CREATIVE TIME: Hentyle Yapp

On October 12, the Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley and the Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts are partnering to host a live-streaming of the Creative Time Summit, an annual conference in New York that brings together cultural producers--including artists, critics, writers, and curators--to discuss how their work engages pressing issues affecting our world. To jump-start the conversation in advance of the event, attendees have been asked to submit a paragraph on a keyword associated with one of the summit themes: Inequities, Occupations, Making, or Tactics. This posting is by Hentyle Yapp, graduate student in Theater, Dance & Performance Studies at UC Berkeley.

Keyword: Occupation

Occupation connotes not only space, but also work.  The Occupy "Movement" reminds us of the former, where groups enter a public space and live, exist, eat, celebrate, agitate, and protest.  Occupation also reminds us of work, vocation, and an identity - what's your occupation? what do you do?  I'm curious how these two connotations intertwine.  Of course, class disparities between different vocations or the have/have nots of an occupation lead to the current iterations of the Occupation of space.  However, how does the movement itself become an occupation itself?  In what ways does the Occupy "movement"/social protest become work, vocation, or an identity?  And how has social protest and identity intertwined historically?

CREATIVE TIME: Aimee Chang

On October 12, the Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley and the Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts are partnering to host a live-streaming of the Creative Time Summit, an annual conference in New York that brings together cultural producers--including artists, critics, writers, and curators--to discuss how their work engages pressing issues affecting our world. To jump-start the conversation in advance of the event, attendees have been asked to submit a paragraph on a keyword associated with one of the summit themes: Inequities, Occupations, Making, or Tactics. This posting is by Aimee Chang, Director of Engagement at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

Keyword: Creativity

I recently read an interesting paper that included a short description of an experiment.  People who were asked to recall three recent creative experiences before participating showed a reduced tendency to view others stereotypically versus those that were not asked to recall recent creative experiences.  I found this very interesting especially compared with other possibilities presented in the experiment including ones designed to shift attitudes, i.e. when I think about smoking I will chew gum.  What about the recollection of creativity leads to a more open approach to what follows?  What are the implications and possibilities here?

CREATIVE TIME: Ranu Mukherjee

On October 12, the Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley and the Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts are partnering to host a live-streaming of the Creative Time Summit, an annual conference in New York that brings together cultural producers--including artists, critics, writers, and curators--to discuss how their work engages pressing issues affecting our world. To jump-start the conversation in advance of the event, attendees have been asked to submit a paragraph on a keyword associated with one of the summit themes: Inequities, Occupations, Making, or Tactics. This posting is by Ranu Mukherjee, artist and producer of Tender Transmissions Radio.

Keyword: Expectations 

I have been thinking a lot about expectations lately- as a mutable, sliding scale barometer for how things are going. They seem to be an ever present but difficult to acknowledge measuring device used by all on a daily basis. Are they being met, exceeded, upended or not met at all. What can we expect as a public?

When do expectations become demands and when do they evolve? How do unmet expectations produce new ways of doing things and change culture? What can we expect from the public sector if anything, and in our efforts to reoccupy the commons and bring about change from ground up, are we also encouraging further privatization. I feel that the way that I formulate this question needs to evolve. Looking forward. 

CREATIVE TIME: Cheryl Meeker

On October 12, the Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley and the Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts are partnering to host a live-streaming of the Creative Time Summit, an annual conference in New York that brings together cultural producers--including artists, critics, writers, and curators--to discuss how their work engages pressing issues affecting our world. To jump-start the conversation in advance of the event, attendees have been asked to submit a paragraph on a keyword associated with one of the summit themes: Inequities, Occupations, Making, or Tactics. This posting is by Cheryl Meeker, artist and co-publisher of stretcher.org.

