I wasn't going to post anything on Eryk's piece since
everytime I do it seems to be along the lines of how
great the work is and I feel that may be getting a tad
monotonous.
Nevertheless I am a signed up member of the Salvaggio
fan club for the reason that there always seems to me
something deeply human at the heart of the work.
This piece is no exception.
Of course it has technique and bravo for that but the
point is surely that the technique is at the service
of and works together with the content to produce
something that is both shocking and moving and however
much Eryk dislikes the word, is art ,and art of a high
order.

The use of names is, contrary to what Ivan asserts,
the thing that make it the most personal, the most
connected - a name is of course not at all an
abstraction -in the world as we experience it, it
stands for everything we are ( and if I had lost
someone then to see their name up there would fill me
with grief-I can quite understand why Eryk would feel
a little nervous about posting the piece.)
If the point you are making is that there are many
events in our world that require memorials and many
needless deaths then I couldn't agree more ( there's a
piece to made about all those murdered in the
Palestinian refugee camps, or the Iraqi kids who died
through bombing or sanctions) but that is not what
this piece is about. Because others have died does not
lessen the horror of what happened to perfectly
blameless people on September 11th .
I for one am pleased that there are artists around who
don't see art as simply a formal and self referential
game but as something that speaks to us about our
deepest concerns.
And I don't mean by that that I think our time should
simply be taken engaging with tragedy - I thought the
recent haiku piece and the town portrait both human
sized and joyous works, (not to speak of the gnomes).
regards
Michael
— Ivan Pope <ivan@ivanpope.com> wrote:
>
> > I would appreciate feedback on this piece if
> anyone would like to
> > provide it. I have mixed
> > emotions concerning it, the way I do with every
> piece of work, but
> > obviously the subject
> > matter here is potentially larger than maybe I
> should have attempted to
> > grasp.
>
> Eryk,
> I really like the work, in the way it abstracts time
> based imagery and raw
> data listing and recombines them into a recognisable
> time based work.
>
> This is my personal view. There is so much hysteria
> surrounding the events
> of September 11th. I have no desire to be drawn into
> that hysteria. But,
> from an art/artist perspective:
>
> … to connect those images of 9/11/01 to the actual
> lives that were lost
>
> I cannot interpret this. What does it mean, 'the
> actual lives that were
> lost'? I mean, I think we all understand that it was
> real people with real
> lives that died. But I can't connect that to a huge
> listing of names. That's
> not real people, that's about as abstract as it
> gets. I can't help watching
> the piece with a sense of 'cor, that's clever, how
> did he do that' and
> 'look, the 'plane' is made up of Xxxx's name. Does
> that mean anything?' etc.
> It is not really possible to connect names (which
> are surely abstract
> symbols) to 'actual' people (and what indeed is an
> un-actual life?).
>
> … this is not intended to be
> a piece of work that you look at on a website and
> then move on; this is as
> close as I could create, to an online memorial, and
> I think the people who
> were killed deserve to have this piece looked at
> with contemplation as
> opposed to blind clicking.
>
> I do not think you can say that, that you can impose
> this view on the
> viewer. Honestly, people who are dead do not
> >deserve< anything. Dead people
> are just dead people, there are a hell of a lot of
> them about. Do you really
> think it is your role to create a memorial? And if
> you do, surely the work
> will stand or fall as that in its own right?
>
> To sum up, let the work speak for itself. Do not try
> to protect it by
> building a wall around it. Unless you are a
> commissioned state sculptor of
> course.
>
> Lovely piece of work though :)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ivan
>
> +
>
bostoniscoolerthannewyorkbostoniscoolerthannewyorkbostoniscoolerthanne
> -> Rhizome.org
> -> post: list@rhizome.org
> -> questions: info@rhizome.org
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> http://rhizome.org/subscribe.rhiz
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> I would appreciate feedback on this piece if anyone would like to
> provide it. I have mixed
> emotions concerning it, the way I do with every piece of work, but
> obviously the subject
> matter here is potentially larger than maybe I should have attempted to
> grasp.

