TBT 2009 - Comments about the Object: (User 1)


- Living with it interfered with the space.

- The sensation is smooth and pleasant.

- Pleasing and beautiful

- Exists an absence more than presence:

A non-space because of what surrounds it. Provokes visual interference, surrounds the space, (transitory in its essence). By accepting it is a rejection per se (something to be dealt with)

- The packaged of it, was relevant due to the limited period of time in the house (was near the Box as if the Box was going to leave in the following day).

- Temporality and supportive/engaging. (Find a balance in between)

- Integration of the box and them with the space is an unconscious process.

- Wanting to spend every time with the Box, supporting physically.

- Time has effect. Affects the box (A fast engagement)

- Establish a connection with it by sitting side by side.

- Is not a work of art but part of it! (They complete the work in some way)

- Allowing people to engage with it makes them think how to receive it and think about the level of expectation in art; (allow the function of the artwork to engage).

TBT 2009 - Comments about the Object: (User 2)


-The object was used as a table during its stay in the house.

- The textile function of the object was also very appealing.

- The object had for them the remembrance of an old suitcase but still a reference to a functional object. Made them think of something inspiring and at the same time romantic.

- One of them used as his own desk for a couple of hours. (They tried to emphasize the functionality and its use).

- Their intervention worked in some way as a written statement a document made for themselves and by themselves.

- The impact of the box in the room was notorious because it didn’t change the spatial organization but it transformed the way they perceived it. In same vague sense was a reunion, inspiring and even healthy.

- Due to all these qualities the box was reserved to create a special occasion and to enjoy the short period of time they had with the box.

- It also worked as a diary of their lives that in some way works as a testimony of what will certainty leave some affection behind.

- However the changes happened to in their lives even if it was for a night. The functionality of the box, worked also as a break in their routine provoking a relationship directly with something more than just a box.

- The experience itself turned out to be different and promoter of new things and happenings in their lives.

TBT 2009 - Comments about the Object: (user 3)


- The box was very appealing when it was unwrapped, but there was also a questioning between being a box or a cube in conceptual terms.

- There was an interest in naming it because it was there were several possibilities to go with the box.

- They faced the object as an object so they felted restrained in doing something to the box.

- They used it as a support base, to make it functional.

- in some way the box made part of the family for while, and was created a relation even thought the object itself remained strange to them. The presence of it was a bit frightening because of its size.

- There was a slight contradiction in their behaviour with the object because in one hand it was almost like a sense of loss but in the other hand there was a kind of affection. It is also interesting how the object even thought it didn’t suffered any intervention it became an active object that completed some kind of gap.

- There was also the interest of going for a walk with the box and trying to interact with it in specific places. However the idea didn’t happen!

- At the same time there was a need to not engage with it, because it is something that an ordinary object would not require from you!

- The box had a lot of dust in it.

- The box has also the power to precede you into the room as something that was dislocated.

- Nevertheless there was a creation of a relation due to the box being attractive to them. The physicality of it and its basic and tactile attributes it was not divorced from them because they felt it belonged to the everyday world. Another point that was considered was that it was something natural and very practical to accept.

- There was an objectification of the box diminishing it. The object itself becomes an accumulation of space that seems to belong to place but still does not belong. Remains alienated. There seems to exist a boundary that keeps us to still keep close but at the same time distant from it.

- In some way part of our lives were brought as close as possible because of a need of interacting

- it is also relevant to say with no apparent intention there was created an aura in the object because they felt they could project anything to the box as long as the box remained with no intervention. Afterwards it becomes difficult and there is also other aspect that once the box itself becomes intervened until the point whether it loses its integrity!

TBT 2009 - Comments about the Object: (user 4)


- They felt that the smell, touch and smoothness were very important factors to their engagement with the box because conditioned their interaction in order to reflect their interactions within the three characteristics.

- However they were concerned in leaving one side of the box clear because they felt people should have the same experience they had by touching and smelling it.

