer made
> something fun for himself. It was a big hit among his friends, so he
decided
> to make more of them to give them out. They started using his device
daily,
> and eventually had a profound impact on their lives. One day the engineer
> realized that what he had created was something more than a piece of
device;
> it was something more profound and meaningful. He decided to call it
"art".
> The current art world does not have any means of supporting, or even
> recognizing, activities like this. The intentions of any activities in the
> art world must be to make "art". I feel that this is quite limiting. As a
> modern artist, you must be able to explain why what you are about to make
is
> profound and meaningful. Otherwise you won't be able to get any support or
> recognition.
>
> Again, the institutions of art are not to be blamed for this, because the
> artists do this to themselves. They want to be recognized as "artists", so
> they would only do something if it can be profound. They would not waste
> time with something in which they can't see any meaning in advance, even
if
> they felt that it could be fun or interesting. If they are just doing
> something for fun by following their own passion, they won't be recognized
> as "artists", and that is not something that they want to accept. First
and
> foremost, they want to be called, and be able to call themselves,
"artists".
> And, there is a price for that.
>
> Interactive art, especially when the interaction is with other people,
your
> message as an artist is often the medium itself. That is, the artistic
> meaning is not in the content of the interaction, but in the way the
medium
> influences the way people think, feel, and live. Mediums like radio, TV,
> transportation, cell phones, email, and the web had profound impact on our
> lives, but it was not always clear how these mediums were going to change
> our lives. A medium that was invented for one purpose often ends up being
> used for an entirely different purpose. Where you thought it would have
> meaning, end up having more meaning elsewhere.
>
> Today with the help of technology, we can create a medium that can be used
> by millions of people without getting millions of dollars in funding. That
> is, a medium no longer needs to be a physical device. A piece of computer
> software is a medium that is entirely intellectual, and can have an
enormous
> impact on our lives. Although most applications are written with specific
> profit-making goals, one could build an application that has a potential
to
> create a profound meaning. However, as with any medium, whether it
achieves
> that goal or not is not something you can accurately predict. The only
> guidance you have in this endeavor is your gut instinct, curiosity, and
> passion. If your primary concern is with being called an "artist" or being
> able to call yourself an "artist", then you are probably better off not
> pursuing something like this.
>
> Dyske
> http://www.dyske.com
>
>
> + ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
> -> 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

, Dyske Suematsu

Hi Pall,

If what you are suggesting is that if something meaningful was created
accidentally, it is not art, nor is the creator artist. This is semantically
true, at least to a degree. It is like calling a shot when playing pool. The
idea in art is not to create something meaningful, but to create something
meaningful intentionally so that the creator can be properly credited. This
is a rather Western definition of art where, ultimately, it is about
authorship, about credit, about art being an assertion of self. So if the
artwork cannot be traced back to the name of the creator, it is not art.
This goes back to my argument of identifying oneself as an "artist" being
the primary drive of art. If the artist cannot be properly credited, if the
meaning cannot be traced back to the artist's intention, then everything
loses meaning.

Suppose someone keeps creating something beautiful and profoundly meaningful
to the viewers, but he does not know what art is, and had no intention of
creating something meaningful. Technically speaking, his work will not be
considered "art" especially in the era after Duchamp. From time to time I
come across things of this nature where I have no idea who made it, what
his/her intention was, but was profoundly meaningful to me. In fact, I do
not make much distinction between the beauty of nature and the beauty of
man-made objects. After all, human beings are part of nature. I'm simply
interested in letting beautiful things happen. Whether it can be properly
credited to an "artist" does not particularly interest me. In the end,
meaning is something that resides in me regardless of anyone's intentions to
be meaningful. In this sense, I am the artist in everything I perceive to be
meaningful, whether you made it or I did.

Dyske
http://www.dyske.com

, Ivan Pope

Dyske, well, there can be arguments with almost everything you say. It is
like you set up an aunt sally in order to knock it down. Artists are not
some homogenous block who all come out of the academy thinking in the same
way. I know plenty of artists who set out to make work that is shallow and
meaningless. This seems like a valid response to the world. It is for the
audience to decide whether it is actually profound and meaningful. I dont
even accept that this is some sort of fundamental descriptor of art.

