Please click the above link. Post your well written and edited comments on your chosen topic in the comment box below. After you post, check back to read your classmates' posts. You are free to comment again if you like. You must post by Monday January 18, 1:00 pm at the latest.
Here is a link back to this week's reading.
http://brianholmes.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/games-corporations-distant-constellations/
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The Watermill Center
ReplyDeleteThe Watermill Center is an exclusive educational institution with a focuses on performance arts, and all artistic disciplines related to arts of the stage. The institution is located in the town of Watermill, two hours drive north of New York city. The building and its surroundings, occupying 6 acres of beautiful landscape, are often described as magical and include beautiful gardens, stone statues, various sculptures and a forest. The place offers a variety of programs including a summer program of some 80 artists from different backgrounds, ages and places around the world. During the summer program the participants work on the projects of Robert Wilson, a well known theater and video artist.
Robert Wilson founded the institution in 1992, building a place where artists from different disciplines and backgrounds can work together. He did this in the hope to create an environment where avant-garde art can be developed and practiced. Participants are encouraged to work as a community, integrate and combine various disciplines, and break from the traditional forms of art. The participants in The Watermill Center’s programs are composed of a group of artist carefully chosen by a high profile committee.
This video gives an idea about the atmosphere at The Watermill Center:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2uClVe3kGU
Holmes uses The Watermill Center as an example for a place where people can have “artistic autonomy.” It allows and encourages the creation of new art forms that might not be accepted (or perhaps could not be created) in other “forms of cultural mediation.” Holmes mentions The Watermill Center in response to Trocchi’s text Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds from 1963 in which Trocchi describes “spontaneous universities” emerging “within striking distance from the metropolis.” In some ways, The Watermill Center does fit Trocchi’s descriptions, but perhaps it is different in its essence. Trocchi describes a place created through spontaneity, a collaboration of people creating a community that is self-sufficient whereas The Watermill Center is, after all, an institution that runs in a similar way to any other institution.
Related links:
www.watermillcenter.org
www.robertwilson.com
Word count: 338
BRUCE MAU / INSTITUTE WITHOUT BOUNDARIES
ReplyDeleteBruce Mau is a Canadian designer based in Toronto and Chicago. He is the founder of the Institute without Boundaries, which has three sections: a post-graduate program, a research department about global issues, and a think tank that provides design consultancy services. The institution is part of George Brown College in Toronto. The educational programs occur within real community contexts, and encourage inter- and cross-disciplinary activities. The Institute also attempts to eliminate the gap between designers and other professions, as well as the gap between designers and the people they serve (hence the "Without Boundaries" title). Collaboration is central to this process. The program engages in large-scale projects that usually span multiple years: the first project was called "Massive Change" which was an investigation into the future of global design. The project resulted in exhibitions, a product line, as well as a book. Currently, the Institute is working on a project called "World House", which is working on housing systems, shelter, and sustainability. Bruce Mau's status as a visionary brings many connections and opportunities to the Institute.
Brian Holmes cites Bruce Mau's studio and IwB as an artistic organization that is taking control of itself first as a means of catalyzing larger social change. Bruce Mau's studio operates under a list of statements - the "Incomplete Manifesto" - that incorporate play, experimentation, and collaboration. A few examples are "Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can't be free agents if we're not free" and "Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context... The myth of a split between "creatives" and "suits" is what Leonard Cohen calls a 'charming artifact of the past.'"; both of these echo Alexander Trocchi's writing about the "Spontaneous University". Mau's lifelong question is "Now that we can do anything, what will we do?", which sounds a lot like the issues about technology and labor/leisure raised by Chris Marker in Le Joli Mai.
