Blogalogueing with Lee Montgomery
LeE:
this is me.. LeE… the one I told you about.
You:
Hi Lee! You know I just realized I could have probably been doing the interview this whole time, just set a deadline and you coulda responded at your leisure.
You:
Here are the four questions I’ve been using as a jumping off point for all the conversations, esp the first one:
1. How do you define systems, networks, and systems vs. networks?
2. What, if any, system and/or network do you feel you are a part of? As individuals? As artists? As NPR?
3. What, if any, systems and/or networks do you feel you are unwillingly a part of? As individuals? As artists? As NPR?
4. How do you feel that your work interfaces with your definition of systems and network?
5. How does the system and/or network act upon your work? What effect, that is entirely out of your control, do systems and/or networks alone have on your work?
You:
Are you there? Just checking in…
LeE:
now I am here
LeE:
in my office.. headed home in about a half hour…
LeE:
I will start answering these quex as soon as I get home….. and you can follow up at your liesure… this google wave thing is awesome that way.
You:
that sounds great. safe travels!
LeE:
alright.. here begin my answers….
1. How do you define systems, networks, and systems vs. networks?
I think I consider the terms largely synonymous, though due to the vagaries of the English language, and perhaps even the nature of technology/corporate ownership, they can take on vastly different meanings. I was thinking of a sewer system versus a network of sewers, or the Columbia Broadcast System (CBS) versus the Cable News Network (CNN). System seems a more generalized word, and in my mind a more centralized almost fascist sense of the concept, whereas a network implies more of a sense of possibility and connection. It is a framework to be used and moved about within rather than a set of rules to be imposed. That said, I see no significant difference between a sewer system and a network of sewers.
2. What, if any, system and/or network do you feel you are a part of? As an individual? As an artist? As NPR?
With NPR, there has certainly been a commentary on the system of corporate owned media networks in the United States. In my recent personal work there has been an engagement with the system of copyright law in the U.S. and abroad. (i.e. http://www.lee-web.net/symphony/). But these are operations within those sewers I was mentioning before.
On the sunny side of the street from that sewer I have had the pleasure, through these endeavours, of collaborating with a number of artists and artist spaces like Kristin Lucas, Artist’s Television Accces, Southern Exposure, Red76, kuda.org and a host of badass and not so badass expressive individuals who have passed through the doors or in front of the microphones of any of the numerous radio stations that NPR has had the pleasure of establishing for short periods of time of the past 6 years.
Recently I found myself attached to the network of University of New Mexico faculty (not yet a Facebook network), which resulted in working with my colleague Catherine Harris to build a system of propellers activated by a hand operated water pump (I just did the pump)… so now I operate within the network of tinkerers who work with water pumps??? (and believe me, there is a network there) … which I guess also puts me in the Ecological/Land Art network.. which is kinda hard to avoid here in New Mexico.
I guess what I am getting at…. is that I like to consider myself part of a network or a system (in the most positive sense) at all times(a really big one), and the more the merrier, for me. I don’t think I work well in a vacuum or in isolation. I love Facebook… and want to make art with it… I love Lee Walton’s work where he interpret’s his friends status messages, though I’m deeply saddened that he hasn’t made a video about any of mine. (We’re in the Lee network after all.) I’m inclined towards an almost new age interpretation of quantum physics, wherein we all realize ourselves as part of a larger whole system, network, whatevs.
Blogalogue, Part 4: Lee Montgomery
Picture taken from Switch22
Lee Montgomery got his BA in Film at Bard College, and an MFA in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute. As the founder of Neighborhood Public Radio, Lee has received grants from CEC Artslink, the Creative Work Fund, and the Walter and Elise Haas Fund. He has been an artist in residence with kuda in Novi Sad, Serbia and the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunst in Hamburg.
Neighborhood Public Radio has been named “Best Super Local Radio Station” by San Francisco magazine and has been featured in The San Francsico Chronicle, Punk Planet magazine, Artforum, the Chicago Reader, and Women’s Wear Daily. As a traveling band of guerilla broadcasters, NPR has hosted thematic broadcasts far and wide, including at both Artist’s Television Access and Southern Exposure Gallery in San Francisco’s Mission District, The DeYoung Museum and the Museum for Contemporary Art Novi Sad, Serbia. In 2008, NPR completed an unprecedented 4 month residency in a storefront next door to the Whitney Museum as part of the 2008 Whitney Biennial.
In his solo work, Lee continues to explore d.i.y. approaches to technology and issues of copyright law.
