motion \\ some gradation

Introduction

some gradation interrogates the nature of studio critique, its objectives and the criteria of valuation.

≠ What are the aims of a studio critique?
≠ What constitute a successful studio critique, when does it fail?
≠ What are the grounds for aesthetic valuation and judgement?

+++++

some criticism of critiques I have personally experienced:

• teacher as authority 
• orientation of students in accord with modes of validation defined by set project brief (learning objectives, material/technical requirements, time frame), historical references, authorised apparatus (exhibitions, chosen medium), capitalist institution (galleries, collectors) 
• lack of empathy / inadequate in identifying with the presenter's subjectivities, often due to a lack of time to build relationships 
• ideas sharing session is not a critique 

+++++

some values to be established: 

• “To doubt one’s own expertise and speak that doubt within the framework of a critique is to cleave a space for unlearning.” 

• “It would be prudent to take the contingency of one’s position as a given and use the framework of the critique to reveal and examine the assumptions that underlie the creation and reception of the art work.”¹ 

• A space to investigate and address power structure prevalent within the group and how it affects an individual’s judgement. 

• Intent on helping each individual focus on self-actualisation through the development of criticality beyond received and socially accepted idea, in the setting of a community or groupness. 

some formats to be explored:

• long durational crit 
• affiliated critical theory reading group (alternate week)

References

Michael Asher’s Post Studio Art

In 1977, Michael Asher began teaching John Baldessari’s Post-Studio class as an adjunct professor. The class structures itself around the format of an extended group critique of a single student’s work, lasting for eight or more hours. stamina

Christopher Williams:

“He had an endless supply of questions for any one student, and the duration… I wouldn’t want to say that it would break you down, but at a certain point, bullshitting would be much harder.”²

Quotes from Walk-Through (extract):

“The profession lecturer is aband in the learning process. First of all, the teacher should be hauled down off the podium and into the audience. At which point they would undergo a dramatic transformation from teacher, the embodiment of all wisdom, to discussion leader.”

“I think that one function of it is that it sets a structural value system to think about the work, it says that actually is the most important thing. It is not important to get it done in time, to have it make sense quickly or have a good story.”

“Only when the teacher is so transformed, positionally and functionally, will the student be actively involved in the learning process. Ditto for the chamber itself, uniformity of classroom design will be anathema. The room will be designed for class discussion not stage performance, for dialogue not monologue.”³

Notes

¹ Sreshta Rit Premnath, “Sreshta Rit Premnath: Critique as Unlearning,” e-flux conversations, December 22, 2016, accessed December 22, 2016, http://conversations.e-flux.com/t/sreshta-rit-premnath-critique-as-unlearning/5722

² Christopher Williams, “Christopher Williams on Post Studio and Michael Asher,” East of Borneo, October 15, 2012, accessed December 26, 2016, http://www.eastofborneo.org/archives/christopher-williams-on-post-studio-and-michael-asher

³ Various voices, “Walk Through (extract),” 00:18:00, 2012, https://vimeo.com/100682129

motion\\ Ex Annotate

Ex Annotate

How can a text be digested, questioned and how does a text stimulate and proliferates? How sense are made and how are opinions formed around texts? This is a comparative note-taking exercise that explores how notes are made and organised by situating each individual's sensitivities within a larger network. 

\ Make and organise notes around the text provided. Think about the structure of your thoughts.

\ There should be a delineation between how you make sense of the text and your opinions on the text, perhaps using different colour fonts. What does the author mean against do you agree with what the author mentioned.

\ Quotes should be cited with page numbers. 

\ Attempt to make a list of definitions, keeping in mind the expansive and flux-like nature of certain terms. 

How to read better?
Can reading be an event? 

Notes on A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

Notes on A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

(Karl Marx \ ed. Robert C. Tucker), preface p. 3 - 6

This passage set forth the materialist conception of history or historical materialism.

What is historical materialism?

Base and Superstructure

“...a guiding thread for my studies, can be briefly formulated as follows: In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.” (4)

• Material productive forces or forces of production: see below
• Relations of production: the way people organise themselves to satisfy their basic necessities of survival, people have to enter into social relations.

In Marxist theory, human society consists of two parts: the base and superstructure.

