Final Project: The Passive Solar Room

Asma Chaudhary

AVT 620-001

Professor Mark Cooley

Spring 2010 Final Project

Investigating the Role of Museum and Gallery Spaces in Regards to a Collaborative Outdoor Installation:
“The Passive Solar Room”

Groundbreaking: Summer 2010
Implementation/Cultivation: Fall 2010 with AgriART course

Through an artistic collaboration featuring furniture designer Asma Chaudhary as well as fellow artists, landscape designer Olivier Giron, and shadow puppetmaster Amir Shahlan Amiruddin, an eco-friendly outdoor installation will occur in fall 2010 on the Fairfax campus of George Mason University. This community project has been titled, “The Passive Solar Room,” which will encompass the small patch of woods outside of the School of Art Building and feature artworks from other graduate and undergraduate students.

The project stemmed from a conversation on how to better incorporate the surrounding Fairfax community with the art and design projects of Mason’s students while providing an environment that nourished its users and viewers. By implementing large bands of translucent, stretchable fabric, the students will delegate a space for which artmaking will occur and also be showcased to the public. An inspiration for the project came from fabric artist Ernesto Neto who defies gravity by filling his fabric forms with various materials like sand and stones. In addition, Neto has displayed his large-scale installations throughout the world, specifically at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City.

By using this particular space on campus, there is a high traffic flow of students and members of the Mason community who walk through, around, and drive by this wooded area. This encourages more interaction between the natural environment and the people around it. Furthermore, this space invites more opportunities for eco-friendly behavior and learning tutorials for other course studies such as sustainability, engineering, as well as other science and aesthetic applications.

The Passive Solar Room space will serve several purposes such as a meeting ground for students in between classes and lectures. Due to current landscape priorities and construction projects on Mason’s Fairfax campus, there is no outdoor space available around the School of Art building for art students to mingle and collaborate on projects while engaging with nature.



By involving both undergraduate and graduate students from the upcoming fall 2010 AgriART class, students will understand the importance of the space as an experimental studio, gallery space, and edible vegetable garden. With having the ground plane remain in a natural state, the overall feel of the space will remain beautiful while surrounding plants and shrubbery flourish. Furthermore, natural compost will be added and the edible plants will be watered by a system of rainwater reclamation set up to collect water and store it until needed. The artists will strive as much as possible to collect and reuse found and recycled materials.


Within the room area itself, the exterior walls will serve as projection space, which will be made of the translucent, white fabric, which will cause an exciting magnification of light throughout the woods. In addition, throughout the day, since the sun sits at different points in the sky, it will project light onto a different side of the room, aided by mirrors that can be adjusted for the different seasons. The west side of the room will be illuminated at 0900 in the morning, the north side at 1200 at mid-day, the east side at 1500 in the early afternoon, and the south side will be illuminated at 1800 towards the evening. By having this solar spatial arrangement, this will allow the space to alter with the change of light and wind depending on the sun, weather, and passing of time.


Proposed Materials:


• Steel Frame (the main structure)
• Translucent material (fabric)
• Cistern to harvest rainwater
• Hardware and material to attach to trees to absorb rainwater
• Wood for the walkway (possibly from found wooden pallets)
• Edible and low-maintenance plant material (ferns, moss, etc.)
• Metal stand for mirror
• Reflective, glass mirrors to direct sunlight.
• Funds needed: as much as possible and community involvement


An example of an artwork for display would be from digital artist Amir Amiruddin who will project his Malaysian shadow puppets onto the large, fabric screens. In doing so, his large black cutouts will come to life to the general public located outside of the woods. Amir’s work focuses on the rapid urbanization of simple villages in Malaysia that have now become towering industrial hubs and have removed natural landscapes from view. This is a great collaborative for Amir because his shadows are often in darker tones such as black and brown and this will have a high contrast against the white, translucent fabric.


By investigating ideas set forth by authors Carol Duncan and Alan Wallach in their essay titled, “The Museum of Modern Art as Late Capitalist Ritual: An Iconographic Analysis,” the observer of a museum or gallery space acknowledges that these spaces serve as areas of “ceremonial monuments” due to their architecture and blueprint layout. Both authors call the difference between the doors of the MOMA and the street side as “glass membranes” back into reality. By applying this concept to the Passive Solar Room, the space may serve as a “fabric membrane” between the natural environment and the manmade sculptures manufactured nearby at the School of Art building.


Rather than provide palatial steps and temple-like façades, the collaborative group wants to encourage students and the Mason community to enter the space on unobtrusive moss and low-maintenance plants. This way, the newly-generated space is enhancing the area and without harming the wildlife. In comparison, authors Duncan and Wallach mention that the shape of the MOMA itself is in a Bauhaus-style similar to the large businesses located in the area with its simple and clean exterior walls since its post-World War II construction. The concept for the Passive Solar Room is to also adapt to the natural landscape to reflect how the space is being used.

