Spring 2013
Art 730:
Graduate Seminar in New Forms: Artists as Change Agents
Location: Klapper 174
Professor: Maureen Connor maureenfconnor@gmail.com
Tuesday 4-7:45PM
Does art have a social function? Should it? Even before the 2008 recession began to have a major impact on all of us I began to look for ways to encourage artists and the art community to consider how art might address social problems more directly. I believe that the community of artists (and designers) possesses untapped creative and conceptual resources that could be applied to solving social problems.
It seems to me that there is something about the aesthetic frame that will put a different spin on the conversation….. From a conceptual point of view it makes you think about the language, the structure, the script of the conversation as an artifact, as something that might be done otherwise rather than as an unquestioned protocol. To me that is what the ‘art’ thing does to this conversation.
Shannon Jackson, Bad At Sports Interviewrecorded at the Open Engagement Conference, Portland, Oregon, May, 2012
Socially engaged art functions by attaching itself to subjects and problems that normally belong to other disciplines, moving them temporarily into a space of ambiguity. It is this temporary snatching away of subjects into the realm of art-making that brings new insights to a particular problem or condition and in turn makes it visible to other disciplines.
Pablo Helgera, Education for Socially Engaged Art.
Projects:
1. The first project will address the ‘Classroom’ as social space, space for work and as a workplace (weeks 1-7). We will explore the emerging field of social practice by utilizing the space of our classroom as a laboratory for socially oriented research, processes, discussion and experimentation/play. You will consider the various activities and relationships that exist within a conventionally structured class/classroom and then rethink these relationships to produce projects that challenge standard hierarchies and predicable arrangements and intereactions.
The Spaces of Learning
Thinking of learning as a practice just like painting, drawing, making videos, etc.
Rethinking where and how we practice learning.
Vernacular objects, various forms of communal interaction and independent research, discussion and production shape the space of learning that goes on in the classroom. What works for you, what does not, what can/should be changed?
2. The secondproject will be a self generated project in which you will place yourself in a community of your choice as artist-in-residence: Both projects will be physical and performative art works that require written proposals in advance and that demonstrate engagement with weekly readings and in-class activities.
In addition we will be reading texts and viewing images/videos that provide examples of the work of artists, curators and critics who have explored these issues in various ways.
**I understand that the content of your work may or may not be connected to social practice. The plan is not to persuade you to transform your practices but to put in place modalities of being together that themselves constitute social practice. Social practice is not an object but an experience.
About Reading texts: All readings and other materials not available as a link will be accessible in the google drive named Artist as Change Agent. Everyone in the class will receive an email link to the drive.
Questions to consider about readings:
What forms should our readings and reading discussions take?
Do you want to read in pairs or groups? How would you do this?
Should we formulate a set of questions that emerge from the text (s)?
What happens if you can’t do the reading?
REQUIREMENTSYou are required to spend 3++ hrs. hours in class as an active listener, participant, and co-researcher. Punctuality is mandatory and lateness is not acceptable, as shared time is critical for collaboration and respectful communities of practice.
Syllabus
Week 1. January 28Introduction, explanation of the plan for the course.
The Classroom as an Object of Investigation:
Exercise #1
Modified version of exercise from ON SOCIAL POWER, Starhawk, The Empowerment Manual p. 54
Close your eyes for a moment. Take a deep breath and imagine walking into a meeting of a group that has more social power than you do, a meeting in which you have some vital things to say. Open your eyes and write down what people would have to do to make you feel comfortable to make you feel that your presence was welcome, that your voice would be heard and that your opinions would be valued?”
Each person reads list.
Exercise # 2: Getting to the heart of the matter
Form groups and address the following questions:
Why are we here? What do we care about? What is urgent?
Make a group list.
Exercise #3: Identifying community assets
What do you have to offer the group (skills and gifts)?
What do you want from the group (skills and gifts)?
What are the benefits of identifying community assets?
What suggestions do you have for practical applications of our assets and how would we integrate them our syllabus.