• Base: forces of productions & relations of production / sum total of production
• determines (conditions) the superstructure, but is susceptible to influences from the superstructure
• Superstructure: everything other than production
• Relationship between the base and superstructure is reciprocal.

Base	Forces of production	Relations of production
	...refers to the physical means and techniques of production to which labourers add value and transform raw materials into capital. This includes the combination of the means of labour (tools, machinery, land, etc.) with human labour (techniques, knowledge).	...the relationships people enter in order to produce and reproduce their means of life (to survive) Social relations of production occurs between people. Technical relations of production occurs between people and object. E.g. the relationship between those who own the means of production and those who do not.

Social Revolution

“At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or...with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto… Then begins an epoch of social revolutions.” (4)

• Social revolution occurs when there is conflict/contradiction within the base.

“In considering such transformations a distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic--in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.” (5)

• The process of being conscious of your social conditions, relations can change the system, but this change is explained through the ‘contradiction of material life, from the existing conflict between the social productive forces and the relations of production’.
• Perhaps art can inflect and disrupt conventional social norms, thinking and therefore relations thereby changing the relations of production, creating conflicting within the base. An inquiry into the relations of production, and then a critique.

“No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself.” (5)

• Only when new forms of bases developed can the superstructure of society change.
• Not enough to be conscious, but the structures, potentialities for change have to exist concurrently as well.

Historical Materialism

What is historical materialism?

“Marxists are far from denying the importance of ideas or the active role of individuals in history. But precisely because we are active, we understand the limits of individual activity, and the fact that the appropriate social conditions must exist before our ideas and our activity can be effective. We understand, with Marx that people “make their own history… but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.” We need to understand how society is developing in order to intervene in the process.” (http://www.marxist.com/historical-materialism-study-guide.htm)

Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of human societies and their development over time.

motion\\ space container

This is a simulation of the eventual motion: space-container

Introduction
Space Container collaborates with artists by interlacing aspects of their creative practices with various social technologies, virtual communities and network. Probing various modes of art distribution, circulation and exhibition, Space Container pursues new horizons for creative cultivation for a digital milieu.

Format

(Basis)

• Short-format documentary exploring an aspect of an artist’s practice

(Medium)

• Innovative image-making and video-producing techniques with particular attention paid on how to best capture the work for social technologies and digital platforms

(Distribution)

• Circulated on various social platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat)
• Content is customised according to the intricacies of each platform
• Aspire to cultivate interactions and engagement

Q

How can art be affective and effective within the digital milieu? How can virtual communities and networks extend the distribution, circulation and exhibition of art?

What happens to the content of an artwork when its exposition leaves the traditional exhibition format and is dispersed onto the extensive global system of participative network? How does the medium massages the message?

Is there aesthetics in the circulation of creative processes through digital media? Can the documentation of creative processes, thoughts, inspirations mediated by pervasive technologies be an aesthetic experience?

motion\\ fault-bend

This is a simulation of the eventual motion: fault-bend

∫Introduction∫

fault-bend aspires to propagate artistic practices through the intersection of creative research and production with the intimacies of dialogue, groupness, exchanges and touch. Approaching the discursive potential of an artwork beyond its often supplementary relation to production and exhibition, the project formats itself as a public forum across social technologies and physical spaces.


∫Format∫

• Series and episodes
• Each episodes is developed alongside an artist, focusing on an aspect of their practice, running the course of a week.
• Stimulants [questions / thoughts / references / etcetera] will be released gradually over the week on social platforms with a main anchor of a Facebook group or an email chain.
• Additionally stimulants contributed by participants and collaborators is encouraged which forms the core of the project.
• These discussions would eventually lead to a physical gathering to reflect on the week’s topic.

∫Structural Integrity∫

• • How does communication differ across the interface? How much of conversation is mediated by the interface?
• • What gets lost or proliferates in the translation from the virtual mode of communication to the physical?
• • What differs ‘discourse’ from ‘practice’, if any? Can the discursive be aestheticise?
• § How can knowledge be disseminated, shared and created? We will consider the importance of building references, reading lists, repositories of knowledge for expanded and further study.

(of a surface) tree

🌫 (of a surface) reflections 🌳

Notes towards a self-destructing manifesto:

The concept of community is imputed with consensus; of mutuality. In such circumstances, durable relations participating in shared values, vision, identity is negotiated alongside fissures, tension and nuances.

the necessity of struggle} to value challenges, discomfort in the search for new ways of being, to want to grow, learn and prosper.

interest and affection} to remain curious, engaged with other practices, research interests, questions. To empathise. To give. To take ownership.