I am curious, though, about what Holmes would think of the limits (boundaries?) inherent in functioning as an Institute that is linked with a University, since it is akin to a museum: a "model" separate from changes in the real world. Perhaps the IwB is different because it is directly involved with change in the real world as it happens...or is it disconnected because its main products are books, exhibitions, and research presentations? (403 words)
Related links:
Bruce Mau Design (www.brucemaudesign.com)
Institute without Boundaries (www.institutewithoutboundaries.com)
Massive Change (www.massivechange.com)
World House (www.worldhouse.ca)
A happy picture of Bruce Mau (http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2007/02/07/BruceMau460.jpg)
BENETTON’S FABRICA/WARHOL’S FACTORY
ReplyDeleteIn 1994, Benetton opened up a communication research center called Fabrica. Benetton’s Fabrica is not a university or school but a place where artists can collaborate, experiment and develop new ways in the field of communication. Young artists and designers from all over the world are invited to Fabrica, based in Treviso, Italy. They are given a one-year study grant and under the guidance of many professionals and experts, they are encouraged to develop cultural and social communication projects in various areas of design, visual communication, photography, interaction, video, music and publishing. With the multicultural group of creative thinkers, it gives them the opportunity to grow creatively, bounce ideas off of one another, and to exchange information and knowledge. Fabrica’s goal is to blur the boundaries between cultures and race by creating a space where creative thinkers are able to work together to come up with projects that relate to various social causes.
The Factory is Andy Warhol’s New York studio, which he occupied from 1962-1968. The Factory was where Andy Warhol produced his silkscreens. In the Factory, Warhol had many people help him, known as the Warhol Superstars. Warhols Superstars, usually adult film actors/actresses, drag queens, drug addicts, musicians and so on, were invited to his infamous studio to help him out. They helped with the production of his works, starred in his film, and created the atmosphere so that Warhol was continuously inspired. Andy Warhol encouraged music, sex, and drug use so that he was constantly stimulated and inspired by his surroundings.
Benetton’s Fabrica and Warhol’s Factory both rely on experimentation, collaboration, and crossing between different art forms. They both are not institutes or schools but instead they rely on each other to propel themselves into a higher level of creativity. Limits do not exist, experimentation is encouraged to the fullest and people from many different parts of the world and fields are invited to contribute to the creative atmosphere and also gives them the opportunities to stretch boundaries and inspire one another.
Related posts:
Fabrica-http://www.fabrica.it/
Short segment of "The Chelsea Girls" (1966)-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvOnRdMi4OM
word count: 349
Gaston Bachelard was a French philosopher who, in 1958, finished The Poetics of Space, a book encouraging different ways to find mystery in the ordinary. In this work, he explores various spaces, mainly interior spaces and more specifically, the house. For Bachelard, the house is intimate and the source of infinite imaginative qualities; shaping memories and conjuring daydreams. The interaction between inhabitant and space prompts a deep and wondrous connection. For example, at opposite poles of a house one typically finds the attic and cellar spaces. The attic is a transcendent realm, one must physically move in an upward direction to enter it, becoming closer to the light of the sun; the heavens. Daydreams associated with the attic tend toward that which is stored in the attic. Old memories of faces and places of the past, an airy recollection of life's moments. At the opposing pole one descends into the dark, subterranean cellar; the unconscious cavity.
ReplyDeleteBachelard is passionate towards the ability of poetry to transform what could be seen as mundane space. He refers to the lines of numerous poets, citing their ability to tap into fantastical unrealities while describing real space. Poets are dreamers, they present an illusory image, rooted in physicality but transcending the mere geometries of the house or box. The poetic mind creates the dynamic house - entire cosmos inhabit the house and likewise the house inhabits the cosmos. Bachelard delves further into the places that attract poetic imagination as he explores rooms, closets, drawers, shells, corners, nests, the detailed miniature worlds which appear in a magnifying glass, and the immensity of a universe-made-intimate through daydream.
"The world is large, but in us
it is as deep as the sea."
R.M. Rilke
In considering a wardrobe or a shelf, Bachelard suggests that these spaces contain much more than what rationality may demonstrate. "With the presence of lavender, the history of seasons enters the wardrobe," and the wardrobe becomes more than a container for fabrics, now a keeper of sensation, time, and memory. The wardrobe, like the cabinet or the shelf remains personal and intimate, it has an infinite depth which is an individuals own.
Brian Holmes refers to Bachelard via Victoria Ward's idea for a knowledge and learning center rooted in a type of play. Ward proposed a garden shed installation, "as an artefact conveying" corporate "brand values." It seems that the shed would be an interactive space used for situated learning, a way of learning which evokes intimacy, connection, and memories, where knowledge is not necessarily forced upon the learner but comes from within the learner. It involves creativity and absorption, focusing on the process of learning rather than the content. The garden shed would be a place where learning is made active, the shed transforms the experience with a pull between leaving the rational for the imaginary daydream, while at the same time offering a more leisurely seminar.
