Artist Manifesto II

Posted in SKC text+writing by Suk Kyoung Choi on April 9, 2008

When human kind started developing play by beating and scratching, this started as a physical game, then this visceral spontaneous play resulted in intellectual response, it became a philosophical game. 

Art is a social system, an institution which embraces these ‘abnormal’ people who enjoy an intellectual or weird/strange play, or who enjoy nonsensical dreams. People consume with vicarious satisfaction and take art as a lubrication and escape from boring life through these people; artists, cultural shamans.

 

I would like to be an artist,

who talks about
who works with

 

invisibility, immateriality, gaps, inconsistency, layered – transition,
coincidence – uncertainty, and relationships,

 

… through visible, material, and tangible objects.

 

Concept of Balance of Duality

: Two sides of the world; the dual concepts in the world are the basic principles.
It is the atmospheric force of nature
; the predisposition of nature.

The Balancing force of duality is not equal.
It is a relative concept of dualities
; but it is inseparable from dualities.

 

Concept of Time/Space/Speed

: The concept of time talks about
4-dimensional space. 
         
Speed, acceleration and deceleration of time,
is about 5-dimensional of world
; about memory and imagination world,
‘mind-time’ is not linear.

 

I do not like the concept of ‘categorized’.
I would not like to be categorized myself.

  I would like  my work
                                      to be
            hard to talk about in a word,
            a label, instead,
                                           … about everything.

 

curating immateriality (and materiality)

Posted in SKC text+writing by Suk Kyoung Choi on March 5, 2008

It seems more and more things are becoming virtualized and immaterialized (for instance, see the demonetarization and immateriality of our economic world: the ‘cyber economy’), and the issue of curating immateriality in the art world is just yet another one of these streams. Joasia Krysa points out this phenomenon of transformation to immateriality in chapter 1 of Curating Immateriality:

For Pasquinelli too, control and exploitation have become more immaterial, cognitive and networked, and as a result more totalitarian. In his essay ‘Cultural Labour and Immaterial Machines’ (herein), he describes a scenario where:‘Meta-machines are ruled by a particular kind of cognitive labour which is the administrative, political, and managerial labour that runs projects, organises and controls on a vast scale: a form of general intellect that we have never considered, and of which the central figure in the second half of the 20th century became that of the manager’.” 

People think that we are pursuing more 3 dimensional, and even 4 dimensional (for example, virtual reality) worlds, however, ironically we have been pursuing less dimensional images naturally throughout human history; from the object (3 dimensions) to painting/drawing, word/number (2 dimensions), and now to the pixel (1 dimensional) In some aspects, the curation of immateriality approaches 0 dimensionality; where is the content?

What we think of as 3D images and even virtual reality is also all made up of (non-existing) 1D pixels. It seems that relating to software systems (ideas) has become more valuable than the hardware (traditional object-based) relationships. If time-referential media (hardware) is object generated, then space-referential media (software) is knowledge, information, and idea generated. Time-referential media is therefore material, so that it can last longer physically; however, it has to be attached to a point in space. Space- referential media is more immaterial, so that it may spread wider, however, it does not exist physically; virtual images or data on CDs, DVDs or the internet are more fragile than the time- referential Sphinx of Egypt.

Redistribution and transformation of value is becoming flexible and informative. Immaterial forms in contemporary art are more malleable that the traditional material forms of art. Immateriality is more reformable, and abstract, not tangible like materiality; materiality has a limitation in time, so that it cannot be changed.  

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Citation

Curating Immaterialit: The Work of the Curator in the Age of Network Systems, Various contributors, Edited by Joasia Krysa, Autonomedia, 2006

Where I want to be / what I look at

Posted in SKC text+writing by Suk Kyoung Choi on February 27, 2008

As a member of this society, as an artist, I think the balance between reality and the ideal is significantly important. I have a concept (idea) about my ideal world; the balance of dualities in this world.  

 My view of ‘real and the ideal’ can be explained through the concept of duality; because there cannot be a priority of ‘the ideal’ over ‘the real’; they have to be balanced. Every thing has duality inside of it. We can consider the ideal with the invisible, and the real with the visible. People know the value of surfaces, but less the invisible inside. People usually do not recognize the invisible, but the invisible is also important. For example, every living thing is made up of non-living things (inorganic compounds). Every visible thing is made up of the invisible. Most material things are made of immaterial things. Even though we cannot see all things visibly, there is always something going on invisibly. In the dark of night, we cannot see as well as day time, but still something is going on, and sometimes something can be seen and heard more than in the day time. Shadows can only exist because of light. If there’s no light, we cannot see anything. Light has lightness, but also has darkness. Light and dark always exist together.