Final Project: View Three

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Final Project: View Two

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Final Project: View One

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Final Project: Water Reservoir

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Final Project: Moss Example

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Final Project: Side View

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Week Fourteen: Final Project - "Passive Solar Room"

Bird's Eye Blueprint of Project Installation
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Week Thirteen: Eugenics and the Critical Art Ensemble

Investigating the role of eugenics on society and the
reproductive nuclear family

In an essay titled, “Eugenics: The Second Wave,” written by several authors of the Critical Art Ensemble, discusses how the concept never died after its implementation since it complements the “authoritarian control” with the increased “rationalization of culture.” The perception of eugenics first appeared with derivatives from World War II and the Nazi fascist ruling class. As a result, the term was also applied to medical science based on concepts of “mandatory sterilization, selective breeding, and genocide.”

The author states that the role of eugenicists is to repair the human body like a machine where it is designed to maintain life and improved through medical and genetic intervention. One eugenicist mentioned in the article is Frederick Osborn who served as the director of the Carnegie Institute in the 1930s. Osborn said that eugenics could not be implemented by military directive but rather through consistent introduction into society over time.


Osborn also discussed terms such as “consumer economy” and a maintaining a “nuclear family,” which assisted with concepts of eugenics. He stated that through the fundamentals of eugenics relied on a consistent consumer economy, which demands goods and services such as food, water, and shelter. These items are considered as purchasable items that are either “chosen or refused.”


On the topic of healthcare, Osborn states that this service is not a human right or an unexpected luxury but rather another business component of society. Routine medical intervention has become a service that is taken for granted, according to Osborn.


Throughout the essay, the author states that two situations occur as a result of the family structure. In the first instance, one often requires satisfaction from work through either success or obtaining material goods. The second instance states that individuals will follow their employer’s directive to commute to several different locations. In doing so, maintaining their rank rather than be close to their family and friends is most important.


By analyzing this concept of the nuclear family, the reader understands that familial procreation is necessary for survival to either extend reputation or financial rank. With the amenities of proper schooling and healthcare, these “advantages” generate more success and the author notes that the “quality of life is equivalent to economic performance.”


The author breaks down the social structure of the working class and states that these individuals are not participants of eugenic practices. Since the poor lack proper health care, their infant mortality rates are much higher despite the increased number of pregnancies.


In addition, the author discusses “genetic cleansing” and how it allows parents to decide the genetic characteristics of their future children. By testing embryos to avoid deformities and health problems, parents are purchasing various goods and services in an effort to ensure higher health rates for their unborn children. Therefore, this utopian promise has generated a higher form of anxiety for parents to produce the best children and give an advantage for their children in the competitive world.


Osborn states it best when he mentions that the “foundation for consumer consciousness is replicated in the foundation of eugenic consciousness,” which notes that eugenics is still in its early states and must endure multiple trials before effectively enhancing society. Until then, there were be several pros and cons to whether the rationalized process of reproduction is a worthy process rather than a “silent flesh revolution.”

Week Twelve: Paul Virilio and John Armitage

Analyzing the speed of cyberspace against the timeline of
history and cultural theory

In his essay posted recently online titled, “Speed and Information: Cyberspace Alarm!,” French cultural theorist Paul Virilio discusses how the two phenomena of “immediacy and instantaneity,” which are prevalent all across the Internet in society today. He states that these two concepts are plaguing military and political members because it provides instant connections across the globe within seconds.

Virilio discusses the three forms of speed, which include light, heat, and sound. Both the barriers of heat and sound have been broken over the course of history. The heat barrier was broken when astronauts reached outer space and traveled to the moon. The sound barrier was broken when airplanes produced sonic booms. Now, the speed of light has not occurred but providing results and information in real-time is quite a feat.


Through the invention of perspective, Virilio states that “the city, politics, war, economy, and the medieval world became revolutionized. He explains that cyberspace serves as a new form of perspective because it is almost tactile in nature because it allows us to hear and see at a distance. This interesting concept allows two individuals to tele-connect over a large distance.


However, Virilio is quick to mention that a loss of orientation occurs with this new phenomenon because reality and virtual reality become intertwined. He states that a “mental concussion” occurs to individuals who experience cyberspace and virtual reality. This concept is true with those who are addicted to video games and virtual simulation also found online. Individuals now are capable of spending real money in a virtual world to garner relationships and live a completely different life somewhere else—perhaps; these users feel like this virtual world has now become their ideal world.


As a result, Virilio discusses how there is not a system of globalization but rather virtualization. He mentions that whatever is gained from cyberspace is often lost in another realm such as the real world. While it is true that individuals can live a completely different life online and through video games, the loss that occurs in the real world is imminent. Both spouses and families are affected by these virtual families and connections and ultimately, when an individual sought out affection in one virtual realm, they realize that they have lost it in the real world outside of cyberspace.