Stick around for my blogalogue with Lee by way of Google Wave…because, as if this blogalogue experiment weren’t interesting enough, now all of you who are still eagerly awaiting your invitations to Google Wave have a chance to see the app put to use in real life! Just slap a red hat on my head and call me Mama Noel. The smiles on your faces that I will never see are thanks enough.
Blogalogueing with Kristin Lucas
Leave it to a web artist to push the boundaries in interview formats! Keep reading to experience mine and Kristin Lucas’s systems vs. networks conversation, Twitter style…
Nikksters: How do you define systems and networks? What’s the diff between the two?
ksl2: Systm n Netwrk not easy 2 dstnguish; they r compatibl, multifactd, structurs dependnt on connectvty. Depend on context could mean same thng.
ksl2: a couple more thoughts…
ksl2: Netwrk implies physicality (hardware) and functionality where system is rooted n ideology n abstraction. You “network”, you do not “system”.
ksl2: and…
ksl2: Network can turn off your electricity; System can ruin your credit.
ksl2: System can have Network in place; Network can have an operating System.
ksl2: next question
Nikksters: so are they interchangeable? can systems and networks morph into each other, i.e. systems become networks and vis versa?
ksl2: They can mutate, maybe not into each other like shape shifters or dopple gangers.
ksl2: i think doppleganger might be one word!
ksl2: They can share many of the same characteristics. You have to activate to know the difference sometimes.
Nikksters: Wut systems/networks do u feel u r a part of? Which of these systems and/or networks do u feel u r part of voluntarily/involuntarily?
ksl2: State, bank, service providr, buyr, insurd, account holdr, frequnt travelr progrm, list serv, direct mail target, user group, faq, audience,
ksl2: of public radio, news, music, movi reviews, Internt, news audience, social netwrks, blogs, traind artist, teachr, cat ownr, vegetarian, CSA,
ksl2: political affiliation, fan, family, friends, family-and-friends plan, arts community, patron, gallery, colleagues, nomads, early risers…
ksl2: Some of the best thriving networks don’t have names; in the naming something is lost.
ksl2: Feelings are often mixed about my participation in these relationships. Both inactive and active connections can be felt.
ksl2: Seems one is either ‘on’ or ‘off’ grid. No n between. Activity is activity, small or grand; u r there, Network thrives on yr participation.
ksl2: more coming…
ksl2: Gray area. There is a trade off. To benefit from a system/netwrk, u oftn have 2 involuntarily join othrs. There are concessions that u make.
ETeam Reflections…
In case you didn’t notice, ETeam did a pretty good job of turning the tables on me. It would seem that systems and networks are tricky and unpredictable that way…
ETeam’s take on systems and networks was a fairly big departure from that of EcoArtTech’s. EcoArtTech seemed to accept the role of systems and networks and try to use it to their advantage, while ETeam gave me the impression that they were still in the process of learning about systems…Almost as if there were too many systems yet to be discovered for them to really make any definitive statements about through their work.
It was also interesting to note how much consideration was given to time in relation to our discussion of systems and networks. ETeam placed a particular emphasis on how time was the key to entering new systems, whereas EcoArtTech’s approach seemed to be more that systems and networks were thrusted upon you. I don’t know if EcoArtTech would agree or disagree with ETeam’s position, but I thought it important to note how each artistic duo considered systems/networks differently right out of the gate.
I feel as though the spectrum for answers on the great systems vs. networks debate has been opened up with this last conversation. I wonder where Kristin Lucas will fall in next…
Blogalogueing with ETeam
Preface: The following conversation took place in Second Life, at ETeam’s Second Life dumpster. I am Salty Clarity; ETeam is Lothar Apfelbaum and Tempo Strom.
Tempo Strom is Online
Lothar Apfelbaum is OnlineSalty Clarity: Hi guys!
Lothar Apfelbaum: hi Salty
Tempo Strom: hi there
Lothar Apfelbaum: glad you found your way here
Salty Clarity: as you can tell i’m not great with second life yet
Salty Clarity: So then how about we get started? do some pictures mebbe afterwards, or if you wanted to even during?
Tempo Strom:
Lothar Apfelbaum: we’ll do some pictures inbetween…
Salty Clarity: That sounds good. Man it took me like
Lothar Apfelbaum: it’s easy
Salty Clarity: 20 minutes to just focus in on my avatar
Salty Clarity: who, by the way, doesn’t have panties. soo…just a heads up.
Salty Clarity: lol i need to find her some under garments.
Lothar Apfelbaum: no problem…
Salty Clarity: but anyways. So, where I left off with Cary
Salty Clarity: was he was explaining how he first got to know you guys
Salty Clarity: which was through 1.1 acre flat screen
Salty Clarity: Do you wanna talk a little more about that project?