Eryk,
I really like the work, in the way it abstracts time based imagery and raw
data listing and recombines them into a recognisable time based work.

This is my personal view. There is so much hysteria surrounding the events
of September 11th. I have no desire to be drawn into that hysteria. But,
from an art/artist perspective:

… to connect those images of 9/11/01 to the actual lives that were lost

I cannot interpret this. What does it mean, 'the actual lives that were
lost'? I mean, I think we all understand that it was real people with real
lives that died. But I can't connect that to a huge listing of names. That's
not real people, that's about as abstract as it gets. I can't help watching
the piece with a sense of 'cor, that's clever, how did he do that' and
'look, the 'plane' is made up of Xxxx's name. Does that mean anything?' etc.
It is not really possible to connect names (which are surely abstract
symbols) to 'actual' people (and what indeed is an un-actual life?).

… this is not intended to be
a piece of work that you look at on a website and then move on; this is as
close as I could create, to an online memorial, and I think the people who
were killed deserve to have this piece looked at with contemplation as
opposed to blind clicking.

I do not think you can say that, that you can impose this view on the
viewer. Honestly, people who are dead do not >deserve< anything. Dead people
are just dead people, there are a hell of a lot of them about. Do you really
think it is your role to create a memorial? And if you do, surely the work
will stand or fall as that in its own right?

To sum up, let the work speak for itself. Do not try to protect it by
building a wall around it. Unless you are a commissioned state sculptor of
course.

Lovely piece of work though :)

Cheers,

Ivan

Ivan,

I tried to email you the over day but it bounced back - could you let me
know whether you got my message or not..I think it was from glitches from
your server.

thanx marc

>
> > I would appreciate feedback on this piece if anyone would like to
> > provide it. I have mixed
> > emotions concerning it, the way I do with every piece of work, but
> > obviously the subject
> > matter here is potentially larger than maybe I should have attempted to
> > grasp.
>
> Eryk,
> I really like the work, in the way it abstracts time based imagery and raw
> data listing and recombines them into a recognisable time based work.
>
> This is my personal view. There is so much hysteria surrounding the events
> of September 11th. I have no desire to be drawn into that hysteria. But,
> from an art/artist perspective:
>
> …. to connect those images of 9/11/01 to the actual lives that were lost
>
> I cannot interpret this. What does it mean, 'the actual lives that were
> lost'? I mean, I think we all understand that it was real people with real
> lives that died. But I can't connect that to a huge listing of names.
That's
> not real people, that's about as abstract as it gets. I can't help
watching
> the piece with a sense of 'cor, that's clever, how did he do that' and
> 'look, the 'plane' is made up of Xxxx's name. Does that mean anything?'
etc.
> It is not really possible to connect names (which are surely abstract
> symbols) to 'actual' people (and what indeed is an un-actual life?).
>
> …. this is not intended to be
> a piece of work that you look at on a website and then move on; this is as
> close as I could create, to an online memorial, and I think the people who
> were killed deserve to have this piece looked at with contemplation as
> opposed to blind clicking.
>
> I do not think you can say that, that you can impose this view on the
> viewer. Honestly, people who are dead do not >deserve< anything. Dead
people
> are just dead people, there are a hell of a lot of them about. Do you
really
> think it is your role to create a memorial? And if you do, surely the work
> will stand or fall as that in its own right?
>
> To sum up, let the work speak for itself. Do not try to protect it by
> building a wall around it. Unless you are a commissioned state sculptor of
> course.
>
> Lovely piece of work though :)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ivan
>
> + bostoniscoolerthannewyorkbostoniscoolerthannewyorkbostoniscoolerthanne
> -> Rhizome.org
> -> post: list@rhizome.org
> -> questions: info@rhizome.org
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php3
>

Wow, powerful piece.