By producing an object or service, an individual now is responsible for producing the problems that occur as a result. When the automobile was created, it was a revolutionary way to travel. However, after its invention, numerous car crashes occurred and people were injured. As a result, each product has an unexpected danger or addition of a loss to society.


Furthermore, author John Armitage provides a critical analysis of Virilio’s essay by discussing the terms of hyper-modernism and how culture is dominated by war. Armitage explains the reinforced city as a military war model often described by Virilio, which became part of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. He states Virilio’s beliefs that technology is largely “catastrophic, not castastrophist” because of the impact of techno-science and alienation, which occurs as a result. Perhaps this aesthetic criticism of technology provides a modernist cultural response to the Enlightenment.

Week Eleven: Stefan Wray and the Yes Men

Investigating grassroots infowarfare and political hacktivism
as an extraterrestrial cyberspace in society

In his recent essay titled, “Electronic Civil Disobedience and the World Wide Web of Hacktivism: A Mapping of Extraparliamentarian Direct Action Net Politics,” author Stefan Wray discusses how his own coined terms of “electronic civil disobedience” as well as the “browser wars” became a phenomenon of the 1990s. Wray states that these criminal structures occurred as retaliation against the Mexican government. Throughout the world in various countries, these “hacktivists” were taking over anti-nuclear websites and accessing highly sensitive information on private websites.

Wray states that these innovative forms of activism combined electronic media, art and political portals to operate through a new type of communication, similar to the concept of a “grassroots infowar.” In doing so, computerized activism emerged in 1986 with the invention of PeaceNet, which focused on connecting activists throughout the world. As a result, email communications flourished and mostly text-based capabilities expanded with graphic user interfaces and visual concepts. Nonetheless, Wray discusses that an “electronic democracy” occurred among the activists where maintenance generated much “solidarity among the networks.”


Throughout his essay, Wray mentions that Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) began in sociology and psychology departments as methods of quick communication. Afterwards, this idea encompassed the conceptual crossover of political propaganda and communication as well as its overall effect on the general public. By researching this concept, scholars decided that there was an “overarching dominant paradigm” that garnered much “discourse, dialogue, and discussion” on various political issues and provided free and open access to these libraries of information.


Wray notes that this rapid industrialization of the grassroots infowar has enabled activists to become present on a “global stage, telepresent across borders, and simultaneously.” He mentions that the wave of information sharing, which includes descriptions and reporting results has now moved to the next step, which calls for action. Wray discusses how experimental methods of “virtual sit-ins” occurred in the late 1990s and proved that the Internet could generate not only descriptive behavior but also legitimate actions.


One form of hacking occurred when a “symbolic gesture” of multiple Web-based Java applets called for a browser to reload its commands and ultimately took over the system. Wray discusses how the 1998 SWARM project launched a huge disturbance by quickly streaming Java applet coffee cups across the computer screen and the entire system froze. These types of political activists often remain anonymous and actually occur as a result of an individual, not necessarily an organization.


Wray concludes his essay by discussing the impact of “cyber-protests” and how the general public responds to activism as well as computer viruses and worms. He states that these methods generate attention and advertise to the various causes. However, Wray also notes that forms of communication often bring up ethical questions that this activity supports open and free access to information.


Towards the end of his argument, Wray states that “cyberspace is extraterrestrial” because it is not constrained to certain borders. Wray notes that this sort of behavior requires a deeper analysis and better understanding as to the purpose and perspective of hacktivists as well as their main objectives. He states that phenomena of future war are often discussed among computer activists and whether the difference in word and deed are causes for alarm. Nonetheless, these computer skills although not very favored when a virus hits, become invaluable as a response to future warfare and to combat others from performing the same actions. Without this valuable knowledge, how are we able to combat the offensive?

Week Ten: The Corporation

Investigating the role of the corporation in daily life
and its impact on a global scale

The notion of the corporation and how it pertains to every day life is an interesting concept because it not only applies to business applications but also towards the military, politics, economics, and everything around us—even artmaking and expressing ourselves through various media outlets.

These strucutures often have their own hidden agenda of what is to occur next or who their audience will consist of, which typically is the unsuspecting, general public. After reviewing video documentaries on the Yes Men and how corporate practices almost dictate our daily lives, it is important to recognize that multiple forms of civil obedience to the system are preached in almost every school and university in the world. Students are praised for conforming to societal ideals and those who act up or out of line, are often punished.

In many instances, corporations will blame their incorrect, unethical or bad behavior on financial stakeholders and those who provide allocations for advertising in the corporation's publications, television commercials, billboards, and websites. Often the corporations state that they have a higher authority to answer to when at times, it appears that these two conglomerates work together to push that pre-conceived agenda onto the public and stakeholders.