Make a group list in response to each question
Examples of assets
Technological knowledge and expertise
Writing skills
Teaching experience — resources like syllabi and bibliographies
Cooking
Transportation
Friendship and support
Reading for Feb. 4:The Empowerment Manual: A guide for Collaborative Groups by Starhawk: Chapter 4
Viewing for Feb. 4: Look at all examples of collaboration
http://www.working-with-people.org/cynthia-lawson-collaboration/
Assignment for Feb 4:Looking at POWER
Power is our ability to make a difference. Power over relations creates brittle monoculture; sharing of power (power with) creates community and supports power from within. A healthy balance of power comes out of the synergism from everyone contributing their best and igniting the particular talents, experiences and passions that the situation calls for. Community supports each member’s particular way of being – knowing that it is in difference and the sharing of power that the fiber of community is strengthened. We have all experienced the transformation that comes out of sharing power. Tell me a story of a moment when you experienced a true sharing of power or maybe of a time when unequal power relationships were shifted into balance. What was happening? How did it feel? How did people relate to each other? What qualities were in the air? What values were present?
Week 2: Feb. 4
IN-class Activities:
Stories about positive experiences of shared power; discussion
Discussion: What is the culture of classrooms in the Art Department at Queens College?, In this school?, In this city?
Discussion of What is a Classroom? What economies and norms are in place?
Exercise: What social norms do we enact in this classroom?
Each person will receive a behavioral cue.
We will perform ‘student’ during a 5 min. discussion
Reading for next week: Feb. 11
Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Ch. 2
Assignment for next week Feb. 11:
1.Make a list of the various aspects of structure and culture in a classroom
(Identify what is taken for granted in a class, and also what seems to be essential to its functioning.)
2. What would you like to alter in the classroom? Make a list of social dynamics and norms that you’d like to call into question, and a corresponding list of ways you might do this. (furniture, dress code, behavioral norms, new rules, a performative lecture, spatial dynamics, forms of speech, etc.). You have 5 weeks to refine one project for the classroom. Work towards this.
Some things to consider about what goes on in a Classroom
STRUCTURE
roles (describe behavior) e.g. good student, class clown, etc.
tasks ( what goes on, what does it look like?) e.g. raising your hand, watching videos, etc.
spatial dynamics-how is space used, what is the atmosphere e.g. crowded, uncomfortable, sense of isolation??
rules-expectations, what is permitted and what is not?
informal sanctions—e.g. ‘dirty’ looks, discomfort
formal sanctions –meeting with professor, grades
CULTURE
attitudes, norms of the classroom (describe what is typical or expected behavior):
dress code (describe acceptable clothing):
iconographic objects (what objects do you expect to find? What objects would seem out of place?)
Week 3: February 11
In class: Presentation of lists about the classroom: each person will read or present via images, power point, etc.
Discussion of Friere reading
Lecture on alternative forms of education: P2P Schools, Free Schools, Freedom Schools, Unschooling, etc.
Assignment for Feb. 20: Attend lecture at the New School
On the occasion of the publication of What We Made: Conversations on Art and Social Cooperation, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, the Queens Museum, and Creative Time present a conversation between the book’s author Tom Finkelpearl and contributors Brett Cook, Wendy Ewald, Sondra Farganis, Pedro Lasch, and Ernesto Pujol. Together, they examine the activist, participatory, coauthored aesthetic experiences of contemporary art. Carin Kuoni and Nato Thompson respond.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013, 6:30–8:30 p.m.
The New School, Theresa Lang Community and Student Center
55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor
New York City
Free Admission
Week 4. February 18No classes College closed Feb. 20 Classes Follow Monday Schedule
Lecture at New School
Assignment for Feb. 25:
Proposal for Classroom Project: how would you intervene in the classroom. Include what you want to criticize/change e.g. power, roles, objects, materials, etc. This is a proposal for what you plan to present to the class on March 11. Proposal should explain your project in detail using sketches, images, sounds or whatever else is necessary to convey your ideas.
Reading for Feb. 25: Introduction to the Critical Resistance Reader by Stephen Duncombe
Week 5. February 25
In class: Follow up discussion on New School lecture
Presentation of Proposals
Discussion of Duncombe reading
Lecture: Forms of Resistance, forms of Cooperation—Fluxus, Happenings, Post Minimalism, Beuys, Latin American Perf, Art, 70s Feminism, etc.