Word Count (485)
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Beacon Press: Boston. 1969
The Poetics of Space (Google Books preview)
http://books.google.com/books?id=CVklE1ouVYIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=poetics+of+space&ei=pqhUS5zYDpuWlQTpwazqDw&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Victoria Ward on the Art Garden Concept
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/259/pg_dtl_art_news/pg_hdr_art/pg_ftr_art
The Bourgeois and the Art of Revolution
ReplyDeleteIn Brian Holmes’ essay about the “revolution of leisure”, he states that the modernization of the world has brought about an age of play, a time where machines can easily do the jobs that humans can do. It has also given rise to a new class of people—not rich enough to not have to work, nor poor enough to have to constantly work, but well off enough to have “free time”.
Holmes uses the term bourgeois to describe this class of people, a word that came about during the French Revolution. France’s social structure before the Revolution had been divided into four classes. The first three classes; the Monarchy, the First Estate, and the Second Estate; were far richer then the last class, the Third Estate. The Third Estate was made up of peasants and working-class people as well as anyone else who wasn’t a member of the clergy, or a noble. While they made up a good majority of the nation, the Third Estate did not have the political clout the other three Estates did. The idea of a middle class was not fully realized until the events of the French Revolution galvanized the population to act. Once the people had won their rights as citizens and changed the political structure of France, the bourgeois appeared as a new kind of class. The term bourgeois originally meant “middle class”—it was only over time that it gained its negative connotation as “one who is concerned with respectability and material things”. However, its true definition is “citizen.”
Holmes declares that it is the artists’ job to move the bourgeois from revolutionary to forward-thinking citizen—after the revolution has been fought and the bourgeois are now the ones in charge, they must continue to champion their way by expressing it through idea and creation. It is this way of thinking that has inspired many artists to interpret the concept of harmony through creative revolution. French caricature, for example, was developed during the French Revolution as a way of speaking out against the Monarchy. Before caricature art, French artists were stifled by the soft, incredibly decorative Rococo style (see here: http://www.iiclosangeles.esteri.it/IIC_LosAngeles/webform/..%5C..%5CIICManager%5CUpload%5CIMG%5C%5CLosAngeles%5Crococo2.jpg ) Caricature allowed artists to move the ideas of the citizens forward while reflecting the evolution of their nation through their techniques, as seen here: http://greatcaricatures.com/articles_galleries/history/censor_france/index.html In this way, the new bourgeois could truly take hold of what the world had to offer and make it theirs.
Examples of French Caricature:
http://www.hsl.virginia.edu/historical/artifacts/caricatures/assets/medical_consult1760-big.jpg
http://www.hsl.virginia.edu/historical/artifacts/caricatures/assets/for_best-big.jpg
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_fZ7TvbeRp2A/SoyEgS7vHnI/AAAAAAAADY8/gYDSzIqjquQ/s800/actualites%20caricature.jpg
Works Cited: Schama, Simon. Citizens. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. New York, NY 1989; Hockman, Lynne. French Caricature and the French Revolution, 1789-1799. Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, Wight Art Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles.
Word Count: 405
SITUATIONISTS
ReplyDeleteThat of the Situationists (SI) was an organization officially founded in 1957, in France. By promoting their ideas from the pages of a magazine called the “Situationiste Internationale” they reacted against capitalism and its influence on people.
According to Guy Debord, one of the main figures of this revolutionary group, the system of production in Europe was a machine that kept feeding itself. Under advanced capitalism industries were not only producing goods, they were creating ‘spectacles’: lifestyles and ways of living that were presented as so attractive and desirable that they numbed the public. Through the manipulation of people’s whishes, industries were able to transform the everyman’s wants in needs therefore increasing his material wealth and compelling him to be slave of work. This process, thus beneficial to the economy, left people alienated as the line between reality and fabricated dreams vanished. By accepting the roles of spectators, people’s creativity atrophied as well as their ability to listen to themselves.