One important example from the recent Yes Men documentary was when the two associates went to a college campus dressed up as representatives of a large food chain and the World Health Organization. By representing these two mega groups, a concept was discussed of how to eradicate world hunger while at the same time, finding a system to recycle human waste.

The answer concluded that individuals would harness their own human waste and create hamburger patties for the citizens of the third world to consume on as a form of combating hunger. Of course, this documentary depicted the outrage of the students but also displayed their initial curiousity of how this concept could occur despite the ethical and hygiene issues.

It was almost like the students believed what they were being taught and many of them were taking notes on this economic principle. It was not until several minutes into the presentation that students became outraged on the concept and actually left the lecture hall in disgust. Meanwhile, by serving everyone simple cheeseburgers from the fast food chain, the two representatives drove the point home. This is a great example of how corporations can sometimes push nonsense onto its consumers and hide their ingredients or hidden agendas in fine print.

Week Nine: Judith Williamson

Investigating trends of the signifier and signified throughout
advertising history and its impact on lifestyles

In her essay titled, “Signs Address Somebody,” written by author Judith Williamson, she discusses how a sign replaces a particular item for an individual. As a result, this particular item only has meaning if someone decides that it actually has a meaning. By using the terms of “for” and “by” meaning continues to serve its own purpose. Williamson continues this process by discussing how the meaning within advertisements describes and replaces an object, which in turn decides the actual meaning of that image. She notes that it appears that the object itself controls this and ultimately performs this “transaction.”

Williamson states the “signifiers” and the “signified” are understood differently from the receiver and the meaning can continue to change over time. In doing so, Williamson notes that a “vicious circle” occurs where viewers are connotative towards advertisements and notes that “ideology is always precisely that of which we are unaware.”


Throughout her essay, Williamson mentions that based on exchanges, this is how a product or item goes further in value such as when money is exchanges is when society decides its actual worth compared to other forms of currency. As a result, it follows the economic principles of supply and demand where the value of money goes down as prices for items go up.


Williamson states that “ideology” and “subject” are interdependent of each other as terms and as a result, simply confirm the existence of a subject. She discusses how in advertising today featured in television commercials and magazines, becomes more of an adjective referring back to a certain lifestyle or even expanded to the term of “lifestyle kit,” which takes care of all of your needs. This translation works in one of Williamson’s examples for those who purchase Chanel No. 5 perfume. This signifier of difference depicts that people who enjoy a certain product are also part of a different part of society, often more elite based on their product choices and devotion to certain brand names.


In another one of Williamson’s examples, by purchasing a Pepsi cola drink, the consumer is buying into that lifestyle that views themselves as a free thinker, almost-hippie like individual who enjoys drinking cola. As a result, Williamson notes that these “totemic” groups often compare Pepsi cola versus Coca-Cola to the effect that these two groups are not associated with each other because a Pepsi drinker is not similar to a Coca-cola consumer.


While analyzing these trends, Williamson quickly notes that advertisements provide an escape to reality where issues no longer exist and that jobs and rank do not necessarily define someone but rather the products that they enjoy provide that separation and gratification. The high-end brands and designer labels almost become a part of our own skin layers as we walk around in public with Chanel sunglasses, Fossil watches, and Levi-Strauss denim jeans. Everything we wear has something to say about our lifestyles.


Williamson states that these advertisements “create systems of social differentiation, which are a veneer on the basic class structure of our society,” and continues throughout history today. This is an interesting concept that one should work harder to buy more unnecessary goods in order to escape and feel better about their own existence. This form of societal identification alienates individuals and as a result, these “objects speak for themselves” and become a part of our physical identity. The author continues this idea when she states that “real objects are lifted and absorbed into a closed system of symbols as a substitute of reality and real emotions.”


By investigating these trends throughout society and advertisements, Williamson provides insight on how businesses and elite media can be controlling through selling certain goods and services. As a result, each object an individual owns says something on them and their preference of branding as well as lifestyle.

Week Eight: Noam Chomsky

Investigating academic and political social strucutures and how it pertains to mainstream and elite media organizations

In his October 1997 essay titled, “What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream,” author Noam Chomsky discusses how the intellectual culture plays on the past and future structures of information. Chomsky states that these organizations provide almost like a “doctrinal system” and investigates issues in a similar manner to science applications. The experimental process includes a hypothetical theory, a repeated number of trials, and a conclusion of results as to what occurred. In the beginning of his essay, Chomsky notes that “virtually all work in media analysis is the last part—trying to study carefully just what the media product is and whether it conforms to obvious assumptions about the nature and structure of media.”


Chomsky dictates that media that caters to the mass audience is often derivative from newspapers, entertainment news, and even television soap operas. He also states the other section of the media, which is often considered as “elite” since it almost “agenda-setting” in its actions because it caters to an audience of highly privileged individuals. Examples of this type of media include the evening news on CBS as well as the New York Times, which include people of the wealthy class or have some form of political interest or involvement. Many times, these individuals are business owners, journalists, and university professors.