Some links to videos for more information about artists shown in today’s lecture
Womanhouse
http://www.getty.edu/pacificstandardtime/explore-the-era/archives/v62/
Benglis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq7VkLUhY18
Windsor
http://www.moma.org/explore/multimedia/videos/110
Martha Rosler
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zSA9Rm2PZA
Carolee Schneeman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw_wW2v45eI
Chris Burden
Acconci
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZaD9CHZecE
Beuys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5UXAqpSJDk
Matta-Clark
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Bt9FZvk4zU
Assignment for March 4: Develop an exercise that you will perform with the group that will represent or contribute to your research in some way.
Examples of theatre exercises
http://members.tripod.com/~yep_team/warmup.html
http://www.eduhi.at/dl/theatresections34enyt.pdf
Examples of poetry/writing exercises
http://writing.upenn.edu/bernstein/experiments.html
Reading for March 4: Pablo Helguera’s Variations on an Audience– handout
Week 6. March 4:
In class: Discussion of Helguera reading
Present/enact your activity with the group; discussion of activities
Work in groups to present progress reports, discuss how to present the final version of your classroom intervention.
Week 7. March 11:
In class: Final presentation of project one: classroom interventions
Discussion of Project 2: Embedded Artists/AIR
Viewings for March 18:
Please find time to watch these closely from start to finish before Monday. We will have a lot to discuss.
Ramirez-Jonas’ Public Art (for Jacob) approx. 1 hour
http://vimeo.com/43193508 (password: prj)
Clair Bishop “Participation and Spectacle: Where Are We Now? approx 1 hr 30 min.
Week 8. March 18:
In class: Discussion of videos by Ramirez-Jonas & Bishop–various forms of and opinions about Social Practice
Lecture on Artists as Change Agents: examples of embedded practices
Assignment due on April 8 after Spring break: Draft of Proposal for your AIR placement
Links for research—more on artists as change agents to watch during Spring Break
Jeanne van Heeswijk: winner of Creative Time’s Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change, 2011
Laurie Anderson introduced her talk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eaQjEiGW6s
About Laurie Anderson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurie_Anderson
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/laurie-anderson
Jeanne van Heeswijk’s acceptance speech for the prize at Creative Time Summit(there are glitches and blank spaces in the video but keep watching)
http://creativetime.org/summit/2011/09/23/jeanne-van-heeswijk/
Other information about Jeanne van Heeswijk
http://currystonedesignprize.com/winners/2012/jeanne_van_heeswijk
Rick Lowe & Project Row Houses: winner of Creative Time’s Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change, 2010
Wendell Pierce Introduction to Rick Lowe talk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rrg5aXiEte0
About Wendell Pierce: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Pierce
Rick Lowe’s Acceptance speech
Notes from his talk:
Shotgun house dignity: community support in times of need and growth
How to do Responsible Trespassing
Artist John Biggers
Architecture, Art/creativity, Education, Social safety net
About Project Row Houses
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doK7CUYFYOY
http://projectrowhouses.org/about/
About Wochenklausur
http://www.wochenklausur.at/projekt.php?lang=en&id=37
http://www.wochenklausur.at/projekte/02p_kurz_en.htm
http://www.wochenklausur.at/projekte/01p_kurz_en.htm
http://www.wochenklausur.at/projekte/04p_kurz_en.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Greene_(artist)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmvoNblQGuI
About The Artists Placement Group
http://www2.tate.org.uk/artistplacementgroup/
http://we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2012/10/the-individual-and-the-organis.php#.UlgG8xYwg7U
Readings: an essay I wrote about the Artists Placement group.