“ Enough! To hell with work, to hell with boredom! Create and construct an eternal festival”1 was the reaction of the SI. They aimed for a real individual fulfillment and not for the hunt of imposed goods. By encouraging people to create ‘ situations’, as opposed to passively accepting those offered by industries, the SI believed it was giving people the power to shape their own realities, to free themselves. Because people are influenced by the experiences they undergo, when are their real needs to guide them, they are experiencing real life. Not mediated by commodities an un-alienated society would reborn under the motto “We have a world of pleasure to win, and nothing to lose but boredom.”2 In this vision art and culture, liberated from any form of control and institution, will be fused together with the intent to make them become part of the everyday life. In order to crate complete divertissement – amusement, entertainment, they would become part of everyone’s personal expressions in order to create a ‘greater game’ where every single person would be free and alive in spirit and actions.
(Words 350)
Notes:
1. Peter Marshall, ”Guy Debord and the Situationists”,
< http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/73 >
2. “Situationists – an introduction”, < http://libcom.org/thought/situationists-an-introduction >.
dérive / psychogeography
ReplyDeleteHumans and environments are symbiosis. It is said that we are shaped by the ambience we have shaped. Being defined in 1955 by Guy Debord, psychogeography is “the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior or individuals.” (wiki) Echoing with Ivan Chtcheglov discussion about how architects design the buildings which force people to behave in certain ways, most people do live and behave routinely—going to the places they are used to go, driving or walking the same paths every day, avoiding unfamiliar situations or places due to their uncomfortableness and unease. Their life gradually becomes a set of pattern or even monotony.
Thus, the situationists are eager to see what would call out people’s awareness to uncover and change this manipulated daily life. Dérive, or drift, is a method for psychogeography experimentation, and it is defined as the movement without intentions. How it works is that people, individually or collectively, begin a trip without “pre-planned expectations.” (mookychick) Simply open up their minds and senses to feel or experience their surroundings. Even within their familiar areas, they will oftentimes find new things, different perspectives, richer information, and possibly pleasure.
When freedom is practiced in a closed circle, it fades into a dream, becomes a mere image of itself. The ambiance of play is by nature unstable. At any moment, "ordinary life" may prevail once again. The geographical limitation of play is even more striking than its temporal limitation. Every game takes place within the boundaries of its own spatial domain.—Guy Debord, 1959 (Wiki)
As I was reading Holmes’s article, I kept thinking about the points he discussed in his introduction, “Technology now allows human beings to be free, why don’t they want to be free?” When people are supposed to gain more time for leisure or more opportunities to experience the world around them, they are still quite influenced or manipulated consciously or unconsciously by their surroundings. What human beings should keep in mind is that we can be and are often influenced by the environment shaped by us.
related links:
- Psychogeography and the dérive (http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/people/a.evans/psychogeog.html)
-Psychogeography for Beginners (http://www.mookychick.co.uk/spirit/psychogeography.php)
-Psychogeography @ Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogeography)
word count: 357
Black Mountain College
ReplyDeleteBlack Mountain College was located near the Black Mountains in Asheville, North Carolina which was founded in 1933, by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier and a few other professors who had recently left Rollins College. Black Mountain was an art school where the students could decide what they studied, grades were no longer used and the school was governed by consensus. The teachers and students interacted unconventionally too, they would do anything from general maintenance to eat together. Art was the main priority at the school but it was felt that the overall skills and knowledge of an individual was inseparable.
Black Mountain College lasted eight years with its original founders and then continued on for 15 years. In this 23 year span of time BMC served as a stepping stone for some of the most notable artist, designers, and poets. The list of professors include Josef Albers, John Cage to Elaine de Kooning, with alumni such as Ed Dorn, and Robert Raushenberg.
Knowing the history of Black Mountain College as nothing more then a different thinking art focused institution which wants to be nothing like the "institution". One could come to the conclusion that indeed Black Mountain College did close down only after 23 years, rendering it a failure. As Brian Holmes states in, Games, Corporations, Distant Constellations, "Today we can easily imagine the drift from an iconoclastic adventure like Black Mountain College to far more lucrative ventures like Bob Wilson’s Watermill Center." Holmes is insinuating that Black Mountain Collage was a minor adventure (meaning thrill, stimulation, risk, danger, hazard, peril, uncertainty, precariousness) while other schools that formed after BMC accomplished 'it' (which Holmes insinuates as being more 'lucrative"). The work lucrative means 'producing a great deal of profit.' What is profit in the art world and in the educational world? Is it selling work or getting the best grades?