When studying an edition of the New York Times, a viewer observes that there is a certain layout for the newspaper as well as its complimentary online website. On the front page, both versions of the paper depict top news headlines like economic woes and historical events but also many human interest stories or spontaneous news headlines trickle their way to the top. In addition, the reader may thumb through numerous sections from entertainment, opinion, classifieds, to weather, crossword puzzles, and the Arts.

With this sort of structure, various news organizations across the country and world are able to pull information and collaborate on upcoming headlines for their own media outlets. An example is CNN.com, which utilizes news sources from numerous external publications in order to get the news collected into one source. This way, anyone news can be generated from a local news station like Washington, D.C.-based ABC7 may be featured on the main website or a college student out in Sacramento, California can snap a photo on their iPhone in order to post a cool story on an iReport page.

Although this sounds great, Chomsky states that “the real media are basically trying to divert people.” For instance, this is the case when a historical event takes place but the main news on the front page may be the recent demise from an adored celebrity. It appears the certain news outlets choose what news will be on the front page based on their own interests and allow the public to feed on the updates. Chomsky notes that these media publications are “major, very profitable, corporations” who hold a lot of power and often have a “tyrannical structure.” These corporations are selling products to their consumers, which are actually products themselves.

He discusses that this same concept is true on university campuses and their own publications. The top news headlines may be overshadowed by the university’s high-performing NCAA basketball team or based on the business relationships with certain vendors who are advertised in the campus newspapers and magazines.

Furthermore, Chomsky states that educational institutions also reward conformity and obedience to their structures and rules. This “filtering device” allows a system that generates students who embody the same beliefs and framework of the institution. This is true in instances where students attend Ivy League schools where proper etiquette and socialization skills are key principles of doing well in society.

Chomsky also mentions author George Orwell’s classic novel, Animal Farm, which actually contained a suppressed introduction on how the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was actually very similar to “literary censorship in England” because those with innovative ideas are actually cut out from the picture similar to how that introduction was removed from the classic tale. Until a recent discovery in Orwell’s personal papers, which were 30 years later after the novel, became a major hit for booksellers, these original introductory paragraphs would have never been found.

Towards the end of his essay, Chomsky states that “ignorant and meddlesome observers” often serve as outsiders and not participants themselves in the important issues. He notes that academic and political social science is derivative from similar structures. He concludes that anything political has to become “warfare that applies propaganda” as to how people should think and act. Chomsky mentions that students do not attend college in order to control each other’s thoughts but that is an interesting concept to consider, especially if we ever decide to join as a member of the elite media.

Week Seven: Louis Althusser

Analyzing the concept of the infrastructure and the apparatus
and how it pertains to the conditions of society

