Can Art Matter?

[Caffyn Kelley]

Can Art Matter? 9:am to 10:15 am Vancouver time

What militates against an art that matters? What makes art a vital part of cultural and social movement towards sustainability? Our real-time dialogue was a rapid-fire and fascinating exploration of ideas, practices, resources and possibilities for engaged art practices with Mercedes Baines and Sacha Kagan. The conversation continues below.

[Sacha Kagan]

Thanks Linda for this very relevant article! (Especially the "misconception # 1" which is indeed still a widespread misconception...)

I would like to stress that the very way art is produced, as a social activity,builds political configurations, even if it is not "art about politics" nor "political art". Every social institution, and every art movement is in an institutionalizing process, builds what I labeled as "Polity Conventions". For example, the Polity Conventions of Academism in Classical Dance favor a rather authoritarian cultural model. Of course I am summarizing excessively in the short space of this forum: For the long version see:
Sacha Kagan and Hans Abbing: "Polity Conventions in Art Worlds: The Constitution of Authority Configurations", STP&A Conference, Vienna, 2006: http://www.culture.info/images/stories/kagan_abbing.doc

[Beth Carruthers]

When thinking about the question "Can art matter?", I want to respond reflexively "of course"! And why do I want to respond in this way? I think the answer has to do with my experience of art as both art-maker and ecophilosopher.

I think art exists and yes, acts, in the world in various ways - some intended by the artist and some wild and uncontrollable - which is as it should be. There is a great deal of conversation about the intended, about the cognitive, rational and perhaps more readily perceived aspects of artworks and practices - and these are important, because we place such value on these in our culture - but there is more going on here. Amy touches on this in her comments. We do not live in our heads. We live in bodies, in communities of ecology, a web of relationship.

Elsewhere on this site we are having a conversation about beauty, about the aesthetic really. And it is because of the aesthetic experience - as embodied, sensuous engagement within a complex world - that I comprehend some small part of the power of art in the world. In this sense my experience of art is not so very far from the breathtaking experience of a west coast winter storm, the moment when I face the bear in the clearing, or the moment when I engage with that vast world by making some work, which then goes off into the world like a child to begin influencing community. Some works are stronger than others. Art can remind me, as that aesthetic moment of presence reminds me, that I am here, not elsewhere, and that here ("here" being my bodied self, the environing world, the intertwining of community) matters very much indeed.

Sasha, I will venture to say that the "global ecological crisis" is in fact a matter of subjectivity, of the "problem of the individual" in western culture, since it stems from self-interest, and objectivity really is a myth. We all filter according to our cultural framing and the kind of bodied beings we are. We cannot get outside who we are, even if we like to think so. The kind of thinking that promotes objectivity promotes further separation.

[Sacha Kagan]

Reading the posts on this discussion thread, I see that the fashion of postmodernist radical constructivism is probably still strong among communities of engaged artists. And I do not feel at ease with it...Here's why:

I'd like to respond to this with a quote from Suzi Gablik:

" Several years ago, the University of Chicago alumni magazine featured philosopher Richard Rorty on its cover announcing "There Is No Big Picture." Not only do I not believe this, I think that this philosophical stance is partly what has brought the world to the edge of systemic breakdown and biospheric collapse." (Suzi Gablik, "A new front", Resurgence magazine, 2004, reproduced on Greenmuseum at: http://greenmuseum.org/generic_content.php?ct_id=170 )

Indeed, Richard Rorty is the American champion of the postmodern pragmatic philosophy, which is the conceptual background for the more mundane forms of this radical constructivism. In these everyday articulations of the postmodern pragmatic philosophical framework, the belief in subjectivity as the only 'event horizon' is spread among the population. As a result, younger generations now often acquire an indifference to social and environmental injustices (while some of them react to this development by returning to the most obscure forms of Christian conservatism and 'patriotism' as life-jackets on which to cling).

Because indeed, why take 'global, structural injustices' serious when all is just a matter of 'subjectivity' and cultural frames? Why acknowledge the vision of a "Big Picture" when that is just one cultural construct among others, and a construct that is rather 'unsexy' compared to the bliss of the postmodern irresponsibility ? ...

Instead of the too-easy model of postmodern constructivism, I prefer to argue in favor of an understanding of reality as "systemic", as "complexity theories" portray it: Knowledge is uncertain and the future is unpredictable. We are limited in our understandings (that's the moderate cognitive version of constructivism) of the world but reality is not just the fruit of subjective perception...