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,745975,00.html
http://www.bmcproject.org/index.htm
Victor Turner (1920-1983) was a British cultural anthropologist and ethnographer, best known for his contribution to the field of symbolic and interpretive anthropology. Dismissing discouragement by mainstream British social anthropology, Turner's dedicated study and first-hand interaction with and observation of the Ndembu tribe of Zambia inspired his intrigue with the role and symbolism of ritual in society.
ReplyDeleteIn close observation of the so-called 'primitive' tribe, independent from the rest of the rapidly developing world, Turner's study of symbols in specific social situations led him to the belief that cross-culturally, ritual serves as a sort of imposition of order and control on the chaotic, forever in-flux, nature of the universe. Here, he comments on the equally fluid and temporal structure of society as an organic entity, “...I conceive of human life to be dominantly social life and fundamentally in flux, in motion. That is, human beings are not smoothly nude, enclosed subjectivities, but from conception prepositional entities, projecting lines and plug and covered with sockets, metaphorically speaking, which represent potential relationships: with, again, into, for, of, among, inside, outside, above, below one another,” (244).
He argued that rituals and cultural symbols can reveal how a certain community defines their reality – how they make sense of their lives. In effect, a society's symbols and rituals suggest expected behavior and assign societal roles and hierarchical structures. Rituals, as Turner understood, are an essential mechanism of societal maintenance – continually reinforcing and adapting social order and solidarity. For example, one specific young women's ritual practiced by the Ndembu involves two different types of trees, one producing red liquid (symbolizing blood), and the other producing white (symbolizing milk). Turner perceived these attributed symbols and meanings as an attempt to preserve the stability of the Ndembu society, effectively communicating the expectation of the female gender to serve a child-bearing role.
However, Turner believed that in the reinforcement of values and expectations, ritual also provides an opportunity for societal reflection, assessment, and transformation. In other words, he perceived ritual symbol to function paradoxically – simultaneously providing the potential for both societal structure and anti-structure. It seems that Turner is proposing that symbols are not only a product of their respective culture, but a tool for society to improvise and adapt their understanding of culture to the ever-changing needs and values of the people.
In applying his understanding of symbols of the Ndembu tribe to the postmodern world, Turner notes that industrial society has suffered a division between leisure and work, “play and entertainment have in fact often been entrusted with the reflexive, evaluative, redressive, and semiogenetic tasks once undertaken by religious ritual,” (263). He goes on to explain how this transformation provides society with a hall of mirrors, just as Holmes describes the urban landscape, “The postmodern information economy pulses before our eyes, with its words, sounds, images and ambiances, a semiotic built up from pure imagination – and it that respect, free for the taking.” And so, the urban fabric provides and endless amount of opportunity for reflection – it's just up to us to stay active and take the initiative to play.
Word count: 520
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Turner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_anthropology
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/anthropology/Turner.html
Turner, Victor. “Images of Anti-Temporality: An Essay in the Anthropology of Experience.” The Harvard Theological Review 75.2 (1982): 243-265.
Joseph Beuys
ReplyDeleteJoseph Beuys was an artist known for his work that challenged the role of artist in society and the role of art in general. The German born artist worked in numerous ways to convey his ideas and theories, drawing and painting, and latter in his career with installations, performances, and the staged “situations” that are some of his best know works. Beuys’ work followed the idea of art as a mode of social change and challenged the then held ideas of art as commodity and aesthetic object. Beuys’ projects worked with symbolism, reconfigured materials, and unexpected juxtapositions to initiate discussion and new dialogue.
To understand Joseph Beuys, it is important to look at the life of this artist to grasp where his views and approach to art took form. German born in 1921 Beuys was a member of the German armed forces and participated WWII. Being raised in this time leading up to the war and being a part of one of the most traumatic and horrific events in modern times was a major factor in forming the views and work of this artist.
