Quotes from Interventionists Chapter 1 and Seeing Power Chapter 5 and 6

Youklendy Calderon

Art 263

October 24, 2018

RESPONSE:

Chapter 1 Nomads pgs. 25-60 Interventionists

• " As Rakowitz states, 'The visibly parasitic relationship of these devices to the buildings, appropriating a readily available situation with readily available materials elicited immediate speculation as to the future of the city: would these things completely take over, given the enormous number of homeless in our society? Could we wake up one morning to find these encampments ngulfing buildings like ivy?'" (22)

• Michael Rakowitz's project, "paraSITE," is a visual pun that sheds light on the growing homeless population in New York and other areas around the country.  His project is literally a parasite, because it invades public space and feeds off of building air vents to inflate and provide shelter for the homeless; simultaneously becoming a living site located next to 'normal' places of habitation, hence the prefix 'para-'. The shapes of his inflatable shelters look similar to roundworms and remove the beauty from city infrastructure. The visually detestable place of residence for the homeless make people uncomfortable and forces them to realize the lack of dignity experienced by the homeless who are unable to afford housing. Unfortunately, the homelessness issue in New York has not been solved, and even though this project was  made in 1998, it still applies to today's society, which increasingly rejects the homeless population.

• "The home comes equipped with air intake valves, an equipment box containing a kitchen pan, kettle, alcohol burner and plastic bags, a bilge pump and a toilet. N55 suggests the Snail Shell System can be used to transport items or used o provide protection for someone during demonstrations" (38)

• The Snail Shell System revolutiziones what me may think of as necessary living space by providing the bare minimal needed in a shelter for survival, and providing ease of transport on land and water. N55's project makes people consider living  minimalist lifestyle, while addressing the safety issues faced by protestors. The project does not only provide a living space, but it also serves as a fast shelter for one protestor.

Chapter 5 Seeing Power

• "Citizens' eyes had become more focused to see past the promises of television and to see, instead, a visual machine for consumerism. The promises made were not all that different from those of snake oil salesmen from years past" (111-112)

• The hurricanes' victims realized that the media sources who wanted to 'help' them actually wanted to monetize their struggles by selling a needy community to the rest of the nation

• "A familiarity with the infrastructures of power provides the material context from which claims are made and gestures deployed. The capacity to see power matters." (115)

• Although power is often used as a unilayer word, it involves various folds of communities, time, history, tensions, money, structure, etc., making it utterly incomprehensible to outsiders without the guidance of locals who benefit, observe, critique, or are abused by the power structure. Those who understand how power works can complete projects for their financial gain or for a community's benefit, so that those who understand power have the power to make or neglect change.

Chapter 6 Seeing Power

• "When Starbucks and Barnes and Noble ran rampant through the metropolitan areas of the United States, they didn’t simply remove mom-and-pop stores; they removed spaces of potential political becoming. Their privatization of space ran roughshod through spaces of alternative subjectivities." (134)

• Corporations detry local business, and simultaneously stipple people's voices by closing the public spaces used for anti-political gatherings.  As more people become enthusiastic about purchasing overpriced items from these stores, they fail to notice how the corporations are dominating political space to grow their business and stifle the thoughts and actions of the people. Thus, consumers become mindless and thoughtless consumer machines that yield to corporations'' marketing tricks and hand away their spaces of political discussion.

• "Ambiguous aesthetic actions can often act as facilitators for radically different conditions of being. Because ambiguous aesthetics can be open-ended, they can allow for forms of participation that evoke curiosity and a collective sense of becoming." (137)

• Society has always focused on making spaces aesthetically pleasing, especially spaces inhabited by the rich and powerful. However, what is actually pleasing to the majority of people without the influence of power is ambiguous. Without those in power dictating what it acceptable, beautiful, or considered art, the people are allowed to make their own choices and decide how they want to change society's power structures. By providing a neutral space, people are able to make genuine contributions to art and connect without the social divisions presented by the the power structure.

Artist/Group that illustrates themes about power, social, and cultural capital:
Mass MoCA provides a local space for art in a poor community, so it is not maintained by large, political donations, but by ticket purchases by local community members. Since the community is responsible for the maintenance of the museum, its political ideas and galleries are shaped by the ideals of the community. The community, in general, prefers paintings as they are universally understood, but they reject antique paintings of excessive splendor that does not reflect their lifestyles. Thus, the museum does not possess the social capital enjoyed by its larger, internationally acclaimed national peers, nor the cultural capital associated with a very specific art form tailored to the artistic elite. The museum challenges power structures through activist art, and the ppeople keep the museum in check so that it is not corrupted by power.