CROSSING THE SYSTEM.
Text escrit durant el taller Crossing the System , realitzat a Can Xalant amb Stefano Romano a 2008
The word system is defined as “a set of interacting or interdependent entities, real or abstract, forming an integrated whole…..whereas in the case of man made systems there exists a purpose, a set of objectives as they are designed to work as a coherent entity “. From this we can also derive the concepts of the “open system”, interacting with its environment, and the “closed system”, which functions in isolation. And so on, and so forth; no need to expand these definitions any further. Many official, governmental arts agency and academic sources, define “systems of the arts”, as being “closed fortress[es]“, “part of ideological State apparatuses” and (as if this last was not frightening enough) as a “system directed towards producing artists”. So we can see the “systemic” nature of the arts; supervised by cultural hierophants whose job is to dictate the limits of artistic expression, reducing shows and exhibitions to a series of “arts fayres”. A system anchoring and restraining the creativity of artists, with approved canons meeting the proper criteria within the allowable bounds of good taste, leaving all other modes of expression to forage outside the corral.
Pure delusion of grandeur.
But criticism is not yet dead; these certainties have always generated much debate among committed opponents. With regard to the workshop, its title, “crossing the system” may be taken on two levels. One will consider crossing the boundaries between systems and disciplines, criss-crossing and weaving between the limits of different established systems, so that the artist, continually in motion, ends up neither as a static cultural producer, nor as a fixed cultural product, but becomes her/his own unique micro-system. An artist, working within his/her own system far from official agencies and marketing hype, will construct a collaborative web of multidisciplinary commitments among other artists, other specialists in different spheres of experience, working together in real-life environments to create richer, more complex works. A process, in which conflicts may be more clearly visualised and resolved through exchange, making the possibility of transformation into a more desirable scenario.
One of the primary aims of this kind of “system”, which would surely guarantee the successful functioning of a network-based counter-organisation, would be to encourage artists capable of creating their own contexts, their “Skenes”, in which to develop a space for action, where performance, debate and research, among other resources, might be shared and verified; as a real experience, rather than as a staged event.
A second, more literal meaning of the title, stands as a direct invitation to “cross the system” in order to leave it behind us. But is such a thing even possible? Any closed system can be bypassed; or at least, an effort to bypass it can be made; but must the end-result itself become another system? A different, perhaps a more open, more flexible system; but nevertheless exhibiting all the properties of “systemic” thinking, including the subsuming of the artists’ “micro-systems” within its own boundaries, to serve its own purposes.
While I was considering all the above, which is hardly a complete formulation of my thoughts on the matter, an article in a Sunday supplementary magazine came to my attention. It concerned capos of the Ukrainian mafia in depressed areas, who paid small fortunes to artisan stone-masons to craft black granite tombstones with standing, life-sized portraits of themselves, and landscapes of their “territory” behind them. And, reading the article, I was reminded of how shocking it was for me, when some years ago, I was asked if I would, for payment, customise coffins with art-works. Systems of arts patronage, it seems, never die; they just mutate into new forms.
These thoughts raise my concerns. We as artists may try to transform the boundaries, or cross the system, but are we only ever going to find on the other side new systems to replace the old? New systems, perhaps; but with the same old dedication to legitimating all forms of power, the same old obsession with creating official “stages”, “exhibitions”, “discussion groups”, expressly designed to include conformists, while excluding those artists attempting to understand, transform, move and renew the living environments of the real world around them?
Anna Recasens. Sabadell.2008
Notes al marge. 2009
rebel.lies: art entre el buit i la lluita
Actualment assistim a un segrest de la cultura per part de la societat de control, cultura precuinada i predigerida, mediatitzada…dirigida, on s’afavoreix la proliferacio d’actituds narcissistes, individualistes que amparades en idees de propietat i autoria perpetuen l’estafa de la “bona obra d’art”, de l’art com a producte (de consum) i on la genesi de la obra presuposa que hi haura un client. Aquest sistema de les arts caduc desde l’arrel te amb la universitat, els museus i les gal.leries la xarxa precisa per desenvolupar-se i en l’administració una classe rectora que procurara l’especulacio.
Fa dies que vaig pensant en la idea de buit i recullo d’alguns companys idees de com el buit representa l’absencia, la soletat, la mort…ja sigui una tela o un paper en blanc, una pausa entre notes, un espai sense construir… l’horror vacui pren en les nostres vides quotidianes i aixi, aprofitada la por per qui manega els fils, el nostre caminar es converteix en un continu d’imatges,sons,missatges, estimuls que eviten fixar la mirada i fragmenten qualsevol coneixement profund.
En la meva experiencia un espai en blanc mai es buit…una tela per exemple…podriem parlar de la seva forma, de la textura, de la qualitat del blanc de la preparacio, de la seva calidesa al tacte i tambe podriem dir que es un espai d’aventura, on tot pot passar, un espai amic que espera rebre aquelles reflexions que expressem mitjançant el color…tambe un silenci pot esdevenir poema, una absencia esperança i de la solitud sempre poden neixer ponts i complicitats.
No crec en el res sino en el tot.
Mentre vaig pensant en els termes en que defineixo la creacio no puc substraurem a la idea de que l’art mes enlla del sistema de control i consum es una altra cosa, es vida mateixa i ha de desenvolupar-se fora dels canons i els limits de gust, ha de mantenir l’esperit critic, construir xarxes colaboratives, treballar en contextos reals, establir processos de transformacio comuns, totxs som creatius i la vida ens dona diferents mitjans d’expressio.
D’altra banda he tingut aquests dies algunes petites confrontacions amb aquells que des d’una visio conformista de la vida opinen que davant els temps actuals, no hi ha res a fer, tot esta dat i beneit, i esperen algu pensi per ells i els doni una vegada i altre un cami traçat. HI ha qui diu que no hi ha lluita que valgui, que no podem lluitar contra el sistema perque som pocs, ens movem en el buit i perque no tenim veu pero…
