altMFA@The Old Artichoke (16.01.12)

CHAIR: Neela Basu
NOTES: Gwen Bajon

PRESENT:
Fritha Jenkins
Eyal Edelman


ACTIONS FOR NEXT SESSION:

NEELA: Speak to Garage owner for exhibition space
DAVE: email Steph for final 'talk' or 'presentation'
LUCIE: photocopy P.Bordieu text for next session
ROBBIE: photocopy Henry Fords Amazonian Dream for next session

EVERYBODY:  THE WEEK AFTER NEXT IS READING WEEK. PLEASE COPY SOMETHING THAT INTERESTS YOU FOR EVERYONE IF YOU CAN!

SELECTED READINGS:

DAVE: 
1) Steve Hurst: Metal Casting (practice, skill, challenges)
2) Friedrich Schiller: the Song of the Bell (Das Lied von der Glocke)
(17th century, German Poetry/excerpt)

POINTS:
language and translation (loss/gain/alteration of meaning)
mis/appropriation of language throughout the centuries and across the world

language = truth?
language = expression?
language = an absolute?

LUCIE:
1) Interview with Anges Varda from Frieze Magazine
(French Artist Filmmaker, Nouvelle Vague, fiction/documentary, B&W new wave)

POINTS:
Film mentioned: The Gleaners and I
honesty and openness of documentation and her practice
exposure of the artist to her themes and subjects/personal involvement and expression

2) see actions

ROBBIE:
1) Chris Small: Musicking (Musicology=study of high art music which is only listened to by 3% of the population)

POINTS:
Social relations of "what is music"
moving away from the idea of an absolute/good/bad in music (as an art form)
chapter: a solitary flute player
structuralists/post-structuralists
challenge absolutes/categories/binary thought

4th Wall Theory:
ideas of interaction and participation in music/theatre/performance art
challenge the absolutes of 'performer' and 'audience' and 'player' and 'listener'

2) see actions

LOUISE: 
opted out of reading Nietzsche (because she had a bad cold)

EYAL:
1) Shaykh Abd Al-Fattah Abu Ghuddah: The Value of Time 
(islamic philosopher est.1000 AD)

POINTS:
one thing at the time
head in the clouds
relationship of theory and reality in art and study

Discussion about the Occupy London Event >> Occupy LSX - The Bank of Ideas
2) Homo Economicus (the freee art collective www.freee.org.uk)

Art against cuts

Art influences/is influenced by: economy/politics/ecology

Speakers:
Andrew Conio (http://www.wlv.ac.uk/default.aspx?page=22886). Introduction – The State Against Art
Platform (http://www.carbonweb.org/index.asp). Licence to Spill - Big oil and the UK art scene.
Liberate Tate(www.liberatetate.org/home.html <http://www.liberatetate.org/home.html> ). Performance interventions in gallery spaces
John Beck (Newcastle University) and Matthew Cornford (University of Brighton) (http://www.cornfordandcross.com/introduction/index.html). The Art School and the Culture Shed.
John Cussans. Protest Pedagogy.
Mark McGowan (http://markmcgowan.org/). There is No Law Against Art.
Dean Kenning. The Corporate Occupation of Art.
Freee. Mel Jordan, Andy Hewitt and Dave Beech (http://freee.org.uk/). Economists are Wrong.
 Precarious Workers Brigade (http://precariousworkersbrigade.tumblr.com/). How Can we Fight the Marketisaton and Corporatisation of the Arts?  

NEELA:
 
1) Chuck Palahniuk: Haunted
(writer most famous for the Novel Fight Club)
"The Paul Mccarthy of Writing"(Neela)

short and impactful language/interest in excess and the body
'horror around the ordinary'

2) Flash Art: Marina's Diary
Marina Abramovitch
> people burst into tears when they look into her eyes 
> research about social dynamics/fear/intimidation/dynamics

POINTS:
> John Pilger Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy
the horrors of war 
the ethics of horror
hippocrisy and the modern world
morals and ethics of war

GWEN:
 (Note to self: fox penises are not a suitable topic for reading aloud, even if you are German)

1) Martin Wallen: Fox (Animal Series) 

POINTS:
Aristotle: the first Westener to classify animals >> wholly unscientific today
his 3 categories were:
1) different substances that make up analogous body parts
2) different environments that animals inhabit (land/sea/air)
3) differences in their dispositions revealed through their interactions with other animals
> fox is classified as the antipode to humans

'the nature of obsession' , 'Fox Fan Culture', material fascination and hording
'rules of attraction' 'symbols'
people's reactions to collections and obsessions > constantly feeding this relationship
'methods of identification' & hiding behind a 'mask'

Francis Alys (Belgium, *1959)
Night Watch 2004 (Fox in the National Portrait Gallery, recorded on in-house CCTV)

FRITHA:
1)Nautical Archaeology: Rivers
detailed description of a common, ubiquitous thing(rivers):  'travel, trade, traces under water'

POINTS:
"an artefact of flowing water"

the continental shift of water over time

the interest in the ordinary reveals the amazing detail of things around us
art is often a tool in these 'investigations of specific detail'

'poetry of the ordinary' and 'hidden depth' of the common thing


Thanks to all of you & may the Fox be with you!

ENDE