“Let's talk of a system that transforms all the social organisms into a work of art, in which the entire process of work is included... something in which the principle of production and consumption takes on a form of quality. It's a gigantic project.” (Joseph Beuys) At the heart of Beuys work is an idea that art can be a force of positive change in the world, that art can be an element of social healing and redefinition. Art could be seen as a transformative medium, one that challenges the held notions of art and life, and could act as catalyst of new discussion and thinking about the human condition. Beuys’ work connects to many other artists and theorist’s work that question the issues of major cultural change, production and the modern human trajectory.
Image links:
http://11.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kvu84oeuZL1qzlp0fo1_400.jpg
http://www.uiowa.edu/~artlearn/ASJHR/images/image003_001.png
http://www.centrepompidou.fr/images/oeuvres/XL/3I01565.jpg
Descriptive text:
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/B/beuys.html
Word Count 321
Proletariats are defined as working class people. These are the members of society that earn their wages doing manual labor on a daily basis. This class of people is the lowest class of workers. They are paid for their labor power and work with their hands. Proletariats are the direct opposite of the bourgeoisie, who are the business owners. The ones that work off of profit of the business, and who pay the proletariats their wages. In today’s society the proletariats would be seen as the people working in industrial manufacturing settings. Originally the word was derogatory in meaning and was used by the Romans to describe people with no money or the lowest class in society. Karl Marx used it however to describe the working class and made it less of a derogatory term and more about describing a class of people.
ReplyDeleteThe proletariat class is important in “Games, Corporations, Distant Constellations”By Brian Holmes, because it is the class that would be gaining leisure time by introducing machines to do their work. With the work taken over in part or in whole by machines, it would free up people to do other jobs. Perhaps jobs that were less labor based. This would also raise the class level of these people, because they would no longer be paid for their physical labor, but instead for other forms of work such as intellectual labor. The question remains though, that if machines replaced the labor component would the term proletariat just be used to describe the same people doing a different type of labor? There will most likely be a new word to describe the lower set of workers and the proletariat will be reserved to refer to the past, or possibly to the new labor force comprised of by machines and robots.
Links:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/proletariat
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/478619/proletariat
Word Count:305
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a German philosopher who published several influential philosophical works during the end of the Enlightenment period. Kant wrote, among other things, on his theory of phenomenon and noumenon in his book Critique of Pure Reason. He describes Phenomenon pertaining to anything that can be known as based on an individuals experience, as we are able to perceive them. He believed that all human understanding is in this realm. We have created ideas of time and space, cause and effect, for organizing our understanding of the world and anything beyond that realm is out of our field of knowledge, not because it doesn’t exist necessarily, but because we are unable to grasp or perceive it. The things that we know as truths are only known in the sense and state that we are able to perceived them. Noumenon on the other hand, is, as Kant described it, another realm where things exist objectively, as they are in reality, free from the burden of the subjective associations of the human mind. Kant believed that in order to define anything it will be seen through a filter of what we believe to be true. We must understand what is before us using our preconceived ideas based on experience. Therefore how we perceive anything is relying on our previous understandings and is not necessarily known for what it is.
ReplyDeleteIn his blog post, Games, Corporations, Distant Constellations, Brian Holmes relates Kant’s phenomuenon/nomuenon theory to Friedrich Schiller’s plea to the public in the form of his letters Upon the Aesthetic Education of Man from 1794. Schiller is describing a balance, which he considers a place of play, between a tendency towards passionate, physical, action and quite, logical, intellectualization as a means for dealing with societal change. He is interested in finding a productive means for a creative, rewarding, functioning society and feels the answer is a balance between those who would act based on how we know the world to be from experience vs. through logic, thought, and reason, which he compares to Kant’s phenomenon/noumenon distinction.
The idea of one’s perceptions becoming reality can, at least loosely, relate to an explanation of why play, and leisure, has remained generally the same despite technological innovations. If the general cultural understanding is that one must always be working and accruing more wealth with no amount being enough, the idea of decreasing work and increasing leisure time is almost not perceivable. While we could physically survive without all the amenities, and comforts our hard work and thus money making has, in general, provided us with, it is almost out the question as a society to slow down and have some fun.
