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for some years now many students and established artists have felt uncomfortable about the relevance of current theory, in particular French theory, to their practice, and why they should be bothered with it at all
in this article art theoris Marco Marcon investigates the significance of the 'medium' within historical and contemporary writings.
students undertaking tertiary studies in the arts will
The whole article is about the medium, yet the medium is not defined
talks about the medium in terms of the 'ground'.
he means 'the stuff' of it, the signifier but why does he talk about the ground comes down to faith the church? the sublime?
Quote bottom p.17-18 The sublime and the figural that escapes the fixity of the binary system only way to believe in it is to have faith comes from something that we know that produces something we dont know bounded on its place in the world deals with the dichotomy of language, breaks it up, but doesn't change anything.
Interesting in the way that 'such' an article appears in Craftswest about the relationship between materials that is what craft is that it is in a craft magazine tends to create a particular context for the term 'medium' that implicates craft mediums it has to be materialised - that is the medium the medium has to be relevant to the idea some with words, some with paint some mediums are more relevant to communicating ideas than others - depends on the idea
How close postmodern thinkers are to artists Modernism was about presenting the unpresentable Postmodernism is a philosophical concern - it is about asking questions What can art say - in this sense art has become tied to linguistics The linguistic turn
from haraway The informatics of domination The world becomes a gameplan Everything is about winning to reproduce faithfully enough The consequences for women are huge The scale and the power are new Quote:
What is the use of philosophy We have to stay in the game we have to keep playing so, to go back to formalism does that re-invest anything In this discursive context, the only legitimate guides to an individual's thoughts and actions are universal reason and natural sensibility. This means that the voices of rationality and authority has the right to interfere with this process of self-discovery.[1] is it so heterogeneous that it reduces everything to formalism You can engage in this dualistic debate all along the way we have to invest in a new intervention Baudrillard - the only way to get on is to be more real than real but they are barbed Ouch you have to pull it out again walk back to where the arrow is or are we going forward you want to go to Utopia to go somewhere - assumes you are going to utopia where can still have the going somewhere provided we still have the tools we choose what we fight for and what we go for so many people fight for things which are irrelevant its more than choosing an issue it could be a bicycle not reactive the combination of parts is endless a rose is a rose is a rose Derrida's deconstructive project is, therefore, concerned with the margins, of language and philosophy, it focuses on those liminal and transitional zones where the pseudo-autonomy of the discursive and the theoretical opens itself up to its "outside". And this "outside" has often a distinctive aesthetic flavour, it concerns what Derrida would call the "effects of presence" of the medium, the sensorial responses and thought processes which escape the fixity of linguistic binary systems. A comparable attitude can be found in another "textualist" French philosopher, Jean Franciose Lyotard. Despite his undeniable and long standing interest in things such as language games, narratives and phrases. [2] can someone tell me what this is about? it uses names, language, keywords, buzzwords, but it appears empty but there's more than that how can you use derrida and foucault without using their language? the contexualization in note one provides it all he is doing a ph.d at murdoch - you don't expect him to talk normally i am pissed off with intellectual bollocks it provides its own justification by mystification it's like pissing up a rope what is liminal? what is the purpose of writing
the rejoinder at the beginning points to its use value but the article doesn't go to the heart of the matter he uses the word medium throughout but never really pins it down except when he suggests there is an ambiguity between the viewer and the matter is this sort of theory is a load of crap why is it part of post grad courses everywhere its to provide jobs. colleges in universities in UK all taking on theory comes from french theory What about Australia Is it colonization in another guise. the question of contextualization of aboriginal art, for example in terms of postmodernism but in the translation the meaning shifts us in australia in its make do, bricolage, it is very much a postmodern society we make it, it makes us one of the biggest contradictions theory becomes get a fracture - poststructuralism arose out of a french culture postmodern gives me more tools than modernism has
when you look at an aboriginal work at what point does it become postmodern? Only in the consumption of it? you can't talk about aboriginal artists in a homogenous way Rover Thomas was bought by Queensland gallery and the curators of aboriginal art and contemporary art fought over ownership of it. don't get the context when the work goes to europe these people are in touch with the spirit, are in touch with the land.....are coherent - the europeans loved it the same thing happened with neighbours to dysfunctional units, yeah! there is not a problem in appropriation to look at aboriginal art is no more foreign to me than fiona wray she calls from so many strands of painting from different areas -relate to topographic maps, field paints, language, comics - what you are looking at is an agglomeration. pastiche! if you understand the language of painting you see it in terms of quotations
it seems forever that you are taking things at a surface level there is a content that we have lost its locatedness these people have a place are able to understand their place and come back to it the person has a stance doesn't that sound newage no more new age than this article
assuming these people have an 'authentic' link but people have an 'authentic' link with their neighbourhood burden people with these assumptions all that you are saying what is this worry about the authentic it the borrowing, the blending not the work which is in question it is how it is marketed and consumed they area interested in the authenticity of the art Emily Kngawarree is likened to Jackson Pollock the modernist connection the curators realised the similarities or constructed the similarities with modernist art and capitalised on this hybrid is cool doesn't postmodernism fit with how people live there is no fixed viewpoint in postmodernism 'My pop-up life, by the Picasso of pickle' I want to spend the rest of my life on a bubble
a lot of our conversations revert back to 'surface' why do we do this?
Back to art writing so many writers aiming to produce the 'myth' when they are raking over the coals of modernism, picking up ideas and throwing them into the blender. You have to come at these papers from a viewpoint otherwise there is no sense to be made of it its all fragmented
Back to the catalogue essay from Penumbrae the ideas come from somewhere where do the ideas come from but the ideas are central to what he is talking about what is the role of the curator and who is the audience for the catalogue essay? the writing must be appropriate for the audience. a writer should adapt tone, style etc for a different audience
If you are trying to free language, why use the language of academia which is very fixed? it is important to present ideas clearly I think we need writing like this I think we could get discussion out of Noddy These ideas try and get out of dualism they mythologise the contradiction he is trying to reproduce a mythology around the terms he identifies his authors and deifies them he also gave us a lot of reflexive tools whenever we get to a hard paper, we feel the need to attack the paper the person who brings the paper feels the need to defend it we come across the same issues time and time again this paper assumes a lot of knowledge that we don't necessarily have is there a methodology to approach the paper. we approach the paper in bits and pieces. a summary would be useful as a starting point is anyone else taking the time and energy to discuss this paper as assiduously as we are? Marco has asked for comments on the papers he's writing a book about the exhibition that will be launched in sydney the work is supposed to relate to the text
1. Marcon, Marco. The Heart of the Matter: The Role of the Medium and the Effects of Theory, in Craftswest No 1. 1997 pp. 16-18. 2. Ibid
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