artless politics: November 2010

I made an online survey to solicit the opinions of varied individuals on topics relating to art, social engagement, and community development. The questionnaire is far from perfect, but my primary interest in making it was to see how the responses differed and overlapped between people of different backgrounds and fields of expertise.

I've received 17 responses so far (I'm updating this post, as I receive more), and I distributed it among individuals with backgrounds in art, activism, community development, education, politics, government, city planning, media, and more. The answers are anonymous here, but I have the names and email of each participant. Knowing specifically who many of these people are and what they do, makes their answers especially interesting to me.

The questions and responses are as follows:

1. What is art?

1.	personal expression in 1,2,or 3d format of ones' interpretation of an imagined or experienced reality
2.	The expression of feeling, thought, and insight
3.	Art is undefinable, but the closest I can get is to say that a work of art is in the intent. Duchamp is an artist because he took a urinal, named and signed it, and put it on display (Fountain, 1917), but this does not make all urinals "art."
4.	Creation that evokes emotion and thinking
5.	to me art is a very broad term. in many ways I think art should include things like the healing arts and other non-traditional definitions of art. to me it is something that can inspire people to transcend pure functionality.
6.	An expression of creativity.
7.	That question to me, is akin to "what is eating" or "what is breathing"

8.	art expresses the whole world in drawings, paintings, sculpture, etc.
9.	art is the skill and capacity needed to make a thing.
10.	Art is everything.
11.	an expression of the complex workings of the Human mind. A physical representation (be it painting, music, dancing) or inner/personal thoughts about life, living and dying.
12.	Something a person makes or does to reflect some affinity, feeling, idea or reflection on the world
13.	the thing itself
14.	art is that which fills my senses with the colors, sounds and smells of the world

15. Great question. It has something to do with imagination and creativity, but that's a loose definition. I know it when I say it. It also has to do with sensory pleasure. Can a tomato ice cream cone be considered art?

16. Creation for the sake of creation, expression for the sake of expression, usually using craft, media or form (with established or emerging techniques) and informed/contextualized by the history of art.

17. Art is the human experience of channeling intellect, emotion and infinite imagination into a tangible form.

2. What does an artist do?

1.captures ones interpretations

2.Express

3.An artist can be anyone who regularly creates/assembles/invents something with more aesthetic than practical use (though often they have both). This has been taken to extremes as in the case of conceptual art, when nothing material at all is made but presented as an idea.

4.Either provide a source of reflection for society, or attempt to lead through thought and emotional evocation.

5.uhm, well create art, challenge the norms of perception and social convention, and represent universal visions that exist within us all.

6.Make art.

7.sees and translates

8.an artist brings out the beauty or hate in everything
on this earth in paintings, drawings, sculptures,etc.

9.make meaningful things.

10.An artist brings his/her unique vision to the viewer/listener.

11.Imagine and create art. Influence others around them to think about all aspects of life in a different way.

12.Makes things for a broad and perhaps non specific set of uses by other people

13.make

14.precipitates the conversation within myself about what i know and think of the world

15. Something like representing reality, or various realities. Something about the mind.

16. Creates art, studies art and engages to an extent in the business of art

17. Create- Inspire- Express- Innovate

3. Describe the "art world" and your impressions of it.

1.the art world is made of real & unknown to the world and itself: People who make art

2.Too often, means the visual arts, which is too narrow in scope, and is commercially driven.

3.The art world used to be a more or less physical place, and the techniques and movements in vogue were often centered in one city. Now, there are no movements and thanks to technology, art is globally and instantaneously shared. I think the art world has dissipated into an endless mass because of communication and transportation technologies, and the art world is being redefined daily.

4."Art world" to me sounds like the middle-class version. Such as musicians who will not play in working-class establishments or are about their individual "brilliance" as opposed to the greater good.

5.well, in general I think the art world is pretty commercially driven, at least in s fe. I think a lot of it is designed to pander to the tourist crowd and the legacy of "western art" that was first commercialized by Harvey. At the same time, I think there is a robust movement of artists in santa fe that truly transcend that environment. then there is an individual art world, that of the person who is an art consumer, casual producer and is often overlooked in the "art world"

6.The "art world" is a cold and relentlessly unforgiving place... no place for an artist.

7.the contemporary art market is driven by the same motivations that underly other "investment" markets, such as mortgages etc. buying to flip a quick profit in a few years. Meanwhile, artists continue to make compelling work on the margins.

8.expressions of life

9.cynical, meaningless subcategory of the luxury goods market.

10.The art world is varied, dead, vibrant, schitzo, our only hope, irrelevant, exciting, boring, pretentious, inclusive, exclusive, right and wrong.

