I have been thinking a lot about the ethnography of the image, semiotics, and discrimination shrouded by art.  I just purchased this book by Morse Peckham, and I am tingling with excitement.  Peckham’s pragmatism may not be one for the ages, as I was unable to find any influence of his work beyond the occasional citation.  This man is a gem.  Here’s what he wrote to the editors at NYRB in 1971:

I believe it to be an error that a theory of art is “rightly and inevitably evaluative.” (1) Any proposition can be used as a basis for judging art. (2) An indefinably wide range of propositions has so been used, and new ones will be thought up. The process will continue as long as there are people and art, and the question cannot be resolved. (3) So to use a proposition is to judge art on the basis of whether or not it is an exemplification of a proposition. Such activity ascribes to art a lesser value than the propositions used to judge it. Individuals intensely concerned with evaluating works of art appear to have as their central interest the severe restriction of the number of works of art to be taken seriously. (4) We judge art because we judge everything else. Value judgments of works of art are of great interest sociologically, but of little or no interest in understanding works of art.

Let’s also note this little sentimental proof was wrapped in his response to a review of five of his books by Christopher Ricks (who, apparently, “really did quite well. To be sure, he made a number of blunders, as was to be expected.”)

So, in contemplating the axiom that the meaning of a sign is the response to it, I’m sharing Kenneth Fitzgerald’s essay in Emigre #48 “Skilling Saws and Absorbent Catalogues.“  It isn’t particularly related to aesthetics and semiotics, but it does feature a great little nug from MP: “It is clear that art is useless, that perceiver and artist are arrogant and indifferent. … Art tells us nothing about the world that we cannot find elsewhere and more reliably. Art does not make us better citizens, or more moral, or more honest. It may conceivably make us worse.”

I’ve read several essays and manifestos recently on the artistic implications of Facebook.  These writings can be evocative, and are often extremely successful at garnering the cultural capital they wish to theorize.  My own thoughts on these essays are best expressed by friend and scholar Adam E. Leeds.  I’d like to quote an email I received from him:

“…I am done reading articles about how Facebook changes the world.

1. I don’t actually believe that what goes on on social networking sites is that different from what went on before them, or changes our sense of self much.

2. There are changes in society on account of them; the most important ones are the delocalization of networks and the instantaneity of mass communication — new articulations of time and space.

3. These technologies are totally in their infancy.  Facebook might not be around in ten years. We don’t even know what is the paradigm that will replace it, yet.

4. We won’t really know the cultural implications until we see the culture that the generation that grows up with whatever replaces Facebook creates.”

Total agreement.  This is not to suggest, of course, that pop culture requires being canonized before it can be effectively parsed.  There is a significant difference between technology as phenomenon and technology as medium — when writers treat cultural phenomena as media, the theory must take a different approach.  To speak of Facebook as medium, as paradigm, disallows its potential for instantaneity which, I think, is what it is actually good at.

Surely, the contemporary theoretical essay does not need to be one for the ages –that’s the mode of contemporary. But I can’t help but think how I recently read Boris Groys’s problematic essay on institutionalized video art, and how very dated it felt (it was written only 6 years ago).  To speak of these phenomena as prototypes for the future (or even prototypes for now) misses the point of technological ephemerality and presentness.  Presentness, in this instance, is not necessarily grace.  In technology, presentness is chopped, distorted, and wholly untrustworthy.  It is interesting, certainly.  But it is not implication.

Seems about right.

Ascended Drifts 2: New Jersey

Jazzy tracks from New Jersey, 1991-1999. Most artists hail from Newark, Trenton, and Jersey City, which were also jazz epicenters at various points throughout the 20th century. Horns and pianos dominate the beats with a pleasant smoothness that intersects with ideas of mortality and ego, giving each track some real murky muscle. It’s big, and it’s grey, and it’s weird, and it’s New Jersey.

Featuring tracks by Artifacts, The Blunted Crew, Brick City Kids, Da Nuthouse, Flipside Magicians, Logic, N.F.L., Nautilus, Original Seeds, Real Live, Sick Lunatix, Visual Sound, 108 Dragons, and a bunch of others.