- The interventions in the box were a consequence of a gathering of people mainly friends around the box. As consequence of this they were tempted to think outside the box and analyze their experiences.

- There was a suggestion of making a suitcase, putting wheels, making a plinth, a skate board, walk it around the city, but they hadn’t the time to do that.

- The box had appositive effect on people making them work collaboratively and for a common interest.

- Some ideas were generated by the presence of the box in the place. In addition the box was placed in several places according to the needs and interest of the people that wanted to make use of it.

- The box itself incarnated the personality of a tourist that walks around without staying much time in one place but always trying to retain most of his experiences.

- The presence of the box was very prom eminent not only in the actual place but also in their memories as something that found a small corner in their conscious.

- Even though it was a short period of time with the box it was a good opportunity for them to be creative. One of the interventions was with candle works, a DJ stand, drawings and chiselling. All these interventions reflected individual instincts that pervaded instead of consideration. According to them this characteristic caused the awareness that the box was already part of them in some way but nevertheless it remained in some way a bizarre object but very appealing and receptive to everyone!

TBT 2009 - Comments about the Object: (user 5)


- First reaction was that it had a funny smell.

- The Box represented a distraction and an object that was very intriguing because its presence was very unusual.

- They used as a functional with several functions such as a seat and lather. They also wrote in the object with commentaries very intriguing about the purpose of the project.

- One of them asked what the point of the project was because there was a dialog very effusive about their beliefs.

- There was some investigation about how the box was made and why which resulted in several questions and debates.

- The debate was mainly about modern art and that led to several conversations about modern art.

- The box didn’t facilitate much communication between co-workers because they were already very close with each other. The box gave a new ambiance to the space because it enables them to be confronted by almost an alien that entered their lives for a period of time.

- In addition the fact that the environment of a working space was very restrictive they tried to make use of it in different ways.

TBT 2009 - Comments about the Object: (user 6)


- The surface is very appealing and beautiful, even inspiring, which let the ‘temporary owner’ quite perplex about the power of such feelings.

- The presence of the box was in some way quite unsettling. For instance the fact that the box didn’t open and still remains as a box.

- There was a feeling that the box even though was not destroyed it was in other hand vandalized by the multiple interventions.

- The intervention on the box was paintings that were similar to stamps. The paintings were small animals one of them was from Latin America, and in together with the paintings there was phrases written in Spanish and in English making reference to the paintings.

- The box presence was very stimulating because it had connotations with bad things such as ‘I am going to be boxed in’ or ‘they are going to take me away in a box’ associated with the image of death and coffins. In addition the temporary owner made reference to a poem that refers to being boxed in the Second World War[i]. On the other hand it was associated with good things such as presents or the Boxing Day when Christmas presents are opened.

- The box allowed a feeling of freedom that was only overcome after a few days since it was a kind of alien in their place. It was a slightly worrying for them to accept it because there was a sense of obligation to work with it. However after overcome the freedom allowed the temporary owner to even be ironic in its interventions.

- The result was in some way the imprint of a statement in the box of their egos while living with it. Nevertheless this attitude reveals a sense of identity by living their fingerprints quite literally or just metaphorically.

- The impact in the space was not much relevant because the house as they described was almost a building site, so it didn’t disturb any kind of harmony!

- In the end there was a slight affection by the box due to its presence even though if it was for a very short period of time.


[i] VII

Jumbled in one common box

Of their dark stupidity,

Orchid, swan, and Caesar lie;

Time that tires of everyone

Has corroded all the locks

Thrown away the key for fun.

In its cleft the torrent mocks

Prophets who in days gone by

Made a profit on each cry,

Persona grata now with none;

And a jackass language shocks

Poets who can only pun.

Silence Settles on the clocks;

Nursing mothers point a sly

Index finger at a sky,

Crimson in the setting sun;

In the valley of the fox

Gleams the barrel of a gun.

Once we could have made the docks,

Now it is too late to fly;

Once too often you and I

Did what we should not have done;

Round the rampant rugged rocks

Rude and ragged rascals run.

