Once
I found myself talking to someone who didn't know what to do with
their (for lack of a better word) 'interests'. They wanted to talk to people,
to research, to think, but felt they had no desire to publish their work, to see
it in the public sphere. I said I used to have a similar dilemma with regard to
exhibiting...I suggested that perhaps she was missing the point, publishing was
simply part of the creative discipline, it could act in a mechanical way, a
strategic way, to govern the part she enjoyed...the thinking...the conversation.
In
a sense the purpose of doing a project can be different between that for the
maker and that for the audience. For the maker it can be the experience of
creating, while for the audience it can be the project's summation...the
outcome, the exhibition, the publication. It is an old saying that to journey,
to travel, is more important than to arrive.
For
those who create... an exhibition or publication can simply be a reference
point, something with which to measure and locate your performance (even to sell
it), the pleasure being in the performance itself. For many who have successful
creative and artistic lives, I suspect this is as far as they go...they like
doing what they do...and the world likes what they end up with...all are
satisfied...and the 'artist' has no need to question any further.
This
essay however is about another stage of sophistication in practice. It is about
two things...
firstly...
whether you can have a critical view (so to speak) about the destination rather
than the travelling, about exhibition or publication rather than making, about
the itinerary or list of projects you undertake...it is rather like considering
the meaning of your CV, the direction of your creative life rather than the
exercising of it...
secondly...
it is about the forces that lie between you and your audience (or your client or
your employer)... things that lie between you and your audience within the remit
of a 'creative project' rather than a creative performance... things such as
meaningfulness, utility, purpose, need, want, success, applause and
recognition...things which both you and your audience have a practical stake in.
Some
more background and why Relevance?
Once
upon a time I didn't understand why I should exhibit, I think I do now.
Before
and after that understanding... I have had the experience of not knowing what to create... I have
asked myself why this, why that? I think the questions became different after I
understood the need to exhibit.
Roughly
speaking (in discussion with myself) they shifted away from simple
extrapolations of 'content' toward issues of culture, institutions and career.
trying
to explain this is a little difficult I will try by analogy...
before...
if painting red buses...the option presents itself to paint either green buses
or blue buses
after...the
questions become...is painting buses useful or interesting...to whom...and do I
want to be known as the 'bus painter'
Of
course if I choose to be the 'bus painter' the issues of content remain as
they were before
...but
also becoming known as the 'bus painter' bring its own content of cultural
strategy and institutional politics. It also brings an increasingly defining
creative identity and persona which is both empowering and restrictive.
Of
course I am not a bus painter...but perhaps you get the idea.
With
regards to my own practice, a big question I feel these days (generally not
think!) is...as I put all this effort in, beyond my ordinary pleasure in making
stuff, is it worth it? I realise that this question (and a few others that go with it
like... is what I am doing important?...is it good?...am I doing this seriously?)
dominate how I manage 'my practice'...that is to say, dominates the
total effort I make including seeking exhibitions, sequences of work, contacts I
make and sustain and so on.
It
struck me it was all about relevance...what's the point...is it
meaningful...will people care...do I care...can I go on caring about it...can I
make sure I am satisfying all these questions? So (a while ago now) I developed
the talk on which this essay is based, it would be about relevance...
As
usual I started to research into the topic, it is not one I have considered before and
I have never really focused on it so directly in my own practice before.
The
Results
I
tried the Internet, I got virtually no results, one or two very narrow documents
about relevance in the context of semantic frames within linguistics...very
technical.
I
tried books on philosophy etc. ...nothing much there either...I thought of
similes...I tried 'purpose', it was not really the same thing, it was all
about will.
This really surprised me. Normally I can swiftly find something to work with but
relevance it seems is something that just isn't up there, on it's own, as a
subject.
I
am sure it's cited in all kinds of contexts, as an incantation for worth, for
quality, for professionalism, for meaningfulness.
I
remembered something from the (J.D. Salingers) novel Franny and Zooey... 'what's the
point of knowledge if it isn't wisdom?'. Or something like that. I suppose relevance is around as a
subject, it just seems to be taken for granted, as if it's transparent and
obvious. A dimension of problems that just needs to be mechanically put in place
or stated...
did
they think of relevance? yes...
...is
it relevant? yes...
...it
is relevant
Well
I think relevance is an issue for our times, so I am raising the ante and
putting it on the post modern agenda.
Relevance
Q
What is relevance?
We
hear much in post-modernity about some antipathy between relativism,
subjectivism and objectivism. An implication that science is discredited...that
knowledge is discredited...that the natural order of things is to be without
cultural fixity...that human culture has a nature and its logic is the
endless differences of language. Under these circumstances, whilst the shoddy
concept of cultural pluralism heads toward its logical conclusion which is no
culture at all, simply an infinity of differences, it is hard to show that
relevance is a neat concept. At least until you start to objectify academia,
linguistics, semiology and so on. So the language stuff...
Q
Is it true? Can human culture have a nature somehow wholly independent
of the laws which govern a cat or a monkey or an ant?
If
there is some other extension, some particular species-related difference
peculiar to us...how do we perceive it...what can we compare it to?
...Perhaps
language has driven us to some absurd mannerisms whose logic becomes lost in an
increasing eccentricity, like some race of peacocks or exotic birds driven to
display and ritual...we elaborate, we contort, we obsessively repeat our small
songs and see in our fluting some cosmic significance or hormonal purpose.
Q
Why is it important to have a view on this?
Going
back to...
Because
it becomes hard to know why to make anything sometimes.
Because
constant exposure to changing views and their repetition starts to trivialise
'the subject' and 'the content'.
(Perhaps
why we are not peacocks...Once people think of something as ritual they no
longer understand or tolerate ritual...they see it as childish culture. Language
always implies an evolution...further to travel, more growing up, greater
expertise.)
...back
to why we need a view...
Because
constant exposure to 'subject' and 'content' makes us desire reality...a
feeling of 'the genuine' and the 'genuine' often has little to do with
culture...
it
is...a moment's warm sun
...an acoustic space
...being with
The
genuine tends to be located with space/time...not in language. It is like
colour,
it feels like perception. Perception defines us.
The
mechanism of perception bears a relationship to memory not to history.
Memories
can be shared by those who share the percepts, the experience of the referents.
They are not cultural, you need in some sense to have been with people.
Q
What is relevance? (Louder)
Relevance
is I think, something about being still, watching the way things are and
consequently being able to put something 'in the way' of people. It is a bit
like turning your hand and arm to make sure a beetle doesn't crawl up your
shirt sleeve or blouse...or...it is a bit like putting something in the way of
an animal so that the animal will have to see it, repond to it and adapt to it.
These are the kind of intentions that a communicator has...an
'artist'...someone
who values their own insights and wishes to put them 'in the way' of others...
To
obstruct the life of others...to bring them to a moments halt...to praise and
recommend 'the genuine'.
As
if you were both in a forest, relevance is about touching someone's arm, as if
you had seen something special or you had seen something significant.
It
is to do with context...it is also to do with the now.
Q
Special and Significant...? What are they?
This
is perhaps the end and final point of the intellectual scrutiny of practice.
The
special and significant to the me...to the us...to the them, may well be
subjective, they may well be relative but they are a priori, before all else
premised on human commonalities, beyond and including language. As I say in the Deep and Difficult
essay there is a way
language allows you to range around a subject, to see it in different lights.
With
the idea that there are things which are important to the us, we must remember
that signification follows the experience of the significant as much as it might
point to the signified.
The
significant...the relevant is something we have to intuit using all our
faculties whilst to put it in someone else's way...to bring it to their
attention requires, in varying degree, all the efforts of your career.