PERFORMANCE/INTERVENTION
Tuesday 9 March 2010
TEXT EXPLANATION --> Project
The proposal is the publication of a newspaper. It will be published every week.
This proposal emerged by going through the ideas of Fluxus and Situationism. It has theoretical elements of both movements, but also with some ambiguous aspects. It will not be engaged to any particular statement or idea.
It somehow attempts to have the “Slashseconds” ideology, but with different projects and in the format of a real newspaper.
Its theoretical framework is also inspired by Wittgenstein’s Tractatus- logico philosopicus. If the questions are: what is a newspaper? What is a museum? What is an exhibition? What does “visiting” a museum or an exhibition mean? What is an artist? What is curating? Then the answers that the Tractatus would give are:
2.014
Objects contain the possibility of all situations.
3.02
A thought contains the possibility of the situation of which it is the thought. What is thinkable is also possible.
Therefore, if I think that a museum can be a newspaper and the curator can literally perform through it, then it is possible. The thing is to feed this idea of a shift of episteme and of structure (in which art and art history have been engaged playing a fundamental role) within the flexibility not only of the semantic field, the discourse, or even the mere “artistic” practise, but with the whole “dispositif.”
Newspapers are a key issue on enhancing and maintaining “the exercise of power within the social body." (Peter Lewis “If X, then Y, A Pure Condition: Proposals and Rehearsals”, /Seconds http://www.slashseconds.org/issues/003/003/articles/01_plewis/index.php [accessed 5 March 2010])
They are well located as “truthful” pieces of paper and even if they pretend they are not, they appear to be always engaged to ideological “institutions.”
But what would happen if the meaning of this rooted word/thing/concept changes or expands? It would be a slight micro-possibility (may be utopian, as it is stated that a proposal can be: Peter Lewis “If X, then Y, A Pure Condition: Proposals and Rehearsals.”) of breaking or penetrating on the hegemonic structure. This structure is of course sub-divided, and two of those divisions can be the museum as an institutional framework of art and the tight structure of the media as a “truthful” device.
This newspaper will have the appearance of a normal newspaper, the price will be the same as the cheapest newspaper available, and it will be sold in the same places. It is going to assume itself as a museum and the names of the staff are going to have the same titles as the typical museum staff. i.e. there will be no editor, there will be curators, museographers, etc.
Such as the newspaper, it will have different sections but all of them related to artistic practises. For example, in the business/finance/economy, the works published may be related to auctions, market, sales, etc. This may be contradictory, but the market is part of the art world and this newspaper is not pretending to hide anything. There will not be any intentional non dit.
Some of the pages will be dedicated to temporary exhibitions (the public will be able to send their works and proposals to the office and they will be analysed and chosen by a committee, then the curator will work with the artist or the artists). Articles, essays, manifestos, critiques, etc. could be published as well. It will be different from a journal because it will not be homogeneous in themes nor practises, but the difference with a traditional newspaper will be that it will not promote itself as a “truthful” space nor it will attempt to construct any particular discourse, the ideal will be to be seen as: an archive and as an artwork itself that can only be judged in a Kantian way.
This proposal emerged by going through the ideas of Fluxus and Situationism. It has theoretical elements of both movements, but also with some ambiguous aspects. It will not be engaged to any particular statement or idea.
It somehow attempts to have the “Slashseconds” ideology, but with different projects and in the format of a real newspaper.
Its theoretical framework is also inspired by Wittgenstein’s Tractatus- logico philosopicus. If the questions are: what is a newspaper? What is a museum? What is an exhibition? What does “visiting” a museum or an exhibition mean? What is an artist? What is curating? Then the answers that the Tractatus would give are:
2.014
Objects contain the possibility of all situations.
3.02
A thought contains the possibility of the situation of which it is the thought. What is thinkable is also possible.
Therefore, if I think that a museum can be a newspaper and the curator can literally perform through it, then it is possible. The thing is to feed this idea of a shift of episteme and of structure (in which art and art history have been engaged playing a fundamental role) within the flexibility not only of the semantic field, the discourse, or even the mere “artistic” practise, but with the whole “dispositif.”
Newspapers are a key issue on enhancing and maintaining “the exercise of power within the social body." (Peter Lewis “If X, then Y, A Pure Condition: Proposals and Rehearsals”, /Seconds http://www.slashseconds.org/issues/003/003/articles/01_plewis/index.php [accessed 5 March 2010])
They are well located as “truthful” pieces of paper and even if they pretend they are not, they appear to be always engaged to ideological “institutions.”
But what would happen if the meaning of this rooted word/thing/concept changes or expands? It would be a slight micro-possibility (may be utopian, as it is stated that a proposal can be: Peter Lewis “If X, then Y, A Pure Condition: Proposals and Rehearsals.”) of breaking or penetrating on the hegemonic structure. This structure is of course sub-divided, and two of those divisions can be the museum as an institutional framework of art and the tight structure of the media as a “truthful” device.
This newspaper will have the appearance of a normal newspaper, the price will be the same as the cheapest newspaper available, and it will be sold in the same places. It is going to assume itself as a museum and the names of the staff are going to have the same titles as the typical museum staff. i.e. there will be no editor, there will be curators, museographers, etc.
Such as the newspaper, it will have different sections but all of them related to artistic practises. For example, in the business/finance/economy, the works published may be related to auctions, market, sales, etc. This may be contradictory, but the market is part of the art world and this newspaper is not pretending to hide anything. There will not be any intentional non dit.
Some of the pages will be dedicated to temporary exhibitions (the public will be able to send their works and proposals to the office and they will be analysed and chosen by a committee, then the curator will work with the artist or the artists). Articles, essays, manifestos, critiques, etc. could be published as well. It will be different from a journal because it will not be homogeneous in themes nor practises, but the difference with a traditional newspaper will be that it will not promote itself as a “truthful” space nor it will attempt to construct any particular discourse, the ideal will be to be seen as: an archive and as an artwork itself that can only be judged in a Kantian way.
Bibliography:
Lewis, Peter, “If X, then Y, A Pure Condition: Proposals and Rehearsals”, /Seconds http://www.slashseconds.org/issues/003/003/articles/01_plewis/index.php [accessed 5 March 2010]
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, (Oxford: Rhees, 1984).
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