Be specific! Reference the text!
1) Watch Francis Alys’ video “Politics of Rehearsal” here: http://bit.ly/gbTVUj
Reactions? Comments? Questions? Based on what Groys is saying in this section (pg. 30-31), do you think this is an appropriate example?
2) On page 32, Groys states that “To be contemporary does not necessarily mean to be present, to be here-and-now; it means to be “with time” rather than “in time.”
What does “contemporary” mean to you? Can you find an example of an artist you feel, based on this reading and Groys’ own criteria, to be the most “contemporary?” Post an image of the artist’s work along with an explanation.
3) Define vita activa, vita contemplative, and heterotopia. What are the origins of these terms and why are they used/relevant in the reading?
4) Groys asks on page 36, “How can a contemporary artist survive this popular success of contemporary art? Or, how can the artist survive in a world in which everyone can, after all, become an artist?” What do you think? Use specific examples (artists, quotes, viral videos, other readings, etc.) to back up your response.
4.On page 36, Groys says "contemporary art has become a mass-cultural practice." He then says "the artist needs a spectator who can overlook this immeasurable quantity of artistic production and formulate an aesthetic judgment that would single out this particular artist from the mass of other artists."
ReplyDeleteHe explains very well what contemporary is -this state of non-productivity- but leaves us questioning how one would be able to differentiate the contemporary artist or perhaps professional artist from the mass of other artists. Apparently such a spectator does not exist.
Although the idea of contemporary art -time-based art- is prevalent today, I feel the "mass artist" isn't actually an artist because they aren't coining themselves as one. They aren't consciously posting images or creating YouTube videos because they think it's art. Without the acknowledgment of their actions, they are just enjoying the latest technology fad.
1) I found "Politics of Rehearsal" someone eerie (and the video link did not work, so hopefully the video I watched was the correct one). The video is confusing, but I think from the stand point of wasting time, even sans one degree of imitation, the film is as Gorys described, an imitation of an imitation, close but not quite there. I think, however, it does not fit as well with is continuing discussion into films that are time-based, those with no discernible accomplishment, that seem to be a collection of wasted or unnecessary time, real life almost. "Hence, practicing literal repetition can be seen as initiating a rupture in the continuity of life by creating a non-historical excess of time through art." I think Matthew Fishel comes close to and is probably a better more reachanble example of this, this repetitive frozen-but-not state of "now". His videos loop scenes that are typically left for passing glances, making them into a present forever.
ReplyDelete3) Vita Activa means roughly "practical life" or "active life" while Vita Contemplative is, of course, "contemplative life". The significance of these for Gorys is the paradox film establishes in achieving both, active in its message but contemplative in its display to viewers. Where modern art attempted to capture the active life, shunning the thoughtful side, the passive life of the masses.
Yet, to Gorys, contemporary art is of the masses. "one of mass artistic production, and not only mass art consumption".
Heterotopia is the museums and galleries who are described by Gorys as being described by "Foucault" as such. These are places of immortilization of self, where bodies of work are collected and the artist preserved for all time. The significance to the modern artists is that this is no longer true. The world of temporary and rotating exhibits has been established and now the artist is involved in a constant rotation of the present rather than a preservation of the past for the future. Gorys writes that they are now "instead a site of the permanent rewriting of both past and future "