Monday Night — 06.19.06 – Kirsten Forkert + Jason Jones
Comments Off on Monday Night — 06.19.06 – Kirsten Forkert + Jason JonesMonday Night — 06.19.06 – Kirsten Forkert + Jason Jones
Contents:
1. About this Monday Night
2. About Kirsten Forkert
3. About Jason Jones + Not An Alternative
4. Questions and Thoughts by Kirsten
5. Not An Alternative Arts Collective by Jason
6. Useful Links
7. Pedro Lasch — Party in collaboration with…
Sonideros and Djs at Queens Museum this saturday
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1. About this Monday Night
What: presentation / discussion
Where: 16 Beaver St., 4th Floor
When: Monday Night 06.19.2006 @ 7:30 Pm
Who: Open and Free To All
If you have attended 16 Beaver in the past year, you may have had the chance of meeting Kirsten Forkert. It was really nice to exchange ideas and organize events with her this year and as she prepares to leave for the Critical Studies in Malmoe, we wanted to organize this event together.
Jason Jones has also been involved in the space for a long time, it is a good occasion to talk about his experiences in the last two years, especially his involvement with other activists and collectives, at the time of the RNC and in relation to Not an Alternative and the Change You Want to See Gallery, which jason co-initiated in Williamsburg.
In addition to discussing Kirsten’s and Jason’s activities, ideas and work …
Kirsten suggested to read some of the transcripts of the Art Workers’ Coalition meeting at SVA in 1969.
two links to the transcripts below.
one is a small file the other is a bigger one.
http://www.16beavergroup.org/pdf/artworkerscoalition.pdf
http://www.16beavergroup.org/pdf/artworkerscoalitionsmall.pdf
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2. About Kirsten Forkert
Kirsten Forkert is an artist, writer, and organizer. Her work, which
takes the form of performances, web projects and installations has
recently examined the effects of neoliberalism on our everyday lives,
and on the role that culture can play in creating resistance. Many of
her projects have involved conversations and interviews as a material
as well as a pretext for talking about politics; while she is not a
filmmaker, she has become increasingly interested in documentary
strategies. Radical pedagogy is also an important source of
inspiration. Kirsten’s writing has also explored topics such as: the
commercialization of arts education, the role of the artist and
academic in relation to theories of immaterial labor, and
mega-exhibitions as national ‘branding’ strategies in the context of
globalization. She also has been, among other things, a union
organizer. Kirsten recently completed the Whitney Independent Study
Program and will be taking part in the Critical Studies program in
Malmoe, Sweden.
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3. About Jason Jones + Not An Alternative
Not An Alternative Arts Collective functions as a public relations, prop
construction and cultural production company whose mission is to assist
community groups in the preparatory stages of their mobilizations. The
collective is based in Williamsburg Brooklyn and also runs The Change You
Want To See Gallery and Convergence Stage.
Jason Jones is a founding member of Not An Alternative and a practicing
artist based in New York.
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4. Questions and Thoughts by Kirsten
I will concentrate on the aspects of my work that have been about
questioning the role of the artist and the intellectual in the climate
of neoliberalism. In my work (and hopefully what we will discuss on
Monday) I have been asking questions such as:
-what role do we play in gentrification, especially the fantasies of
the lives we supposedly lead (perhaps ultimately the fantasies of
unalienated labor)?
-why do we continually work for free? This is something I feel
ambivalent about. On one hand nobody is asking us to do this, and we
are doing what we do because we feel strongly about it. Speaking as
someone who has given many hours to projects and organizations, I feel
that free labor allows many initiatives to take place. On the other
hand we can easily let prestige and the promise of future success take
the place of decent living and working conditions.
-how can the art context enable or contain activist potential? Related
to this, what does the role we occupy as artists both free us to do,
and prevent us from doing?
-what is the relationship between artistic autonomy as it is
conventionally, and institutionally defined, and political autonomy?
rather than in terms of form?
-why can it be difficult for artists to do projects outside of the art field?
-could it be more productive to think in terms of modes of address, or
ways of making things public
I am currently in a period of transition with my work, and so the
discussion will be in part about places to go in the future, rather
than coming from a sense of certainty. Rather than a more conventional
artists talk, I am hoping that the event will be a process of
‘thinking out loud’ and working things through.
