LIFE VS ART

“life makes art better than life
art makes life better than art” so said stephen dillane, or tacita dean, the artist or the one living the art, the actor…

together, life and art define our time on this planet, for beings who share a unique faculty called consciousness – or a light shifting behind our eyes – that we strive to understand, or at least define.

art is more than likely the closest we come to going beyond the binary conversations of science and philosophy around dualism and physicalism. art allows for both, or neither, it forges a path beyond our misconceptions and into another realm, where processes and activities become our purpose and define meaning, and hence may give us further understanding to what is i. or really, where is ‘i’.
right now, it is in the bus, or on the rope, or moving toward a large drawing. but that i is not only mine i, is it?

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the human faced with the choice of art or life is really not asking a question at all. how can one be without the other?
is the better question or tension perhaps more about flow vs interruption?

if i flow with this life i am leading or that is leading me i will come to a peace with it and it will come to peace with me, what the universe that i am offers me in the short term will become the narrative to my long term, it will be a ‘natural life story’ – no?
or will this flow not be close enough to pure life force, as in breath, light, water – will the flow i go with actually be the forces of economics, of unbalanced information, of irregular eruptions based on someone else’s greed or need – and so, if I choose this flow will my narrative not end up being something i dread? something totally untoward what i believe in? what do i believe in? and where am i? and is there or ever was there belief after i had my heart broken the third time? if god is dead, where is nietzsche?

surely art (or some other humanities) can help me oscillate these understandings and give me the knowledge and experience i seek?
or will life, the thing outside of me, that truly becomes me be the tide i travel to help me be free. opening to this, i will be, surely, happy?!

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as we go deeper in the great tug of tension (and i’m not talking group masturbation here) let us pull toward the force which will help balance out the other – can one be without the other? of course> but what would be the point?

Written as an introduction to Fee Plumley’s first Tug of War at OpenSourceHome – “where life thought it had it, but art ran away with it”. FP

“Only in an environment in which the forms of artistic and cultural production are defined by the artists and their practice can the arts genuinely flow and grow.”

A recent excerpt of David Pledger’s Platform Paper ReValuing the Artist in the New World Order published on Arts Hub (Aug 2, 2013) offers direct provocations that would go some way in altering the way independent artists influence decisions affecting their future in this country. The original Paper (published by Currency House) goes much deeper and further by providing ample context to this important cause.

Pledger provides a comprehensive and scathing critique of Managerialism and its relationship to a neo-liberal agenda. A relationship that causes the artist to be at an extended arms distance from seats of power. He explains policies and actions employed in Korea, Brazil, Germany and Belgium that place culture in the centre of national identity making (to the benefit of their economies) and provides startling facts as to how Australia’s market driven trends and Managerialist tendencies have already greatly diminished our standing as a contender in the field of contemporary art – across art forms.

The Paper argues strongly as to the reasons why independent artists need to be front and centre in a rapidly shifting and evolving global world. Reminding us of the importance of artists as cultural agents in the 21^st century; that we know and understand the dynamics of change – as this is where our daily practices reside.

“In terms of income, influence and agency, the artist’s lot is a parlous one. Direct funding for individual artists has fallen by about one-third since the 1990’s. In real terms they earn less from their artistic practice then they did 20 years ago. They are barely visible at the elite levels of governance and advice. Their numbers are decreasing. Their autonomy has been compromised and curtailed by policy that has institutionalised them within organisations, venues, and programs. It is not fair to slate home to the ACA (Australia Council for the Arts) alone to blame for this state of affairs, although it has been its main progenitor. The diminution of the artist has been facilitated by the Australian arts industry whose growth is directly linked to maintaining the artist’s inequitable position in the current world order.”

If you have not yet read the Arts Hub article you can view it here, if you have then I advise reading the Paper to fully comprehend the scope of our cultural paradigm from a well grounded perspective.

Keep making, advocating and emancipating Australian art and artists. The future depends on our dreaming and linking!

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If you would like to discuss the paper or the provocations with their author David Pledger can be emailed on <davidpledger@notyet.com.au>

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PlatformPaper_DavidPledger1

from:
www.yhchang.com

video filmed of their video installation at fed square, melbourne, 2013:
Brilliant use of text, sound and energy in public space. (opens into vimeo)