Zoekresultaten

Being an artist in post-Fordist times

Being an artist in Post-Fordist Times, sketches a provocative impression of the manner in which prominent artists, theorests and art intermediaries relate to economic, political, social and ecological issues. It presents an instructive narrative about power and impotence, cyniscism and utopia, nihilism and engagement aimed at all those who presently dare themselves to call themselves artists and everyone who wants to understand and defend the importance of the role of the arts in society

Rural Community Art and the External Artist Practitioner

Ebifananyi (bookcircles)

A presentation within the framework of the 'week of the artist book' [wkb] in Groningen in which I tried to respond with the books I made and their content that shows Ugandan past and present realities within the neo-rococo board room of kunstlievend genootschap Pictura.

Post-Precarity Zine

The Institute of Network Cultures and the Learning Community Critical Making are proud to present the Post-Precarity Zine, a toolbox for beginning artists.Times have changed. The art world and the creative economy are no longer the ones we used to know. The digital economy, the pandemic, and the cuts within the cultural field are some of the many factors that influence our practices and the way artists live nowadays. While some claim that the golden eras are gone, and maybe they are, a community of young artists and thinkers meets to discuss the ways in which the narrative around art and its practices has changed and can be geared towards the future.What does it mean to be an artist today? How to survive as a cultural worker while making what you want to make? How can we use contemporary platforms to turn our anger into transformative power? What are the many strategies of organization and obstacles artists have to face nowadays for their practice to remain? By better understanding the structures of the art world and its economies, how can we counteract them and use them to our benefit and create sustainable and collective actions?It is with such questions in mind that the first Post-Precarity Precarity Autumn Camp was organized by the Institute of Network Cultures, Platform BK and Hotel Maria Kapel from September 27th until October 1st, 2021. This zine collects extracts of texts, testimonials, precious reports, summaries of our daily programs, quotes, drawings and notes from the many participants, references to relevant sources, an open letter to Dutch art academies with four demands for change, an essay on principles for post-precarity, and exercises you can do at home to recalibrate your ‘artistic biotope’. With this mumble jumble, we give you a window to our inspiring week, a toolkit, and a fragmented manifesto. We hope to inspire you with our critical reflections, optimism, and the actions taken during the Post-Precarity Autumn Camp!

A point of no return

One of the characteristics of arts-based environmental education is that it encourages participants to be receptive to nature in new and uncommon ways. The participant is encouraged to immerse him or herself in nature, to seek a “deep identification.” In my paper I explore if there could be cases where such immersion may reach – or even go beyond – a point of no return. A point, where the “intertwining” with nature causes the subject to sever the “life lines” to the world which would enable him or her to maintain the psychological, cultural and spiritual integrity of the ego. The dissolving of the ego’s boundaries through artistic practice can be seen as having certain shamanistic qualities, specifically in cases when this transgression involves efforts to connect with other animal species. Such undertakings may constitute – at least in the perception of the shaman-artist – a form of “going native,” becoming “one” with the non-human Others.As relevant cases I discuss the “trespassing” from the world of culture into the world of nature by Joseph Beuys in his famous studio encounter with a coyote and Timothy Treadwell entering the life-world of the grizzly bears in Alaska, for which he ultimately paid the price of death (the tragic story was documented in Werner Herzog’s film “Grizzly Man”).I analyze these phenomena along the distinction between Apollonian versus Dionysian sensibility in cultural activity as articulated by Nietzsche. Finally I discuss some pedagogical implications for teachers and facilitators who encourage an attitude of radical amazement and vulnerability in arts-based environmental education.

Art as encounter

In this essay I will discuss the specific nature of art practices in which the artist and his audience are moving away from the more traditional relationship in which the artist merely displays his art in museums or public spaces. They consist of intimate and personal processes made possible by the grace of the artistic space that is separating itself from the coded space around it. In these practices the public takes on a different role than that of the passive spectator. The involvement of the public in what art is and can be becomes part of the experience. This turns art into something to be a part of rather than something that is simply handed over to you. More specifically, these art practices allow for a time and site-specific situated form of co-ownership, through which the artistic environment created by the artist becomes the condition for experiencing new ideas and insights. In relation to theatre, the French philosopher Jacques Rancière (1940-) writes in The Emancipated Spectator (2015) about “a theater without an audience” that “no longer tempts with its images but teaches the audience something that turns them into active participants rather than passive voyeurs”. (Rancière 2015: 9-10) These practices are not new. New is perhaps the shift of focus from public participation in processes of interaction towards developing a theatrical space that not only makes other types of expression possible, but also taking on other roles and with that, other perspectives. This notion will therefore be the main focus of this text.