Waste of Time

“Why make things so difficult for the viewer?

“We are a consumer-society, and it seems to me that art has become a passive ‘spectator sport’ to an extent unprecedented in history.I have always tried to work against this tendency by producing ‘occasions for interpretation’ rather than ‘objects for consumption’.I believe that the ability to produce rather than consume meanings, and the ability to think otherwise ways of thinking not encouraged by the imperative to commodity production, ways condemned as ‘a waste of time’ – is fundamental to thegoal of a truly, rather than nominally, democratic society. I believe art is one of the few remaining areas of social activity where the attitude of critical engagement may still be encouraged – all the more reason then for art to engage with those issues which are critical.”

— Victor Burgin

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Forty-Two

NEVER MISS A GOOD CHANCE TO SHUT UP
REFUSE TO NARRATE
BORED BY PLOT
INFORMED BY ABSENCES
WHAT IS LEFT OUT, SCRATCHED OUT
PROGRESS BY: REPETITION REVISION ERASURE

— Janet Malcolm, Forty-One False Starts

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Essence in the Shadow

 

The camera is made up of what we might think of as three distinct parts(mediums, even): the lens, the shutter and the light-sensitive surface. When theories privilege the lens it is usually in relation to the depiction of space and the conventions of realism determined by linear perspective and optics. Here we are in the realm of resemblance and iconicity, where the origins and the essence of photography are located in the /camera obscura/. When the shutter is invoked it is in relation to time and and duration, and photography’s origins and essence are located in the desire for arrested vision. When the light-sensitive surface is invoked it is usually in relation to the question of contact and touch, locating origin and essence in the shadow or trace.

— David Campany, A Handful of Dust

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