Keyword: Equity

Choosing a term buried within one of the summit themes, inequity, I choose to isolate part of that word for the keyword “equity.” In light of the current massive world debt bomb, preceded and/or partially precipitated by the financial meltdown, derivatives explosion and off budget U.S. war spending, the term equity creates an association first with financial equities (stock equities,) home equity (depleted,) and secondarily to the concept of equity in human terms: fairness. Associations with the term extends to the British actors' labor union, Equity, and for those of us who have labored in marketing: the concept of brand equity. Ping-pong-ing between financial instruments and human equality or fairness, the term equity illustrates how deeply embedded in the English language and system of values are the concepts of capitalism and/or symbolic systems of exchange value. Paradoxically, as income disparity increases, the U.S supreme court has indicated that money = speech in the public sphere and it becomes evident that the masses are heard less and less, while those with more money are heard loud and clear. As home equity values are insubstantial or abstract rather than physical, they have been the more easily stolen or disappeared by a system bent on extracting value from those least able to afford defending it. Perhaps we are seeing a new phase in a sort of neo-primitive accumulation of capital. As we see further erosion of the commons by those with the power and capital to control new and old spheres of influence in order to increase or protect their share of equity, the development and/or protection of democratic values becomes more and more fleeting. It becomes evident that there is no easy or natural alliance or equivalence between capitalism and democracy as there was no requisite equivalence between the versions we have seen play out of socialism or communism and an egalitarian society. Capital, powered by the threat of arms and in the hands of the proudly capitalist Chinese regime or by transnational corporations of whatever nationality continues to drive misery as well as inequity in Africa, where mining and disputed dam projects undercut the will of indigenous people whose land is being exploited and whose lives are being cut short while their livelihoods are being eradicated. Capitalism supercharges the wheels of empire and legitimizes it for world financiers whose equity investments benefit from cost cutting on the ground. It appears that the influence of U.S. style “democracy” has not had a democratizing effect on the capitalism that U.S. interests have so zealously guarded and nourished. If zombie capitalist economies are driven to further de-regulate in order to increase the expansion required for economic growth, further endangering humanity and the health of the earth that supports mankind, what will stop this pattern? Perhaps there is a new human equity at work, powered by all of the human dissent that went before us and perhaps it will prevail by building equity that cannot be commodified or instrumentalized.

CREATIVE TIME: Anuradha Vikram

On October 12, the Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley and the Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts are partnering to host a live-streaming of the Creative Time Summit, an annual conference in New York that brings together cultural producers--including artists, critics, writers, and curators--to discuss how their work engages pressing issues affecting our world. To jump-start the conversation in advance of the event, attendees have been asked to submit a paragraph on a keyword associated with one of the summit themes: Inequities, Occupations, Making, or Tactics. This posting is by Anuradha Vikram, Curator at the Worth Ryder Art Gallery, UC Berkeley.

Keyword: Occupations

What is an Occupation? The word’s connotations are phenomenological, political and cultural in their scope. The Occupy movement has come to symbolize widespread dissatisfaction with the corporatization of democracy throughout the Western World. This dissatisfaction is no doubt shared by many in the Global South, particularly in the large democracies of Brazil and India. Still, we may not see offshoots of the Occupy movement in those countries very soon, where there has been quite enough Occupation already.[i]

What forms does the Occupation take? It is not enough to take and hold property. It is necessary to Occupy the mind. In the Global South, this is perpetuated today by exported Western capitalism and the outsourcing of factory feudalism. Historically, Occupation has come through assimilation of cultural and religious traditions into a “civilizing” norm.[ii] This norm once took the shape of faith in Christ, today it takes the shape of faith in markets.

In North America, Occupation was largely built on genocide, but this is insufficient for its preservation. The Occupation is embedded in both the product and the system of distribution.[iii] Objection to said Occupation places one outside of the mainstream, on the fringes of society. The Occupation is a path to social mobility. What is your Occupation? Preoccupation? How do you Occupy your time?

Our bodies commit their own Occupations in space. “You, you are not me / Me, I am possibly / Everything plus everything that is not me.”[iv] “A thing is a hole in a thing it is not.”[v] In America, we face an obesity epidemic, one faced disproportionately by  the poor and people of color. Yet these downtrodden are the very people whose political agency, even in democracy, is held in limited measure. Lacking health care, the disenfranchised are forced to reckon with their Occupation of their own bodies in the most gruesome of ways. Can Occupation by size be seen as a consequence of the Occupation of land and of mind?[vi]

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[i] Michael Parenti: “Imperialism 101” http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/imperialism.html

[ii] Perry Anderson: “Gandhi Center Stage“

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n13/perry-anderson/gandhi-centre-stage

[iii] Indian Country Today Media Network: “On Tails of Navajo Controversy, Urban Outfitters Stock Plunges, CEO Resigns”

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/01/28/on-tails-of-navajo-controversy-urban-outfitters-stock-plunges-ceo-resigns-78953

[iv] Das Racist: “Rainbow in the Dark”

http://youtu.be/hdWxo3e3Kzk

[v] Attributed to Carl Andre by Robert Smithson: “A Thing Is a Hole In a Thing It Is Not.” Artforum, 1970. http://www.carlandre.net/