11.The intersection between the creative abilities inherent in all humans and the "normal" world of commerce, labor and education.

12.Some consensed-upon pool of venues to contain (and create a marketplace) for artistic creations, thought and ideas. It is self-empowered to make choices about the relative value of one creative creation versus another, while reconciling the "art world's" embrace of the notion of a built in revolutionary leading edge of hard to categorize artistic works.

13.there are many art worlds. divisions, cliques, subcultures, all with different forms of praxis. some of these groups number one, others comprise millions.

14.the "art world" is a hoity-toity, exclusivist club of people yammering adjectives at one another in an attempt to pretend they have deconstructed something. the "world of art" is the world in which i live

15. Oh, very negative. Lots of pretentious people throwing around lots of money, with the poor artists scrambling to get some of it.

16. A variety of institutions (museums, galleries, universities, nonp-profits, periodicals) and figures (artists, critics, professors, benefactors, curators) who together define success, importance, value and trends in art

17. A vast landscape filled with talent, multiple forms, exquisite. Also some art that is questionable, yet it is still considered art.

4. What potential social roles can artists work from? Are there any inherent strengths or limitations in an art practice that intends to affect social change? What are potential ways artists can hybridize their practices to operate in socially-constructive ways within social contexts that are not conventional domains of art?

1.from political spheres, the art world & normal reality as everyone else knows

2.Artists can inspire, convince, and produce wanted ideas, thoughts, and beliefs in others. Famous artists have the clout and prestige to influence others, and often the financial resources to back it up. Concerts by famous artists and organized producers have the power to bring attention to issues, raise consciousness as well as funds.

3.I'm not sure I understand this question but I'll take a stab. I think the role of artists in a community, whether visual or performance or recording, is to create an atmosphere where others are inspired. Art isn't created (or shouldn't be, anyway) to distance the artist or to emphasize a feeling of Us vs. Them. Artists have the unique ability to inspire and unite, and inspiration encourages action. I don't think there's a limit to what an artist can do, because the only think holding you back are your own expectations. And funds.

4.Artists can be examples of resistance, tradition, creativity, and progress. Taking art to the public, teaching art, creating art spaces so that poor and working people have as much access as those with more money.

5.I think artists have the potential to connect people to complex ideas, and vision things that have yet to happen. I believe artist tend to approach problems differently and therefore have value to add to traditional processes of community and social problem solving.

6.Artists can and should be involved in all aspects of society from planning and problem solving, to execution and management. Artists are ideal for these kinds of roles as they tend to think in innovative ways, contributing another voice to what has often become stagnant conversation and process. Artists' work is almost automatically hybridized by the simple act of including artists in traditionally "non-arts" roles.

7.Making utilitarian environments and objects less mundane, such as utility power boxes, bus stops etc.

8.pass on this one

9.There are a lot of assumptions built into these questions. A socially engaged artist acknowledges that people make use of works of art; that the creative process is just part of a larger process of sharing, learning and human development; that artists don't deserve any more status than other producers; that they will earn trust and build momentum just like any other community member; and that they need to model some amount of conventional prosperity/ stability to be effective and mentors.
Hybrid practices should involve making things, including making events. Hybrid practices could also involve recapturing the social meanings of other vocations, by performing them more consciously. Even things as simple as making deliveries, or street sweeping, can be recaptured as socially meaningful work.

10.no rules. no limits.
Whatever we can get away with.

11.Become involved in having people from many different socio-economic, age, gender, race groups create art as a means of relaxing and expression. Deep down, everyone is an artist at something.

12.A long question. Artists can redefine both roles and what people can occupy those roles and therefore bring in views and concepts that otherwise would not likely have purchase in a community's dialog about itself. Art, by its fundamental nature, gives articulative power to realms that are impossible to articulate - it can point to things for which there does not yet exist vocabulary. However, once those concepts are embraced by society, often so is that artist and the role of that artist in a community becomes well defined, eradicating the potency of that role by assimilating it. The way things are going NOW in the western/American art world (via new mandates placed upon curatorial and grantmaking entities) is giving favor to artist who do work more in social contexts, evidenced by grant making organizations like MAP who gives a higher and higher % of their grants to those artists who work outside of the conventional market driven art world. The most successful of these balance artistic/craft rigor with non "helping" models of community engagement, collaboratively enabling voice for societal realms generally left out from creative dialog about power and identity in the world.

13.making art is cultural practice common among diverse groups of the human beings. it can have a solitary/mystical/transformative impetus or may be applied to any number of larger issues within the scope of a human society, when artists are included in community discourse. artists provide viewpoints which are generally divergent from the stated goals of society at large and have use different tools for perceiving the universe around them than do non-artists.