Download here

Feedback / forwarding welcome

I want to listen to Michael Fried’s “mmmhmm” on repeat every night to fall asleep. Thanks, Damon.

I made this thing in Photoshop one day to inspire myself to work more on a magazine idea.  The inspiration didn’t come, but I like the picture.  I took it at the largest underground lake in America.

I wrote an essay about a particular spambot Twitter for Title Magazine.

I published a book about Agnes Martin.  Details coming soon.  Here is a picture from it -

2-3 things that are on the very near horizon:

1. Another Ascended Drifts box set of New Jersey hip hop, 1991-1998.  I haven’t decided on a theme yet but preliminary listens led me to the words “goofy” or “jazzy”.

2. A book of poetry.

3.  An updated website, blog, CSS (or SASS), and an archive of Talking Pictures reading material.

I had heard about Just Another Asshole before as it made an appearance at X Initiative.  Over the weekend I saw this cover image posted on a blog & decided to do a little more digging.  Just Another Asshole was a sound art publication edited by Barbara Ess and Glenn Branca.  I wasn’t able to find any information on anthologies #1, 2, or 4 (I don’t even know that they exist), but #5 is a 77-track long compilation released on LP in 1981.  Here is the link for a covert download, or you can buy the cd on Amazon for $13.76.  But be warned: the Amazon product only has 57 tracks and the only review is by “A Customer” who gave it 4 stars and said “This album is cool,except for track 8 which is sung by lead singer- James Hedstrom. He seems to be struggling in this album.”  JAA #6 (title: “I find my mother, brim in the full udder of desire”) is a print anthology that includes work by Kathy Acker, Jenny Holzer, Richard Prince, Kiki Smith, Lynne Tillman, and many others.  I was not able to find a free copy anywhere but I did find one copy selling for $240.

So that’s Just Another Asshole.  From what I can find, it’s not quite the “hackjob” as one of my co-editors had imagined.

The Haunted Museum: Institutional Critique and Publicity* [PDF]

Rob Pruitt: The Andy Monument, 2011, image courtesy of Public Art Fund’s website, photo by James Ewing

“The Art of Selling Out” in The Observer – the market at work in the studios of Hirst, Koons, Murakami, Emin, and Turk.

“Aggressive Artist Group Botches Occupation of SoHo Non-Profit, But What is to be Done?” on artinfo.com – Thanks, Becket.

“Five Myths and a Menace” in Standpoint – on 5 economic myths that have saturated politics. And Adam Smith. And why Adam Smith is “the great authority on Anti-Protectionism — as the man who first told the world the truth so that the world could learn and believe it.” Yeeeaaah.

“What, Me Care?” in Scientific American – Young people are less empathetic than their 1980 counterparts. They are also more narcissistic. This has been scientifically verified by Scientific American.

“Brand States: Postmodern Power, Democratic Pluralism, and Design” in e-flux – “In its current stage, state branding has not yet seen critical, alternative, or counter-hegemonic approaches. We will conclude that the recognition of network power as a form of structural coercion provides the best starting position for the development of such alternative approaches to state branding.”

“A Brief History of the Corporation, 1600 to 2100” in ribbonfarm – exactly that.

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*Including, but not limited to, thoughts on taste & consumer culture, ideas about popularity and power in brand marketing, opinions on artistic self-deprecation, views of intemporality and cinema, impressions of the perceived legislative character of the avant-garde, feelings about the supposed return to craft specificity and domesticity during the recession, theories of the most recent revival of an appreciation for low-rent philosophy, judgments of the current show at the Hessel Museum at Bard, assessments of the current state of DIY collectives in Philadelphia and beyond, conceptions of the idea of non-performance, notions of the insularity of certain forms (email chains, for instance) and whether that’s really such a terrible thing, hypotheses about subjectivity and the subjugated in photography, and conclusions about the future of New Asshole.