Arg! I grew up in this small town of Astoria and just watched Kindergarden Cop last night ONLY because It was filmed at my old grade school.Ok, too, that Arnold Swartazenger is soo multi-faceted,ay?
I'm so wistfull about old buildings, I love school bathrooms~(the un-modern ones!), probably becasue when i was a kid, we'd go there to get away from the claustorphobia of class! Thats why I like taking pictures of old buildings, to try to get that old feeling of mysteries and empty potential-full space up in there.(!)
They're a safe place to go to re-load and collect your thoughts and itinerary when your out and about with various people that dont' know that your secretely documenting all this.
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Hello, you left a comment in the social practices group blog. I was wondering if you could clarify what you meant. I understand that you said there needs to be an acknowledgment of the current political climate. I definitely think that the majority of the people in our group are using activism in some means, maybe not through politics, but through actions that are more directly associated with everyday life.
Hi Library girl!
It is funny to me that Eric has responded to you as well. I too was a little unclear about what you were saying (but gratified that you took the time to say it).
I'd like to say too that what "social practice" is to me is not what it is to someone else. What I mean by that is that if it is a new genre, it doesn't require everyone involved to tow any party line. It is a space to be explored. For me this means looking to the world I live in for both my "platform" and my medium. I personally want to catalyze something positive, I want to show people that they have permission, I want to say "don't be afraid!" But that is just me.
Yes looking at bad examples can be illustrative, but also weird if it is just saying "this fails" absent of a a dialog that explores a criteria for what succeeds.
As Eric said, we (our particular group) are very conscious of the political climate, but I posit to you that a social practice artist has the same right to choose their concerns, issues, as any other artist.
To me the very fact of trying to work with life and people directly is a radical political act. That is not however why I do it. I do it (am trying to figure out how to do it) because it makes sense.
Wow, thankyou guys, for commenting back with me! Let me just say first, that if you detect any urgent sense of criticism of what you guys are doing, please turn that around into praise from me because this whole idea of art as a social practice & new genre is pretty cool to me, and i'm just kind of excited to look in on it~ It's kind of what i've been imagining should be going on as far as art in the public sphere.
To clarify what i was looking at: I guess i just wanted to see a bad example of public art to get away from the intellectualism that can cloud like; the political correctedness that;(I hate to say) seems to be weighting down the fun that could be had doing public art.
But,you have to go back to what Eric was saying about activism, that (from my brains view)in order for it to be beyond consumerism (as in the esample of selling popcorn); you have to include the everyday as a work of art while somehow including the publics sway of opinion in it.
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