Further reading:
http://www.thatphilosophywebsite.com/Texts/kant_noumena_phenomena_critique_reason.html
Oops, my name came up as sneaky sneak. How silly, it's really Hannah, I hope to get that fixed for next time.
ReplyDeleteTerror in France and Robespierre
ReplyDeleteMaximilien Robespierre was a French thinker and ruler during the French Revolution, who was instrumental in the period of the revolution known as the Reign of Terror. Robespierre was instrumental in the overthrow and execution of King Louis the 16th, the culminating event of the brewing hatred for the aristocracy that had become a common concern in France during the late 1700’s. Robespierre rose to power after the fall of the king, promising to end the pain of the lower classes of France, who were starving to death under the reign of King Louis. Despite his impeccable rhetoric, and surprising charisma, Robespierre failed to make good on any of his promises, and the rioting that started under the King only grew worse. In 1793, Robespierre was appointed to the Committee for Public Safety, essentially assuming the position of Dictator; a position which allowed him to bring about the Reign of Terror as a form of control.
The Terror was a period where any form of public outcry or insinuation against the government resulted in immediate arrest and execution. The period is marked by its use of the Guillotine, a brutal device used for decapitation. It was said that the Guillotine’s of Paris were used so much that they had dulled such that a proper decapitation required three drops of the blade. The period resulted in countless deaths, and did nothing to appease the starving people of France. Its only real purpose was to maintain order, and it did until Robespierre’s tyranny so troubled the people that his opposition was able to mount a Coupe D’état. Robespierre’s reign, and the Terror, were short lived, lasting only a year.
In his essay, Holmes focuses on Friedrich Schiller’s Letters Upon the Aesthetic Education of Man. In his writing, Schiller is essentially arguing against the tyranny of the Reign of Terror. His work is written as an idealistic guide to calming the reactions and brutality of the Reign of Terror. Schiller essentially argues that the best way to prevent another reign of terror, and to successfully implement the ideologies of the revolution is to cater to man’s natural inclination towards play through the free expression of art.
Word Count: 363
Related Links
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/robespierre.html
http://www.historywiz.com/terror.htm
http://www.studiocleo.com/librarie/schiller/schillerpage.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilien_Robespierre
The Louvre during Revolutionary France
ReplyDeleteThe Louvre was first built as a Fortress during the 12th century outside the walls of Paris in order to fend of Viking intruders. Over time, it became a royal home and eventually the main residence of the royal family. In 1678 Louis XIV moved his throne to Versailles, leaving it behind as storage for some national treasures. “The Louvre began its first step toward becoming a museum in the 18th century, when the abandoned palace developed as an artists’ residence and academy with public exhibitions of the royal collections.” After the French Revolution, in 1793 The Louvre Museum opened to the public blind to wealth and social status. Here, they displayed a collection of art and antiques confiscated by the revolution and collections by centuries of aristocrats and royal families. Later, the Artists and Intellects living in the Louvre were evicted by Napoleon I as he renamed it Napoleon Museum, in order to house his collection of plundered art taken from various countries. The art was then returned shortly after his defeat in Waterloo. The Louvre itself is an Architectural treasure as it started as a fortress, then built up into a palace and finally restored into a museum. The best museums are said to be those that “nourish the local and illuminate the global” and it did just that.
In Brian Holmes’ Games, Corporations, Distant Constellations, he quotes Friedrich Schiller’s “Aesthetic State.” Shiller’s education programs were meant to damper the “passionate, violent” means of change as displayed by the disturbance of the Revolutionary War. He intended to do achieve this by proposing what he called “the aesthetic state” He wanted people to produce ideas of intellect and change through the subtle strategy of play. Shiller proclaims to not use the force and passion as Artists does onto materials but instead study the depths of Aesthetic Education. Of a hand full of establishment supporting his cause, The Louvre during revolutionary France housed Artists and Academics while displaying Art. This hybrid of gallery, sleep, studio, study, eating and living spaces created an ideal environment for play through Aesthetic Education.
http://artgalleries.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_museum_from_the_louvre_to_the_tate_modern
J M Fladmark, Heritage and Museums, Shaping National IdentityMuseums Association of the UK
http://www.answers.com/topic/louvre
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?id=7075&action=tdihArticleCategory
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New Babylon
ReplyDeleteNew Babylon is a utopian idea of the future that was thought of, and almost endlessly documented by, Constant Nieuwenhuys. Constant Nieuwenhuys was a Dutch painter, theorist, architect, and innovator of Unitary Urbanism [1]. Constant writes that he conceived New Babylon after visiting displaced gypsies in a small town in the hills of Italy. The gypsies were forced to live in seclusion - and they'd built themselves a kind of "Gypsy Town", sealed off from the countryside. Constant's New Babylon would exist in a similar blissful exclusion.
