Reading Christ Lapa’s entry (hey chris!) reminded me of a conversation I had earlier this afternoon with my younger sister, regarding a recent writer in residence at her high school. Whilst assisting classes she had attempted to rally the students to raise funds and awareness for victims of the recent floods in Pakistan. After she left, it was ‘revealed’ that the writer was doing it all for personal publicity, to make her self look good by leading a band of students to make positive change in the world. My sister was lamenting how shameless some people were, exploiting catastrophes for their own self-promotion… What struck me as the true travesty of the situation was the spite of the student body towards the writer’s project, regardless of her intentions. The UN Secretary General described the disaster as worse than anything he had ever seen before. Yet nobody at this school wanted to get involved with the ‘do-gooder’ or her work, despite the urgency of the aid she was advocating.
What the hell is holding people back? Why the stigmatism of “do-gooders” and lethargic, even reluctant response? Is there inadequate pathos imbued in these events or is it the empathetic capacity of the world at large that is dysfunctional? AAARRRHGHH!
Ok, having got that off my chest, to link back to this week’s discussion-
The WochenKlauser collective talk about the “do-gooder syndrome” and the ineffectiveness of formal social institutes/operatives to achieve real social change, shackled as they are by formalities, conventions and regulations, which stifle their efficiency and thus effectiveness when attempting to institute social reform and/or amelioration. They see art as an “unorthodox approach” to social problems which through a process of aestheticization (read philosophizing, or put more simply- thinking about) can be addressed more efficiently than by conventional methodologies/vectors of action. As they point out art has certain freedoms and maneuverability from where “the deficiencies of codified politics can be pointed out and their resolutions can be paradigmatically demonstrated. Art's opportunity to approach a problem unconventionally, naively and open-mindedly is in principle an opportunity open to anyone who approaches a problem from outside.” They dismiss the notion that art is “useless”, instead focusing on the specific productive potential and “work” that the art does (artwork), with a view to a quantifiable outcome, rather than a vague impressionistic dialogue between audience, artwork and artist. This art does not exist outside of the art world, instead operates parasitically (architecturally speaking) for productive ends; rather than abandoning the project of art they push for a shift in the conception of art asking “What is the word art used for,” and “Who achieves what with it?”
I regard this shift as not only significant, but absolutely critical at this point in time. We are at a watershed moment in regards to communication technologies and conceptions of community as the first generation not to know of an age prior to the internet comes of age. Similarly, our (western society) immersion in digitally interfaced communication mediums is having a huge effect on the psychic condition on the population- there has been a well documented decline in people’s level of /capacity for empathy, and with it shorter attention spans, infantilism, and an increase in the frequency of outbursts of sudden violent behavior (dubbed by some as “Internet Aspergers Syndrome”). It seems important to be considering ways to combat apathy and a defeatists positions- I’m only one person, what can I really achieve- and groups like WochenKlausur are attempting that at a grass roots level, as are the other artists/art groups listed by Grant Kester in the introduction to his book Conversation Pieces. What links them all is a push for people to regard their own (as well as one another’s) ideas and opinions and valuable and tenable in a political/intellectual economy, as well as powerful and capable of effective real, material change in the world, and above all insistence that people think and critically engage with the world at large… a lesson that a cohort of certain private school girls are in dire need of.
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Aid relief for the floods in Pakistan have received an abysmally small volume of aid and donations in comparison to other recent natural disasters. Some 20 million people have been affected by flooding, a 5th of the population has been evacuated, hospital beds are being shared by four people at a time and doctors predict an explosion of infectious diseases in the coming 6 weeks due to malnutrition, overcrowding, unhygienic living conditions and inadequate medical infrastructure. If anyone wants to read more or donate please do so here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special_reports/pakistan_floods/
Disasters Emergency Committee
http://www.dec.org.uk/
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