Sun burn and final weeks

All that nature yesterday - i managed to get sun burnt!

Next week is our last week. You might like to write a blog summing up your ideas/experience in relation to the unit. Please try and back up your statements (dont just make general statements). It is really important that you all turn up to this final class so we can wrap it up and make sure we are all on the same page regarding assessment etc.

This week should be focused on your thoughts on the unit via reading (ramp up your reading in prep for the essay and towards Monday).

Those looking for some direction might want to read this intro to an anthology focused on Ranciere - Communities of Sense

tending

Hi all

In preparation for next week's class with Lucas and Diego here are links to their blogs and projects. They both have lots of links and so on so please follow your nose and read around. Write your blog on things you feel are similar, or critical theory that you think relates directly to their work.

http://www.tending.net.au/

http://www.weedyconnection.com/blog/
http://www.lucazoid.com/bilateral/

An article on Lucas' work in In The Balance
Environmental Audit (MCA) - thanks Georgia

also see
http://theartistasfamily.blogspot.com/

Theatre and Caravans

Hi all

Raunig's Transversal Concatenation is the topic of the next lecture. It's a good idea to become familiar with Raunig's arguments in Art and Revolution. This is a good general into by the Australian Nikos Papastergiadis, it's about Raunig and Ranciere.

Aesthetics and Politics in the age of ambient spectacles

This is an amazing source of texts for this unit:

http://eipcp.net/

also note:
the scroll bar is death. a blog should not require the reader to use the scroll bar. write short entries or you will loose the reader, inc. me!

Laibach - life is life

Next week turn to one of the most successful collectives of the 1990s. This lecture is a case study of the group Laibach and NSK. This is an area of specific interest to me as it crosses my two main research areas, as well as into the world of Zizek.

Zizek's intro to "Interrogation machine: Laiback and NSK" is on the library website.

I strongly suggest you read the other suggested readings, especially
Viktor Misiano, “’Zones of Contact’: From ‘Confidential Zones’ to ‘Operational Zones,”
Zones of Contact: 2006 Biennale of Sydney (Sydney: Biennale of Sydney, 2006),
205-210.

In the Balance

I am sure most of you have seen this, if you haven't yet make sure you get down there in the next few weeks.

IN THE BALANCE: ART FOR A CHANGING WORLD

if the show grabs you check out futurefarmers and also this is stacked full of stuff
- free-soil

Community Practices

Hi all

Along with Collaborative Practices, another key site of critical development are Community and Public practices. The question is raised in week 8 "Who is art for?" Recall the complaint of the relational artist preaching to the converted in 'his' safe commercial gallery space.

I have given a bunch of suggestions in the suggested reading and I strongly suggest you read anything by Miwon Kwon. A chapter from Kwon's book is on the library website:
-Kwon, One Place After Another

This is a local example (note there is a link to download the book in the "book" tab:
- there goes the neighbourhood

enough consumption and enough genuflection!

"…enough consumption and enough genuflection. This is a conception of art that feels

responsible for the social, political and economic conditions under which we live.”

WochenKlausur

Next week we start to look at Collective Practices. What does it mean for artists to turn their backs on the artworld cult of the individual? And importantly what is the difference between the hippies of the 60's, and their collectivism, and the collectivism of the 21st century?

I gave a copy of the intro to Grant Kester's book in class. If you didn't get a copy they are in the yellow envelope on my office door.

Something to think about
- WochenKlausur's FAQ page

How did i get myself in this Situation

Hi all

This week we look at situationism, specifically the situation itself and the anti-art, political practices of situationism. I will focus on ideas around radical antiproductivity, the derive and psychogeography.

In your research you might want to find out what these terms mean. There is a hell of a lot of writing on Situationism out there, it would be great if you could critically engage the myths.

The section from Raunig's book is available on the lib site
- Raunig, "Constructing the Situation"

Also this website is a great source of original writings
- Situationist International Online

Those who want to further research Institutional Critique will be interested in this
- Do you remember institutional critique?

Institutional

Next week we are looking at a number of practices that question certain accepted ideas about art and the art institution. Michael Asher will be at the centre of this discussion - read up on him.

There are three readings from the suggested texts attached to the course on the library database.

Peltomaki, Kirsi. Situation Aesthetics: The Work of Michael Asher. Cambridge, Mass.: 

MIT Press, 2010. 

Alberro, Alexander, and Blake Stimson. Institutional Critique : An Anthology of Artists' 

Writings. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2009. 

"On Three Works by Michael Asher." See This Sound : Promises of Sound and Vision.  Köln, Linz: König, 2009.

The lecture will begin with a discussion of the Institutional Theory of Art (posited by Arthur Danto in 1964).

Here is a useful discussion of the idea:
InstitutionalTheory.pdf

Hal Foster, Arty Party

Here is a link to the article in ereserve:

http://opac.library.usyd.edu.au/search~S4?/rcate+2008/rcate+2008/1,1,1,B/frameset~3786150&FF=rcate+2008&1,1,

You might also want to check the anthology, "Right About Now: Art & Theory Since the 1990s". Papers by Bourriaud, Bishop and Foster

October Journal #110

NOTE: The October Journal issue with the Clare Bishop's paper (110) has a number of other relevant papers, an interview with Huyghe and a paper called "No Ghost".

Some possible approaches to the Blog entry

There have been a couple of questions about expectations for the weekly blog entries.Here are some ideas, feel free to use, expand, ignore, develop.

• discussion of the hand out
• over view of the hand out
• discussion of a specific point/argument in the hand out
• make some points about Relational Aesthetics in general (eg RA is this or that, RA is about this and this)
• find an artist and relate their work to Relational Aesthetics (perhaps from the handout)
• read another text that is pro-RA

NOTE: You must include your name in the "labels" or it wont count - check in the label section to the far right, is your name there?

Expectations

This class is all about engagement and participation.

The areas covered in this class are a core element of my teaching research and I have been researching the area for at least six years. As such I have the advantage of already being into the area and the concepts it draws on and produces.

This class will be focused on self-directed research. You will receive 3 or 4 readings from me and you will be expected to extend this with your own research each week.

Before each class you will be posting to this blog with a paragraph or two about your past week's research and ideas. This means you will all come to class with ideas bouncing around in your head ready to take part in class and critical engage with the ideas present there.

The success of this class will come if we all engage in the ideas and are all open and critical with our ideas.