>
> September 11th, 2001:
> New 6RC Work by Eryk Salvaggio
> http://www.anatomyofhope.net/wtc/2/
>

Michael,
Well, at least we're discussing work on the list, which is really my intent.
I get a bit confused about what you're saying here. I mean, I think the work
in question is good and valid etc. I just don't believe that it needs the
interpretation of the artist to validate it. And further, even if the artist
does try to put a wall around its meaning, he may well be wrong in his view.

> The point is that the particular of Sept 11th connects
> with the universal of the themes you list as
> legitimate artistic 'big' subjects.
> That's what makes good art concrete and living and not
> schematic.

Well, that's why the piece works, its based on the human condition plus the
specific that we recognise. I don't doubt that.

> The same with the names- I'm sure formally you're
> absolutely correct- the point is that in lived human
> experience names do matter.
> Shakespeare- Stalin- Bush- Ivan Pope-Eryk Salvaggio-
> Michael Szpakowski- Leon Trotsky-Frank Black-John Doe
> these all carry to a greater or lesser extent whole
> constellations of meaning and if you object that the
> meanings are purely contingent then of course so is
> all human meaning making.

You are unfair here. If your list above went: Martin Trotwick, Jeliboam,
Francis, Peter Porter, Yip Soon, Angela Sotton I ask what constellation of
meanings you would attach to them. You can't list Stalin and Shakespeare or
even Pope and Salvaggio in this local context, and claim this proves names
de-facto carry significance. They just don't. The names above are local
Liberal Democrat councillors where I live. No they're not - they are the
victims of the notorious 'Satan's Sadist' slayings in 1984. So do the above
names signify anything on their own? As far as I can see, they can only
signify as far as we know they are the names of people, and we assume they
are the names of victims of 9/11. We have to build our response from that
point. And to claim that because they were real people's names and because
they died on 9/11 we get some understanding or emotional response directly
related to this. We don't. If we get an emotional response, it is from an
imagined 'knowledge' of these people. And for that to work, the names could
be any names. It does not matter if they are real names.

> Again there is a rigidity in your thinking over the
> question of whether Eryk could have pulled the names
> out of the telephone book.
> This increases the emotional force of the work for me-
> we see that he *worked* to find the names and to make
> the piece - he honoured the dead and their surviving
> relatives by doing so.

This is your own interpretation, and of course that is a valid response.
But, the surviving relatives may feel he has abused the dead. They may hate
the idea of an artist using the names of their loved one for his own ends.
Would that lessen the power of the work? Or increase it? Would that give us
more or less to think about. I think my main point is that if we just make
memorials, to allow or force us to 'think' more deeply, then we don't make
art. But of course that's not what Eryk has done, he has triggered a range
of responses, none of them right or wrong.

Cheers,
Ivan

In a message dated 6/25/2002 6:14:18 AM Central Daylight Time,
ivan@ivanpope.com writes:


> My point about memorials is that a memorial implies an institutional
> response to an event.

Surely not strictly speaking. What counts as an institution?

In a message dated 6/25/2002 6:06:22 PM Central Daylight Time,
askROM@graphpaper.com writes:


> is equally dumb.

What's dumb is what I said in my first post to this list, no one ever talks
about Genius 2000.

So, Judson, what do you think of Genius 2000? Do you think it will work? Do
you think it is working. Do you think it could work better. If so, how; if
not, why.

Do you believe every nation should have a massive Genius 2000 awareness? If
not, why not. Do you think it would cause problems, or not solve anything,
or what?

I've asked you twice to talk to your buddy in digimation about how stupid
Genius 2000 is, and get a little further comment. I mean that's absurd. So
I'll ask you, isn't Genius 2000 superior to every artwork in the Louvre
Museum, or any other museum?

Judson, the amiable pragmatist. But what if you're a welsher? Then what?

Challenge task, say the words "Genius 2000" to seven different people
tomorrow. I mean just by way of checking it out.