14.all an artist needs to do to be an artist is to create. therefore s/he can work within any social role. so long as s/he creates and inspires others to do so s/he is expanding the world of art and the conversation.

15. The bottom of our society has no recognized art. Maybe more than the bottom, maybe the bottom 7/8. Entertainment takes the place of art. But entertainment has little imagination to look critically at society. A pro football game is not art. Artists should involve normal people in making and appreciating art.

16. Artists can certainly create politically or socially conscious art that inspires dialogue. Artists can also use protest and propaganda as their medium. Artists can also work outside art to volunteer for groups or political campaigns--either working solely as volunteers or contributing their skills (design, craft, etc) to the effort. Beyond that, art might be most useful as an education tool (for example, teaching people in third-world countries how to avoid AIDS). I'm not sure about hybridization or working outside the conventional domains of art. Art is primarily useful for bringing attention to things or to use (through auctions, etc) to raise funds. But art cannot directly heal the sick or provide a source of clean water or build a school, although architecture is one of the few art-related areas that can contribute. Artists can also use their position in society to lobby and advocate for reform--such as media reform, First Amendment protections, etc. I don't know what else to tell you except that if the goal is to maximize public good, art isn't the most effective sector.

17. Art therapy is a useful tool. The strength lies in the artist's way of creating something new or controversial that spurs passionate discussion. It's limitations may lie in being unappreciated or misunderstood. The potential lies in always being open to new inspiration, having the courage to push the envelope wide open, and to never stop creating.

5. Briefly propose a project that commissions an artist into a non-traditional social role (i.e. city planning, business/economic development, etc.). How would an artist be effective in that role?

1.helping say a construction engineer conceptualize a real world building or sculpted creation

2.Artists who are willing and able to donate their talents are an example to others to also donate. That fact needs to be made public and the artists honored for it. An orchestra that plays for free for the benefit of something it believes in is a powerful statement.

3.I'm having a problem saying that artists are necessarily different from other people, because art is shades of gray and everyone has it in them to come up with creative solutions. I think if you're used to thinking without constraint or guidelines, you've trained yourself to solve almost any problem. Artists work within social boundaries because everything they present is taken into social consideration, so this actually relates very closely to city planning and economic development.

4.One possibility would be to take artists and have them participate in land use planning and development to create public art spaces, for musicians, dancers, muralists, etc.

5.i would like to see a video/filmmaker work with some of the high risk youth population in santa fe to create a more visible and accessible understanding of the structural challenges facing young people in santa fe.

6.Involving artists in any non-traditional social roles would be beneficial. I think I would like to see artists (both visual and literary) involved in community relations and relationship building. New Mexico's tri-cultural myth is at the root of many of our social issues, and I think engaging artists in the process of breaking down barriers (physical, language, socio-economic) and helping facilitate conversation, community, and understanding would go a long way to improving the quality of life for ALL New Mexicans.

7.Offering an asthetic twist on a design that has nothing to do with a consumer products function,.

8.drawing projected buildings, communities see into the future

9.Serve as marketing director for a group of mainstreet businesses. Elicit stories and images from business owners and regular customers, produce installations, events, images and texts that engage nearby residents.

10.all of the above.
By waking people up

11.In my city of Albuquerque, artists could/should paint the warehouse district with a mural depicting the history of mankind. This should span all buildings in this part of town - it would beautify and revitalize a dead part of our living environment.

12.co-teaching in high school classes, empowering both students and teachers to find deeper and more personal ways to engage curriculum driven lessons and thereby deepen each student's investment in the material.

13.More artists should work as teachers at the secondary and post-secondary level, providing a view and an example rarely seen by non-artists

14.i would like to see a postmodern philosopher build a school. derrida would make a better school than a city planner.

15. Artists could work with immigrants to represent their reality. Or, at the other end, work with tea-partyers to represent their fears.

16. I don't think an artist would be effective in these rolls unless the project related to art, cultural institutions or non-profit funding. Perhaps an artist could be involved in planning to the extent of aesthetic or boosting the creative industry...but that's about it. I have no project ideas.

17. Artists have an unique openess to new things in terms of inspiration, this application to politics would be a very welcome change to the status quo.

6. What is the biggest problem that faces the community in which you live? What are the potential ways an artist could help address that problem? Can art be a tool of community development? How?

1.apathy towards our fellow human beings, creation of expressive idea that uses a symbol to convey that idea

2.The city and state need to financially support artists who contribute their talents to the community. Support comes by offering inexpensive housing, tax breaks, consumer benefits, etc. Community development starts with reasonable and functioning living conditions. Local government is key in addressing this. Artists need to be politically active and need to network with their local government. It needs to be a two-way communication.

