Collaboration
Collaborations are one such means of bypassing individual ego. This however is looked upon as an indulgence, or at the very least a secondary issue in the production of art. Collaboration involves sublimating individual drives and desires over the course of the project. What if the project itself is the sublimation of the individual for the good of the group? Is it possible for the group to expand and yet retain certain fixed rules of collaboration?
Any form of social body develops through a hierarchical process; there will always be individuals with whom the action of power is played out. The power to make and expand governing rules, the power to veto elements considered undesirable to the social project. This naturally makes any form of collaboration problematic for the individual, however, the ability to negotiate and compromise are personality traits highly prized in forging this particular aesthetic.
Collaborations are one such means of bypassing individual ego. This however is looked upon as an indulgence, or at the very least a secondary issue in the production of art. Collaboration involves sublimating individual drives and desires over the course of the project. What if the project itself is the sublimation of the individual for the good of the group? Is it possible for the group to expand and yet retain certain fixed rules of collaboration?
Any form of social body develops through a hierarchical process; there will always be individuals with whom the action of power is played out. The power to make and expand governing rules, the power to veto elements considered undesirable to the social project. This naturally makes any form of collaboration problematic for the individual, however, the ability to negotiate and compromise are personality traits highly prized in forging this particular aesthetic.
A process of miscommunication
Sending visual files back and forth with minimal instruction save the file name itself contains an inherent amount of miscommunication. What is content when mis-communicated, and is this not what lies at the core of all communication, be that visual or otherwise? We attempt to navigate each other’s realities and experience of reality while contributing our own interpretations and thoughts upon a theme. A process of production built on such foundations acknowledges this subjective dilemma from the outset. The viewer encountering such pictorial manifestations resultant from this communicative process should be advised that they are nothing more or less than the struggle for meaning and comprehension within various conversations.
The utilization of electronic communicative media in this instance is a consolation for the absence of phenomenological discourse due to insurmountable barriers enforced through geographical distance. Yet such consolations offer a potential liberation from the need to collaborate physiologically with each other, freeing us from the prejudices induced by appearance and behaviour.
Sending visual files back and forth with minimal instruction save the file name itself contains an inherent amount of miscommunication. What is content when mis-communicated, and is this not what lies at the core of all communication, be that visual or otherwise? We attempt to navigate each other’s realities and experience of reality while contributing our own interpretations and thoughts upon a theme. A process of production built on such foundations acknowledges this subjective dilemma from the outset. The viewer encountering such pictorial manifestations resultant from this communicative process should be advised that they are nothing more or less than the struggle for meaning and comprehension within various conversations.
The utilization of electronic communicative media in this instance is a consolation for the absence of phenomenological discourse due to insurmountable barriers enforced through geographical distance. Yet such consolations offer a potential liberation from the need to collaborate physiologically with each other, freeing us from the prejudices induced by appearance and behaviour.
Mediation
Our individual lives are, and have always been in a constant state of mediation. Since mankind came together to form groups, individuals have comprehended exterior reality through these larger entities. This mediation is the glue that has kept the bond of humanity, forming a shared consciousness and suppressing personal instinctive drives and desires.
Over millennia this cohesion was ensured through the development of settlements and in time ritualistic religious doctrine. These collective beliefs were reified into places of worship, a hub or centre of ideological mediation relying upon geographical boundaries. With the development of the state the dominant tool of mediation was to be found in capital: the abstract agent of communicative value. Money did not heed national boundaries but was subject to currency conversion and hence particular ideological conditioning within margins.
At the turn of the current millennium it is not so much money or capital that is the dominant mediating agent of humanity, it is the technology that greases the wheels of capital and thus the interaction of individuals. In the computer age the fluidity of the communication network mediates our lived experience across the globe obliterating geographic particulars and further loosening the bonds between man and the sensual earth. It is therefore in the arena of contemporary technology that artists should focus in order to tease out the myths of modern life.
Our individual lives are, and have always been in a constant state of mediation. Since mankind came together to form groups, individuals have comprehended exterior reality through these larger entities. This mediation is the glue that has kept the bond of humanity, forming a shared consciousness and suppressing personal instinctive drives and desires.
Over millennia this cohesion was ensured through the development of settlements and in time ritualistic religious doctrine. These collective beliefs were reified into places of worship, a hub or centre of ideological mediation relying upon geographical boundaries. With the development of the state the dominant tool of mediation was to be found in capital: the abstract agent of communicative value. Money did not heed national boundaries but was subject to currency conversion and hence particular ideological conditioning within margins.
At the turn of the current millennium it is not so much money or capital that is the dominant mediating agent of humanity, it is the technology that greases the wheels of capital and thus the interaction of individuals. In the computer age the fluidity of the communication network mediates our lived experience across the globe obliterating geographic particulars and further loosening the bonds between man and the sensual earth. It is therefore in the arena of contemporary technology that artists should focus in order to tease out the myths of modern life.