Tempo Strom: sure
Tempo Strom: we can give a brief summary
Tempo Strom: it was also the first piece of land we had ever bought and owned
Tempo Strom: it was 2002 and we found out that you can buy land on ebay
Tempo Strom: and really cheap
Tempo Strom: we placed a bid and a couple hours later we were the lucky owners of 1,1 acre desert in utah
Tempo Strom: for $450
Tempo Strom: that’s how it started
Salty Clarity: Wow!
Tempo Strom: then we had to figure out what to do with it.
Tempo Strom: we developed a 5 step plan for one year and after this year we wanted to auction the land off again
Tempo Strom: during this year we did a couple of things with the land, a residency program and a trainstop inn.
Tempo Strom: the trainstop inn was our attempt to improve the infrastructure of the land
Tempo Strom: by stopping one of the nearby running trains.
Tempo Strom: I guess that’s the quick version of this project
Salty Clarity: And so were you presenting this at a convention when you met Cary Peppermint of Eco Art Tech?
Lothar Apfelbaum: 1. buying 2. finding 3. temporary use 4. improvement 5. selling the land
Tempo Strom: No we were both in a show at Pace University
Salty Clarity: Ahh ok
Tempo Strom: the title of the show was ebay
Tempo Strom: …
Salty Clarity: Ha!
Tempo Strom: there was a talk and presentation at one point and that’s where we met.
Salty Clarity: Ok, so now that we’ve given a bit of background on 1.1 Acre Flat Screen, would you like to also say a little bit about where we are?
Lothar Apfelbaum: we are at the SL Dumpster.
Tempo Strom: 4096sqm full of trash
Tempo Strom: slowly decaying
Salty Clarity: Which is another project that you can learn more about here…
Salty Clarity: And now getting to the heart of the matter…
Salty Clarity: How do you define systems, networks, and systems vs. networks?
Continue reading »
Blogalogue, Part 2: About ETeam
ETeam is comprised of Hajoe and Franziska. They were introduced to me by Cary Peppermint, who met them at an exhibition they all participated in, called Ebay. ETeam’s work includes mainly long-term projects, wherein time is just as much an artistic component of the final result as anything else… Just look at 1.1 Acre or International Airport Montello.
To learn more about Hajoe and Franziska, visit their website here.
However, one of ETeam’s projects spoke to me above all the rest: a dumpster created for the virtual reality world Second Life. After viewing ETeam’s Second Life dumpster project (read the blog here) and having viewed Art21’s Season Five segment on Cao Fei, I thought it was only fitting that the three of us should meet in Second Life, at the dumpster, for our interview. Second Life, for many, is more than just a fantasy get away; it’s a chance at an ideal life in an Utopian society. It’s hard to really negatively judge another avatar’s looks when half of the population is running around as robots or monster/people hybrids. In Second Life, you can have any occupation you want, any day of the week; own any piece of water-front property that you’d like; any first name you’d like; even have as many relationships with as many different partners as possible (if that’s your thing, of course).
Artists have been interfacing with Second Life in unique and interesting ways, but what struck me most about ETeam’s approach, and what always seems to strike me about art that deals with Second Life, is that ETeam was imbuing this utopian ideal with a small piece of dirty reality. Dumpsters represent progress and the maturation of our societies insofar as there are more benefits to sequestering waste to a limited area away from where people spend their lives. On the other hand, now that society has matured to a point considerably removed from the days when poo and disease-ridden corpses were flung about (Ring Around the Rosie, anyone?), the very same landmark that represented social progress has now come to signify social irresponsibility. Dumpsters, or more specifically landfills, pose a real threat to both environment and society alike. No one wants to live near a landfill (clearly) but at the same time, the amount of garbage produced by the average American home is making the demand for more and more landfills increasingly high. Beyond this, landfills also produce toxic emissions, the two most concerning ones being hydro and atmospheric emissions. Through atmospheric emissions, landfills have largely contributed to the depletion of the ozone layer. Furthermore, landfills can leak into nearby streams or simply be absorbed into the ground, and eventually end up in YOUR drinking water or polluting our freshest sources of water below the Earth’s surface. (Read more about the environmental implications of landfills here.)
The flip side of all this horror and ugliness is that under the growing threat of global warming and Al Gore, our society has been inspired to right the wrongs of landfills. Many institutions are experimenting with running their facilities off of landfill emissions, and efforts to increase recycling are at an all-time high. It would almost seem that we’ve come back full circle, and the problem of the landfill will soon enough shed its skin, as human horror to come to signify human progress once more.
