Ordinary Aura

Perhaps the event on saturday could/should be combo of us introducing our take on ordinary aura as kevin suggests....with whatever else happens.

The sense I have had all along of the collaborative workshop is that it will not just be a "come look and participate in the world of being an artist what fun show." I do have the benefit of being pretty familiar with the Circular Ruins project as well as a lot of Adam's and Alan's work...which to my mind has always seen the audience as possessing knowledge and experience crucial to whatever project is being enacted. The audience is never pandered to. My assumption has been that somehow this collaborative workshop (and so perhaps the name is misleading) will be a continuation of the show itself. Whatever is done will specifically take interest in the knowledge and reality of those taking part, and their knowledge and participation will in turn become part of the show.

I do not know how this will happen, and I will say my strength as an artist is not in mobilizing a physical contingent of people into participating in the enactment of a particular work or performance. I do not have that performative bent in the least, nor is my work best realized or seen under such circumstances. So while I am working at what I will bring to the show in September, I do not quite know how to approach making the collaborative workshop an interesting reality. I am very interested in hearing from those who work this way more readily and intimately....Adam, Alan, Chris.

Lastly, I do not agree with you, Kevin, in thinking our topic is vague. Though we are working on this show together, though we are talking a lot through the blog, and though we are ostensibly involved in something called a collaborative workshop, at the end of the day, I am the only person working in my studio. And I'm pretty clear with my approach to the topic I've been handed. I don't really understand how disparate voices, intent on their respective projects, can be confused with vagueness. At this point, I think we all need to focus hard on our take of "ordinary aura"....make work that is clear in form and intent and bring what we have to Grand Rapids in september. Our geographical, aesthetic and philosphical differences will forever hamper any sort of neat comingling. But our topic precludes neat comingling. I do sound cranky perhaps, but at this point, there is an enormous amount of work to be done in a really short period of time--makes me want to say, Let's get on with it already.

Barbara

barb,
your comment has got me thinking differently about the workshop
when you bring performance into the discussion
it seems then that the workshop somehow becomes a piece in the show
tent of meeting comes to mind- conversations
also alan and jered's performance where viewers are aked by one to carry objects across the bridge to the other

does this event get documented somehow- photos, drawings, tape recordings, text

does it get billed differrently, not as a workshop

alan, this seems like it could encorporate some of the things you have talked about in terms of what might have happened in turkey, outreach, discussion, etc.

we should get things a bit more firmed up before we print the postcard, though

I'm more comfortable with that approach as well -

inviting people to attend an event in which we continue exploring the topic, through making/performance and/or discussion...an activity not solely designed for audience participation, but open to it...acknowledging a need for more participation is a great way to put it, thanks barbara.

i remembered some discussion long ago of this event as comprised of "making stations" for people to come and do their own collages - this is part of what I've been reacting to.

maybe this is partially about semantics and my own baggage (I also attended some pretty lousy events at UICA when I was in GR - I love the space but didn't like their approach to contemporary art and audience). but thinking about it this new way helps alot.

I still don't know what it would be though (or what I would contribute.) For the postcard and such, maybe we could just call it a workshop instead of a collaborative workshop - some other quick ideas for names

work session
charette
working group
practicum
studio session

I like the idea of having work in the title....work session or work group as Kevin suggested. Work session is a little more appealing for some reason. I guess the key is going to be to figure how to phrase it so people know they are welcome. Is it overstating the matter to say, Public Invited?

You know in a way, this "work session" is very connected, or could be, to the OA text/artist book we've been thinking about a lot lately due to the grant writing.

Please Adam, Jered and Alan....give us your experience with this kind of work.

one more thing - barbara, I'm the cranky one here.

i apologize - no wonder I'm not the one talking about collaboration.

there are things I should be critical of and things I shouldn't. unfortunately, I usually assume critical stance and figure it out later. it's all I can do (actually, it's not my doing) to keep from being as much of an ass as my professors were. (you'll have to trust me on that one.)

i am more challenged by being here than I let on with my cocksure self, and am thankful for it.

with the vagueness thing - I am still more vague about how we're defining our subject than I like to be, but I recognize that this probably has something to do with my unwillingness to fully engage as a viewer in practices I don't identify with. this is something I need to be careful about.