Or as Edgar Morin phrased it so well: "So we should not be realistic in a trivial way (bending to immediacy) nor unrealistic in a trivial way (escaping from the constraints of reality); we should be realistic in a complex way, understanding the uncertainty of
reality, knowing that the real holds invisible potential." (Edgar Morin, "Seven complex lessons in education for the future", UNESCO, 1999, p.44)

What does this imply for action? Here again I'll quote Morin:
"This is where the notion of ecology of action comes in. As soon as a
person begins any action whatsoever, the action starts to escape from his
intentions. It enters into a sphere of interactions and is finally grasped
by the environment in a way that may be contrary to the initial intention.
So we have to follow the action and try to correct it if it is not too late, or
sometimes shoot it down, like NASA exploding a rocket that has veered off
course.
Ecology of action means taking into account the complexity it posits,
meaning random incidents, chance, initiative, decision, the unexpected,
the unforeseen, and awareness of deviations and transformations." (Morin, opus cit, p.45 )
Such an approach as Morin's involves personal and collective responsibilities at all these stages in complex social processes. And these responsibilities to complex reality are precious ethical 'gems' threatened by the postmodern philosophy of 'subjectivity'.

[mercedes]

Good Morning, Good Afternoon and Good Evening to All who are joining us on the E highway! Welcome! It is my pleasure and priviledge to co facilitate the first of our inline discussions. We are going to have our discussion in the Green Room ( see the link to the right of this box) from 9 am to 10.15 am PST.Please join us.
Look forward to seeing your thoughts there.
Warm Regards,
Mercedes

[Luciana]

Art does matter!

ART=a special language (that) -> transmits a MESSAGE (that)[can`t be transmitted otherwise] => people COMMUNICATE better (and) UNDERSTAND better their EMOTIONS (and) PERCEPTIONS=> they want to CHANGE reality => (eventually) they TAKE ACTION.

What do you all think about my little schema? Do you agree ? Do you think this is how art works?

[Ann Rosenthal]

I find this discussion facinating and brings me back to grad school discussions when I was in the thick of such postmodern theory, which I hadn't a clue about before grad school! When I first attended Carnegie Mellon, a professor said to me in response to me referencing 'nature,' "what is nature"? Being a California gal, this question totally threw me and I spent a lot of my grad time trying to understand it, which leads to this conundrum about subjectivity. I was told repeatedly by my professors that basically nature did not exist apart from our experience of it, since we can't get outside our experience. This never rang true for me, and I eventually decided it was anthropocentric! We may not be able to experience it outside our frames of reference, but that doesn't mean it does not exist!! After playing the theory game for some time, I decided that what had to guide my thinking and actions is: does it work, is it useful, does it at least attempt to make a difference? (I use 'it' here to mean theory or action or art or ideas, etc.), I think this sources back to feminism and activism: if theory doesn't inform action, what's the point? By the way, that first professor who said 'what is nature?' I found out later is terrified of nature and doesn't go anywhere near it!!!

I think we have to be careful in our discussions here to not exclude people who are not familiar with the theory! This is one reason after grad school that I started veering away from it--it seemed exclusionary and left a lot of people out of the conversation and started to feel like it was for an elite group only. I do still think it is useful, that it can inform action and help us be more critical and reflective, but it has it's limitations (as does uninformed action).

I also would like to pick up a few points mentioned earlier in the conversation that resonate for me:

- The secret garden--I remember a very old movie of The Secret Garden that I saw as a child that to this day still haunts me--the idea of a secret wondrous place, is that not what the world truly is if we could see it that way? Yes, this is rather romantic, but on the other hand is it not presumptous of us to think we really know much about this world and how it works, that we 'have it under our control'?!

- Systems thinking is what I really try to get to in my work and that I think is of the utmost importance: seeing the connections and interrelationships of everything. That is really where the complexity lies. If people could just begin to experience how their actions are connected and that they have ripple effects, that nature is an infinate web of relationships, etc. That is the wonder of it! There is a wonderful short book by Thick Nhat Han: "The Heart of Understanding" (this quote is from another book, but it's similar):

If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. "Interbeing" is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix "Inter-" with the verb "to be," we have a new verb, inter-be...