The sole purpose and reason being to enrich any discussion of Salvaggio's
page. Heavy, heavy theory on this one.

Check ya later,

Lord Hamburger
super2000.net

++

> >Does this piece violate Salvaggio Rule #2?
>
> Yes, and- remarkably- that's been the source of most contention. I'll
> probably take the intro page down.

I got no problem with it. I always thought Rule #2 was pretty dumb. The
inverse of the rule, that artists shouldn't participate in the discourse
of their own work, is equally dumb.

-Cf

[christopher eli fahey]
art: http://www.graphpaper.com
sci: http://www.askrom.com
biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com

<I am considering
removing the introduction page.>
hmm….well of course it's your piece but I'm not
convinced you should…its tone is very much of a
piece with the work as a whole and in a strange way I
think adds to it…or *prepares* us for the work in a
quite proper way.
Showing us your nervousness is a human and a warm
thing which in my view adds to the complexity and
reach of the work.
Of all the Six Rules ,although I absolutely understand
why it's there, the no introduction page one is the
one I feel most ambivalent about, for the reasons
outlined in my posts directed to Ivan's response.. of
course it's a massively abused thing ( and not just in
net art- sometimes as I wander about galleries in
particular the over contexting, often tendentious, of
work in the little wall panels makes me want to
scream)..but to touch on a larger issue again the
enormous merit of the Six Rules for me is not in the
specifics but in the gesture, in the idea of adopting
a rather fertile self restriction and also of choosing
to reject or downplay the simply fashionable.
regards
michael




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( lines restored .. they were unreadable )

On Eryk Salvagio wrote:








Ivan wrote:

>I canot interpret this. does mean, actual lives were
>lost'? mean, think al understand people real
>lives died. can't conect listing names. That's
>not people, that's about abstract it gets. can't watching
>the piece sense 'cor, that's clever, did do that' and
>'lok, 'plane' up name. that anything?' etc.
>It realy posible conect names (which surely abstract
>symbols) 'actual' people what inded an un-actual life?).
>

Wel, imediately folowing september argument another mailing with Canadian
who "Wel, surprise, Americans coming." mean, the people
who had sudenly stoped being people started being "Americans Got They Had
Coming." weren't individuals. there hysteria- result media- disasters.
You realizing "people kiled" means after whatever number "Five People Kiled in
Bus Disaster Texas." What's "Five People?" aren't individuals, they're Bus-Crash Victims.
I remember geting instant mesage image of people jumping WTC and
just thinking, like, would this someone? People quick abstract death when
it's images, presented media. experience packaged, se packaging
so that don't event. Hayakawa writes about "Language Thought Action"
where points to often humans mistake reports experiences. clasic example.
Maybe are it harder understand this, because _saw_ event, event,
smeled event. experience. for it report, the packaging report
and event report reporting became confused. don;t think theory media,
and Hayakawa the who invented but esence observations made
from post-modernist perspective. "Un-Actual Life" that repackaged images.
I think just loking piece, catching name, saying "Joseph Keler September
1th, oposed "Nearly People September makes conect event
on human level. not claiming reduce abstraction disconection these images,
but hopefuly crack shel get people realy thinking about what
hapened. Because don't think people thought about enough.
I think nailed one thing afraid piece "clever" oposed saying anything.
While with that names abstract- especialy list names- don't what
else done. Photographs? was simply at image some constant
conection life, abstractions, "America Coming Acount Foreign Policy." And
while of American Foreign Policy, either- something a debate about on
list- just mater yeah, Muslims alowed American Apathy, Christians kiled by
Islamic Extremists, every kiled everyone believe abstractions. don't think people
can people, kil concepts. Palestinians aren't kiling "people" they bus,
they're kiling "Jews." the Israeli shots Palestinians, same. we lok at
people instead concepts, politicaly inspired murder becomes dificult.


