on language
I figure some thoughts on the words I use on this site might help. This short video (the same one as on the home page) can set the stage. In it, I describe the following terms:
an artwork -
By this, I mean what our industrial growth culture thinks of as art. It could be a sculpture, painting, dance, fashion, writing, tattoos, song, performance, installation, food, architecture, etc. Generally, it’s a specific thing or event you can point to. It has a name and date and author and there’s a sense that it could be moved someplace else in time or place and it would still be itself. In that sense, it is a way of defining a boundary around something by calling it art. It doesn’t even have to exist anymore - living on as a reference in a book with photographs and descriptive text is enough. Even something designed to be site-specific or community-engaged is still bounded by the idea that it’s art. There are countless books and clever essays about this. Anyone who might want to share some further resources and links about this urge to claim and capture aesthetic experiences, below, please feel free. This capturing and dividing is part of modernity and applies to ideas, land, “private” property, life, death, and even time.
an exhibition -
As mentioned in the video, I see it as a grouped and enclosed version of several artworks brought together to explore a theme or topic. In the end, it still gets defined and bounded and given a date, venue, and curatorial authorship and then usually released into the history books. Exhibitions often add a layer of pedigree to artworks enhancing their value. It’s a type of intellectual and symbolic interrelationship-making connected to being unique and special (not particularly about being indispensable or embedded in daily life and the world).
an art-system -
Similar to an exhibition except that often, the art-system emerged and co-evolved over centuries with each element riffing off of and contributing to the other components. In more contemporary contexts, these elements would be developed or selected to support a particular theme that connects to how we live. While the exhibition is designed for a particular exhibition space, the art-system would emerge from or be designed for supporting a way of life. Consider an art-system about the sources and use of water, or local organic food, energy or the tools we use, etc. I go into this more deeply on this site, but it’s a dynamic set of cultural prompts and support elements designed specifically to help us or our communities live. Personally, I’m most interested in what could help us live more just, regenerative Earth-centered lives. Technically, the idea of an art-system could be applied to any thing or theme. My sense is that the future of humanity rests on our capacity to think interdependently and live within our ecological means. The separatist framework of art is unsuited to this shift. Maintaining a more holistic regenerative Earth-centered paradigm requires a culture that visibly embodies and reflects those values.
articulture -
This being the long-term application of art-systems over time to heal, regenerate and interconnect the various threads in the fabric of life, both ours personally, and within communities and ecosystems. I explore the idea of articulture itself a bit more here. The general thought is that art-systems could be layered and applied over time to progressively transform our understanding of the world and support a more regenerative culture. Imagine all the ways we might want to change our lives and communities as we face the increasing effects of climate disruptions and how a web of cultural prompts and elements could support this.
I’m often forgetful, so I often need to plan ahead of time how I’m going to remember to remember something I need to do. I believe that’s one of the functions of culture. When we surround ourselves with reminders of how to live, it makes it easier to embrace challenging practices. It can be ridiculously difficult in today’s world to live a hyper-local, carbon-offsetting, zero-waste lifestyle, for example. For the bulk of human history, our ancestors managed to come close to this or even left their watersheds and communities better by the end of their lives, than when they arrived. With articulture, each layer of cultural elements can begin to resonate with the others. As our understandings deepen, the art-systems could be revamped or updated, merged, or eliminated to serve the evolving needs of the community or individuals.
This is my attempt to make sense of these ideas and by putting them into words, begin to give us the tools to understand them better. I’m particularly interested in the experiences of people who grew up in more holistic Earth-centered cultures. How did practices evolve over time? As pressure from settler-colonial economies began to break things down, what elements were prioritized and what might we learn from that as we attempt to create conscious alternatives?
