Jujube/synopsis
Comparative Criticism
New Aesthetics - James Bridle
New Dark Age [1], ibid
Kenneth Goldsmith
Synopsis
International Art English
article by Alix Rule & David Levine
In International Art English (acronym IAE), the authors present a linguistic study of the anglophone language surrounding contemporary art, and illustrate the discourse development of contemporary art through the adoption of this language. For this purpose, the authors analyze 13 years of e-flux announcements, the most widely-read listserv by an increasingly global contemporary art field through algorithms from Sketch Engine, a linguistic analysis tool.
They investigate the vocabulary, syntax, semantics and genealogy of the text (referred to as the corpus). They suggest that IAE originates from the highbrow criticism journal October from 1976, where editors changed the discourse of art criticism and translated French post-structuralist texts from Barthes, Baudrillard and Deleuze as well as the Germany's Frankfurt School. This editorial bias gave the language lexical peculiarities from French (e.g. the suffixes -ion, -ity, -ality, and -ization) and German (e.g. the prefixes para-, proto-, post-, hyper-).
The authors thus summarize the traits of IAE, such as: the acquisition of alien functions by ordinary words, the emphasis of otherwise redundant pairings and the fondness towards using more words instead of fewer. They thus demonstrate IAE as a distinctive language circulated in contemporary art, proliferated by the spread of biennials and the enabling of the internet.
The authors place the IAE in its own categories similar to that of a technical language (such as that shared among academics or car mechanics). They observe that although old users of the IAE came from academia and formal art criticism, new users are from increasingly diverse origin: notably, gallerists, curators and the artists themselves (for writing press releases, grant proposals and artist statements). These new users perpetuate the language and stylize the discourse with ever-changing trend.
The authors conclude that art criticism is in crisis and the future of IAE will be an implosion.
How to write about contemporary art
In this opinionated manual of art-writing, Gilda Williams brings insights to contemporary art. She is well aware of the fallacies of International Art English, and offers readers well-selected examples to illustrate good art-writing.
The advice she offers is based on her argument: that both the viewer and the artwork need the art-words. The viewer needs a "steady framework" to under stand the work while the work is "completed by criticism." (P25) She believes art-writers should establish themselves as trustworthy, not only having impartial views (P26) but also possessing the knowledge about the work (scholarship in art history, ability to appraise artwork, technical knowledge of media, familiarity of the artist, "an instinctive sensibility for quality, code-name 'taste'") and the risk-taking ability to express original ideas . (P26, 33, 165)
She emphasizes the importance of choosing an idea well and communicating it "through unclichéd and thoughtful words,"(68) and advises against interpretation of the artist's psychology through the art work (89).
She distinguishes explaining (museum wall text, catalogue, extended captions) from evaluating (review) texts. While the former calls for concise expression, both explaining and evaluating texts follow a structure of: what are you seeing/what might it mean/why this might matter. The latter, rather than summarizing press releases or the curator's text, regards the art writer's own idea crucial for taking the readers through understanding the artwork (165).
What I find the most relevant are: reminders on vocabulary choices, how to write a brief about a moving image work, and how to write an artist statement.
The vocabularies should be grounded in solid nouns, singular and well-chosen adjectives, precise verbs and free from adverbs. Avoid piling up abstractions, lists, jargons (Ch4, 68) and tired metaphor ("seismic shift" and other geological types (102). To write an explaining brief about a moving image work is not to summarize the whole film but rather find a guiding idea from the work and express it clearly (135). To write an artist statement is to find a way to sincerely say who you are and what your work is. The statements also aids the artist in thinking, so the words must first ring true to the artist who writes it rather than a guess of what the reader wants to see.
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Specific advice/exercises on writing artist statements:
- Read statements from notable artists.
- Concreteness and specificity. Create images through words.
- Which decision (whether hard-won, accidental, or bearing unanticipated results) produced the most meaningful outcome, for you?
- Which moments changed everything? What were you really excited about as you worked? Edit out the rest.
- Ontology, epistemology, metaphysics carry specific technical meaning; use sparingly, only if essential.
- Ground your reader in media or images they can see/identify a key theme, idea or principle that holds your art together.
- Imagine you are writing directly to the one person who understands your work best.
The Glitch Moment(um)
book by Rosa MenkMan
The Glitch Moment(um): A Void in Techno-Culture (p.29-31)
The author argues that glitch disrupts the flow of the technology which delivers the content (eg. broadcast TV). Glitch reveals the involvement of the machine in front of the user/reader/viewer and raises the question of authorship. It encourages the audience to reflect on the medium/media.
(I question its effectiveness.)
The Glitch Art Genre: Between the Void and Commoditized Form (p.55-56) + The Genre Paradox (p.57-58)
Glitch art represents unstable processes and the associated conceptual thinking. Rather than inventing new terms for artworks that incorporate this representation (which does not differentiate between disruption and commodity) — it clarifies to theorize glitch art as a genre with thematic content, iconography and narrative structure. The genre fulfills the expectations to exploit the medium and question "the use and function of technologies, their conventions and expectations." Under a common genre the materiality of glitch can be studied closely.
The challenge (or paradox) of the genre framework is the difficulty to distinguish a deliberate, considered work involving glitch (and its process) from something that merely appropriates the retro-nostalgic aesthetics. Constant improvements in technology renders previous versions of it obsolete. Because of that, glitch exists anachronistically outside of the serious intention of a genre (eg. "faux vintage" filter on Instagram). It calls for the spectator's knowledge in "media technology texts, aesthetics and machinic processes" to recognize glitch art and the message within.
(See footnotes on p56 for literature on genre.)
The Emancipation of Dissonance Glitch (p.65-66)
Glitch questions authorship and technology used to convey that. It is a critical reflection on the medium and creates awareness among the spectators.
("Gentrified errors" is a good phrase.)
The work of art in the age of digital recombination
paper by Jos de Mul
appearing on P95 Digital Material: Tracing New Media in Everyday Life and Technology, Amsterdam University Press
Using the text from "The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction," De Mul argues that digital recombination leads to a return to auratic qualities of objects. He summarizes the changes in the value of the work of art: from cult value to exhibition value (through mechanical reproduction) to manipulation value (through digital recombination.)
Computing and database — used somewhat synonymously in this paper — become the successor of the machine. The relational database (a development from the relational model of data by Edgar F. Codd, dating back to the 1970's) presents a procedure in structuring, re-structuring and partially re-creating information based on each copy of the previous database(s). Like the mechanical (re)production, this (re)production process of recombination and manipulation turns into "material metaphors."
The term "database aesthetics" refers to the user interface and the interactions it enables (or allows?) within the designed structures. De Mul emphasizes that manipulation holds, and creates, value. In this new aesthetics, art is no longer for the worshippers or spectators, but rather for users. The change in this vocabulary is indeed interesting. However, do users gain any agency through the new aesthetics. De Mul only makes clear the manipulation value to the politicians, but not to the users.
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This essay leaves a few questions:
- Benjamin theorizes that the value the work of art derives from its uniqueness and singularity in space and time (cult value.) For the work of art, why is exhibition value valuable? (The example used here is Paris Hilton, "famous for being famous", and the success of politicians such as Reagan.)
- Although De Mul discusses "political art," he does not clarify the relationship between politics and political art. Along this (lack of) logic, it is hard to justify why manipulation value is relevant for a work of art. Do I assume that manipulation value translates from politics to political art? Or do I abolish the distinction between politics and art all at once?