>I think can that, can impose view the
>viewer. Honestly, people are >deserve< anything. people
>are dead people, there a about. realy
>think is role create memorial? do, surely work
>wil stand as own right?
>

Sure, not my place build memorial. can I'm perfect a
memorial slaughter!" don't anyone piece makes people think about things les
abstracted maner, what aceptable And more anyone about work
standing and present preface it against sense is suposed be,
just people don't into without realizing videotapes people geting kiled.
I've spent entire avoiding them. you're weird schol get plenty weirder kids
who trying you watch "Faces Death" you're fiften because "col" isn't. think
there psychological impact, trauma, induced witnesing act execution, the
sight- transformed through camera from human being video fotage- person. hel,
I'm vegetarian. there's warning no piece "Hey, that's clever."
I supose maybe should with that, think preface case aceptable.

>To up, the speak itself. try protect by
>building around Unles are comisioned state sculptor of
>course.
>

Uhm, comisioned state sculptor? guy me?
-e.

> The use of names is, contrary to what Ivan asserts,
> the thing that make it the most personal, the most
> connected - a name is of course not at all an
> abstraction -in the world as we experience it, it
> stands for everything we are

I have to disagree, agreeably. My name, Ivan Pope, is simply a signifier. To
my family it is intimately connected with me as family man. On this list it
may signify mouthy arsehole. But to the wider world, it would signify
nothing special. My point being that a list of names is just a list of
names. Of course we can create within ourselves an emotional response, but
this is to imagined people, not to the names. As far as I'm concerned, I
have no way of knowing whether this is even a list of the people who lost
their lives. Maybe its just a list from a telephone directory or something.
And that would create exactly the same effect.

> If the point you are making is that there are many
> events in our world that require memorials and many
> needless deaths then I couldn't agree more

I'm not making that point. Obviously there may well be an infinite list of
events that 'require' memorials. But that's nothing to do with this piece.

> Because others have died does not
> lessen the horror of what happened to perfectly
> blameless people on September 11th .
> I for one am pleased that there are artists around who
> don't see art as simply a formal and self referential
> game but as something that speaks to us about our
> deepest concerns.

I wonder here what our deepest concerns are here? That we may be blown up in
an exploding building? That we may suddenly die? That our loved ones may
die? That none of us are safe? All of these are valid subjects for art, of
course. But the first one is totally specific to September 11 and thus
hardly germane to the human condition. The rest are, of course, part of the
stuff of art for time immemorial.

My point about memorials is that a memorial implies an institutional
response to an event. An artist can of course designate a work as a
memorial, but that doesn't privelege it in any way, it just states the
artists view of the work.

Cheers,
Ivan

Eryk,
Just to reiterate, I really did like the work. And I don't think it is just=
'clever'. I pushes a lot of my buttons, for reasons I won't go into, but p=
artly because I love pieces that present raw data.
My problem, I guess, is that I don't want you to corral me into my response=
. I know there is a lot of knee-jerk response to responses to 9/11, and I f=
eel you are trying to pre-empt some of them in a defensive way.
If I had to read it on my own terms, I think I'd feel it was saying the opp=
osite of what you are arguing: Look, here is a big list of names, and here =
is a visual format that leaves you (almost) in no doubt that these are vict=
ims of the 9/11 events. But who are these people? There is no way to know. =
As this event happened in America we can have an exhaustive list of them an=
d we can have live footage of the event happening. But we can't know who th=
ey were. Thus, it is not about individuals but about the structure within w=
hich we live.
I wouldn't think the piece has anything to do with people jumping out of th=
e buildings or about the wider issues. It has nothing to do with whether Am=
erica 'had it coming'. If there is a way into the personal stories behind t=
he piece, I can't find it for myself. They are _just names_ to me. And the =
amount of them leaves me cold: there are too many names for any one to come=
at me. And to me, therein lies the success of the piece.