New Babylon exists as another realization of Homo Ludens[2]. In this world, there exists a never-ending network of interior spaces that are infinitely reconfigurable by its inhabitants. This structure wraps the entire surface of the earth, and floats on tall columns. A huge network of underground machines takes care of the world's needs, and allows for the nomadic life of play. This play is the ultimate form of art, one where all the senses are manipulated by every trick in architecture's book. The spaces in New Babylon are instantly and endlessly configurable, which, according to Constant, is the junction at which art and architecture stop advancing and blend into one. This collective creation is infinitely more rich than any experience we can create with art or architecture now, and it will satiate society forever.
What's so fascinating about New Babylon is that Constant fervently showed it as attainable. His writings on New Babylon are written almost as a formula, and he acknowledges the hurdles required to reach his creation. His writings, paintings, models and manifestos[3] influenced the Situationalists (of which Constant considered himself a member), the Unitary Urbanists, a globalist architecture movement, and likely modern architecture until today.
Word Count: 317
Referenced and Related
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_urbanism
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_ludens and http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=1381
[3] http://www.notbored.org/constant.html
[4] http://www.notbored.org/new-babylon.html
Hey, this is great to see the reactions of all of you to this article I wrote years ago. I hope it has given some food for thought.
ReplyDeleteWhat strikes me is that many of you have missed the irony in the article. This is probably because I have lived in France for so many years - the country where, according to a recent Pew Foundation survey, the largest number of inhabitants think that capitalism has severe problems and is not reformable. So from that perspective, when I would write, for example, that Black Mountain Colege was less "lucrative" than something like the Watermill Foundation, the insinuation is not that it was less serious or important, quite the contrary!
What I am interested in is always how human beings become conscious of and try to take charge of their own destinies, even by such subtle activities as play. In this essay, I am bit sad to see that the ideas of subversive play that flowered most recently in the 1960s have so broadly been taken over by corporate managers, who try to use them to make money on our backs of the rest of us (and often with our own more or less unwitting cooperation). What I wanted to do is to raise awareness that play is now often someone else's game. But there is no time like the present to do something different!
Enjoy the class, everyone. Enjoy your lives while you're at it.
Krista said:
ReplyDeleteBlack Blocs
Black Bloc is not a group or organization it is a tactic that originated in Germany in 1980. The tactic first spawned not too long after the Brokdorf demonstration in 1977 when German police had their sights on squatters and anti-nuclear activists. The term black bloc was coined by the police to describe the "militant squatter youth". The first one was put together for the Gulf War protests.
The type of people involved in the ploy are usually anarchists of varying ages although a majority of young people "reflecting the demographic of most protesters". The black bloc tactic is used to execute goals and reinforce the peoples security and safety. These securities are obtained by acting in vandalism, rioting, and street fighting. The anarchists also use symbolic actions such as burning the American flag in protest.
Everyone involved in this tactic dresses in all black, accessorize with ski masks, motorcycle helmets, combat boots, and their own shields and clubs, essentially looking like riot control police men themselves. They dress this way as not to reveal their identity, so if they wanted to cause mayhem, they would not get caught on video tape and arrested. Helmets, hoods, and masks are worn not only to conceal identity but also to protect oneself from pepper spray or tear gas. Another reason for dressing like this is to look like a mass of people and look bold.
Participating in a black bloc is basically choosing to go against the law, destroy property, and have confrontation with police in order to get the dissidents aims met. Their 'street demonstration' does not usually involve violence tough unless the police cause disruption to their protest. Members don't generally attack the police unless it is in self defense, the cops usually are the first to be violent without provocation from the black blocs.