Your arguments have a sort of first year art student quality about them. It
seems fairly pointless worrying about the institutions of art unless you are
an art administrator or an art world politician.

There are millions of people around the world who make wonderful creative
energized work outside of any institutional art world. Plenty of engineers
have become artists and plenty of artists have become engineers, etc, etc.

I would suggest that any human endeavour needs a set of defining
circumstances in order to develop its processes. I dont believe that art is
somehow a magical process that sits outside normal human behaviour.
Therefore, it is entirely natural that there is an art world, and entirely
natural that there are people outside that art world. An engineer is an
engineer. Sure, they could be as creative as an artist, but if they do not
desire to enter the academy, why is that a problem? Their recognition will
come from elsewhere.

As for the desire to be profound and meaningful being conceited, I dont see
why aspiring to succeed in a profession is conceited, and if it is, why it
is the fault of the aspirant. Artists are just people, they need to eat, to
love, to be recognised and loved back. They have families. Sure, art is a
strange and difficult thing to live with, but that does not make us bad for
trying to succeed with it.

Personally, I know that there is something deep inside myself that wants to
be expressed. I know that I have certain skill sets and a love of creating
things that are not really that useful in a functional sense. These
attributes of myself have led me up and down and round and round in my life.
They are not all art skills, there are entrepreneurial skills which are as
deeply embedded. And while I have skills such as aesthetic and motor skills
which mean I can produce beautiful objects, doing so quickly leaves me
bored. I have looked deep into this issue as regards myself and have come to
the conclusion that art is really what I should do. That said, I am still
unsure on a day to day basis how one really goes about this in an honest
way. I am still prone to temptation to produce stuff that looks like art.
But, on a good day, new stuff will bubble out from who knows where, no
thoughts of profoundity or meaning bothering the creative act. And my
validation comes form outside myself. And not even from the art world.

OK, blather over. But I suspect that most artists have a similar
relationship with their art and its production. While it may look from the
outside like art is sort of produced in a perfect finished state complete
with frame, gallery etc, this is far from the truth. This is the work of
agents of artists. And I have no problem with that, for we are all people
living in the world.

Cheers,

Ivan

> From: "Dyske Suematsu" <[email protected]>

> Artists are "artists", because they make art. Their products are art because
> they are "artists". Art has evolved into a highly self-conscious act. When
> we call something "art", we expect some form of profound meaning in it.
> Suppose an artist says, "I'm going to make art." This is something most
> artists do on a daily basis, whether they literally say it or not. What does
> it mean to say that you are going to make art? It means that you are going
> to create something profoundly meaningful. So, even before you pick up your
> brush, you are assuming that you are creating something profoundly
> meaningful. If you think about it, this is quite conceited, but our current
> art world essentially requires you to do this. By "art world", I don't just
> mean the institutions of art, but everyone in the art world including the
> artists themselves.
>
> Because artists want to be "artists", because they see themselves to be
> artists, what they make by default must be profoundly meaningful from the
> get-go. This leaves out certain possibilities. Say, an engineer made
> something fun for himself. It was a big hit among his friends, so he decided
> to make more of them to give them out. They started using his device daily,
> and eventually had a profound impact on their lives. One day the engineer
> realized that what he had created was something more than a piece of device;
> it was something more profound and meaningful. He decided to call it "art".
> The current art world does not have any means of supporting, or even
> recognizing, activities like this. The intentions of any activities in the
> art world must be to make "art". I feel that this is quite limiting. As a
> modern artist, you must be able to explain why what you are about to make is
> profound and meaningful. Otherwise you won't be able to get any support or
> recognition.
>
> Again, the institutions of art are not to be blamed for this, because the
> artists do this to themselves. They want to be recognized as "artists", so
> they would only do something if it can be profound. They would not waste
> time with something in which they can't see any meaning in advance, even if
> they felt that it could be fun or interesting. If they are just doing
> something for fun by following their own passion, they won't be recognized
> as "artists", and that is not something that they want to accept. First and
> foremost, they want to be called, and be able to call themselves, "artists".
> And, there is a price for that.
>
> Interactive art, especially when the interaction is with other people, your
> message as an artist is often the medium itself. That is, the artistic
> meaning is not in the content of the interaction, but in the way the medium
> influences the way people think, feel, and live. Mediums like radio, TV,
> transportation, cell phones, email, and the web had profound impact on our
> lives, but it was not always clear how these mediums were going to change
> our lives. A medium that was invented for one purpose often ends up being
> used for an entirely different purpose. Where you thought it would have
> meaning, end up having more meaning elsewhere.
>
> Today with the help of technology, we can create a medium that can be used
> by millions of people without getting millions of dollars in funding. That
> is, a medium no longer needs to be a physical device. A piece of computer
> software is a medium that is entirely intellectual, and can have an enormous
> impact on our lives. Although most applications are written with specific
> profit-making goals, one could build an application that has a potential to
> create a profound meaning. However, as with any medium, whether it achieves
> that goal or not is not something you can accurately predict. The only
> guidance you have in this endeavor is your gut instinct, curiosity, and
> passion. If your primary concern is with being called an "artist" or being
> able to call yourself an "artist", then you are probably better off not
> pursuing something like this.
>
> Dyske
> http://www.dyske.com
>
>
> + ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
> -> 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
>