Structural integrity:

Twitter•••The feeds, archive, chronologically scrolling-downwards as a resolution of the fragment within the totality of feeling; collectivised emotions. Honesty is recognising the moment, even when you appear unrecognisable. These tweets function as fractions of a manifesto that encompasses futurity, ambivalence and growth. A tendency towards eradication.

Instagram•••A visual repository exploring the sign, symbol, logo economy and turn towards a more image-based literacy. How can these images add a latitude to a project largely based on language and the discursive?

¡Notes! on Censorship

Julian Assange on a political society versus a fiscalised society:

“Correct, and optimistic about any organisation, or any country, that engages in censorship. We see now that the US State Department is trying to censor us. We can also look at it in the following way. The birds and the bess, and other things that can’t actually change human power relationships, are free. They’re left unmolested by human beings because they don’t matter. In places where speech is free, and where censorship does not exist or is not obvious, the society is so sewn up–so depoliticised, so fiscalised in its basic power relationships–that it doesn’t matter what you say. And it doesn’t matter what information is published. It’s not going to change who owns what or who controls what. And the power structure of a society is by definition its control structure. So in the United States, because of the extraordinary fiscalisation of relationships in that country, it matters little who wins office. You’re not going to suddenly empty a powerful individual’s bank account. Their money will stay there. Their stockholdings are going to stay there, bar a revolution strong enough to void contacts.”

When politics is deeply embedded with money, a ‘free’ society might just be deceiving, with less room for change as compared to a society whose power structure remains political and therefore more open to reorganisation:

“Censorship is not only a helpful economic signal; it is always an opportunity, because it reveals a fear of reform. And if an organisation is expressing a fear of reform, it is also expressing the fact that it can be reformed.”

In thinking about these in relation to Singapore, it is interesting to note how speech still matters here, how journalism and writing can invert power structures, how art can inflect reform. Perhaps, the condition to aspire here is to be censored.

How can knowledge and information be factually disseminated to the population? How can it circumnavigate censorship without the risk of being tainted by money, corruption and other exploitation by the power structure? How can we reinvent the power structure of society so that freedom is not illusionary but remain a core value, upheld by all?

...;;;...

ETA: December 28, 2016

"It is a myth that an art withdrawn from the realm of public inspection and disapproval is a freer and superior art. The impulse to evade censure can inspire raptures of ingenuity. (The passage of the prim Hays Code in 1932, which led to four decades of censorship in Hollywood, increased the sophistication and wit of American films by a magnitude.) We hear much about art enriching the human experience, which is an agreeable platitude. But it is the other way round. The human experience is needed to enrich art, and without a meaningful living connection to the society that nurtures it, art is a plucked flower."

Michael J. Lewis, "How Art Became Irrelevant," Commentary Magazine, July 1, 2015, accessed July 2, 2015.

 https://somerepository.wordpress.com/2015/07/02/111/

(of a surface) reflections2

on stamina> To endure till you get to a point of substance remains imperative. Ideas exist in abundance, the follow-through does not. Parts of sustaining an artistic practice involves searching for mediums that can deal with the dimensions of your question. If one were to know the ins-and-outs of a medium, there will be no motivation to continue as little growth or insight will transpire from the process. The process becomes nothing more than a cog within a machine, a kind of making for the sake of making–valueless. There is an important aspect of dynamism within stamina, to persist without being stale.

on conversing> What distinguishes ‘meaningful’ discursive forms from weather conversations? Under what conditions or behaviour does dialogue proliferates and transform? How can we better converse? Perhaps, paramount importance resides in the active process of encountering, interpreting and questioning the work at hand rather than making a conclusive or cohesive argument. Part of the transcendental potential of art involves being empathetic to position outside of yourself and these discussions should function as spaces to test out ideas, to be wrong and to destroy preconceptions, as opposed to promoting your agenda or reinforcing your beliefs. Experiences of the world are not limited to pithy statements of truth but remains a fertile (and perhaps, futile) struggle in one’s grappling of meaning. World-view is not a finite entity, but a speculative process in which arguments about the nature of reality is constantly being examined and investigated. We must be more inventive in our response, we must push ourselves to find new thoughts and structures, we must value risks, mistakes and the struggle.