Writing this has made me think about a piece I saw recently by Christian Bo=
ltanski. An installation is built in a gallery with shelves all around the =
sides. Tables with low hanging lights are in the space. The effect is very =
akin to a public library. On the shelves are telephone directories from all=
around the world, from many many countries. At first you just look at it a=
ll and think how like a reference library it is and how gloomy it is. There=
doesn't seem to be a way into a thousand telephone directories. Then you s=
tart to wonder around and look at them individually, and you start to think=
about how many variations there are on a telephone directory. Then you sta=
rt to wonder whether you know anyone in any of the directories. You think a=
bout people you know around the world and you find the country they live in=
. You pull the directory out, and try to work out how it is structured. Aft=
er a while you work it out and you dig out someone's name: a cousin, friend=
, whatever. Suddenly you realise the room is full of people doing more or l=
ess the same as you. I found the name of my uncle in South Africa. He died =
last year and I'd never seen the name of his company written down. There it=
suddenly was in front of me. Only connect.

Well, immediately following september 11th I got into an argument on anot=
her mailing list with a Canadian
who said "Well, it's no surprise, Americans had it coming." And I mean, w=
hat got me was that the people
who had died had suddenly stopped being people and started being "America=
ns Who Got What They Had
Coming." They weren't individuals. And there is a lot of hysteria- as a r=
esult of the media- with disasters.
You stop realizing what "people were killed" means after whatever number =
it was. "Five People Killed in
Bus Disaster in Texas." What's "Five People?" They aren't individuals, th=
ey're now Bus-Crash Victims.
I remember getting an instant message with the image of one of the people=
jumping out of the WTC and
just thinking, like, why would you send this to someone? People are very =
quick to abstract death when
it's seen with images, presented by the media. When the experience is pac=
kaged, we see the packaging
so much that we don't see the event. Hayakawa writes about this in "Langu=
age in Thought and Action"
where he points out that all too often humans mistake reports for experie=
nces. 9/11 is a classic example.
Maybe if you are in New York it is harder to understand this, because you=
_saw_ the event, felt the event,
smelled the event. It was experience. But for the rest of us- it was a re=
port, and the packaging of the report
and the event that report was reporting became confused. I don;t think th=
is is a new theory in new media,
and I am sure Hayakawa is not the guy who invented it, but it's the essen=
ce of any true observations made
from a post-modernist perspective. An "Un-Actual Life" is a life that is =
repackaged into a sum of images.
I think even just looking at the piece, catching one name, and saying "Jo=
seph Keller died on September
11th, 2001" as opposed to "Nearly 3000 People Died on September 11th" mak=
es us connect to the event
on a more human level. I'm not claiming to reduce all abstraction and dis=
connection from these images,
but hopefully the sort of crack in that shell can get people to really th=
inking more and more about what
happened. Because I don't think people have thought about it enough. =


I think you nailed the one thing I was afraid of - that the piece was "cl=
ever" as opposed to saying anything.
While I agree with the idea that the names are abstract- especially a hug=
e list of names- I don't know what
else to have done. Photographs? The idea was simply to look at the image =
with some kind of constant
connection to life, not abstractions, like "America Had It Coming On Acco=
unt of its Foreign Policy." And
while I'm no fan of American Foreign Policy, either- something I hope not=
to get into a debate about on
list- It's just a matter of, yeah, Muslims are allowed to die from Americ=
an Apathy, Christians are killed by
Islamic Extremists, every gets killed by everyone else if you believe in =
abstractions. And I don't think people
can kill people, they can only kill concepts. Palestinians aren't killing=
"people" when they blow up a bus,
they're killing "Jews." And when the Israeli army shoots Palestinians, it=
's all the same. If we can look at
people instead of concepts, an act like politically inspired murder becom=
es a lot more difficult.

In my original response, I referenced the fact that certain names 'lit up=
' or changed colour as the plane 'passed over them' or was it through them.=
This struck me as amazing. I wondered whether that was acceptable, whether=
it was good or bad to be privileged in that way. Whether friends or family=
would like or hate that. Whether there was any reason for that. I guess I =
could wonder whether this was a commentary on the totally arbitary way deat=
h comes to us. And in that way, we cannot be guilty or deserving.