     In the 1971 essay titled, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation),” by author Louis Althusser, the concept of “state apparatuses” is introduced to the reader as an infrastructure system for society. According to Althusser, this system allows the artist to communicate with the audience about the issues directly relevant to their lives rather than creating artworks that do not engage the community. Throughout his essay, Althusser reiterates that these systems conform to economic domination rather than serve as a response to nature, politics, society, and culture.
    Althusser states that the reproduction of the conditions of the production is due to factors, which are part of the definite relations of production, such as: 1) reproduce the productive forces and 2) reproduce the existing relations of production. In doing so, Althusser also notes the complex idea of how accounting macro-economic theoreticians prove that all production is possible through material conditions allotted for production, which in a sense equates to the “reproduction of the means of production.”
    An example of this is when Althusser said that the average economist is equivalent to the average capitalist because they both represent the view of “the firm.” This individual uses foresight to understand what materials are expendable and require routine replacement such as raw material, fixed installations (buildings), and instruments of production (machine), etc. In one example, Althusser states that: Mr. X uses wool to spin yarn in his spinning mill while Mr. Y is a productive sheep farmer and Mr. Z exploits these resources even more because he is an industrial engineer who produces machines and tools in his factory.
With these three individuals working together, this is a continuous cycle of reproduction for another person to create an interchange of goods and services. Althusser’s example reminds me of how tools were first made in previous history. Take for instance if one required an axe to cut down a tree. First, a piece of wood is whittled down for the handle and then other tools sharpen the metal for the blade. It is this continuous cycle of production and reproduction. Handmade tools are necessary to create factory equipment and so on, etc.
Althusser states that we have ignored the reproduction of what distinguishes the productive forces from the means of production, for example, the reproduction of labor power. By funding the labor power with wages as its required material means to continue the cycle. He discusses the concept of wage capital (housing, food and clothing; incentives for the factory worker to come back to work each day). However, he said that this not required as a “biological” minimum wage but rather Marx’s concept of a historical minimum. For example, Althusser mentions beer for the English workers and wine for the French. Throughout the reading, Althusser states that this concept is not defined by the historical needs of the working class as recognized by the capitalist class but by the historical needs imposed by the proletarian class struggle, which is a double class struggle against the lengthening of the working day and against the reduction of wages. Therefore, the available labor power must be competent for example to be suitable to be set to work in the complex system of the process of production. He states that the socio-technical division of labor equates to different jobs and posts throughout a firm or company.
Althusser states that diversified skills that are not characterized by slavery or serfdom, but rather this reproduction of the skills does not occur with on-the-spot apprenticeships within the production itself but rather due to the capitalist education system, institutions, and other opportunities. He mentions that at school, children learn literary culture for higher management positions, manual hands-on work, technicians, and engineer.
Throughout history, Althusser states that children learn proper behavior and attitude, which include rules of morality, civic and professional conscience that lead to the destined position where the socio-technical division of labor as well as the order enacted by class domination. An example is when children speak a certain way in different cultures but not only through a reproduction of skills but a reproduction to the submission to authority. Althusser states throughout his essay that a reproduction of the ability to manipulate the ruling ideology correctly for the agents of exploitation and repression, so that they provide for the dominating class through “words.”
    He continues discussing that all the agents of production must perform these tasks conscientiously of the exploited (proletarians) of the exploiters (capitalists) of the exploiters’ auxiliaries (managers) or of the high priests of the ruling ideology (functionaries), which brings his to more concepts of ideology and questioning: what is a society (and its infrastructure)? Althusser defines the infrastructure as the economic base of society whereas the superstructure contains two levels or instances, which are equivalent to politico-legal (law and the State) and ideology equal to religious, ethical, legal, political themes, etc.
    Furthermore, Althusser states that the structure of every society as an edifice contains a base (infrastructure) that has two floors of the superstructure, this acts as a metaphor suggest something visible. Each structure needs a strong foundation, which means that the “determination in the last instance” by the economic base. He continues this concept when he mentions that the Marxist tradition of a “relative autonomy” of the superstructure with respect to the base and in addition, to the “reciprocal action” of the superstructure of the base.
Althusser explains that this concept reveals determination as a critical element because the last instance determines the whole edifice and thus, it obliges us to recognize how the structures work together because of the reciprocal action of the superstructure on the base. The edifice serves as a metaphor, which remains descriptive while the State represents a repressive apparatus while the ruling classes such as the 19th century bourgeois class and the big landowners to ensure their domination over the working class. To further breakdown this concept, Althusser delineates that legal practices include the courts, prisons, police, and the army whereas then the head of State equals the government and the administration.
Therefore, Althusser discusses more about descriptive theory, which includes two things such as the irreversible beginning of a theory and that the descriptive form in which the theory is presented requires a contradiction, resulting in a theoretical process, which goes beyond the form of description. These somewhat complex ideas continue by discussing that the development of the theory is essential because of its indispensable status to add something to the classical definition for the State as a State apparatus. Toward the end of his essay, Althusser explains the difference between the public (Repressive State Apparatuses, RSAs) and private domains (Ideological State Apparatuses, ISAs), which include churches, parties, trade unions, families, some schools, most newspapers, and cultural ventures. The following lists provide more in-depth representations of Althusser’s studies.

Marxist theory with State power and State apparatus:
1.    The State is the repressive State apparatus
2.    State power and State apparatus must be distinguished
3.    The objective of the class struggle concerns the State apparatus by the classes (or alliance of classes or of fractions of classes)
4.    The proletariat must seize State power in order to destroy the existing bourgeois State apparatus and, in a State apparatus, then in later phases set in motion a radical process, that of the destruction of the State (the end of State power, the end of every State apparatus).

Repressive State Apparatus (RSAs) = govt, admin, army, police, courts, prisons, etc.
These function by violence since administrative repression may take non-physical forms

Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA)
1.    Religious (different churches)
2.    Educational (private + public)
3.    Family [intervenes reproduction of labor power; either unit of production or consumption]
4.    Legal [the Law also belongs to the RSAs category]
5.    Political (including different parties)
6.    Trade-Union
7.    Cultural (literature, the Arts, sports, etc.)

The topographic language (infrastructure, superstructure) is secured by legal-political and ideological superstructure:

1.    All the State apparatuses function both by repression and by ideology, with the difference that the RSA functions massively and predominantly by repression, whereas the ISAs function massively and predominantly by ideology.
2.    The RSA constitutes an organized whole whose different parts are centralized beneath a commanding unity, that of the politics of class struggle applied by the political representatives of the ruling classes in possession of State power, the ISA are multiple, distinct
3.    The unity of the RSA is centralized and organized under the leadership of the classes in power who execute politics of the class struggle and the unity of the different ISA is secured, usually in contradictory forms by the ruling ideology of the ruling class.