“The Artists Placement Group: Context is (not) Everything,” Artists Reclaim the Commons: New Works, New Territories, New Publics, ed. by Glenn Harper and Twylene Moyer, 144-150 ISC Press, 2013 (in google drive)
And here is an essay I wrote about my ongoing embedded project Personnel and some links to images and videos:
“(Con)testing Resources”, in Making Art History: a Changing Discipline and its Institutions, edited by Elizabeth C. Mansfield, 245-263, Routledge, 2007 (google drive)
http://www.maureenconnor.net/Personnelmain.htm
March 25 – April 1 Spring Break
Week 9. April 8:
In class: Presentation of proposals for embedded artist/ AIR project
Discussion of examples viewed and readings
Reading for April 15: Introduction to Conteptual Art by Alex Alberro http://uncopy.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/alberro-stimson-conceptualart.pdf
Assignment for April 15: Write a letter the person in charge or to the person with whom you will be working at the site where you will be embedded as AIR, explaining your project your timeframe and your potential plans.
Week 10. April 15:
In class: Reading and editing of letters in class (work in groups)
Lecture on Conceptual Art
Assignment for April 22: Readings in preparation for discussion of some of the ethical issues that relate to your projects.
I received a notice of an exhibition by the artist Phil Collins http://www.e-flux.com/announcements/andrea-fraser-and-phil-collins/ in which he is using recorded phone conversations of people in a homeless shelter as the basis for a series of songs. This project, along with other work by Phil Collins, seems like a good starting point for a discussion about ethics in social practice. I have put together some short readings about the ethics of social practice:
http://antinomianpress.org/pdf/An%20anthropological%20consideration.pdf
I sent you this one by artist Ben Kinmont earlier in the semester but please look at it again.
http://www2.rgu.ac.uk/subj/ats/ontheedge2/workinginpublicseminars/JH_Ethical_Statement.pdf
This one is mostly a list of protocols and goals looked at through an ethical lens.
http://www.booki.cc/open/on-the-discourse-of-ethics-in-socially-engaged-art-practice/
This one is rather dense but it is useful. It makes specific mention of Phil Collins and also discusses some of the philosophical history of approachesto ethics aswell as aesthetics. The quote below brings out the central ideas but please look at the whole essay even if you find it difficult.
in fact, his emphasis on subjects in constant negotiation with received modes of visibility recalls a Foucauldian concept of ethics as [WITH EMPHASIS] an aesthetic practice. For Foucault, ethics is the forms and practices of self-relation with respect to an ethos—otherwise understood as the discourses and “truth games” the subject inhabits in relation to the community in which they live. The ethical subject thus can be thought to exist in a state of ‘permanent provocation’ between one’s freedoms and one’s role within the communities they inhabit. Indeed, Foucault locates this notion of ethics as self care within ancient Greek practices of what Groys might have called self-design: the specific form that the subject takes, or put another way, how one speaks, eats, dresses, walks, etc. The ethics of the care of the self can be considered as the art of living, the development of a singular set of criteria for how one lives. It is also a form of caring for others in that it begs the question: what form do I give to my freedoms, what ethos to embody? Matthew Rana
http://rilkeanheart.org/v_blog/?p=1091
This one is a kind of self-examinationof the ethics and intentions of one individual in relationto one project.
Week 11. April 22
In class:
1. Discussion of the ethical issues from the readings and how they that relate to your projects.
2. We will do some practice interviews to prepare for interviewing various subjects at your individual sites of embedment using each other as subjects.
3. If there’s time we will go back into Conceptual Art as background for social practice.
Assignment for April 29: The following readings are various conventions for problem solving often used to make sure all the possible aspects of a situation have been considered. They are a bit either ‘corporate’ or ‘design object based’ but still will be useful when preparing your presentations.
Implementation checklists
http://www.mycoted.com/Implementation_Checklists
5 steps to better critical thinking, problem solving and decision making skills
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/think/ps-guffey.htm
Who What Why When How?
http://www.mycoted.com/Five_Ws_and_H
Week 12. April 29
In class:
Discussion of checklists, etc.
Update on projects
Breakout groups to discuss status and problems
Meetings with Maureen to discuss projects
Week 13. May 6:
Review of projects/meetings with Maureen/ working period
Assignment: 15 min. presentation for last class
Week 14. May 13
Final presentations
Visiting respondents
Susan Jahoda & Scott Bersofsky