, Michael Szpakowski

<OK, blather over>
Personally I can't see the quote from Ivan (
reproduced below) or indeed the whole post, as
'blather' at all but an honest and vulnerable attempt
to talk about the mechanics and psychology of 'doing
art'.
It's a sign of how much this sort debate has been
hijacked by academic obscurantism and a particularly
mean spirited version of cool that Ivan has to append
the 'blather' tag, almost in preemptive self defence.
It's a feature of Eryk Salvaggio's and Curt
Cloninger's posts also that occasionally they can be
irritating as fuck but that collectively their passion
and thought and willingness to lay themselves on the
line makes their stuff consistently interesting.
More of all please.
Up with sincerity! Up with risk taking!
michael

<Personally, I know that there is something deep
inside myself that wants to
be expressed. I know that I have certain skill sets
and a love of creating
things that are not really that useful in a
functional sense. These
attributes of myself have led me up and down and
round and round in my life.
They are not all art skills, there are
entrepreneurial skills which are as
deeply embedded. And while I have skills such as
aesthetic and motor skills
which mean I can produce beautiful objects, doing so
quickly leaves me
bored. I have looked deep into this issue as regards
myself and have come to
the conclusion that art is really what I should do.
That said, I am still
unsure on a day to day basis how one really goes
about this in an honest
way. I am still prone to temptation to produce stuff
that looks like art.
But, on a good day, new stuff will bubble out from
who knows where, no
thoughts of profoundity or meaning bothering the
creative act. And my
validation comes form outside myself. And not even
from the art world.>

=====
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, Eryk Salvaggio

—– Original Message —–
From: "Dyske Suematsu" <[email protected]>

>
> The majority of what we call art are a priori art. That is, they are art
> even before the artists pick up any tools of their trade, because they are
> products of self-acknowledged "artists". For something to be art, we look
> for and expect meaning appropriate for the term "art". This meaning is a
> prerequisite for any products of art to be made. If it doesn't exist prior
> to production, their identity as "artists" is questioned.


I hate for it to come to this Dyske, but I do believe you are imagining
things. I know an extremely large number of artists- many of them on this
list- who consider art a "playground." They go into a studio or in thier
kitchens with some paint and they paint with no idea of what they will do.
The end results then get sold in the public market, if there is an audience
for the end result. If there is not, you can only blame capitalism, which is
a rather useless endeavor itself.

I understand your concern- and I have always framed it in the joke of how
would Jackson Pollock write a grant proposal.

"I intend to create images based on random distribution of paint based
solely on my emotional response to other elements of paint which were placed
according to other elements of paint which were placed based on a hybrid of
emotional and aesthetic decisions."

Well, there it is, now who funds it.