 However, it does not follow that the invisible things are better or more valuable than the visible things. I believe there are no absolutes in the material world. Everything has relative concepts contained within it. Why would invisible things be more important than the visible things? Invisible things are harder to find, and the visible things cannot exist forever. Visible things are fragile. Every material thing will disappear at some point. That is why invisible things could be seen to be more valuable than visible things. But invisible and immaterial things cannot exist without their visible ‘container’; the material percept (medium). Thus, duality is inseparable.      

 

 Dual concepts in the world are the basic principles. It is the atmospheric force of nature; the predisposition of nature:  

Nature as a property of matter.

    The physical world. (visible)

    General sense of materials.

    The rule of nature is the rule of the world (essential nature). (invisible)

        Nature as a property of mind.                    The instinct and the intuition. (invisible)    General sense of self.

    Nature and intuition are needed to survive in the natural world (visible).

 These dual concepts explain this organic and connected world.  

 

 

Manifesto on Art and Commerce

Posted in SKC text+writing by Suk Kyoung Choi on February 7, 2008

According to Andy Warhol, “the reason I’m painting this way is because I want to be a machine” (Norbert Lynton, p.294). In the culture industry, in the assembly line of the art world, an artist is a complicit in that process as a worker, but also functions as a director in that system. Artists making money, promoting themselves, are hardly anything new in this society. Although an art work may be sold for ‘tons of money’, the art work may not be always great; on the other hand, an expensive work is not always ‘not a great’ work. Money should not be a determinant of value. But in the contemporary view, material value is higher than the aesthetic (immaterial) value.

The art market today is not much different from totalitarianism. If the market truly has many different choices, and if there really are various different consumers’ appreciations, then this would positively develop the art world, even the art market. But, today’s art market is totally different from Ben Davis’ dictum: “The first thing we need to recognize about the art market is that it has given us greater pluralism” (Art Class). The obvious desire of today’s art consumers is prettier, bigger, more sensational and more of the same.

As Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer point out, “by craftily sanctioning the demand for rubbish [the culture industry] inaugurates total harmony” (The Culture Industry). Demands from the mass culture industry of today are monopolized. Artists have to have a collective responsibility as culture makers. Johanna Drucker criticizes in Sweet Dreams, “the [artists’] appearance of radicalism cloaked the careerism of many artists” (Drucker).

Paul Virilio’s Art and Fear expresses the alleged decay and disappearance of pity and compassion in contemporary art practices that are ‘increasingly demoralizing, horrifyingly self-indulgent, and ultimately, entirely irrelevant’. He writes that there is a threshold that should not be broken: “Without limits, there is no value; without value there is no esteem, no respect, and especially no pity: death to the referee! You know how it goes” (p. 33).

Without limits, parameters, an art work is not art. Artists have to put their own ethical boundary, aesthetic boundary on their works. A boundary that would make clear what is inclusive in the art work and what is out of bounds.

Art biennales have extensively promoted local art to be shown in so called mainstream society. The power of the art biennale boom was its efficiency in the movement of art into mass society; the art (biennale) has now become trendy. It has become a mechanism for the fulfillment of desire. The art biennales promote art as periodical events, furthering ‘the art of speed’; this has been one of the major factors accelerating the volume of production in art world. Speed, moreover, acceleration is a constant worry for me. All the components of today are overheating from accelerating speed. For the last 20 to 30 years, internationally, art biennales have continuously demonstrated and determined the current compulsive speed in art; this successive remanufacturing of belief in the latest issue gives rise to an inexhaustible supply of fresh commodity.

I believe one of the most important artists’ roles now is considering the world that we are living in. I see culture as the medium; and the artist as the culture ADAPTER –CREATOR – SUBVERTER. As one of these culture makers, we have to recognize and keep reporting, criticizing, and changing the society we live in.
 

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  ***Bibliography

  Adorno, Theodor W. Horkheimer, Max. The Culture Industry. Retrieved 2 February, 2008. http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/SWA/Culture_industry_1.shtml

  Davis, Ben. “Art Class”. Retrieved 28, Janurary. 2008. http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/davis/davis8-24-07.asp

  Drucker, Johanna. Sweet Dreams. Retrieved 28, January, 2008. http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/165043.html 

  Lynton, Norbert. The Story of Modern Art. London/New York: Phaidon. (2001).

  Virilio, Paul. Art and Fear. trans. Julie Rose. New York: Continuum. 2006.

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