I also wonder now whether the list is complete. Or whether it can ever be=
complete. As I suggested earlier, I wondered whether subsituting the 'genu=
ine' list of names with a totally spurious list would add to the piece. We =
are supposed to believe without question that the list is real. Why do we b=
elieve that? What it would look like if all the names were Chinese. What ou=
r response would be if the names were not familiar western names. Are the h=
ijackers names in there? And if your response to that question is: of cours=
e not, then why not?

As you can see, I don't think the piece is 'just clever' at all. I think =
it raises a whole bunch of issues. But they may not be the issues you think=
it raises, or that you want it to raise.
My view is that it isn't a memorial, it doesn't make us think about the i=
ndividuals or to think harder about the 'actual event' (whatever that is). =
My view is that it raises a whole bunch of other issues. Which is why I don=
't think the artist should set out what a work does or how it works. They s=
hould just loose it into the world for better or for worse. And then stand =
back and deal with the response :-)

Again, I think its a lovely work in its own right.

Cheers,
Ivan



I do not think you can say that, that you can impose this view on theviewer=
. Honestly, people who are dead do not >deserve< anything. Dead peopleare j=
ust dead people, there are a hell of a lot of them about. Do you reallythin=
k it is your role to create a memorial? And if you do, surely the workwill =
stand or fall as that in its own right?

Sure, it may not be my place to build a memorial. I mean who can say "Gee=
, I'm the perfect guy to make a
memorial for that slaughter!" I don't know if anyone can. If the piece ma=
kes people think about things in a less
abstracted manner, then what I did is acceptable to me. And yes, I know m=
ore than anyone about the work
standing on its own- and I present the sort of preface to it against my o=
wn sense of what art is supposed to be,
just so people don't leap into the work without realizing what it is. I h=
ate videotapes of people getting killed.
I've spent my entire life avoiding them. When you're the weird kid in hig=
h school you get plenty of weirder kids
who are trying to get you to watch "Faces of Death" when you're fifteen b=
ecause it's "cool" but it isn't. I think
there is a psychological impact, a kind of trauma, that can be induced by=
witnessing any act of execution, or the
sight- transformed through a camera lens from a human being into video fo=
otage- of a dead person. I mean hell,
I'm a vegetarian. So there's a warning so that no one looks at the piece =
and says "Hey, cool, that's clever."
I suppose maybe I should live with that, but I think a preface in this ca=
se is acceptable.

To sum up, let the work speak for itself. Do not try to protect it bybuildi=
ng a wall around it. Unless you are a commissioned state sculptor ofcourse.

Uhm, why? A commissioned state sculptor? What has that guy got over me


-e.