I suspect that these differences really should be looked at more closely. (later, probably, after we've made this thing happen. barbara's right about that too).In my experience, talking through that kind of thing can be difficult but extremely rich. it's rare that the differences I'm thinking of really get talked about by artists - probably cause its wicked hard to do without risking offense and misunderstanding. i think that talking about our differences of approach could get us closer to the topic too.

if this kind of conversation can only take place in a safe space, I think we've got that - even if we don't all know each other, I think we share some important things that make trust a little easier to muster.

I want to just quickly second Barbara's first post. I like "work group" more than "session" for a public event, though. "Session" I think has a sort of therapy ring to it, which might turn people off.

I think I said before that this collaboration, conversation, whatever will only really take off as we hang the show and see what we've got. This isn';t meant to knock this show at all; I think it's the nature of working. To me, it just means we should keep on talking, officially or unofficially. All we can do at this point -- to echo Barbara again -- is make some stuff and see what we've got.

Kevin, Again, I appreciate your comments here. I like that you bring into the conversation a recognition of, or rather, a reiteration of the fact, that we don't all know each other and that we are using this anonymous type form of communicating to engage one another's ideas.
If I may... I would love if I could ask you outright, what are some visions YOU have for the show. Your critical capacity has been wonderful,. but I crave hearing you say the things you WANT. What can you propose? I would really like to hear your thoughts on the sound portion especially. Seth and I met with a guy in his recording studio today about a film and he is interested in helping if he can... recording-wise we can prepare some stuff ahead of time.

For the "workshop", what do you think of the "Tent of Meeting"? The biblical reference is one I like and that Adam and Alan used this as a literal stage before... I guess we would need to get a tent for that day for outside...

you mean "tent of meeting" on the card?

i don't know....that would scare me off. I'm not against it but it sounds kinda obscure. dramatic, which is good, but obscure.

as for my stuff - here's a bit more of an idea of what I've been doing lately, that I will draw from for a piece for our show.

look up the project at the bottom of the page, titled "avoxia" - the entries are all anonymous, but that one's mine.

I'm also open to the idea of including that chart thing in the show in some form - I haven't worked any more on it but it's a possibility.

preoccupied a little with this conversation right now - probably we'd have gotten farther this weekend over some beers at a table...

i guess too chris that I would say that I couldn't really offer a vision for what I want from the show - I can, like Barbara, work on my own stuff and bring it. I can even try to facilitate an activity for the rest of you, bringing something with the expectation of installing it responsively (see my sound idea in response to adam's post). But I couldn't really say what the show should look like. I'm more in Barbara's model.

My earlier comments about vagueness weren't aimed at the show's form, but at its content. I think if someone asked me what the show is about, I'd say that it's about the question of where when and how the supernatural and/or the holy co-exists with the everyday. Or maybe about why when and how some things jump out from the flow of experience as significant.

That's pretty broad, is all I'm saying. I think it would have been helpful to narrow it a bit, but I recognize that we really just need to make our stuff, and that others are comfortable with working inside that definition, that others narrow through making where I narrow through planning.

on to making then -

so with the sound idea I posted - haunting objects - I can be ready with everything but the cd players. if y'all are interested in trying it I'll bring the stuff - just say so - but we need to start looking for cd players that have a "repeat" or "shuffle" function and run off AC power. more the better, little discmans or boom boxes, whatever.

we could put it in the rafters if that works with seth's piece, or wherever. no need to decide ahead of time.

yes we should pursue this sound piece
im pretty sure i can come up with some cd players here
from students etc
so kevin, bring it

in terms of the show as a whole
i think that it is crucial now to recognize what this show is about
my initial thoughts, months ago, were directed towards a group of artists, dealing with spiritual themes, using the everyday as source material
perhaps this notion that G-d is in the details

over the last few months there has been so much conversation
and so many things coming in to the conversation
let's try to focus that breadth

i think if we can get a bit more specific with the content at this point, then the actual works for the show may be more fully realized.

