Visual Arts, Columbia University, New York

This course examines ways of looking and ways of seeing, both personally & professionally as artists and in a larger cultural context. Through field trips to contemporary art and other cultural sites, conversations with visiting critical thinkers and practicioners, readings, discussions, and visual & written responses, we will examine how we look, think, act, create and respond--critically questioning our own artistic practices and ways of looking at the world.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

AA: There is Nothing to See So We Look

We look. Action is driven by desire. Desire is premised on a lack. If we possessed the object of our desire, we would no longer desire. We would no longer be driven to look. We would rest, inert. Movement would cease…this would be death, negated being.

We desire to be. We recognize that we are incomplete (anxiety). We desire completion, certainty. We desire communication (with an other or with a beyond). This we is the we who are artists and the we who are thinkers and students and romantics and people who go to museums and people who go to church and people who take drugs and people who believe in rules and people who don’t believe in rules and people who believe in anything and people who want to believe in something.

This we is the we who look (action verb, ongoing). The we who try to see.

Can we find what we are looking for in art?

No. Well, maybe. Yes, I think, if art changes the way we see (or hear, or feel).

I wanted to make a video this week. I wanted to but I couldn’t make a video this week because I don’t know how to make the video I need to make. I am trying to make this video. I am in the process of figuring out how to make this video. This is my project. Ask me about Georges Bataille.

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