All this, of course, reminds me of Eco Art Tech’s Eclipse, 2009 project, and our discussion of “pretty pollution.” (Listen to our conversation here for a refresher.) I couldn’t help but wonder (yes, that’s a SatC reference)…Would ETeam have a similar opinion on networks and systems as EcoArtTech? Are we all so imbued in the system/network that this whole project will only produce one definition of systems and networks, repeated over and over again?
EcoArtTech Reflections…
My conversation with Eco Art Tech left me feeling a wee bit in the throes of an existential nihilistic crisis. Were systems and networks so radically out of our control? Was I always going to be tossed around between one system/network and another, breast tissue full of DDT and a culito full of flame retardant? Dear lord, I pray not. Sounds awfully uncomfortable.
On the one hand, Cary and Christine did have a point…no one asked me to be born, and certainly no one is asking me if and when I wanna die (although if there is an option for that I’d appreciate that we make the death-date sooner rather than later.) At this stage in my life and career, I could kinda get behind communism (in theory) and yet I’m probably the biggest capitalist piggie you’ve ever met. Or maybe I’m an anarchist? I do like the idea of a life sans-parking tickets…The point to all this being that whichever systems and networks I am a part of are largely unaffected by my participation in them. Is human existence that impotent? Certainly Man has accomplished great things over the spectrum of time, but is all that pennies in comparison to what could be..?
Cary and Christine seemed to have such an upper hand over systems and networks. By accepting the infinite power and ubiquitous place in our lives that systems and networks have, EcoArtTech seemed freed up to engage in more subversive dialogue with the systems and networks they were (in)voluntarily a part of–an enviable position to be in.
But our chain of blogalogues forges on, and up next is ETeam. Perhaps they’ll have a different perspective on the situation—one that tears me from this existential nihilist malaise before I up and tattoo my moneymaker to resemble the centerfold of a National Geographic magazine for no other reason than “why not?”
Making It Happen
Blogalogue Mania Sweeps the Nation!
I have “email balls.” I sit behind my computer screen, protected by a Gmail-cloak of anonymity and I email whomever, whenever, whatever. I landed my first job out of college by emailing a woman I saw on a NY street style blog to compliment her on her killer heels; three months later I was interviewing to be her personal assistant. After finishing a book I recently enjoyed, I did a quick Google search for the author’s contact info and sent a light-hearted message asking for career advice; shortly thereafter I found myself at Stumptown coffee with two espressos and the author/artist Luis Camnitzer. In short, I will email anyone, anywhere—from my cousin in communist Cuba to scholars at the tops of their fields—without fear or trepidation.
And it’s all very ironic, because in real life I’m a bundle of nerves. Most days I barely have the courage to let my Starbucks barista know that I keep asking for my tea with sweetener and she keeps making it for me without. Friends seriously jokingly call me a hamster because, like said animal, I’m small and anxious and if you picked me up you’d feel my whole body shake with worry. Thankfully, unlike said animal, I do not urinate in the same vicinity of where I sleep…but I digress. Email enables me to inhabit a bolder version of myself, opening up a number of opportunities that I might have never pursued in the flesh…and it is this facet of my personality that has factored heavily in the direction I want to take in my time here with Art21.
It all started one day, not so many moons ago, when I was riding the train into NYC and my gaze settled upon a particular advertisement poster. It might have been a poster for Reuters or Bloomberg or some other financially-minded whatever; that part doesn’t matter, because what I got from the poster was that I don’t know the difference between “systems” and “networks.” This bothered me, because I generally consider myself quite good with words, yet I could not arrive at one simple, distinguishable difference between “systems” and “networks.” Before getting off the train I made a note about my quandary (toot toot! SAT word!) and carried on with my business.
A few months later, when it came time for me to be Art21’s blogger-in-residence, I had a sudden epiphany. I had watched the Art21 Systems episode and was reminded of my still-open-ended question regarding “systems versus networks.” I began to ask a few friends what their take was on the dispute, and the reaction across the board was one of shrugged shoulders and convenient subject changes. Dismayed (but not disheartened!) by my lack of results, I carried on with more resolve, asking most everyone I knew and utilizing almost every resource available to me. Still, I had nothing.
Scenes from a Globalized Art World
Patrick Andrade for The New York Times
I’d like to start my guest blogging with Art21 by bringing up a series of questions surrounding globalization and artistic representation. My primary research interest is in the art market and the forces that shape it. With a background in cultural studies, I tend to approach the market through multiple lenses—analyzing it through its cultural, economic, and social contexts and impacts. In the next few weeks, I hope to present some interesting talking points surrounding this very issue, explore how arts communities are built, and feature artists working in exciting, new ways.