3.We need sidewalks. I don't think you have to be an artist to figure those out. Also, gun safety.. I think our community has some logistical problems that could be solved by asking the people involved directly -- and this seems to be high school students. I think one of the projects that an artistic mind would have a great hand in is a community center for middle and high school students. This would have to be centrally located in Manchester (here's where sidewalks come in) and be open late enough that it would be an alternative to reckless activities, not a place to go prior to them. I think this would be an awesome project for our town and the creative minds in it.

4.Violence and its related crimes. Artists could work with youth in their communities. Some artists have come to invite youth to go out of their communities to work with them. Bring art - music, painting, poetry, dance, etc. to the neighborhoods where people don't have access. Whether it is traditional cultural arts or new and modern hybrids. This could become community development in many ways, from small business development to training in video and computer graphics.

5.see #4

6.See above.

7.Drunk driving. I've always wanted to create a fleet of art car taxi's that shuttle party-goers and bar-hoppers around Santa Fe on the weekends as a sort of non-profit safe ride home program.

8.our biggest problem is crime and hate, develop
flyers, newsletters in communities

9.Haves and Have-nots. I wouldn't address the gap directly, but rather start building a common culture based on local interests.
Art can be a tool of community development if it stays grounded enough in producing local meaning and doesn't stray into naive illustrations of the community's problems.

10.Republicans.
always has been.

11.Poverty. Lack of skilled, salaried, professional jobs.
Lack of tax revenues to create high quality educational institutions for children and adults.

12.The biggest problems stem from the gap between shrinking financial resources of individuals and the community and the increasing costs of a failing set of civic systems. This has happened without a new system of exchange to replace the older one. Artists can help by showing example and mentorship of what happens when a community works solely with the materials at hand, and does so together. Art is a terrific means to pull people together in a non specific set of ways, enabling a space of interaction and collaboration, giving agency for people to work together and thereby relate and see one another in a totally new set of ways, suspending fears and hardened assumed identities and thereby empower community members to come forward with more potent ideas and as a more unified diverse body.

13.the huge division between those who have stuff and those who do not have stuff.
talk about it. write about it. take pictures of it.

14.poverty and anger. if someone could tap into the anger and get people to make the world better their situation might improve

15. Disenfranchisement. Government and politics are totally remote. People never think of policy as being in their realm. For example, military policy is not in our purview.

16. Right now, it's probably a government budget shortfall. Currently, there is talk of cutting the public arts budget, so perhaps the best way for artists to get help address the problem is to come up with alternative arts funding or invent new ways to do more with less. Art can be and has been a tool of community development, particularly in the Latino communities. I think the African and Asian communities could also benefit from this sort of work, but that really needs to come from within and not without in order for it organically develop and hold. Unemployment...well, if an artist can find funding, then working on large projects that produce jobs could help. Convincing business leaders to hire artists to art-up their buildings and interior design could also help, I guess. Homelessness is also an issue here. Perhaps helping homeless artists to create art to sell rather than pan handle....

17. Homelessness-

7. What do you do? What do you want to do?

1.i live to make life art and want to make spirit alive in my upper consciousness

2.I am a teacher and a musician. I am doing what I want to be doing.

3.I'm home, substitute teaching grades K -- 12 and working on my illustration (I graduated with a BFA in Art History and Illustration in August). I'm not sure what I want to do in the long run, but I'm considering an MFA and possibly becoming an art teacher way down the road.

4.I'm a public health worker and also a musician. I would like to play more and go to fewer meetings! I try and support art whenever possible.

5.community development

6.I'm a writer, mother, and arts administrator. I want to continue to do all these things and would love to add community organizer and activist but am having trouble fitting it all in.

7.I work in a coffee house and make art when I can. i'de like to utilize my creativity to sustain myself in the field of technological innovation.

8.help others get ahead in life or at the
end of their life.

9.I run a community technology incubator. I want to run a community development corporation or a civic design center.

10.I am an artist and an art educator.
That's what I want to do.

11.I am a Regional Sales Manager for a Web Company. I want to start a Non-Profit Organization that teaches children in New Mexico Alternative Building methods to create a highly-skilled workforce in our State and Region.

12.I make films, performances, festivals, music and workshops with communities all over New Mexico.

13.I teach, write and make art. help ensure the survival of my civilisation.

14.read books. teach

15. I try to bring consciousness of our reality to people. I would like more people to have hope and to get involved in government, rather than giving up. If artists could help with that, that would be a big boon.

16. I'd like to continue working in journalism and perhaps one day write fiction and audio theater. I have a background in documentary film, so going back to some video/film is also on my list. I'd like to work overseas again.

17. Artistically I write, watercolor, collage,decoupage, worship the divine in nature. Leave my writings behind when I am gone to mark my passing through this world.