OtherFilm Festival 2014 has asked us how would we capture the Institution? This is my answer.
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My father was a screw. He started with seemingly impossible ideals of
social change in the Joh era and ended a very cynical, tough as nails,
one-punch man. Thirty plus years later in 2014, we find ourselves in a
‘social turn’ of contemporary art,
[1]
where art is trending towards activism and our conservative governments
are selling/leasing off public interests to private concerns. A private
company working for profit could soon operate the jail my father worked
in. I find myself unable to share my father’s righteous belief in the
Law when the Law and (other Institutions like Art Institutions) are
increasingly serving private interests and the accumulation of value.
Working towards the contrary, other artists and I produce our art within
the context of this ‘social turn’ to disseminate ‘the power over’
hegemony into ‘the power with’ community. Without the technocratic
skills of hacking, I wish to interrupt the surveillance technology with
community concentration. In doing so I ask Art to take a look at itself:
what does activism from within the Institution look like, what does it
hope to achieve and how can it do so without serving private interests.
Artists in the 2014 Sydney Biennale did the seemingly impossible task
of removing a private sector investor, Transfield, due to its parallel
management of Refugee Detention Centres.
[2]
The ‘power over’ which funded the Biennale as well as the inhumane
detention of asylum seeking refugees, suddenly became a ‘power with’ as
artists worked together, writing letters and boycotting the Biennale
finally resulting in a seemingly impossible de-accumulation/divestment
of value for the institution of the Sydney Biennale. ‘The Artist is
Present’ examines this ‘power with’ as I sit with other artists of the
OtherFilm Festival in a state of intense concentration. This exercise is
designed to communicate our ‘power with’ each other, in respect to the
‘power over’ structure of the Jail’s architecture, the ‘power over’
status of government Arts funding and the ‘power to’ the artist-run
organisation, OtherFilm Festival.
[3]
In addition to the political elite, there now exists a technical
elite – a technocracy, people with skills relating to science and
technology. One visit to San Francisco would show you how this new form
of elite is exercising their ‘power over’ fringe communities.
[4]
I reject the idea of elitism by inviting anyone to join me in a psychic
concentration exercise. Anyone who can sit and stare, has the seemingly
impossible ability to cause a post-recording disturbance or digital
artefact. I have previously tested a group’s ability to manifest a
psychic interference in technology and ‘The Artist is Present’ continues
this investigation further.
[5]
‘The Artist is Present’ asks the artist to look at another artist
within the Institution. Not only is it a state of ‘us,’ the artists and
‘them,’ the institution, we are also the ‘us’ inside ‘them.’ So what
does activism within the Institution look like? I formerly thought
creating post-object art was the ideal answer to the commodification of
art, however I find it increasingly creeping into the Art Institution as
commodity and entertainment.
[6]
So therefore, I present a somewhat disturbed reflection of perfomer
extraordinaire Marina Abramovic’s 2010 ‘The Artist is Present’
performance at MOMA. Gone are the stalwarts of our culture commodity;
gone are one of the wealthiest Art Institutions in the world and the
hyper-staging of the artist as celebrity – replaced with artist-run
organisations and the staging of the artist in jail – ever-present is
the state of intense mental and physical concentration between two
bodies . In addition to the former changes, the crazy murmurs of a
psychic ‘power with’ energy, recontextualises Abramovic’s performance
and certainly alludes to the difference of a ‘psycho sub-tropic’
environment.
Before the Joh-era, my father also exercised his ideals in his work
in indigenous remote communities but it was his stint as a screw that
left him cynical. He could not find social change working within the
confines of a large monolithic institution. I believe the key to social
change in large institutions is mobilising the ‘power with.’ Artists
have shown their ‘power with’ each other circumscribes the power of a
large institution whilst even detracting dollar value from said
institution. My work aims to continue keeping art socialised within art
communities in order to enable the ‘power with’ to become visible
between artists, rather than promoting artists as celebrity, elite, and
commodities. We are on our way to capturing institutions.
[1] Anne Marsh.
Performance Ritual Document (Melbourne: MacMillan, 2014), 20.
[2] Alana Lentin and Javed de Costa “Sydney Biennale boycott victory shows divestment works”
The Guardian March 11, 2014.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/11/sydney-biennale-boycott-victory-shows-that-divestment-works
[3] ‘Expressions of Power’ Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. Accessed Nov 24, 2014
http://www.powercube.net/other-forms-of-power/expressions-of-power/
[4] Andrew Umbel “San Francisco’s guerilla protest at Google buses swells to Revolt”
The Observer January 26, 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/25/google-bus-protest-swells-to-revolt-san-francisco
[5] Nicola Morton ‘The Spider in the Machine’
Freerange Vol.8 (2014: 56-64)
[6]
Reilley Bishop-Stall and Natalie Zayne Bussey “Putting the “Cult” Back
in Culture: Power and Performance in Marina Abramovic’s New World Order”
Passengerart June 28, 2013
http://passengerart.com/2013/06/28/putting-the-cult-back-in-culture-marina-abramovics-new-world-order/
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