Not only can art expose the norms and hierarchies of the existing social order, but it can give us the conceptual means to invent another, making what had once seemed utterly impossible entirely realistic.
— Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Artforum, October 2009.
Last week, the San Francisco Art Institute hosted a panel discussion titled, “Global Art in the Downturn.” Panelists included Hou Hanru and Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev. My first question upon coming across the announcement was, what is the definition of “global art”? This is exactly the question that was first addressed by moderator, Dominic Willsdon of SFMOMA. The agreed-upon definition during the panel discussion was that “global art” included the genres and forms of art that are more popular across the globe, and that it is work presented in biennials, art fairs, and internationally-known institutions, and publications.
There are no set terms or definitions or categories for the levels at which artwork is produced, but what became clear to me in my two years of researching art world ecosystems for my master’s thesis is that artists make conscious decisions about how they want their work to be seen and by whom. At the same time, their agency is limited or co-opted by other art world players, such as curators and dealers who control access to major institutions and exhibitions.
There is no doubt that globalization, or the more nuanced French term mondialisation, has affected the art world as a whole—from the expansion of new markets, to the ability for artists to more easily travel, explore, and present a wider range of ideas, or to the proliferation of biennials and art fairs. How, then, does defining “global art” as the work endorsed by the international art community affect how non-endorsed works or artists are read within a globalized art scene?
Gastro-Vision: Breaking Bread
John Baldessari, "Yours in Food" book jacket image. Princeton Architectural Press, 2004.
Gastro-Vision is a new monthly column dedicated to all things food in contemporary art and visual culture. This month’s post also falls under the Flash Points topic, Systems.
Yours in Food — by Season 5 artist John Baldessari — had, like many other books, been on my Amazon wish list for a couple of years. When I stumbled upon a used copy at Biography Bookshop in Manhattan (note: across the street from Magnolia Bakery) this summer, what had before appeared fun and frivolous seemed a requisite purchase.
Flipping through, I found provocative images of food, dinner tables and eaters, appropriated from film and video as is characteristic of Baldessari’s work. A group of young men wearing overalls and plaid shirts seated for a meal of mashed potatoes, milk and other ostensibly hearty foods suggests a rural working class family. The face at the head of the table is covered by one of Baldessari’s signature colored dots. In other images, a banquet table procession of porcelain dishware and brass candelabras, flanked by women in sequin dresses and pearls, speaks to high society. A picture of stainless steel cafeteria trays and husky men in denim blue shirts hints at a prison scene. Baldessari inserts his hand again in a candid black-and-white shot of a lodge-like dining scene; a series of white circles obscure the faces of white males, suggesting homogeny and self-segregation. On the book jacket (above), jarred pickles and olives, ketchup, a stack of white bread, and what resembles a can of Cheez Whiz, call to mind the all-American pantry. Between these vignettes, Paul Auster, Peter Schjeldahl, David Bryne, Lynne Tilman, Tim Griffin and other notable writers share tales of love, loss and toast; poverty and onion pie; Thanksgiving gluttony; and other reflections on “taste.” Yours in Food is, on the whole, a study of the shared meal, or “breaking bread.”
"Don't Perish" Dinner #3. Courtesy Joseph Montgomery and Jesse Willenbring.
"Don't Perish" Dinner #3. Courtesy Joseph Montgomery and Jesse Willenbring.
“The act of sharing food and drink with others is…an enduring source of aesthetic inspiration,” writes Stephanie Smith, curator of the forthcoming exhibition Feast: Radical Hospitality and Contemporary Art, “Today, the shared meal has become a compelling artistic medium.” Every so often it also inspires a whole curatorial thesis. For the exhibition Don’t Perish, recently at Leo Koenig Inc. Projekte in Manhattan, curators (and practicing artists) Joseph Montgomery and Jesse Willenbring invited friends and strangers to look at work with them “over a meal.” This group show, dinner series, and food-drive in one–an alternative to passive viewing–involved nine potlucks at the gallery spread out over four weeks. Similar to Baldessari, Montgomery and Willenbring demonstrate how the shared meal is itself a system, or paradigm by which to engage viewers in a concept and body of work. Montgomery says:
We had anywhere from 15 to 30 people per night. Tuesday nights were very crowded. Saturday nights on the smaller side. Conversations changed the work…Everything was not original; conversations were repeated [and] similar dishes cooked, but the act of being there again and again brought strength and endurance to the show…All the smoke, smells, looking, colors, breath, and words were absorbed, polished into the art, tables and shelves.
