Thoughts on Artificial Hells

Clair Bishop and thoughts on Artificial Hells.

 

Artificial Hells by Claire Bishop available here: https://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Hells-Participatory-Politics-Spectatorship/dp/1844676900/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2PIRSVQ074MVT&keywords=artificial+hells+claire+bishop&qid=1573150658&sprefix=artificial+hells+clair+%2Caps%2C751&sr=8-1

Clair Bishop in 'Artificial Hells' elaborates on the fact that artistic interest in collaborations and participatory projects have been on the rise since the early 1990's (2012:1). A utopian re-thinking of arts and relationship thereof as a collective voice.

"To grasp participatory art from images alone is almost impossible," (Bishop 2012:5) Images are just "fragmentary evidence" and nothing of the "affective dynamic" of what propels artists to do them or people to participate in them.


Todays participatory art strives to emphasize the process over the product and depends of the narration of first hand experience, which is subjective to the narrator.

For instance, as the "Teacher," I can tell you some the the areas the students navigated in creating our images such as:

Critical thinking in

What to show

How to actually create it

How to display/ lay it out it

How to make it fit

What angle to shoot

What colors to use

How to agree as a team (navigate group dynamics)

How to get it done by the deadline

How to gather the resources they need

How to view the final product

How to evaluate the experience

How to decide what to do different or the same the next time

But as a student, the process may have been more personal or the growth may have been in areas that I did not think to mention.

Both of us as participators may have a less objective view than an outsider, or even the classroom teacher who gets to observe the project but participates only in a supportive role.  However her commitment to her students and their success would still impose a bias in general.

If the project has two purposes, one for intrinsic growth of the participants and the second being the effect had on viewers, then the evaluation must be duel as well, and may not fall on a specific grid of numbered success, and contain a looser time scale as Bishop explains that some projects have more significance in the future days then the time that they are created (2012:7).

This may be demonstrated in that instead of this project containing 10 year olds producing valued pieces of society-moving art, but a seed being planted about choices and exhibition of voice that may grow into the fruit of something larger per the individual.

A 'switch' on a railroad track setting a new path to something unknown at this point.

 Because there is a balance between what the project produces and the process, I hope to have a meaningful output, something valuable within its circle of influence, even if it be a limited one. There must remain this balance between the process and the output. Participatory art walks a fine line facing both the social sphere and then again toward its own self.   

On Authorship;
Roland Barthes reminds us in 1968 that any authorship is indebted to many others (Barthes in Bishop 2012:9)

Thanks to total saturation in today's image market our senses may be dulled by spectacle and repetition and French writer and film maker Guy Debord, encouraged 'action' or interaction as the solution to 're-humanize' the art experience (Bishop 2012).

Participatory art is less about visual commodities and more about social change (Bishop 2012:13) and authorship becomes collaborative.

Participation should be more than just a buzzword.
And the term ART can be used lightly, leaning more toward the end product than something judged in the same category as a Picasso.

Oda Projesi used art to create relationships between people (Lind in Bishop 2012).
There is an ethical criteria that boosts the critique of collaborative art.  Its meaning is in its story, which is perceived to go deeper than surface of a single author art piece.

Bishop focuses on two contemporary tendencies in participatory art: delegated performance and petagogic projects (Krivickas, J.H,).  Mine falls into the latter.  Helping students "forge a closer connection between art and life," (Bishop 2012: 241).

Thomas Hirschhorn, the Paris based sculptor known best for his large scale social projects typically formed with residents near their making,  defines the real 'participation' in art as thinking! (Hirschhorn in Bishop 2012:260)

BISHOP, Claire. 2012. Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship. London: Verso.

KRIVICKAS, J. H. Bishop, Claire. Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship. Library Journal, [s. l.], n. 13, p. 91, 2012. Disponível em: <https://search-ebscohost-com.byui.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsglr&AN=edsgcl.299258479&site=eds-live>. Acesso em: 7 nov. 2019.