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<div>Hey Eric,</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Besides political failure, and a failure of good hosting, are there also aesthetic failures in social artworks? What about social artworks which are just plain bad art?). I'd be curious to know more about how you're thinking about these things.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>In any case, Kanarinka's questions have been rather haunting me since she wrote in.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>>>If an experiment fails, this is useful public knowledge. But most of the "art" structures aren't geared towards collectively reflecting on failure. I am thinking of artist talks, grants, and so on, where the main goal is to impress the audience and promote the project so you can get a few bucks to make the next version. But it seems like these projects would be much more interesting and might accomplish more if we could begin to publicly talk about their failures. >></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>I do think a lot of social artists see themselves a bit in the mode of researchers or experimenters, but if so, Kanarinka's right that we're missing out on a lot of the data. I've spent the last few days thinking quite a bit about the points of failure in my own projects and I can feel a simultaneous desire to talk about them more, and to hide them (it could be that failed social artworks generate keener feelings of embarrassment or shame than failed paintings or sculptures). But in their very awkwardness, those failures are also arguably the most generative parts of my practice -- the uncomfortable realities and difficult feelings push things in new directions. I think this is exactly what Kanarinka was suggesting. But what kind of situations can we create (social inventors that we are) that might make open and specific discussion of our failures more possible?</div><div><br></div>-- Sal<div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div><br><div><div>On Jan 18, 2008, at 7:24 PM, Eric Steen wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span style="background-color: rgb(102, 255, 153);"><br>Responding to: "Failure & reflection - Is it just me or do social art projects seem to have lots more failure involved than other art projects?"</span><br><br>I may have missed something but I don't think I understand exactly what "failure" means in the context Kanarinka's post. As Sal suggests a defining of failure is important. It seems to me there are a couple different types of social projects. The more political ones attempt to present information and cause "participants" to reexamine their own social or political positions. In these the artist is often times hoping that a certain outcome will be attained and if it doesn't this could be a failure. Other projects, and I personally consider these the better projects, are more of a facilitation where participants become more than just something that is decentered (they are not objectified), instead these participants take on the responsibility of either carrying or not carrying the load given to them originally by the artist. In this way the artist gives up all hope of any set outcome and allows participants to sculpt the outcome according to their particular, or local needs or desires. In this sense failure for the artist would consist of bad moderating and facilitation of an event. There is more to say on this but for now that is all I will say.<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <div style=""><div><br></div></div></blockquote></div>-eric<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><a href="http://ericmsteen.blogspot.com">ericmsteen.blogspot.com</a><br><br><br></blockquote></div><br></div><br><br> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Sal Randolph</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">salrandolph [at] gmail [dot] com</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="http://salrandolph.com">http://salrandolph.com</a></div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span> <br><div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Sal Randolph</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="mailto:salrandolph@gmail.com">salrandolph@gmail.com</a></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="http://salrandolph.com">http://salrandolph.com</a></div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span> </div><br></body></html>