WHAT IS IT… AND DOES IT MATTER?
Whether something is art or not has been the subject of many a public debate. It’s one of those things, like’ the meaning of life, the universe and everything’ that most of us hold in the back of our minds but only bring to the front occasionally. It’s just too tiring to consider all the time. But it is something that I like to review now and again because I think it’s important to know what you’re aiming for.
To answer the question you do of course need to have sorted out what your personal definition is, and that can often come down to something akin to believing in god i.e. a suspension of logic and a leap into the pool of ‘faith beyond reason’. That though leads to the road of sloppy thinking and a general ‘I know what I feel but don’t know how to define it’ type approach which also isn’t very helpful.
I was thinking about this the other day as my partner and I were in the office working together. She is currently doing an MA in Sociological research and it just so happened that we found ourselves transcribing interviews at the same time. Whilst everything she has to do is referenced in order to qualify the source, when you actually look at what the source is, the opinions expressed therein are often very debatable, but find themselves being used to qualify another person’s point of view. It’s almost like the act of referencing makes something legitimate. I do understand the nature of how this works, that it opens up the debate and adds to a larger perspective but it doesn’t make it necessarily more valid than a more singular approach.
So I wondered at my own activity.
I sit here going through the sessions I have thus far been involved in with the Rink project and pick out what video clips or conversational snippets appeal to me. I filter them and put them in a pile of ‘things that might be useful’ when I put the whole piece together. Working with people in this way has made me think more about the nature of my activity. Whilst an academic researcher might reference Goffman, Foucault or Durkheim to back up certain sociological propositions, who do I reference?
I seem to run off instinct, but it is an instinct that I know isn’t just floating about in an intellectual no-man’s land. If I ask the big question of myself I come up with a mixed bag of references. I am tempted always to run to the history of painting – to a history that eventually led to the dematerialisation of the art object and to performance art. Once into that loop I could even go back to the history of the moving image, and to what constitutes ‘documentary’. The Grierson tradition and all that followed. The French new wave film makers, in particular Godard (who for some reason I frame in my head as a 60’s Sartre) still operate within a defined tradition… and then further on, circling round to video art which was a product of that very ‘art dematerialisation’ process.
What seems to make what I am doing different to an academic pursuit is that I decide entirely which references I use and am under no obligation to qualify my sources. I am in effect making my own language, whilst using the predominant alphabet and many of the existing words. There is a freedom which I would say art allows, which isn’t so evident in other disciplines.
My nature is to to look logic straight in the eye… and then take a side step… trying not to let ‘the bride stripped bare’ become just another naked lady. Occupying this space demands a degree of integrity, particularly as I am using the representation of others as a subject.
I think I know where artisan ends and art begins (or blurs anyway) but it’s a personal jigsaw definition and I imagine my work is made out of these jigsaw pieces of history, partiality and prejudice… which is fine by me.
Now back to the plot…