ETA (December 21, 2016): Procrastination is rewarding in an increasingly content-laden, distraction-driven world. Attention span, extended period of time is a quality we should aspire to. 

∞venns∞ CommComm

Venns Foreground
Notes on No 3, – CommComm
non-occurrence


It fucks, it shits. bio-

We are alienated, distracted from the world, from each other, from ourselves. A life reduced to commodity exchanges. What does relationship mean today? How can we connect, interface and actually ‘live’? Perhaps, to combat this, we need a conception of the future on more biological terms: values that stems from and is grounded in nature and biology. We need to think about our shit.

We fuck and we shit, in that we proliferate. We consume and we dispose, yet in that it destructs. What becomes of waste when it is rethought of as nourishment, nutrients or fertlisers, when waste takes a life on its own and not be at the end of a life cycle?^1 In thinking more about our shit, man is widened and would be sensitive to what we devour and discharge, thereby affecting the nature of relationships–into something more biological, ecological and ethical.

A prefix to be added before man-made:
nature-man-made
man-made-nature
nature-made-man
made-man-nature

Read...
^1 In “Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things”, the authors critiques traditional environmentalists’ urge for ‘reducing, reusing and recycling’ as an empty, shortsighted, mere downcycling gesture. In that, they call for a shift away from the current ‘cradle-to-grave’ manufacturing model to one of positive proliferation, capable of enhancing and propagating (similar to the gift economy).

“Every participant in the cycle literally lives off the others with only the ultimate energy source, the sun, being transcendent. Widening the study of ecology to include man means to look at ourselves as part of nature again, not its lord.”
– The Gift, p. 23


(of a surface) reflections

interdependence} I still maintain that the best conversations I’ve ever had in my life revolve around art. Discussions borne out of this domain are transmitted with staggering substance: there is something incredibly meaningful to listen and learn from people who imbue great magnitude of creativity, emotion, humanness in an endeavour that reaps little exchange value or affection. In many ways, art allows for individual autonomy whilst bringing people together. As we proceed, I hope that the space would afford us to intermix our individual practices, an entaglement-of-sort

capitalism} Reflecting upon the past session, we focused on a critique of capitalism as oppose to developing the concept, basis of capitalism. What exactly is capitalism? How can we better understand the mechanics of the system? And these readings cannot be insular, it must bleed just like how capitalism has managed to defy comprehension and remain formless (latching and co-opting upon existing and new forms). A reading about capitalism would not be thorough unless it is read with, against, alongside other specificities like gender, race, post-colonialism, the family, ecology, the news, pop culture, etcetera.

rigour and stamina} Uping the tempo. Reading more. Conversing more. Having the endurance to follow through, to come through. A level of intensity. A challenge.

on non-occurrence} I must admit that it is awfully disappointing. Perhaps, it wouldn’t hit that hard if you hadn’t thought that the dream of a community, incubator, catalytic environment was about to take off, was at its cusp, was just beginning to gain momentum. That you had many ideas, that you were excited to hear other ideas. It is lonely, but when have I never been? The project lives, even if it has to exists as a delirium or mumblings to oneself. In the echo chamber, reflected sounds can propagate, perhaps not as dynamic but we do the best with what we can afford.

unalienated labour} the engagement with art as a form of unalienated labour and in a lot of ways, !reading! as well. A reading group as a form of resistance against capitalism, against alienation, towards a peer-sharing community. The struggle of a text, the time required as threshold for committment. What is community without committment or belief?


Untapped potential
Watch: The Society of the Spectacle here
Watch: TedTalk: Cradle-to-Cradle here
Research: Situationist International’s technique of ‘Détournement’, often used by Debord in writing

∞venns∞ Commute and Commune

VNNDRM Foreground
Notes on No 2, - Commute and Commune
occurred on 20th September 2016


The agenda: original e-mail invite


__ Art is against us.

Anne Boyer made a point on how literature appears to be against us--with its relationship to the power imbalances governing the structure of the world. This could be applied to the art world for as open-minded, inclusive and progressive it makes itself out to be, the art world is still full of exclusions. From the way the system is still larger supported by the rich and powerful to the art bubble with its art speak and specialised audience. Nik Kosmas of AIDS3D left the art world, hoping to have a more direct engagement with a general audience as oppose to remaining within the circuit. He felt that while he had to dumbed down for the more general audience, it was therefore 'more effective and important'.