so some thoughts:

recognition/looking/seeing
absence/presence
horror/haunting
community/relationships
unnameable
aura/repitition/ritual/authenticity
abstraction
longing/hope/waiting

maybe there are more things in the mix too, and maybe this list is too long, but i feel like certain works address mupltiple themes from this list, fitting more generally then under the umbrella of the transcendent experience in the everyday.

it seems interesting to me also that this conversation is being negotiated a certain way right now, via the blog
kevin mentioned another way, talking together with beer
and still there is another way
that the work utimately comes together in the space
and reveals different truths, solves problems a different way
i am reminded now of these verses

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:22-3)

there is some weird parallel to our project
we are now groaning, waiting eagerly for convergence
also this verse i think speaks to the theme of this show, referencing our everday experience in relation to our destination

I must confess that when I first learned Adam was not going to be in the show work wise (yesterday), I was dissapointed, though I, of course, understand the conflict he feels in being the curator as well.
On thinking more though, the show really does need a voice to wade through all the strains...and focus us. I am taking that to be Adam's role, and I relish his presence in such capacity. I guess right now I really do urge you Adam to use your role as curator with gusto. You had a vision of the show from the start, and though that vision has no doubt expanded and become more complicated, I do trust your ability to bring it all together somehow-- via some kind of statement, etc . Is that a pep talk? Maybe. I think I am just relieved to learn that someone is in the position to sort through all our chatter.

hmm. i hadn't thought about adam not being in the show either.

I can see where the show could use the kind of curatorial voice B speaks of. but so far, hasn't it been something else?

sure - a traditional curator's work shouldn't be in the show. but what if you define your role and the exhibition differently? this has been different from any group show I've heard of before- it's a more experimental form. if you defined your role as facilitator/leader of a discussion (which it has been so far), instead of curator, then it would be more appropriate for you to have your work in the show too.

however you define it, I see your role here so far as much more involved and instigatory (that a word?) than a curator. i know curating is a creative practice, but you've been introducing material into the mix. that's different. i think you should find a way to define it that would make you feel OK about putting your work in. sounds like you've already given this some thought, and I'm late in the conversation, but there's my 2 cents.

maybe the show doesn't have a curator? (o boy....am i asking for trouble?)

quick response to seth before I head out the door-

The distance between the ideas expressed on the blog and the work posted is something I've thought about too - I guess I don't really see the work posted on the blog as THE work for the show, but more like the ingredients. Like everyone keeps saying, alot will happen when it's all together.

Still, I see posts of images on the blog and then comments about them, and I can't see the content there that others see or are open to seeing. That's where I relate to the distance Seth points to. There is part of this that I attribute to some of my not giving over to engaging other practices fully. But I also think that some practices are more interested in ambiguity than the ones I pursue - if there is content I want in a work, I feel like I have to make SURE for myself that it's in there, where others seem OK with it being suggested, evoked, or at best, embodied in a way that still isn't immediately apparent. These are some of the differences I've been thinking of.

That said, I'm less clear about what Seth means about the missing religiosity. I never understood that evident religious content in the form of verses or imagery was part of the show's topic.

OK I really have to go and stop looking at this thing all the time. One last thing though - the spinoff of my phone work that will end up in the show will probably be addressing the whole presence question - where and how and why we attribute the hiss of lines to the existence of an entity at the otherend of a signal.

battery almost dead....

Kevin, I meant the use of scriptural text and imagery was just a dramatic example of addressing the issues directly, rather than, as I think is often the case, through indirect or elliptical means. As I said in my earlier post, this isn't meant as any kind of criticism, or as a call for religious dialectic; it's just an observation of the process I see underway. For instance, because I've heard you talk about it, i can see the idea of presence in your phone project, but it wouldn't be apparent to me on its own.

I think we're saying the same thing from opposite directions.

I do like Keven's suggeston actually about figuring a way for Adam to have work in the show--makes a lot of sense. The card can still be changed....

