Owen's collection of art made me think of the assemblages of Joseph Cornell. Cornell used found objects and collaged pieves to create boxes.   They were often covered with glass panes, sometimes had covers, and some were even interactive, such as his Medici series. I saw them in Mass a couple years back.

Something I have been involved with for a long time is mail art.  I exchange with artists, writers, and have participated in groups who send and exchange print and text pieces. I love the idea of random art coming in the mail, and the freedom to create anything and just send it off. Unlike an online "send", it is a real, tangible object that you are putting out there to travel, and receiving such yourself is amazing. Here is an online submission link, though its nothing like the real thing.

http://digitalmailart.blogspot.com/

Site is not letting images be posted?!

  The building is the blank canvas: it represents not just the work’s base but also its integrity. I am looking at  artwork that  mirrors community issues of foreclosure, urban blight and economic hardship — powerful reasons to reconsider an abandoned structure and its transformation. Artist Tyree Guyton has been able to transform Heidelberg Street in Detroit by painting abandoned houses in signature bright polka dots and building large-scale found object collages.  It’s a short distance from downtown Detroit, but with acres of vacant lots and deteriorating houses.  Guyton has created a whole new world: beyond the playfully decorated abandoned houses and freestanding sculptures, there is the feeling of a playground with a serious humanitarian message.  The street and sidewalks are painted with words, shapes and bright colors, and trees are decorated  with stuffed animals, shoes and signs. Even shopping carts are perched some 30 feet in the air on the tip-tops of tree limbs.  The Heidelberg Project started as a personal attempt to save a disappearing street. It seems to have become a destination, and maybe even an eyesore? I like the attempt to put the message right in the face, like a Jenny Holzer text piece.

I remembered this piece by Abromovich, in which she sits in a chair across from the viewer, and that is it. They sit. It made me think of the presence in absentia idea.  There they are, staring at one another. The viewer has the ability to look into the eyes of the artist. But that gaze does not insure a knowing. Looking at the cover of a book, however closely, tells us little about what is really inside, only about what is chosen to be represented.

Ok. I realize this was written in the early days of hip hop and rap, but I could not get past the old white guy attempting to "know" by using the "get down with it" phrase.  He says that rap is all inclusive? For everyone? I have seen alot of rap, and would not begin to say that it presents an inclusive view of women.  I would not say it represents really anything different from any other capitalist form, with its emphasis on materiality, cool cars, chicks, and good times.

Ok. well- now I will read the rest of it...just had to vent.

Once I started to really understand what she was getting at, I really thought this piece had some excellent points about documentation- after the fact. I would have naturally assumed that the mere "being there" and witnessing of performance would be the only way of "knowing". But if I had been there to see Van Gogh at the easel, see the way he applied the paint- I would walk away with no more special insight into the work than I have all these years later.

Since so much of art is focused on the art objects being the "complete work", it opens itself up to the critique of presence as outlined by Derrida.  We tend to think of the object as completely open to our examination.  But Derrida insists that this work contains also an absence, and that what we are dealing withis really just one of a multitude of supplements, of views, of segments of the whole.  In the realm of signifier, the actual object is one of many, and the meaning is never fixed.  Jones takes this even further insisting that the body of the artist that is present in the performance is in fact, just one of many "supplements" in the work.  It is not a priviledged presence that gives us immediate access to the artist's intent, and does not constitute an unqualified...as she calls it- signature.  As much as performnace art concerning the body tries to convey to the viewer immediate presence, it seems to only further indicate what is not there.  It is only on knowing more, and perhaps in the aftermath, looking at documentation as well, being removed, that a more full knowing can take place.  

Meaning, even of a body is awlays deferred.

Could a Haapening have any relevance today? Thinking about the social media, and its ability to mobilize peole. Are we now to apathetic to be mobilized into action other than posting on our phone or computer,anything beyond flashmob.  Like the fluxus movement, this seems to be more about an event that was more for and about the performers, moreso than audience.

http://www.wqxr.org/#/articles/wqxr-features/2012/feb/15/found-sound-project/

Hey guys, I heard about this event and wanted to let everyone know. This is a "found sound" project. The Knights- a musical group out of NYC is looking for people to submit sound recordings to include in a performance of John Adams music, that has a score which includes random sound and "noise". There is a link to submit your sound on the site. Perhaps we should send them a bit of Owen's lecture?

Saw the candy installation at the ICA. In theory, before I saw it, it sounded interesting. At the museum, I approached from across the room. I watched at viewers picked up a wrapped candy, and walked on. Those who were in the know, made it seem ok to the others, who were not going to go away empty handed if somebody else was taking- they were going to as well. I started to think about how shallow this piece was, how much like a vaudeville one liner, unless you account for the statement it made about the typical human. 

What if this candy was unwrapped? What if it was a ton of unwrapped m&Ms? Undualting like a beach- at the water's edge? If the museum replaces the picked up candy, then the peice never really changes, if I went next week it would look about the same. If I saw it in San Fransisco it would be the same, unless he switches candy every now and then. Once I get the concept, or my share of the candy, Its over for me, thats it. Conceptual maybe, but the candy was blue and it wasn't even good.