Song by W. H. Auden, 1941

Sunday, 1 February 2009

(Assembly) - Art and Morality

Herbert Read addresses Tolstoy position in relation to art (What is Art?) as the proclamation of the death of art. What Herbert Read means by saying this is that art for Tolstoy should have a moral purpose and it should be clear and simple in its expression and its appeal should be universal. However Herbert Read puts Art on these terms:

‘Art is not and never has been subordinate to moral values. Moral values are social values; aesthetic values are human values. Moral values promote and protect a particular way of life; aesthetic values promote and protect life itself, as a vital principle. Moral values are based on sentiments, that is to say, on clear notions of goodness or happiness; aesthetic values are based on institutions and feelings, that is to say, on obscure reactions to experience. Morality seeks to restrain the feelings, art seeks to define them by externalizing them, by giving them significant form. Morality has only one aim – the ideal good; art has quite another aim – the objective truth. Morality finds expression in precept and commandment; art in symbol and myth. The moralist preaches or prophesies; the artist bears witness, impassively’

What I can understand by reading this small extract from Read position towards art is that art is essentially a medium of communication. The essence of an artistic product is in the way it reaches its audience whether effectively or not!

‘The crucial element is life and it self-preservation because life is after all the self-expression of a human being’. We should interpret the values of pleasure, communication and emotion according to Tolstoy as something that is not connected with art but should be integrated with it. By this there is an assumption that moral values make part of the artistic nature!

Moral values are something that co-exists with art but the only interference with art and morality depends on the judgement of every person. Their natural essence, even though being very close is often misunderstood, assuming that art itself in its deep essence should assume some kind of morality! But then we have to ask ourselves what kind of morality we are talking about! I don’t think it is an issue that is easy to talk about because there are different points of view. What can be for me reproachable is accepted by someone else!

I have to say that the ultimate purpose of art is to go beyond everything that is tactile or even physical to reach a level of transcendence, where nothing is seen but felt and afterwards understood. In this point I have to agree with Tolstoy, but the fact that Read says that morality should be played in a different field of art can be discussable because in history, art played an important role in developing the society and even giving values to its development.
However the statement from Tolstoy may be focused in only a simple factor of the experience of art.

As far as I am concerned the two authors are assuming two different perspectives about the same topic and what was to be understood here is the fact that they are not separable from each other. In one hand we have the pure fact of communication and feelings and on the other hand the capacity of understanding that leads to a transcendental world far away from the pure gaze!

It can be said, when the artist preserves the outstanding singularity of giving to its audience a genuine sensation, the power of engagement is fulfilled in every dimension.

I would like to question if this conflict between art and morality made specifically by these two authors is just a conflict, because after all art has the power to touch independently from any social restriction?! In addition in the excerpt from Herbert Read can’t we find the whole dimension of what art demonstrate to be?

(Herbert Read, the Grass Roots of Artist)
(Leo Tolstoy, What is Art?)
Publicized by Pedro Lopes em 2/01/2009 09:39:00 pm
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1 comment:

  1. Anonymous1 February 2009 at 23:09

    Art?
    Morality?
    Let's add another term: Responsibility

    “A nation of people stood by and watched it happen. You have to wonder, why didn’t somebody stop that?”
    This question is asked in ‘Mephisto’, a novel by Klaus Mann, who wondered why all the german citizens didn't do anything against Hitler during the World War II and the government of the fascist regiment – especially the artists, who stayed and continued to performance and create their work. How can you create art within an atmosphere of fear, political oppression and inhumanity.

    I have learned to think about the context of my work, about what I am doing as a designer, about the content that I want to communicate.
    What client am I working for? What is the precise purpose of a current project?
    And I still wonder if I would decline a peculiar instruction if I would have doubts or concerns about its integrity... As an artist or designer you have to search your conscience and be aware of the immense power of the visual awareness of your work – it is you who creates something, so it is you who is responsible for the statement and the moral intention.

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