I cannot linger here long or else the morning will be eaten up, but I did have to say something about keven's comment about content as it feels like another world to me, and in the interest of mutual education, here's the view from my slippery slope. I have never been able to insure (as it seems you feel you are Kevin) that the content I set out to inject into the work initially will be there when the piece concludes. This is not for lack of trying believe me, as in truth, it would be quite nice to lay the project out from the start knowing that at the end of its run, I'll have exactly what I set out to make. Making the work is about constant revision as I see that what I envisioned in my head or in a drawing is simply not manifesting. I suppose this sounds a like constant chaos, which it is in way....but constant revision/constant questioning is the only way I can maintain rigor in the work. So in truth what happens is that I hone in on an area of content, and the painting, through the process of revision, moves in and nails its content, but usually not until the very end. So content is never half-baked, evoked, or even alluded to--I don't care what kind of work one makes, content should never be ambiguous unless maybe you're a first semester freshman art student. This is different however than content being readily seen quite immediately by all who encounter the work.

I find these disparate working methods quite fascinating.

I have a feeling we might be talking at cross-purposes when we use words like "ambiguous." Some of us seem to be talking about ambiguity in the artist's approach to their work, which leads to dullness; what I mean is ambiguity in the viewer's experience of the work, which is something that has to be constructed very carefully by an artist who knows exactly what he or she wants to do.

The Turn of the Screw is a good example. The story is perfectly balanced, so that you can read the whole thing without knowing whether the ghosts are real or products of the protagonist's neurotic imagination. People have been arguing since the story was written about whether the ghosts are "real" or not. As I understand it, it seems clear from Henry James' notebooks that he thought of it as an actual ghost story; but given the nature of the story itself, it's clear that what he really wanted the story to be was ambiguous.

I'm about to say over in the writing time thread that what seems to me to be important about traces, if that's what the viewer is confronted with, is not so much that the viewer can tell what they're traces of as that the traces themselves are are cool to look at, or an interesting object in and of themselves. Making this happen requires that the artist know what the traces are traces of, but I don't know that it's necessary for the audience.

Also, it might be interesting to keep in mind at this point the original meaning of the word "occult," which meant not "supernatural" but "hidden." Starting a fire with a lens and sunlight was occult, because the cause of the process was inapparent. It doesn't mean that the cause isn't there, or isn't discoverable; it's just a secret to be uncovered.

just noticed that seth posted - I'll take a look at those in a second.

my medium has the benefit or bain of lots of little waiting periods - data crunching - so I'll write back in the interludes.

though at times I do feel the distance of disparate methods, they aren't as wide as they sometimes seem - I'm new to some of my ways of framing this problem, and they are deliberately polemical. you may have guessed by now that my ideology is motivated more by antithesis and agonism than by attraction..

part of the context of my approach is this - we have grads and faculty here who think it's o.k. to say about their work IN CRIT that "it means whatever you want to mean, I don't have any intentions." this is unbelievable to me, and has pushed me way to another side. I've never seen this before. This kind of thing is part of why our school is a big mess of division and politics right now.

another part of the context of my approach is a difficult past year or two of finding specific instances in the classroom where my unexamined and unquestioned value of ambiguity as a virtue, and directness as a fault have been challenged. By ambiguity, I don't even mean "it could be a lot of things." I mean "it could be THIS or THAT, and this particular combination of possibilities has an intentional, specific, and interesting relationship." (O'Connor is really good at describing this kind of ambiguity.)

Again, I don't think this kind of ambiguity is wrong, but just problematic when celebrated in an unexamined way. It's caused me to step back from some of the work I enjoy. I see Orozco differently for example - he's one of my favs. Instead of looking at the "specific ambiguity" of a particular placement of objects in the world as the end of his work, I've started looking at his decision to choose the kind of ambiguity he does where and when he does it.

This sometimes seems to end up about semantics, but it's more important to me than that.

The other part of this is application in my own work - my process often (not all the time) is very similar to what you described, Barbara. I'm trying some other approaches too, but this is new to me. The important thing to me in all of it is not the relationship of where you started to where you finished, but the relationship of where you finished to what goes into the world. I've started to look at the process of making and the act of placing work "out there" as two separate acts. It's the latter that I'm most concerned with in my discussion of form/content here on the blog.