Friday, April 21, 2006

7 april 2006


Unpick the twee from the not twee….(nick cave-the idea of grating)
(these ideas were generated during a conversation with Gerrie van Noord in London)….



For the most part the idea of the phenomenological experience has had much to do with betterment or spiritual enlightenment. But based on the conversation today, and the ability to look at things from a more informed position thus far into the research, I have many questions about the nature of the phenomenological experience. For the most part within the art produced to date which is benchmarked for its phenomenological content is mostly the producer of pleasant spiritually enhancing experiences: Robert Irwin’s ‘Excurses: Homage to the Square’, James Turrell’s ‘Meeting Place’, Dan Graham’s ‘Pavilions’, Dan Flavin ‘various works’ for the most part are viewed as being spaces where one can go and leave feeling almost spiritually enhanced. The expectation is that the viewers’ experience will not be one of discomfort. What then of work meant to challenge the viewer both physically and emotionally perhaps in ways that are not always based within spirtitual enhancement? For instance Thomas Hirschorn’s work, at times it challenges notions of comfort, or at least my own personal notions of comfort, but it doesn’t keep my from interacting with the work. How can that feeling be used? What of the work where the intention is to make one uncomfortable? While there might not be a clear explanation within contemporary art, one only has to look to film. Why are scary movies such a huge genre? Why do people yearn to be frightened and challenged in what can be considered a perverse manner? This line of questioning brings up other ways of obtaining and achieving ecstasy: piercing, tattoos, S+M. While these experiences are considered on the fringes of society their pursuit is no different than Turrell, Irwin, Flavin etc. How then do we move beyond the idea of shock factor and utilize aspect from these fringe genres. The exploration of Horror has not been overlooked: artists such as Banks Violette look at construct of horror. I want to utilize the actual feelings being produced. Why do people like being scared, and in a sense being scared is a much more honest reaction than a lot of things. It’s completely in the moment…its not entangled in a sense of intellectualism. It happens and the reaction is quick and fierce. Irwin stated that he wanted to his work to be about the act of perceiving….which in some way is an impossible task. Can you be engaged in the action of perception while critically understanding the mechanics? Perception quite often happens before one has any idea that something has happened. In a sense then horror movies are a good genre to follow. Is it because being scared is a more honest response; is the phenomenological experience all about honest experiences? What is the basis or the parameters of an honest experience? Can there ever be honest experiences within art? Out-with art can there be honest experiences full stop? When we have experiences we tend not to question their validity….but can is it actually possible for an experience created by one person to be ‘honest’ to another. It would probably be said that yes it is totally possible, but that then begs us to ask what is an honest experience? Because of its highly subjective nature it would seem impossible to validate an experience as such, what is honest to one, could be a phallacy to another; this model is also highly applicable to phenomenological experiences. It’s a term fraught with false definitions and presupposed knowledge, but what does it mean? If it means something different for each person does one only create experiences for themselves and hope that others find some sort of in road into the creators hermetically sealed world of reference? (look at the practices of Mark Manders, and Tomas Demand as reference point. Both Manders and Demand have managed to create their own contexts from which to reference that both operate within the larger scale of contemporary art as well as out-with it. However work that is created with the hope of giving something to everyone is no better than your average Hollywood movie. The material should maintain a high level of critical rigor whilst being accessible

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