this page is a result of two situations that took place over the course of february, 2024:
1. during my last day at bjorko konstnod the residents and curators gathered together for dinner. a discussion broke out as a result of me trying not to call myself an artist.
2. watching “notebook on cities and clothes” by wim wenders two days later.
here are some notes that come to mind:
one is expected to learn as much as possible individually, without the presence of others. this may be only partially true, but it feels like this has become the norm in some bubbles. this takes away the ability to experiment and be social within a practice. some processes, thus, becomes more insular.
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the online understanding of the word “aesthetics” is born out of people wearing projections of realities that no longer exist (or ones that you do not belong to) -- see cari.
deep image culture only strains itself away from reality (images referencing images referencing...). this is not to say that an image cannot represent anything, just that it representing something increasingly fictional seems to be an issue. these aesthetics are not only about comfort in daily life, though they definitely stem from a form of convenience. they are a projection of reflections, they aim to reproduce meaning by associating with meaning, instead of offering an outlook on reality.
could this be a symptom of these realities’ increased interconnectedness? (e.g. work clothing becoming a trend due to it being highly functional)
possibly, but looking at (_)-core aesthetics can show that they also represent a longing for something (different lives?) and are easily interchangable. just as moods change, aesthetics change.
they are very reactionary and impermanent, to an extent that they become a desire to constantly represent different selves, possibly, those in conflict? constantly in flux.
this seems to lead to the idea of aesthetics being something one can buy into, which only furthers the idea of buying identity, a commodity of sorts.
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the reason i was ashamed (and still am) of calling myself an artist, preferring terms such as cultural worker or semiotechnitian, is similar to one that the word “creative” is frowned upon in certain cicles. these words have been repackaged and sold, created into identeties that can be consumed, or just turned into overall positive adjectives (”you’re/that’s so artistic/artsy!”). these words no longer posess even their initial ironic meaning (could it be to the extent that they have become nearly meaningless?). they function in an environment where not only anyone could become an artist -- a sentiment one can get behind -- but where everyone is expected to be artisticcreative. where these words no longer represent an approach one uses, nor a position one occupies, but can be used towards the clothing that you wear or the marketing campaign, or a business solution, or a whole stream of other meaningless linguistic attributions (e.g. pizza is an art).
thus, at least in public discussions, i very hesitantly call myself an artist or a curator, which, maybe, only adds oil to the fire. by distancing oneself from these connotations of these words, one attempts to remove their current connotation, one that is very far away from what these words could mean.
possibly, calling oneself a “cultural worker” has similar connotations in some cultures.
you may think that this is pessimistic, but i am no longer sure these words can be reclaimed.which is a shame, as calling oneself an artist is the simplest way of telling people what one is doing and the processes one is involved in.
if it is still possible to reclaim these words, then it is necessary to do so.
this does not, in all sincerety, stop me from considering myself to be all three (as they have different meanings): an artist, curator, and cultural worker.
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