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This is the space I'm suggesting the current MA group use to have a series of online discussions over the Easter break. If you follow one of the discussions at the bottom of the page you can see the structure of the conversations - just reply > you can enter a discussion at at any point > It may also be interesting to view last years conversations which might illustrate some of the concerns of the previous group.
Rather than set a time the discussion could be ongoing from the 8th onwards -
or / we can meet at 10am / continue the course meet time >
Here's the invitation for the group to contribute a section on the project[s] this year with the new obsoltee and the interviews and market/ transmission etctera - and all individual works - we can make an entire section
pete
/SECONDS Issue 11: If X then Y, A Pure Condition
Proposals and Rehearsals (re:construction, enactment, invention)
"Lenin felt obliged to write: 'Theory is all-powerful because it is true'.[...] But once again, this is merely the half of it. We must add, ‘Theory is powerless because it is true'.’’Alain Badiou, Conditions, (Continuum, 2008), p.144.
"What I’m trying to pick out with this term (dispositif) is, firstly, a thoroughly heterogenous ensemble consisting of discourses, institutions, architectural forms, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral and philanthropic propositions–in short, the said as much as the unsaid. Such are the elements of the apparatus. The apparatus itself is the system of relations that can be established between these elements." Michel Foucault, The Confession of the Flesh, (unpublished interview, 1977)
"If X, then Y, where X is cause of Y" from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condition
/seconds invites your submissions of proposals and their rehearsals, as definition and example. These might be descriptions of a construction, an enactment or invention, real or imaginary. Proposals can be presented online in a preferred material / medium.
/seconds is pleased to invite you to submit proposals of individual, collective, or transdisciplinary propositions (as heterogenous collections; drawings, notes, illustratiions, stories, scripts, curatorial diagrams, architectural plans, short films, video-clips, animations, advertisements, slogans, snapshots, signs, treatments, models, scores, collages, impromptu performances, out-takes, screen-tests; of material seen, and/or unseen) for publication in issue 11. A submitted proposal may in other words take any form whatever, presenting documentation of events that have already taken place, or choosing to represent a situation hypothetically; ideally placed, (being inexistent), to superimpose "[...] the fiction of art on a fiction of knowledge", Alain Badiou, Conditions, (Continuum, 2008) p.22, as the necessity of the conditional insinuated in the title: 'If X then Y, A Pure Condition: ‘Proposals and Rehearsals: re: construction, enactment, invention’.
A proposal is a mechanism that has no necessity of realisation beyond its point of view. A proposal is, however, 'good', or affirmative, and argued theoretically in the terms of its desire, purely as invention; describing an impossibility: an oblique, unfamiliar yet precise method of construction, and enactment, anticipating an imagined restitution or deferred state of arrival, nor one that unconditionally 'fills the void'. Something however does emerge from between what has been thought and unthought, said and unsaid. A poetic device or dispositif. The device is powerless, (undecideable and indiscernible), in that it disavows empirical demonstration of the object as thing; has no interest in the production of ascertainable, scientific, aesthetic, or political outcomes outside of cold hypothesis. This non-relation itself subtracts a conditional politics, suggestive of Foucault's, distanced from the sophistry of relations, to the imperative of philosophy's 'void'; that cannot be nominated as utopian; nor be at the same time wishful in the desire to be solely the object of its reflexive achievements (in satisfying a proof, vetting authorisation vis-a-vis authorship, or proclaiming the political 'the once and for all'), yet is real as a true proposition of its singularity--- a new metaphor, cold and pure --- of which the 'unnameable' is its emblem.
(see Alain Badiou, Conditions, (Continuum, 2008), p.53).
Dispositif is a French word, meaning device. The three terms are analogous in the French to English translations of Foucault's work. Foucault uses the term in his 1977 The Confession of the Flesh (Les aveux de la chair) interview, where he answers the question, "What is the meaning or methodological function for you of this term, apparatus (dispositif)?" thusly: "What I’m trying to pick out with this term is, firstly, a thoroughly heterogenous ensemble consisting of discourses, institutions, architectural forms, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral and philanthropic propositions–in short, the said as much as the unsaid. Such are the elements of the apparatus. The apparatus itself is the system of relations that can be established between these elements." Delivered at the Collège de France between January and March 1980, the lectures entitled On the Government of the Living (Du gouvernement des vivants) seem to be the missing piece in the Foucauldian puzzle. Still unpublished, those eleven lectures were intended to set the theoretical foundation for the book announced as the fourth and last volume of the History of Sexuality, under the title Confessions of the Flesh (Les aveux de la chair). This book, however, was never published, despite the fact that his editor described it as the keystone for the entire History of Sexuality. German linguist Siegfried Jäger defines Foucault's dispositif as "the interaction of discursive behavior (i. e. speech and thoughts based upon a shared knowledge pool), non-discursive behavior (i. e. acts based upon knowledge), and manifestations of knowledge by means of acts or behaviors [...]. Dispositifs can thus be imagined as a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk, the complexly interwoven and integrated dispositifs add up in their entirety to a dispositif of all society." See also Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. (New York: Vintage Books, 1990).