Ivan
I think you miss a number of connecting terms here.
A necessary but not sufficient condition for great art
seems to me a connection between the particular, the
concrete, and the general ,the big questions.
Actually many people ( statistically quite
unreasonably) probably now do have a deep seated fear
of being blown up in big buildings and actually if
you're Palestinian or Iraqi being blown up in smallish
buildings is unfortunately a fairly immediate concern.
The point is that the particular of Sept 11th connects
with the universal of the themes you list as
legitimate artistic 'big' subjects.
That's what makes good art concrete and living and not
schematic.
And indeed this connection between the universal and
particular is why we can still read Balzac and look at
Greek statues with profit.
The same with the names- I'm sure formally you're
absolutely correct- the point is that in lived human
experience names do matter.
Shakespeare- Stalin- Bush- Ivan Pope-Eryk Salvaggio-
Michael Szpakowski- Leon Trotsky-Frank Black-John Doe
these all carry to a greater or lesser extent whole
constellations of meaning and if you object that the
meanings are purely contingent then of course so is
all human meaning making.
Again there is a rigidity in your thinking over the
question of whether Eryk could have pulled the names
out of the telephone book.
You're right- nothing in the art work tells us he did
or didn't but the circumstances surrounding the
piece's creation and his ( in my view ) appropriately
nervous and tentative contexting of the piece lead me
to suppose very strongly that he did no such thing.
This increases the emotional force of the work for me-
we see that he *worked* to find the names and to make
the piece - he honoured the dead and their surviving
relatives by doing so.
But of course context is necessary for virtually any
artwork that is not immediately of our time - art
doesn't exist in some kind of ideal philosophical
vacuum but is the product of real people in history
working with the tools of human meaning making and if
the Mona Lisa and the nine Beethoven symphonies
diappeared for 100,000 years people would understand
some but not all of them on their rediscovery.
Things change continually and they're mucky and
awkward and hard to fit into neat theory -it's the
nature of things.
best
Michael
— Ivan Pope <ivan@ivanpope.com> wrote:
> > The use of names is, contrary to what Ivan
> asserts,
> > the thing that make it the most personal, the most
> > connected - a name is of course not at all an
> > abstraction -in the world as we experience it, it
> > stands for everything we are
>
> I have to disagree, agreeably. My name, Ivan Pope,
> is simply a signifier. To
> my family it is intimately connected with me as
> family man. On this list it
> may signify mouthy arsehole. But to the wider world,
> it would signify
> nothing special. My point being that a list of names
> is just a list of
> names. Of course we can create within ourselves an
> emotional response, but
> this is to imagined people, not to the names. As far
> as I'm concerned, I
> have no way of knowing whether this is even a list
> of the people who lost
> their lives. Maybe its just a list from a telephone
> directory or something.
> And that would create exactly the same effect.
>
> > If the point you are making is that there are many
> > events in our world that require memorials and
> many
> > needless deaths then I couldn't agree more
>
> I'm not making that point. Obviously there may well
> be an infinite list of
> events that 'require' memorials. But that's nothing
> to do with this piece.
>
> > Because others have died does not
> > lessen the horror of what happened to perfectly
> > blameless people on September 11th .
> > I for one am pleased that there are artists around
> who
> > don't see art as simply a formal and self
> referential
> > game but as something that speaks to us about our
> > deepest concerns.
>
> I wonder here what our deepest concerns are here?
> That we may be blown up in
> an exploding building? That we may suddenly die?
> That our loved ones may
> die? That none of us are safe? All of these are
> valid subjects for art, of
> course. But the first one is totally specific to
> September 11 and thus
> hardly germane to the human condition. The rest are,
> of course, part of the
> stuff of art for time immemorial.
>
> My point about memorials is that a memorial implies
> an institutional
> response to an event. An artist can of course
> designate a work as a
> memorial, but that doesn't privelege it in any way,
> it just states the
> artists view of the work.
>
> Cheers,
> Ivan
>


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the work should speak for itself - is the best rule in those 6 rules!!!!

—– Original Message —–
From: "Christopher Fahey [askrom]" <askROM@graphpaper.com>
To: "'Eryk Salvaggio'" <eryk@maine.rr.com>; <list@rhizome.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 26, 2002 1:02 AM
Subject: RE: RHIZOME_RAW: Eryk Salvaggio: September 11th, 2001


> > >Does this piece violate Salvaggio Rule #2?
> >
> > Yes, and- remarkably- that's been the source of most contention. I'll
> > probably take the intro page down.
>
> I got no problem with it. I always thought Rule #2 was pretty dumb. The
> inverse of the rule, that artists shouldn't participate in the discourse
> of their own work, is equally dumb.
>
> -Cf
>
> [christopher eli fahey]
> art: http://www.graphpaper.com
> sci: http://www.askrom.com
> biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com
>
>
>
> + bostoniscoolerthannewyorkbostoniscoolerthannewyorkbostoniscoolerthanne
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I know this is an old post, but http://www.anatomyofhope.net/wtc/2/ is broken.
Does anyone have a current link to view September 11th ASCII animation?