This blogpost is simply a collection of random thoughts. Hopping from one strand of thought to another logically is the best way, I find, to think. But often what happens is that when we finally arrive at our destination we lose the path that led us there. So, in order to avoid losing that train of thought I am creating this ongoing brainstorming post where I will keep updating findings. It has also led me to (finally!) formulate a loose research question. Onto the writing!
Tentative research question (by tentative I mean it can be restructured but it won’t be replaced):
An examination of the ‘Happenings’ and the ‘Fourth Plinth’ projects to analyze the impact of the digimodernist and post-truth era on art in the public sphere, in light of the theories of the Fluxus movement and Debord’s ‘Comments on The Society of the Spectacle’.
City as archive: a dialogue between theory and practice
Michael Sheringham, Richard Wentworth*
The search for publics: challenging comfort zones in the co-creation of public art
Contemporary art’s connection to the changing nature of the public sphere, in an age of social media and a ‘post-truth’ environment
Digimodernism— destructive or enabling?
The four plinths — digimodernism’s effect on art int he public sphere?
how we will use our time on the fourth plinth
The fourth plinth was a reflection of digimodernism?
https://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-journal,id=195/view,page=2/
The relation between works and their audience: the spectator’s active role in 1968 productions
https://ralphkeyes.com/book/the-post-truth-era/
https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-snapchat-and-the-dawn-of-the-post-truth-era/
“relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”
https://www.widewalls.ch/post-truth/
Can we discuss art through the prism of post-truth, and haven’t art been always a search for personal truths that are not necessarily truthful when put in a broader perspective?
“Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” -George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, 1946
What role can art play? It can bring the truth to life? Dismantle the post truth world?
https://therapeia.org.uk/ttr/2015/03/29/digimodernism-social-media-and-the-apparently-real/
http://hanapusa.com/text/critic/posttruth.html
Publications of interest so far:
- Otaku — Hiroki Azuma
- Protest performance and the public sphere
- Comments on the society of the spectacle
- The society of the spectacle
- Public art an durban design
- How the arts impact communities
https://www.theartstory.org/movement-fluxus.htm
Thoughts so far:
Digimodernism gives everyone a platform to speak up, be a writer, an artist or a activist. The only flaw is that truth has become totally subjective. The 4th Plinth public art project kind of did the same thing. It offered up a platform for artists to put up their thoughts…
Potential research questions:
I am researching: Happenings and the 4th Plinth project
What I don’t know about it: to investigate the impact of digimodernism and the post truth era on the notions/understand/creation of public art
in light of the fluxus movement and debord’s comments on the society of the spectacle.
https://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/book_report/what-was-fluxus-54032
http://www.thescavenger.net/media-a-technology-sp-9915/61-mediatech2/73-postmodernism-is-out-digimodernism-is-in.html