Extract taken from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispositif"
/seconds: special section
/seconds has introduced a special section to be curated by students, both of individual and group works, of an edition of unsolicited proposals responding to the title of issue 11: 'If X then Y, A Pure Condition: Proposals and Rehearsals: re:construction, enactment, invention'. The selected work will also be considered for M.A. study period at Leeds Metropolitan University 2009 -10. M.A. submissions should indicate this in their proposals.
The MA Art and Design at Leeds School of Contemporary Art and Graphic Design at Leeds Metropolitabn University seeks creative students for the 2009-2010 academic year. This selective one year full time and two-year part time programme grants successful participants a Masters degree in Art and Design. (MAAD). Positioned within the School of Art and Society, MAAD offers a wealth of exploration and research opportunities in transdisciplinary relationships intersecting the axis of art, (graphic) design and curating, with full access to programmes and studios in the Leeds Metropolitan University community.
Supporting materials will be accepted until July 31st 2009.
Information: contact Richard Adams, Course Administrator: r.adams@leedsmet.ac.uk
A thank you to Mark for a very apt and thought provoking session - thanks to everyone as well who came to hear this and Mark's ideas on design - which are very astute. I am writing some notes below to help in consideration of a definition [ and new definition] of the obselete [ in art and design] and in theories of...
Crossed-out signifiers
signifier/signified - extension and intention
Just a note on the insurmountable confusion between definitions and examples - that I always make - I think this design [if a number is perceived as an image] is an 'example' that indicates, denoting, or connoting a definition - I think it comes under the category of the 'extensional' rather than 'intensional' category of what constitutes a definition [ satisfying certain conditions] - confirmaing meaning only if it belongs to a list of examples - or extensions- [ that are here indicated as a series, since they are numbered, this one example belonging to a system of numbered greys] - it also is a point of difference between whether connotation precedes denotation when a meaning [ the obsolete] is being altered [ by the prefix of 'new to it]. The 'new obsolete' is then defined by a set of secondary references by extension -here it is an example of a genre, or category, i.e. the group show- where a variable number [ a different system of recording, memorising, archiving ] of examples are presented [ but not specifically denoted or quantified]. These secondary examples indicate further connotations that might not be in any known category, but suggest new categorical limits [ extensions] or sets, that are to be qualified as definitive under examination of the term 'obsolete'. This would be up to the viewer to determine. Is the concept holding up to scrutiny? Or is it obsfucation, mystification, or appealing to a higher authority [ philosphy]? So it sets itself up as a kind of open system that is still in formation [ incomplete since it is a process and intended as potentially infinite, and also open to critical responses ]. The connotation / denotation is, in structural linguistics, I seem to remember, usually applied to film analyses [ Roland Barthes and David Bordwell for example write about connotation and denotation in film images, also from the work of Russian formalists of early cinema] - and advanced from Charles Pierce's definition of a 'sign' having three facets - the symbol, the index, and the icon - that perform together a meaning. If the image here is of a number - the number becomes a sign. Then this plays between connotation and denotation, in regard to a definition, and a new set, for the defining 'obsolete'. Can it be ticked against the three facets, symbol, index, icon. I see the index [ it is from a real system of objects] icon - it is a visual sign for something obsolete [ if crossed out] and symbol - it is a visual language equivalent of the word 'obsolete' with no direct relation.
I found some basic introductory notes that might help [ I still find it confusing since stuructural linguistics is also now an 'obsolete' theory!]
Definition: Semiotics, or semiology, is the discipline that studies systems of signs.
One of the precursors of semiotic was a debate, around 300BC, between the Stoics and the Epicureans about the difference between “natural signs” (freely occurring in nature, such as the signs of a disease that were, for the Stoics, the quintessential signs), and “conventional” signs (those designed for the purpose of communication). The interest in signs resounded well with the philosophical interests of the late classic era and the middle ages; St. Augustine was maybe the first to see signs as a proper subject of philosophical investigation, and narrowed it to the study of signa data , conventional signs, an emphasis that was to be retaken and exacerbated in the late middle ages by William of Ockam and, in the early modern age, by John Locke.
