A discussion in 2 passages.
First of all thank you for your considered response. I wondered how you go about choosing those friction points? and are there any specific points which are continually drawn into ‘play’ within your practice? I mean, I see language games within your work, the liminal spaces between text (written language) and the ‘image’ is always up for grabs.
Do you think this perceived notion of moving toward eternal smoothness is in fact causing rupture of the hegemony within western discourse? I agree cognitive capitalism or capitalist realism is a full blown ideology now, as it refuses to allow any conceptual horizon. However, I get a sense that the rise in collectivism (and I do think there is such a rise) throughout the world is in fact a symptom of these ruptures as the traditional hierarchies and left and right politics suddenly isn’t fit for purpose, I guess that is another reason why some have coined the term post-politics. I agree social media and the internet is acting almost as a social accelerant or catalyst, as I guess the invention of the printing press was perceived to aid the mass media and propaganda. Do you see a part of your role as an artist-led collective to utilise the technologies we have to create difference or perhaps a more ethical difference within discourse? I say this with all its wide eyed ideological optimism.
Your question on collective mentality is one of those brilliant slippages within signification. I was actually referring to a more Marxist perspective of collective production or tendency within artistic discourse over the last century or so. However, you bring up a fascinating point I do think it belongs to a nostalgia for an unattainable utopian view of collective mind, within human history. However, without diverting the conversation toward the partially terrifying notion (definitely about power and control) of the android mind. A more realistic and accidental happening is the hive mind of the internet?
( this is section 2 of part 2) I ran out of characters.
The Internet doesn’t act as a mind (as yet) in the consciously connected way but perhaps exists as a gigantic data sourcing machine which is being mined by certain technocrats through algorithms to exploit capital. I’m not this is entirely a question but feel free to build upon anything here.
‘A collective does not have a definition. Every collective is like a little habitat and all its inhabitants have to find the balance in order to coexist.’ This is fantastic and highly interesting to my work as I am taking an ecological approach to researching artist-led collectives. This involves multiple perspectives and also imaging the different cultural spaces in which collectives can exist. Would you be able to say a little about TCC’s habitat?
I think your concept of network-building could be a really important point. When your network engages with different institutions, perhaps the more traditional museum or art gallery. I wondered how your organised, non-hierarchical and autonomous practice worked within those very different institutional conditions? Also, along these lines is a very complex question, which is actually my central argument within my thesis, I wondered how the curatorial or self-curation manifested within your practice? POIUYT might be interesting to discuss? And what happens when you work with those institutional curators?
I think I will leave my questions there for now and let you think.