Archive for March, 2005

Suffering, Empathy, Art and the Greater Good | Emily Vey Duke
http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/emilyveyduke/
“The problem is that students in art schools, especially at the undergraduate level, are taught the Duchampian paradigm ‘it’s art if you say it is, and saying it’s art when it’s not artful is itself a radical act.’ They’re taught to be suspicious of the beautiful and the interesting, and to follow their quirky whims regardless of the relevance they have to anyone else. They’re also taught, without ever being explicitly told, that as soon as something is art, it’s precious. As a result, art education creates artists who believe that they don’t have to try very hard to make something of immeasurable value. This is no service to the art world. In fact, I think it’s why art is suffering such a crisis of irrelevance to the public at large. The work we’re producing is just not good enough to catch the eye of the non-art-initiated viewer, let alone to hold her attention for long enough to make her care. […] So as always, the question remains: How can we do it better?”

It is frankly one of the most sane and considered things I’ve read in a long time, and insightful in ways that most articles and press fail to be. – Timothy
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Ex-lefties and Suicide-site Guide to the City | Stef Lenk, Darren O’Donnel et al
http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/x-lefties/
“[O’Donnell writes] You : ‘the Us vs. Them scenario is getting us nowhere’. Okay, well, I’ll tell you what. If you can arrange it so I can spend some quality time with one of the world’s 300 billionaires so I can really understand where they’re at then I will consider changing my position. If you can get me into one of their gated communities so we can have a heart-to-heart then I will really open myself to this person. Let me know. I’m busy until the 20th but after that I’m free. […] [Barker writes]There is an enormous potential to have a positive impact on the lives of our community, and our peers (as you identify them) through our artwork, action and example – but it is more the maturity we express as people and citizens, then as artists, that will determine that impact, peer-to-peer. We have some social power, with power comes responsibility, our social power is ours to use or misuse. But artists seem to have a tendency, at least in our subculture, towards self-centredness – perhaps no more, or no less than other kinds of subcultures – but it is the particular ways in which it is expressed in the art scene that makes me a little doubtful of the potential for rallying to goodness around the identification as artists. In any case, I don’t have any real disagreement with the opinions expressed here, just alot of personal frustration with some tendencies in my peer group! I’ll freely admit to that!”

The RCMP, Grow-ops, and Psychopaths | Timothy Comeau
http://tinyurl.com/6p2ll
“In the overblown media coverage though, no one has pointed out how unique a country we are where 4 deaths is a ‘national tragedy’. And the grow ops thing – heck even my dad sees the similarities between this type of gunslinger madness and that of the dirty 30’s prohibition. Which also reminds me of Darren O’Donnell’s concerns about the incarceration rates of the United States, which he brings up in his play, A Suicide Site Guide to the City. The United States today puts a greater percentage of its citizens in jails than any other country in the world. A majority of these are drug charges, and most of the people in jail are black. Forget everything you think you know about why that is and consider this…”