Week Seven: Louis Althusser

Analyzing the concept of the subject and how it pertains to the conditions of (re) production and (infra/super) structures

In the 1971 essay titled, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation),” by author Louis Althusser, the concepts of “reproduction vs. production” and “infrastructures of the ruling class” are introduced to the reader as a system of identifying cyclical labor processes within society. According to Althusser, this system allows the individual at the bottom of an infrastructure to gain skills in order to serve the ruling class. However, Althusser indicates that this often equates to the ruling class depending on the labor force beneath them since these individuals support the foundation.

Althusser opens his essay by discussing how reproduction occurs through the conditions of production through definite relations such as reproducing “the productive forces” and “existing relations of production.” By stating this Althusser explains that accountants who handle finances understand that reproduction occurs via production of expendable materials and conditions. From his perspective, Althusser states that the average economist is equivalent to the average capitalist that seizes every available opportunity to procure funds. This is an example that is often seen through business contracting where each raw material is accounted for within a work facility from machines to computer equipment to interior décor.

An amusing example that Althusser mentions includes three individuals: Mr. X, Mr. Y, and Mr. Z. In their own society, these three men work for each other and vice versa based on concepts of supply and demand. Mr. X spins wool yarn at his mill while Mr. Y tends to his sheep flocks and Mr. Z is the industrial engineer who produces tools. These three labor positions prove that each individual requires the other to function in the cyclical process. Mr. Y must take of his sheep so that he can receive wages for providing wool to Mr. X who places it into a spindle to make thread, which also benefits Mr. Z because he provides the parts and repair maintenance for the spinning mill.

This continuous cycle describes reproduction and how the importance for another person to continue the process. One example could be for when tools were first made. In order to chop down a tree, an individual requires an axe. To obtain the axe, he must use wages to either import materials or laborers to create the sharp blade and provide a wooden handle. After these items come together, he is holding an axe ready to complete his task of chopping firewood. However, without the other two individuals, the first man would not be able to cut the wood or sell the wood to local lumber yards. With this example, without wages or collateral, the individual may break the cycle unless a replacement provides a better, faster, and more cost-effective service.

Althusser also states the importance of wages and other incentives to make working conditions comfortable enough for employees to return to work each day. He mentions how the reproduction of labor power occurs through the concept of wage capital, which includes “housing, food and clothing, etc.” He explains this further as not a “biological” minimum wage but rather going along with theorist Karl Marx’s concept of a “historical” minimum, which provides incentives based on different societies such as wine for the French and beer for the English. Althusser describes that this concept occurs because of a “double-class struggle” that the proletarian class enforces for the resistance against low wages and long work days.

Althusser also discusses that the labor power requires skills and knowledge to be able to perform their assigned duties each day. With the complex system of the process production the socio-technical division of labor arranges certain individuals in one capacity while the others perform another task and so on and so forth. In doing so, this process entails “diversified skills,” which Althusser makes clear are not reminiscent of feudal serfdom or slavery because there are no longer on-the-spot apprenticeships available. Instead, labor workers often attend the capitalist educational institutions and seek other opportunities in order to gain and prove their skill sets.

As a result, author Althusser notes that when children are younger in school, they are taught the specifics of the “literary culture,” which prepares them for life out in the real world as managers, hands-on personnel, technicians, and engineers. These positions are also pre-selected based on the education the children receive in accordance with the rules of the socio-technical society. With children, they learn proper demeanors that they take with them into their first jobs because these “rules of morality, civic, and professional conscience” often lead children to their “destined position” in the grand scheme of things.

Furthermore, author Althusser reiterates that a reproduction of skills takes place but also a reproduction of respecting authority occurs. In this situation, a child endures exploitation and repression for their skills in order to benefit the higher authority that in turn, requires these legions of workers to perform certain tasks. The production cycle therefore includes the functional high priests and then managers who are auxiliaries of the capitalist exploiters who take advantage of the exploited proletarians. With this process, the high priests pronounce their ruling ideology as a functional system for the rest of the classes to follow and all this information trickles down to the blue-collar working class.

Within his essay, Althusser states how ideology comes into play when discussing the relations of production on a society. He indicates that the infrastructure is the economic foundation while the superstructure is above it and it contains two levels of the State politics and aspects of the Law. These concepts intertwine with ideology that includes religious, ethical, legal, and political decisions that are made every day in a society.

According to Marxism, the economic base has a certain level of determination, which involves a “relative autonomy” that has respect for the base and also a “reciprocal action” that moves upward in the cycle. By analyzing this cycle, the reader understands that determination itself becomes critical because the “edifice” remains a descriptive element. Althusser states that the State has been a repressive apparatus since the 19th century with the bourgeois class because these wealthy landowners presided over the working class.