[vi] Sara Ahmed: “A Phenomenology of Whiteness”

http://fty.sagepub.com/content/8/2/149

CREATIVE TIME: Ryoko Imoto

On October 12, the Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley and the Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts are partnering to host a live-streaming of the Creative Time Summit, an annual conference in New York that brings together cultural producers--including artists, critics, writers, and curators--to discuss how their work engages pressing issues affecting our world. To jump-start the conversation in advance of the event, attendees have been asked to submit a paragraph on a keyword associated with one of the summit themes: Inequities, Occupations, Making, or Tactics. This posting is by Ryoko Imoto, student at California State University, East Bay.

Keyword: Inequities

"Can inequities be a path to equity in the society?" is a question on my mind when I think of the movement among some of the most affluent people in the world, allocating large portions of their personal funds toward philanthropic works and businesses. 

I think that art works and aesthetics can play a greater role for the betterment of the society especially under the turmoil of economic downturn, for I believe that people need to relate to beauty in order to have a psychological fulfillment by the human nature. Through an online source I found a quote of Pablo Picasso stating "Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life", and I wonder if his statement can be interpreted in relation to the theme of inequities in the society. I, then, look forward to participate in the Summit in order to obtain further insight into the matter.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/pablo_picasso.html

CREATIVE TIME: Dee Hibbert-Jones

On October 12, the Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley and the Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts are partnering to host a live-streaming of the Creative Time Summit, an annual conference in New York that brings together cultural producers--including artists, critics, writers, and curators--to discuss how their work engages pressing issues affecting our world. To jump-start the conversation in advance of the event, attendees have been asked to submit a paragraph on a keyword associated with one of the summit themes: Inequities, Occupations, Making, or Tactics. This posting is by Dee Hibbert-Jones, Associate Professor of Art & Digital Arts New Media, UC Santa Cruz.

On Inequities, Occupations, Making, or Tactic

“.. all talk of hope is idle unless it is pulled out of the jaws of the brutality which globalization has produced.”*

As the anniversary of the start of the Occupy movement rolls around and becomes historicized in exhibitions (at least at YBCA, San Francisco) a feeling of overwhelm overcomes me, which is almost, but not quite hopelessness. There is something overwhelming about the idea of shifting past the initial enthusiasm of utopian possibilities, the desires to increase freedoms. And I start to wonder as a good idea gets older how do we push on through inertia, the uphill struggle to sustain, establish and forge possibilities? How exactly do gestures of resistance so powerful and empowering translate into ideas of universal healthcare, social equality, fair-minded tax policies and equitable banking polices, or even shift to become key issues that last in the minds and hearts of a public?

The fact that a certain group of artists have been turning their attention to notions of infrastructure, self care, utopian visions for change or repair of public space, social space and environmental space has been a source of incredible excitement to me, and hope. How long the art word will focus to any extent on this work is questionable, of course. Tactics for dissolving the inequities of “we” and “they” do demand creative solutions, especially in a global economy and a country in economic decline. As transnational and transurban activist movements emerge whose cellular qualities , outsider character and lack of clear cut mandate will  possibly help us pursue visions of equity and access. Maybe the possibilities for collectivism within creative practices hold keys to our future, in ways that will help sustain us as Occupy ages?

* Arjun Apadurau 

Fear of Small Numbers; an essay on the Geography of Anger, Duke University Press 2006

CREATIVE TIME: Annice Jacoby

On October 12, the Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley and the Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts are partnering to host a live-streaming of the Creative Time Summit, an annual conference in New York that brings together cultural producers--including artists, critics, writers, and curators--to discuss how their work engages pressing issues affecting our world. To jump-start the conversation in advance of the event, attendees have been asked to submit a paragraph on a keyword associated with one of the summit themes: Inequities, Occupations, Making, or Tactics. This posting is by Annice Jacoby, author and artist.

Keyword: MAKING

Sweet etymology reveals that the root of Poet is a Maker. In the historical sweep of what we say and do, this linguistic link from the practical to the lyrical, embraces our survival, management, creativity, resourcefulness, connections, communications and all that jazz broadly labeled “culture”.  Art, as everyday ecstasy, ingenuity, occupation and pre-occupation, is a basic activity that, like language, belongs to all, but alas exercised in a inexhaustible variety of ways, delicious to disruptive, dismal to dynamic. What we make, as Artists, with a capital A, are conscious gifts, conceived and crafted with the integrity of a good cook. Making something from nothing, transforming ingredients, understanding process, tradition, changing conditions, inventing and share what we make to nourish and serve. Sometimes we make a mess. Sometimes a marvel. Whatever we make, Art serves as Agency for our collective experience, capacity and imagination. 