Looking even more deeply, we can see ourselves in this sheet of paper too. This is not difficult to see, because when we look at a sheet of paper, it is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also. So we can say that everything is in here with this sheet of paper. We cannot point out one thing that is not here--time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper.

--Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step

How can we use our work to ignite this awareness AND experience of interbeing? This is what I would like my work to do, and I think this understanding could effect profound change.

[TIm Jeeves]

I agree that that indeed that is a possible path for art to take Luciana, but there is an inherent positivity that lies within your schema that may not necessarily always be the case.

Art could be a mundane language that fails to transmit a message, and even if that message is transmitted it doesn't necessarily encourage people to communicate beter (they might be intimidated into silence) in which case understanding may not necessarily ensure, they may not want to change reality and they definitely may not take action. Even if they do, as has been discussed above the action taken need not be positive.

Propaganda is the most obvious (and extreme) example of 'art gone bad', but there is also a danger, within explicitly engaged work, that when funding runs out, when the project is 'completed', that communitiess and society at a whole are left abandoned.

There is something distasteful to me about a specific time-based artistic intervention into communities that aims for long term resolution of problems.

Sacha's point regarding the big picture above provides a very good summary of the situation. We can work towards these wonderfully beautiful paradigm shifts, but there is a very dramatic problem if art is seen as inherently good and automatically positive.

It is a tool and, as with all tools, can be used for a wide range of purposes.

Nevertheless, for good or bad, art is an intervention into the waters of society, and to adopt a rather cliche metaphor of ripples and pebbles, for that reason it does, without doubt, matter.

[Beth Carruthers]

Sacha, I am provoked to respond to the post after mine on the initial conversation of “can art matter?”

First, I am uncomfortable with the assumption you make that “the fashion of postmodernist radical constructivism is probably still strong among communities of engaged artists” as well as with the speed with which you arrived at this assumption.

Second, I am deeply disinclined to head off into a forest of “isms” and other neat boxes. We tend to mistake them for truths. I personally do not think that we have ever in any real sense been Postmodern, any more than we – and the world – have ever to date been Postcolonial.

Now, I myself am a philosopher who makes and curates art. More to the point, I am a phenomenologist in the tradition of Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, with my work and research being in the area of embodied, relational aesthetics and ethics in human/world relations.

What I see in this conversation – and do not understand why you do not – is a presentation of lived experience and belief in a deeply interconnected, real, and embodied world. It in no way follows that by bringing the subject, and subjective experience, forward that we are automatically in the realm of “Postmodern Constructivism”. We may also be in the realm of real intersubjectivity, an “intertwining” as Merleau-Ponty says. We will never stop perceiving the world as discrete beings, but to think that we are the source and centre of the world is wrong-headed – and in this I think you and I agree. The world presents itself to us, we are immersed within it, as my earlier post describes, and we seek to make sense of it, we order our experience, we foreground what we value, and background what we judge, as quickly as a heartbeat, to not be of value. All animals do this, and we are not different in this regard. Because we do not make the world, but are immersed within a world, we cannot IN FACT remove the subjective, because to do so would be to remove ourselves from the real world of embodied being, rocks, trees, buildings, rain… But we can experience the intersubjective. Isis Brook puts it quite well: “We are a part of the world that thinks, but if the best we can think is always an ‘all or nothing’ dichotomy then we need help. I think we need to resist both the intellectually indefensible notion that the world and us are an indistinguishable whole and the morally indefensible notion that the world is entirely separate from us and there for us to use, even if that use is ‘sustainable’…. Environment is not the inanimate background object against which we as subjects can act as separate beings. The reality of our situation is being environed, being engaged in an embrace, not as an optional extra - a lifestyle choice – but just how it is.”[Brook, 2006]

The kind of thinking that “objectifies”, that makes everything outside the human mind unreal, is still rampant and dangerous. We have not come very far since Descartes.

And this is one thing that I think art in many manifestations and engagements offers us - a reminding of this intertwined condition of being. Perhaps very important at a "time of global eco-crisis" [Gablik]

[Tim Collins]

.....damn I wish I had more time! I will toss something in that I have been working on in the quiet of the night in the Northwest (from the dawn in the British Isles) and see what kind of trouble I get ino. (Please sroll through if it seems unbearable !! .)

