[iDC] truth, beauty, freedom and money

[Simon Biggs]

Artists work in so many different contexts and come at their practice from
so many different ethical stand points that it is not surprising Michael had
such diverse responses to his questions.

I wonder if there would be any value in presenting these questions to a
sample space within a more quantifiably analysable methodology? The
ethnographic affordances one would need to build in to account for
differences would only function to obscure the results. However, without
those affordances the data could not be analysed.

We are all different...across cultures, sub-cultures, political allegiances,
religious affiliations. The idealistic notion of a universal or fundamental
human condition seems untenable. Visual artists have historically held the
idea of universalism quite dear as visual art has always seemed less bound
by the differences that written and spoken language propogate. Early
Modernism was driven, in large part, by just this form of romantic
absolutism (Kandinsky, Mondrian, Malevitch all wrote on universalism in
art). However, there is no reason why visual representation, even at its
most abstract, should be unaffected by cultural context. The so-called
"logic of Capital" is also just another narrative, culturally contingent and
therefore not a universal law but simply another approach to social
formation. Post-structural analysis establishes a non-totalising discourse
that allows us to see the relativism of these things. That seems to be often
forgotten.

The idea of a "better art" is also a totalising concept. How do you define
"better"? The idea of "art" is also, to a large extent, a qualifiably
defined concept, a function of cultural context. Different cultures have
different concepts of what art can be and what its function is. Many of us
here will be working from within a dominant Western conception of art that
has something to do with "creativity" and values such as novelty,
originality, individualism, object fetishism, etc. Other cultures have very
different notions of what art might be or do not even think in terms of art.
This is the case not only across "big" cultural divides but also across the
apparently "small" ones that function as fault lines in our own societies.

It is important that we keep the cultural contingencies that underpin all
our basic assumptions at the forefront of our thinking. What is right for
"us" is not universal and might even be fatally wrong for somebody else.

Regards

Simon


On 9/4/07 01:14, "Michael Naimark" <michael at naimark.net> wrote:

> Regarding art and support, a few years ago I directed a research project on
> ³technology-based art and the dynamics of sustainability² for Leonardo
> journal with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. This isn¹t what I
> usually do but I just came out of 8 years of support as an artist in a
> research lab (Interval) preceded by a dozen years as a sometimes struggling
> but strictly independent media artist. I spent a year traveling and
> listening, and proposed a new model. [ http://www.artslab.net ]
>> 
> What I found was that there are 5 different, sometimes overlapping, means by
> which tech-based artists and related institutions survive financially:
> - they can sell their art directly to collectors (large and small), museums,
> or other public space venues;
> - they can rely on not-for-profit government or foundation grants;
> - they can sell PR sponsorship (³eyeballs²) to advertisers;
> - they can license IP (copyrights or patents) generally to corporations;
> - they can keep their art financially off-grid by having a ³day job.²
> 
> I¹ve now had a chance to poll audiences in art/tech venues on their personal
> preferences, i.e., which means are most ideal and which are most
> objectionable, four times (Linz, NYC, SF, Banff), each with audiences of
> 50-150. Each time, for each of the 10 questions, at least one person raised
> their hand.
> 
> So for every artist unwilling to sell their work, there¹s another unwilling
> to live off grants. And for every artist teaching or being a sysadmin by
> choice, another is seeking sponsorship from Hermes or placing Google ads on
> their blog. And for every artist tackling research problems who refuse to
> engage with Sony, Intel, or Siemens (which might be spending millions on the
> same problem and getting nowhere), another is embracing Creative Commons and
> Science Commons as acceptable ways for dealing with IP.
> 
> Do any of these means of support produce better art? Search as I might, I
> haven¹t found any.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> -M
> http://www.naimark.net
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Simon Biggs
simon at littlepig.org.uk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk/
AIM: simonbiggsuk
Research Professor in Art, Edinburgh College of Art
s.biggs at eca.ac.uk
http://www.eca.ac.uk/