Algorithm and Contingency / Art

Category Archives: Art

Is there such a thing as a mundane object? “Art at large” and the counter-factual objet trouvé.

12-May-12

Thats the title of an essay I’ve written for a pamphlet collection of essays – it alludes to some missed confrontations between Greenberg and Duchamp. The pamphlet in question will be distributed in the exhibition ‘Field Static : A Group Show about the Object‘ curated by the wonderful duo of Devin King and Caroline Picard [...]

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Late Greenberg on Duchamp’s “Advanced Art” (a longer rant)

23-Apr-12

From the same seminar (No – 6) Convention and Innovation (1976) -(p. 49 in Homemade Aesthetics, 1999). Again when he refers to ‘advanced’ art – Greenberg is effectively having a go at pretty much everything inspired by the ‘theoretical demonstration’ of Duchamp. “Most of what I’ve just said is not new. but the emphasis I’ve [...]

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The late Greenberg on Duchamp

22-Apr-12

Here he is – in Seminar Six. “Yet Duchamp and his sub-tradition have demonstrated, as nothing did before, how omnipresent art can be, all the things it can be without ceasing to be art. And what an unexceptional, unhonorific status art as such—that is, aesthetic experience—really has. For this demonstration we can be grateful. But [...]

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Some questions about Actor Recursion Theory (ART): An interview with me – (Part 1)

06-Apr-12

So what’s Actor Recursion Theory then? Actor Recursion Theory is a name I’ve given to a specific intervention outlined in my dissertation. It’s not fully developed yet, and as such links or presents my haphazard state of mind during a PhD thesis. It’s reflects an opinion, but I leave plenty of room for others. The [...]

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Damien Hirst retrospective

03-Apr-12

The ‘entrepreneur’ – artist Damien Hirst, has a retrospective out at Tate Modern. There are two (and only two) interesting things about Hirst. The first is the sheer quantity of work he has produced for an artist under the age of 50. It’s quite something, even if you happen to think most of his stuff [...]

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Thinking the Absolute: The Ambiguities of Emergence, Novelty and Life in Formal Systems.

23-Mar-12

Some good news to report; our panel “The Ambiguities of Emergence, Novelty and Life in Formal Systems“, has been accepted at the “Thinking the Absolute Conference at Liverpool Hope University, June 29th – July 1st. The panel will involve myself, Charlie Gere and Francis Halsall – our abstracts are below. Looks like it will be [...]

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Some (very quick) thoughts on Critical Engineering

11-Feb-12

I’ve been following an interesting thread over on the Empyre forums between Cesar Baio, Simon Biggs, Davin Heckman and Gabriel Menotti. It’s basically a conversation on the ambiguous nature of accessible artworks created by technology and in particular, computing programming languages. I was struck by a comment made by Julian Oliver (who recently showed some [...]

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“Why would you want to end your career like this?”

03-Feb-12

That’s what someone said to me earlier today, when I talked about the importance of Greenberg. Not unexpected of course – but it makes no sense to be ignorant about him. When I asked for the reason behind this opinion, the smug self-satisfaction of ‘you don’t understand’ and ‘we’re past this’ comes to the fore; [...]

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Transmediale stuff

02-Feb-12

Ok – it’s time that I updated everyone on the last two days. So transmediale is going well. There’s a nice vibe going on, as I expected everyone is in good sprits and enjoying the festival events. There are A LOT of people here, pretty much 1000 maybe even 2000+ are expected over the course [...]