There is a wonderful rolling discussion going on here; thick with ideas and laced with passion. The fundamental question here is 'can art matter'; of course it is, does and can! The fact that we speak here with such passion assures us all that it is a subject of relevance. We all know and accept the fact that the art market and museums are filled with art-matter. But what I think we are really getting at is can it/art have impact? Can it bring about change in the social/environmental relationship? I believe it can if we start to theorize and develop a critical discourse amongst ourselves that examines work from a position of 'degrees of emancipation.' I will explain a bit; although I am in the midst of thinking this through. I will also forwarn the social activists; that my understanding of the social integrates the environmental and the ecological - my intent is to integrate. I also have no fear of art 'going bad' or becomeing 'too instrumental' this is an unfortunate conservative reaction that is usually loaded up with subjective contingencies that I believe limits growth/while at the same time defines the aesthetic of dominant creative practice. With that caveat, I actually agree with much of what has been said; we come at the world and find different theoretical tools that work for us as we try to engage/synthesize or integrate the worlds of nature and culture.

Excerpted from current writing:
As a practicing environmental/ecological artist I am interested in form, content, systems, poetics and symbols. I am also interested in the concepts and theories that inform my practice. These are very general ideas and common points through out the art and design professions. The question I try to answer is what makes an environmental or ecological artist different than our colleagues who prefer their title in a pure form, without the adulterating influence of an adjective? When I think about ecological and environmental art practice the point of differentiation is not the use of natural forms and content, nor eco-poetics, metaphor and symbology. I would argue that difference is revealed through a desire to bring about change in the world. This desire for change is a focal point in ecological and environmental practice that is widely misunderstood and under theorized.

Can we accept the problematic dialectic between art, creativity and efficacy as fact? In 1991 Gablik believed that part of the solution was to transcend the aesthetic mode. Over the last five years, Kester (2005) and Bourriaud (2004) have made contributions to ideas about the artist’s role in creative discourse and its impact upon subjectivity and aesthetic knowledge. Carlson (2000) and Berleant (1992) working from position of environmental aesthetics are locked in an ongoing discourse that extends subjectivity beyond human relationships to the context of life itself. These are important forays into alternative histories, theories and philosophies that underpin creative practice today. Nicholas Bourriaud has said, “When the aesthetic discussion evolves, the status of form evolves along with it and through it” (Bourriaud, 2002, p. 21). He is drawing our attention to the symbiotic relationship between ideas and perception, theory and practice; how they interact to reveal form from its background content and context. What is without form today can be revealed tomorrow through an evolution in aesthetic concept and analysis drawn from practice. Berleant, Carlson and Kester all draw their ideas through an examination of practice, which is then theorized. Their outcome, has the potential to allow the rest of us to train our mind, then our eyes and our body to react to the world in a new way. What was once a study in generalized truth and beauty has changed into theories of expanded perception which reveal an evolution of value. Reading Berleant and Kester I sense a remarkable shifting worldview, that affects far more than form, it takes us into the realm of inter-subjective experience and subject transcendent experience. These are intoxicating ideas that can be experienced through the senses as well as through the intellect. Once we have it pointed out to us (so we see it) or we have it explained to us (so we understand it), we can pursue that experience as part of a somatic and intellectual life practice. Pleasure at this level has transcendent potential, as it calls our fundamental values into question. It is interesting to note that it is art history with its predilection for inherent conventions supporting criticality – which may not be able to keep up with the changing inter-subjective and subject-object relationships. These shifts in our reality are an affect of the rapidly changing social and material condition of this new century.

I have argued that visual evidence can not be the sole focal point of critical engagement with transformative (social and environmental) practices. Kester provides us with three focal points that inform an alternative critical analysis: the context, which includes the speech acts and process of the dialogue, the quality of the intersubjective exchange, and indications of empathic insight (Kester, 2004, pp. 107-115). These methods are applied by Kester to ascertain the validity and value of the speech acts that enable relationships between artists and citizens. Following Lacy (1995, p. 181) and Ukeles in (Gablik, 1991, p. 69) a complimentary set of questions can be stated that remain distanced from material product but raise issues of originality, and persuasion which can lead to dissemination and dialogic activation. Is there evidence of original thinking and unique language (visual, verbal, written text, symbol, narrative or metaphor) in the dialogic exchange that attends the work? Does the work subvert the dominant consciousness and elicit a sense of creative social connectivity amongst its collaborators, participants or viewers? The context frames the inter-subjective exchange where indications of empathy and originality become points of critical validation. But in the end, it is the dialogue that has the potential to change us, and at the same time forge new bonds off social connectivity and emancipatory desire which can lead to action.