LOCATION/TRANSLATION: Joseph del Pesco

The Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley will present the symposium Location/Translation: Art and Engagement from the Local to the Global on September 19, 2012. To jump-start the conversation in advance of the event, the speakers have been invited to respond to the questions "What does 'local' mean to you? How does it get utilized in your work, if at all?" This posting is by Joseph del Pesco,  Director of the Kadist Art Foundation in San Francisco.

I'd like to share this short text written by artist Ben Kimont:

Passing On

“From musical compositions to recipes to instruction pieces, people have been sharing their making, meaning, and authorship with others. When a pianist follows a score, a chef cooks a dish, or a person follows an instruction piece, variations and interpretations are made and shared. In this way a sound, a taste, or an idea is passed on, appreciated, and yet also changed by this new maker, perhaps with new instruments and ingredients and within a new context. Whether the others involved are an audience, those around the table, or visitors to a museum, this experience takes on a broader meaning due to its place in a progression, an atemporal community of makers connected through their consideration of a given idea. But by acknowledging these other composers, chefs, and artists who have worked with the idea before, we can see authorship as residing in a multitude of makers and participants, and perhaps from this loosening of the idea of the single author, we can better get to the content of the work at hand. Perhaps this will make it is easier to say, sit back and enjoy the show, enjoy the meal, enjoy the idea we are passing on.”

BK 2011

LOCATION/TRANSLATION: Apsara DiQuinzio

The Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley will present the symposium Location/Translation: Art and Engagement from the Local to the Global on September 19, 2012. To jump-start the conversation in advance of the event, the speakers have been invited to respond to the questions "What does 'local' mean to you? How does it get utilized in your work, if at all?" This posting is by Apsara DiQuinzio,  Assistant Curator of Painting and Sculpture at SFMOMA.

Apsara DiQuinzio

When I first moved to San Francisco, over six years ago, for a job at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the recurring refrain I often heard from people living here and working in the field of contemporary art was that the region’s art scene tended to be rather “provincial.” I found this pejorative qualifier highly problematic, and in many ways it remains a perception artists living in the Bay Area struggle to overcome.  For example, an artist I know recently appeared in a major national exhibition, and on his wall label in the exhibition he had been described as a “San Francisco-based artist.” Upon seeing this descriptor, he insisted that they remove it from the label. This artist didn’t want to be defined by his location; he wanted to just be a (good) artist. But his desire to shed his San Francisco roots in print, mostly likely had something to do with this problematic perception of “the provincial.”

But what makes San Francisco more or less “provincial” than New York?  Having moved to San Francisco from New York, where I had lived for over five years, I often found that the New York art scene could be just as provincial (if not more!) as any other region, it’s just that its scale masks it. But in reality, no place is immune from provincialism; it is everywhere and anywhere. Solipsism and narrow-mindedness undergird the problem of the provincial. In this day and age, when a place is provincial, the local is all that matters, and there is a reluctance, or inability, to look beyond. You become too comfortable or satisfied in the local that you forget that there is a larger world out there that also informs your own domain.

Yet, the local and the international are not separate spheres; they are connected and contingent upon one another. We are all local and international simultaneously. An insistence on their separation is dangerous, and when unchecked gives rise to problematic notions of isolationism and nationalism. This is largely what happened in Romania, which Mihnea Mircan discusses below, where nationalism grew to obscene levels under a brutal totalitarian regime. Its grandiosity became untenable for a people who were starving and dying as their dictator used all the country’s money, not to feed and protect them, but to build a monstrous monument to himself that now stands in a ruinous half-life.

I think some of the most vital encounters in art and life arise from a tracing of these points of contact—where the local and the international converge.  Kwame Anthony Appiah has written eloquently about this in his book Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, where he makes the case for “contamination.” In our 21st century world, purity no longer exists; everything is hybrid, networked, co-inhabited, and shared. I tried to explore some of our interconnected terrains in an exhibition called Six Lines of Flight: Shifting Geographies in Contemporary Art, which opens at SFMOMA on September 15th. It features inspirational artists from six cities around the world who, often working against a backdrop of war, have created both local and international platforms for artistic activity, collective engagement, and critical awareness.