The posture adopted increasingly by artists as researchers delving into
experimentations, (eventhough we can trace this stance back to the russian
constructivists, the Bauhaus, EAT, A&T, conceptual art,etc.) is in part due
to the fact that many of them are now enrolled in PhD programs where they
theorize their practice and work processes, in light of the methodologies
that are specific to the academic and scientific criteria and arenas. Many
such programs, in Canada, the US, the UK and Europe cater to artists who
wish to analyze «les tenants et les aboutissants» of their work processes
from a theoretical and scientific vantage point. It is a way for artists to
assert that their «research and experimentations» are just as valuable as
those of scientists. This phenomenon has, slowly but surely, been in the
making within the last 30-40 years (in the francophone world anyway) when
the training of artists started to shift from the beaux-arts paradigm to the
academic/university model. Numerous artists, now holding PhD's or MA's,
aside from teaching, are very engaged and involved into the academic life
where they develop new curricula, write for scholarly journals and organize
colloquia and symposia, mainly based on the scientific model. Now it would
be interesting to reverse the question and ask if universities could also
adapt themselves to the artists' multiple and diversified working processes?
Do artists need the scientific imprimatur to legitimize their practice?
Those were interrogations often asked by my fellow artists/colleagues
enrolled in the Art Theory and Practices PhD programme (Études et pratiques
des arts, UQÀM), where I was studying myself, but as one of the few
theorists.
Best,
Sylvie
----- Original Message -----
From: <robert.thill@gmail.com>
To: <c.tron@voila.fr>; "YASMIN DISCUSSIONS"
<yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 3:47 PM
Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Fwd: ARTISTS AS INVENTORS, art as
invention
> Colette,
>
> I increasingly hear of artists referring to "research" and
> "experimentation" in reference to their work process (even in the
> context of traditional studio practices). In doing so, they seem to be
> deliberately aligning their art with academic and scientific practices
> to a certain degree.
>
> It is interesting (and has been noted elsewhere) that the idea of
> "work" is so closely associated with art, as in "artwork" or "work of
> art," "My work . . . ," etc.
>
> Some years back there was a kind of critique of "project-based" work
> by artists who were making site-specific art. They were asking the
> questions: What did this mean to be making a project? What kind of
> model was this vocabulary eluding to? Were artist becoming contracted
> workers in the culture industry, etc.
>
> Best,
>
> Robert
>
> On 3/18/09, c.tron@voila.fr <c.tron@voila.fr> wrote:
>> To answer and add questions to many interesting things exchanged all
>> along
>> these weeks by the discussion on Artists as inventors.
>>
>> - Artists in a cultural industry society are in front of technological
>> tools and a massive mode of production. So one the question is how to
>> integrate or refuse the general conditions for the work of creation and
>> invention ? How to make alive the intellectual and spiritual production
>> into
>> the standard products ?
>>
>> - Artists and scientists are involved with technology. How to articulate
>> both inventions ? Is the scientific invention with technology only an
>> application of scientific solutions or more (and better), it means that a
>> scientific invention introduce a way of life trough new technical objects
>> ?
>> And artist's use of these technical objects would not be an application
>> of
>> the possibilities of the tools but another way of life ? How all this can
>> live together ? Artists and scientists do they have to work close in
>> order
>> to imagine and invent ways of life, and so a new society ?
>>
>> - Leonardo's work included many fields, from engeenering to painting, and
>> in
>> each of ones, he tryed to invent a way to make it work : water machines,
>> war
>> objects, painting representation (perspective, proportions)… So he is
>> considered as an inventor into a large scale. Some say that he had
>> introduced the modern science by his way of thinking. Leonardo is a
>> singular
>> and extraordinary artist. His inventions still continue to exist. Is he
>> the
>> model for our times ?
>>
>> - Do technological innovation has to generate the need to use it for the
>> artists, or aesthetic forms and representation questionning have to be
>> resolved by technological inventions ? Experimentation and research seem
>> to
>> have to be an important part of work for artists and scientists. It is my
>> position and I can see that also in the texts about 3D bitmap or about
>> photography, or Shoffer 's work, and architect Lynn, and so on…
>>
>> Best,
>> Colette
>>
>>
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