by Hal Foster
turn “excavation sites” into “construction sites”
No Ghost Just a Shell
This is why I want to work with some of the art students because you can get some of this lovely weirdness when you work in that space. I just think there is great benefit in looking at how artists approach archives. Do I think that this artwork is archival? Well the ‘shell’ AnnLee (the manga character) is indeed an archival source but the majority of the piece is artists building on this archival source. So the artwork uses the archive and builds the archive AKA makes the excavation site into a construction site. There is all sorts of interesting things happening around the copyright of this piece. First an artist buys the copyright then invites others to do what they want with it and then finally they block anyone using AnnLee.
The idea of AnnLee and No ghost just a shell got me thinking again about this idea of something living in the archive, a ghost, a shell, a figure; something that people can project onto, something that embodies their need for a story. Anansi-esque, forever changing with the times.
Which is why I say…
Kill originality its all about collaboration now.
The story of a single narrative, a lone genius, an isolated idea is silly, because that is not how the world works. There is not one story that can represent a large group of people. A lone genius is most likely someone with an extensive network where they are able to exchange ideas. An eureka moment is often the result of many smaller ideas coming together. There is no such thing as an original idea and all artists steal. So maybe it is a good idea to stop obsessing over this idea of originality because all it does it put people with great ideas against each other instead of getting them to collaborate. Collaboration is more sustainable. Time would have change AnnLee and she would have reflected the world as it progressed and different people manipulated her. She could have lived on forever. Allowing things to change through collaboration instead of preserving and protecting an idea will allow the piece to support society while at the same time keeping its archived versions as windows to he past. This seems a more favourable than it becoming an artwork that needs to have a plaque added to it that says something along the lines of “by the way this dude was a massive misogynist”.
Moving on…
Vandalism as AFFECT
Trying to capture affect is very difficult/probably impossible. But in the written piece Foster mentions the spontaneous creation of the Diana memorial in Paris.
This got me thinking about how this spontaneous shrine and other types of vandalism or sudden outbursts of marking is maybe the closest you could get to capturing affect. Think the tearing down of the Berlin wall or the Edward Colton statue in Bristol. Pure in the moment emotion.