> This is a problem for some forms of artistic endeavor. It discourages
> experimentation. It forces artists to plan everything in advance, leaving
> very little room for the meaning to evolve in the process. It is
> particularly a problem for a new breed of art that is highly interactive
and
> iterative. Since many interactive works, especially community-based works,
> are highly unpredictable in their behavior and evolution, many ideas for
> these works cannot be declared "art" in advance. They could be art after
the
> fact, not before they were actually built and deployed to the environment
> they were intended for. This also means that they could turn out not to be
> art, if nothing meaningful emerges out of it.


The idea here, then, would be the construction of the space as the art work.
What is unique about the space you are constructing? Why should it be
expected to yield results which are different from other spaces on the
network? When it comes to funding, you have a very practical expectation of
results, but it seems to me that even the establishment of a framework for
experimentation would suffice in the case of most funding. Quite
practically, I can love art, but if someone says, "I need money to go to
Antarctica, because I totally know that when I get there I am going to be
soooo inspired" vs "I need money to go to Antarctica where I intend to take
pictures." I mean, where do you think I would choose to place the very few
tax dollars that you have in your pocket?

It is an unfortunate situation, but there is work that is required in order
to become a "working artist," and a lot of that work, if you make the
decision to work for money, requires following the rules of your employer.
If it is the market economy, you paint still lifes. If it is the government,
you have to explain what your thought process is. You have to explain what
you want the money for. If you are independent, you don't have to, but you
also have to get another job. You could also find investors, spaces,
networks, etc, and then create your own institutions. You can work with a
hybrid of these contractors for which pieces are best suited to each
problem.


> It seems apparent to me that the institutions and the communities of art
now
> need to foster this type of art–the activities and the products that are
> not art until they turn into art in the process of interaction and
> evolution–a posteriori art, if you will, so that certain projects that
> possess the possibility of becoming a posteriori art can be funded or
> supported.

This is fine in theory, but how does one practically develop a system to
fund this type of art? I would love to see you come up with a practical
idea. One of the ideas I had was retroactive grants, which is, work that is
rewarded based on the end result, rather than funding which goes to
conceptual frameworks in order to grow them into results. That is, I make a
website in the spirit of experimentation, and it yields an art-product, then
I can show the art product and get financially rewarded. However, these
systems exist, though in small order. You can submit finished pieces to
gallery exhibitions for small artists fees, etc etc etc. There are some of
these grants that come along- there is an issue with grants in general being
very rare however. Whereas in other fields, the dedicated and most talented
employees get paid the most, in this field it seems that the most dedicated
and talented employees are the only ones who actually get paid. And of
course, you have your heritage of sleazy art weasels who get paid under any
system because they know how to "milk it." If you make all of this your
primary concern, you will get very frustrated very quickly.


> All too often certain projects are shot down, self-censored, or
> criticized, because they do not possess any meaning in advance. Rather
than
> rationalizing the legitimacy of art in advance by using cultural,
political,
> or metaphysical theories, which breeds conservatism, we could do better by
> judging the potential by our gut instincts.

You have a tremendous amount of trust in people, Dyske. Not to shoot it
down, per se, but again, I think your plan needs a touch of pragmatism. Gut
instincts can be manipulated by body language, wording, etc. And there are
already "artist residencies" where artists, based on past accomplishments,
are awarded space, time, and sometimes funding to envision, develop, and
finish projects without even a basic structural framework put forth.



-e.

, yasir~

sorry to up the ante,
(may be a little late) :



an uncle, who wasn't made out to be a career type, had a boring job in a
government department. he smoked a pipe. he wrote poetry all his life.
on random pieces of paper whenever he felt like writing, never collected
it. that's how it remained. he liked movies. then he died. he never even
tried publishing. I wonder if he ever thought about it. he read others
of course. people who knew him/heard his poetry said he 'was' a very
'good' poet, short of saying he was a 'great' poet, but when comparing
him with one of the greatest, said his poetry had 'that' particular
colour, taste, flavor.

In light of recent discussion this was:

1. a case of a posteriori art, posthumous art, or something else ? like

2. a matter of taste ? institutional or not !



++++

their cruelties are still the same, still the same my
self-restraint
they haven't changed, and neither has my desire to be content
and satisfied.




>y