The presentation will end with an experiment: I will ask us to read,
together, transcripts of the Art Workers’ Coalition meeting at SVA in
1969, as both an act of solidarity and as attempt to consider it as
one moment (among many others) where artists took a long hard look at
the conditions under which we live and work, and tried to organize.
Through the act of reading these texts aloud, we will think through
our relationship to what they were saying, and reflect on what has
changed and what hasn’t, what seemed like it really belonged to
another time what now seems urgent.
NOTE: I do not have a complete copy of the transcript (as the only
archives who have them are now closed).
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5. Not An Alternative Arts Collective by Jason
Jason Jones, a member of Not An Alternative Arts Collective, will provide
a short presentation that will translate examples of theatrical
intervention as they are applied in practical form to the collective’s
work as a prop production company.
The presentation will address two challenges that Not An Alternative seeks
to engage in their work.
1. As every organizer on the left is well aware we live in climate of
media black-outs. Non-lethal tools, including censorship, are used
systematically by state and corporate agencies to contain and smother
forms of dissent that do not fit into the pre-designed spaces allotted for
the expression of “free speech”. Against these limitations organizers are
coming up with new ways to insert their messages into the public
consciousness. Using theater, for example, to make interventions on highly
recognized symbols, stories and events is an effective strategy employed
more and more often today. With the success of The Yes Men, Greene Dragon,
and Reverend Billy’s theatrical interventions, it has become evident that
the left wing organizers’ recent shift has opened up new pathways making
it possible to convey messages through obstacles otherwise blocked. Most
significantly the move toward the use of theatrical intervention as a
technique jumps over the “independent” vs “mainstream” binary by
effectively incorporating both as vehicles used to convey messages.
2. Likely the single largest problem facing the left has been its
inability to build cohesion as a complex and inevitably contradictory
collective body. As campaigns develop, more often than not, some
organizers will find that their issue has been ignored and set aside by
other organizers who have different issue-oriented goals. (For example the
left has often found itself split on issues that divide along labor vs.
environmental fault-lines.) Not An Alternative’s work attempts to directly
addresses this problem by offering a culturally focused organizing
strategy that avoids getting caught up in the distinctions between one
issue vs. another. This strategy invokes a logic that treats the
contradictory nature of different issues as though they were part of a
common battlefield. A focus on theatrical processes treats symbols,
stories and events as vehicles whose meanings are available for hijacking.
The aim of culturally focused organizing is to shift the meaning of
symbols, stories and events associated with a campaign. When this strategy
works it effectively means shifting the perception of the battlefield
itself.
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6. Useful Links
The Knowledge Economy
http://www.visibleartactivity.com/kirsten/theconversation/conversation.htm
Free spaces
http://www.glowlab.com/lab2/issue.php?project_id=98&issue_name=7
Public Services
http://www.visibleartactivity.com/kirsten/publicservices.htm
ABOUT THE ART WORKERS COALITION
The Artists’ Branch of the “Movement”
http://language.home.sprynet.com/otherdex/60spenni.htm
General Introduction to Collectivity in Modern Art
by Alan Moore
http://www.journalofaestheticsandprotest.org/3/moore.htm
This Is Not an Essay on Political Art By Kathryn Rosenfeld
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/105/
“13 Demands” submitted to Mr. Bates Lowry, Director of the Museum of
Modern Art, by a group of artists and critics, 1969 Jan. 28
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/105/
note: click on document for an enlarged (legible) version
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7. Pedro Lasch — Party! in collaboration with…
Sonideros and Djs at queens museum this saturday
When: Saturday 06.17.06 @ 6:00-12:00 PM
We hope you can join us for this eclectic six hour dance party and lighting
extravaganza with over twenty djs and sonideros from various cities. This is
the last big social project for Pedro Lasch’s exhibition ‘Open Routines’
which will come down this July 9th.
The Museum’s galleries will be open until 8pm for this event so you can also
see the exhibitions ‘ABCDF: Portraits of Mexico City’ and ‘Jeff Liao’s:
Habitat 7’ as the djs spin away.
http://www.queensmuseum.org/exhibitions/abcdf.html
http://www.queensmuseum.org/exhibitions/liao.html
to read more about Pedro Lasch’s project at the Queens museum please go to
http://www.queensmuseum.org/exhibitions/lasch.html
to read the invite to the event in full please go to
http://www.16beavergroup.org/events/archives/001921.php