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sky's avatar

I love these kind of essays, I never expected some of my favorite artists to think this deep and it really expands my views as well, most of penlopes ideas are things I never thought of and this essay gave me a whole new perspective on art 10/10 I'm living for these

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Doron Grossman-Naples's avatar

I really appreciate you sharing your theory of the "art network"! I found it really insightful and thought-provoking. I think the discourse that's been happening about AI vs. human art lately has made it really clear that we don't think enough about what the abstract process of art actually is (and this applies to every side of the debate, to be clear). I had a discussion with an artist friend of mine last year about that topic, and we came to the conclusion that something important about the role of a person as an artist is how their own practical experiences are represented in their work. I think I'm going to share this post with her.

Your "art network" idea is a really interesting expansion of that. It almost seems like there's two kinds of mediation going on here. Of course the art is mediating between the artist and the person engaging with the work, but the artist is also doing the job of mediating between the viewer/listener and the broader cultural background. From that perspective, the art functions less like a means of mediation and more like a direct extension of the artist, or a tool they're using for that purpose.

This leaves room for some weird John Cage-y screwing around with who or what is doing the mediating. Cage (IIRC) thought it was arrogant of us to center the human in this mediation, perhaps because it means the cultural information is going to be filtered through the perspective of an individual. There's an argument to be made that that filtering is necessary, or at least productive. But Cage's experimental stuff like 4'33" and random radio samples tried to decenter the artist from the process. Did he succeed at that? Idk. The very fact that I'm using his name as a descriptor might indicate that, despite his intentions, the imprint of Cage as an individual (through those very intentions!) is firmly placed upon the work.

But even still, it's not Cage himself that has become part of it; it's just his perspective on the zeitgeist. So we get this fascinating contradiction where the work is both profoundly personal and inherently impersonal to the artist. I guess, to sum it up, you aren't having a personal relationship *with* the artist; you're having a personal relationship *through* them.

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