What I am trying to describe is a critical approach to art, informed by new ideas in aesthetics which can only be validated by communities of interest that deem it to be worthy of attention. The basis of that worth can be achieved through collective definition of intrinsic properties that are deemed valid to interrogate. Or… we can leave it to the artworld to define our artwork for us; that is our choice as I understand it.

[zulis Yalte]

I am a novice to philosophical language and argument .... and an expert of knowing with my body and fostering the form/image that wants to manifest from the formless. It matters that I make art because this is what my body/being wants and the manifestation is my communication with others. At times specifiicallly as individuals relate to or recognize themselves in a form brought to this dimension.

Being that art takes this meaning for me and more, Beth's arguments and Ann's resonate with my direction and understanding. Body knowing is vital, language that is inclusive is necessary and surrendering to my intutitve process - is what makes me supple to meet, know, exchange in a way that brings change and transformation for me and the community I engage with. Being present, knowing, following the knowing... as Beth says.. the 'lived experience'.... whether making art or experiencing it. Opening ourselves to know art in a corporeal way that permeates the material and subtle energy layers of being..... allowing ourselves to be changed/ transformed by the art making/experience ... matters. Matters why because we grow and change, we connect on visible and invisible levels and we allow a greater connection and oneness with All beings. Art Matters because art making and experience of art is a spiritual process that can guide our evolution if we open with a conscious embrace. When thus open there is no binary..... there is intutiive understanding and knowing through the body.

[Sacha Kagan]

Thanks a lot Tim for your engaging and thought-provoking text.

Although I follow with great empathy most of what you are saying, I'd like to place one note of caution:

I'd add a note of caution indeed about Bourriaud. I'm French and visited the 'Palais de Tokyo' several times when he was leading it (that was some years ago, before I moved to Germany). And looking at both Bourriaud's exhibitions and his concept of 'relational aesthetics', emerges a clear sense of superficiality and uncritical entertainment value inhabiting this relationality advocated by Bourriaud.

I think that many of the artistic projects discussed here go much farther and are far more interestingly engaged with social-ecological change-oriented inquiries, than the Bourriaud relational aesthetics kind of theory and practice (which, in the Palais de Tokyo, has been most often dreadfully superficial and, in the worst sense of the word, 'apolitical'; a real hub for fashionable but very empty 'high art' elites in Paris).

Even further, I feel the emptiness of Bourriaud's relational aesthetics as yet another manifestation of the ontological void of the 'Technological System' (Ellul) in its so-called postmodern phase: i.e. an easily escapist strategy out of moral dilemna and difficult questions of ethical paradigms, turning art into another form of formal rationality (as understood after Max Weber, Heidegger and Ellul), i.e. the social relation as a means/end that fits into the Baroque spiral of relative means/ends mirroring each other under the reign of formal reason. Indeed, Bourriaud's surface-level social interactivity is too easily an means/end in itself, and most likely not a process of transformation as advocated in the article quoted by Linda in an earlier post. But I won't start again a long critique of the postmodernist discourse...

[Sacha Kagan]

Thanks a lot Beth for your engaging response!

I feel a quick feedback is warranted to clear some possible misunderstandings:

- I agree with much of what you wrote but I guess there are some misunderstandings: we need not 'be' postmodern for us to be influenced by a very active 'postmodernist discourse' (the level of value discourses is not the same as that of 'being')...

- 'isms' and ideologies are still very strong nowadays and can't be swept under the carpet, even though it's necessary for us indeed to try not becoming their captives...

- when you evoke "the kind of thinking that “objectifies”, that makes everything outside the human mind unreal", you are pointing at the modern notion of subjectivity precisely! (I guess we are using slightly different understandings of words like 'objectifying' or 'subjectivity', and besides, I am not defending any form of 'objectifying' but rather forms of reflexivity and forms of ontological inquiry.)

More generally, the very use of terms like the bipolar formula "subjectivity/objectivity" are conducting us to dead-ends, especially if we'd like to start turning to more systemic understandings of reality. In this, I think many people here are engaged in comparable search processes, even if the words used and some of our 'working definitions' are diverging...