Saussurre recognizes two important classes of relations between signs, which he calls syntagmatic and paradigmatic . In a phrase such as “the cat is on the mat,” the signs “cat,” “is,” or “mat,” stand in a syntagmatic relation: they are related by juxtaposition and their relation contributes to the meaning of the phrase. On the other hand, one could, in the same syntagmatic structure, replace “cat” with “dog” or “mat” with “couch.” Replaceability constitutes a paradigmatic relation. This can be represented in a schema where the horizontal relations are syntagms, while the vertical are paradigms.
Charles Saunders Peirce developed his “semeiotic” independently of Saussurre and with a less linguistic perspective. He considers a sign as composed by three elements: a representamen (the material component of the sign), an object (more or less corresponding to Saussurre’s signified), and the interpretant . The concept of the interpretant is difficult, and it must be stressed that the Peircean interpretant is not the “interpreter,” but can be seen, roughly, as the proper significant effect of the sign, a sign in the mind that is the result of the meeting with the sign.
This sign can in itself have an interpretant, which has an interpretant, and so on to generate the process that Pierce calls unlimited semiosis . Unlimited semiosis is only a potential, of course, since at one point the necessities of practical life demand that the interpretation stops. A mathematician could say that unlimited semiosis is a converging series, an idea with which Peirce would, in all likelihood, substantially agree.
Peirce considers three classes of signs, which he classifies depending on the relation between the sign and its object: a sign is iconic if it signified by virtue of its similarity with an object (as in the case of a picture of Bishop Tutu, which “means” Bishop Tutu); it is indexical if it stands in a causal relation with its object (as in the case of the smoke being a sign of fire, or of red dots on the skin being a sign of measles); it is symbolic if the relation between the sign and its object is arbitrary (as in the case of language).
This is the best known of Peirce’s triadic distinctions, but his system is more complex: at the level of the representamen a sign can be a qualisign (a representamen made up of a quality, e.g. a color), a sinsign (a representamen made up of an existing physical reality, e.g. a road sign on a specific street), or a legisign (a representamen resting on a law, e.g. the sound of a referee in a football match). At the level of the object, the sign can be, as seen, an icon, an index, or a symbol. At the sign of the interpretant, a sign can be a rheme (the sign is represented as a possibility, e.g. a concept), a dicent (the sign is represented as a fact, e.g. a descriptive statement), or an argument (the sign is represented as a reason, e.g. a proposition).
I had two ideas that would make logical/ semiotic sense of the 'cancelled' or obsolete...vis-a-vis a graphic sign [ or an icon ] separate from teh title "the new Obsolete' [as in the Manifesta icon / always separate from the words.] Heres one. [The other would include the Bruno quote on teh front page with the number and the tile in three facets].
[1]
If the concepts were each page - autonomous designs - the front page itself could be very clean, a number on a particular tone of grey [of that number] - but the number is written [the 'brand' iconic sign is centred] but crossed through is read as 'crossed out' / 'cancelled', or made 'obsolete'. A simple line through the number will act as an economic / sharp visual semiotic cut. This first reading would the invoke the reader/viewer in a series of questions - this is
[...] This first reading would the invoke the reader/viewer in a series of questions - this is a slow unfolding of a meaning in a time frame . The meaning that is being generated slowly is then focused sharply when a second page or reverse side of paper has the 'real' title
'the new OBSOLETE'
this clicks into focus as then understanding the reference that the number is indexing, as the number now obsolete [represents the concept of the project about obsolete values and representations] without impinging on any specific or figurative example from the works themselves nor self-destructing as presentations of works of art. This then is a 'visual definition' for the project that aligns art, design and curating through semiotics.
[...] information to nomore grey on last line.
unfolding information then allocates the viewer the time to generate further subjective meanings, associations and connotations, with the colour grey, the space, the obsolete and the list of artists [ very important] as it is precisely the naming of artists that then creates the true meaning of obsolescence in each new translation or manifestation of individual forms as 'synchronic' examples. This is a group condition, variegated works of 'obsolete' value / history embedded etc. as singularites within the general concept of obsolescence - as an enigmatic, ambiguous yet clearly articulated concept placing question marks on the conventions / rituals or behaviours of those readings
Following on from the last post, would anyone have a problem with the Lecture / Screening starting at 10:30?
If not then we'll start 10:30 , I will be around from 10:00 so if anyone is feeling fresh we could even start then . . .
I'll send a group mail so reply to that if you can't make the new time.
Just to say we should be thinking of proper schedule next wednesday on workshops [ perhaps it calls for en-masse visit to book time - and also the proposals - more accurate description with sense of scale - I am assembling seconds 11 this month which then goes to graham next month and should be online in august - if not [ up to graham really] we could put the london obsolete project online at the time - before the assessments
thought the presentations both weeks were very good by the way -