In a lot of sense, the fact that the nature of art production is difficult--where one has to sustain themselves through odd jobs on top of their practice--points to how art is a form of resistance against the system. But, is this act enough? Is it enough considering how isolating, exclusive and elitist the whole she-bang is?

Does art need to remain antagonistic to act as a form of resistance against the system? I am interested in models such as DIS or Nik Kosmas' companies, where their relationship towards capital isn't overtly pessimistic, but are operating through a more obscure manner, often flirting with what is taken to be 'bad'. A collapse of what is traditionally defined as 'good' and 'bad' is needed to open up a space for new ideas, discussions and debates. How can we work within capital to destroy it? Or, perhaps, besides and in adjacent?

Read...

'Literature is against us': In Conversation with Anne Boyer here.
Nik Kosmas, why did you decide to end your career as an artist? here.


__ Cultural Appropriation

Capital is indeed an unrelenting homogenising force, capable of commodifying anything and everything. In an economy fixated on growth and material wealth, money becomes a colonising authority, toppling all other forms of value. Cultural value is superseded by wealth accumulation, stripping away its weight, histories, problems and significance.

Thank you, Maria, for sharing Lionel Shriver's speech of being against cultural appropriation. While I admire and share some of her position of writing as an empathetic matrix or being against categories limited by identity, I cannot take to her lightness on the subject. Considering that she is speaking from a position of white privilege. She appears oblivious to the fact that inequality is rampant, that the political and economic structure of our society is still very much racialised, gendered, presupposed by class, sexual orientation, able-bodiedness...and it goes on and on. That our present condition is historically specific amidst colonialisation, slavery, violent wars and injustice. When certain voices and experiences are not heard or legitimised, when some of our identities have constantly been suppressed, deprived, twisted and distorted, we can't get to the point of being post-identity just yet.

The question of cultural appropriation is certainly tricky. At what point does such policing halt our own progress or contribute to the state of disruptive political correctness? Are individuals only allowed to participate in the representation of their identity? How can we interact with different cultures without exploiting, exoticising them? These days, with the ease of travel, what becomes of tourism?

I guess there is a need to have a strong understanding our one's own position, its problems and privileges, before situating it in relation with the other. I am interested in how residencies can create long-lasting relationships with the community involved as opposed to tourism, with its problematic reliance on spectatorship, commoditification and reduction.

Read...
Lionel Shriver's controversial cultural appropriation speech here.
Yassmin Abdel-Magied on walking out during the speech here.
Other writers' opinion here.


__ Untapped Potential | Things discussed but yet to be expanded on 

 

• 'Cognitive capitalism' 
• The process of valorisation. 
• The turn towards a image-based literacy: capitalism takes away our time / selling off our labour power just to survive / What becomes of reading and activities that takes time? What is the state of contemporary image-making? (read: Anne Boyer - 'Literature is against us') 
• Attention economy 
• Community, friendships and relationship (amidst an increasingly transactional time) 
• De-centralised mode of production and structures (rhizomes, fractals) 

__ Other links in circulation

• DIS magazine: The Time Complex. Postcontemporary

+-`~_+-`~_+-`~_

Feel free to share your thoughts on the session.


ETA:

14/10/2016
And the idea of a post-colonial identity… how much of it is based/a reproduction of your coloniser’s projection?

What constitute the Singaporean identity? Much of ‘Singaporeaness’ is based on food and ‘Singlish’, which is skewed in favour of the Chinese (think: Halal, ‘Aiyoh’ being an Tamil but often interpreted as Mandarin). What becomes of racial identity when much of it is reduced to CMIO or how culture is suppressed in light of ‘social harmony/cohesion’? How can we talk about identity and its relation to the state, the government?


15/10/2016
Recognising that a critique of Capitalism isn’t merely pointing out all the negatives, but recognising what positive outcome it has bear...and the fact that the denunciation of capitalism has proven ineffective, otherwise it would have already vanished.


30/10/2016
‘Capitalism’ and ‘capital’ cannot be used interchangeably. In developing a rigorous critique, in expanding one’s knowledge, one must be sensitive and capable of distinguishing such terms.