Another concept that Althusser mentions is the legal practice, which involves the courts, prisons, police, armies, government entities, and the administration. By having these systems in place, Marxist theory explains the State power and the State apparatus. The rules of this social theory include four main ideas such as “the State is the repressive State apparatus” and that the “State power and State apparatuses must be distinguished.” Furthermore, that the “objective of the class struggle concerns the State apparatus by the classes (or alliance of classes or of fractions of classes)” and finally, that the “proletariat must seize State power in order to destroy the existing bourgeois State apparatus for a radical process with the destruction of the State.”

Towards the end of his essay, Althusser describes the Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs) and the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs). The RSAs function by managing over the public domain of the government, administration, army/police, prisons, and courts through “violence since administrative repression may take non-physical forms.” Furthermore, the ISAs manage the private domain, which includes various groups such as churches, educational and legal systems, families, political parties, trade unions and cultural activities.

An interesting concept that Althusser explains is that the ISAs use “methods of punishment, expulsion, and selection as discipline” for their shepherds and flocks. By reproducing this cycle of expected performance and behavior, the socio-technical divisions within society continues for centuries. By analyzing these concepts, author Althusser invites the reader to explore deeper concepts of reproduction through societal necessities of class infrastructures and discipline systems to create desired results. This is an intriguing method to compare to art students who receive educational in so-called capitalist institutions to perhaps obtain a job that they were destined for based on the skill sets earned. Are we just reproductions of the same cycle? Despite our free thinking, are we programmed to answer to a higher authority such as museums curators, design clients, and the general public audience?

Week Six: Craig Owens

Investigating the creative presence of the artist and writer in their works through the labor process

In the 1992 essay titled, “From Work to Frame, or, Is There Life After ‘The Death of the Author?’,” by author Craig Owens, the reader acknowledges the mystique behind artists who create artworks and decides whether their presence is truly rendered within the work. By understanding the crisis of artistic authorship,
Owens discusses how the artist is not necessarily in control of the value of their work.

Owens states that the artist “becomes estranged to their own production,” which is an interesting concept because previous art critics have studied artistic authorship as well as censorship. He mentions how author Roland Barthes’s 1967 essay titled, “The Death of the Author,” claims the notion that the meaning and possibly the value of art is no longer based on the artist’s assessment.

By stating this claim, Owens discusses how postmodernist art appears to answer questions throughout history and that the actual artist disappears from most works. In one example, Owens states that the “broad, gestural brushstrokes” are often the symbolism for an artist and his or her presence and even this has disappeared or become “camouflaged” in certain portraits of the artists depicting themselves.


With this innovative technique, Owens mentions that the artist removes themselves as a form of “practice,” which prepares them for the move outside of realism such as photographical methods seen in landscape depictions and still life. In doing so, this move transfers the practice towards abstraction, which allows more monochromatic and gestural movements, according to Owens.


Throughout his essay, Owens notes that artists and authors alike must manage their conscious and unconscious desires in order to resolve their own thoughts. In one example, Owens discusses how the tension between documenting events and images through photography contains a tension against painting, which reveals less of the artist and more of the critic’s hidden narrative.

Week Five: Barthes + Lethem

Analyzing the role of literary authors in comparison to the aura of artists and their processes throughout history

In the 1977 essay titled, “The Death of the Author,” by author Roland Barthes, the definition and role of the author is questioned as it pertains to social ideology, psychology, and “literary performance.” As a contrast to the author, the connotations of an artist can include impacts on society, the actual artmaking process, and their visual performances.

Barthes opens his essay by analyzing Sarrasine Balzac who describes the characteristics and possible psychology of the woman, which allude to her boldness and femininity at the same time. Barthes writes that women tend to incorporate a mixture of “irrational whims, impetuous boldness, and delicious sensibility,” and these concepts are investigated further as real facts or as conclusions from society. By analyzing these points from Balzac, the reader understands that the purpose of the author is to remove “every voice, of every point of origin.” In doing so, the writing or visual performance becomes neutral and easily applicable to more individuals within each cultural community.

Furthermore, Barthes explains that through this removing of identity, the author inscribes himself more freely while creating an aura of disconnection with the reader. By eliminating his or her own voice, the author’s death becomes reality and the true writing occurs. Barthes refers to this moment as a “phenomenon” that spans numerous ethnological communities and historical events because the role of the author becomes more of a storyteller or raconteur. 

In addition, Barthes discusses the “narrative code,” which evokes the nurturing aspect of the artmaking process for any artist working with different media such as paint, sculpture, design, performance or even creative writing. By explaining their process more in-depth, the reader acknowledges the mysticism or anticipation that occurs with storytelling and creative processes. With a mastery of this code, Barthes states that authors span numerous literary writings to cater to their audience while revealing themselves in autobiographies, memoirs, and diaries.

Barthes continues by discussing the author’s gesture to create his own narrative vocabulary and translate it well to his audience, however, this is accomplished by collecting words from other dictionaries, which existed previously throughout history. In comparison, perhaps the work of an artist becomes more derivative of the past than realized?

Another essay titled, “The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism,” by author Jonathan Lethem, discusses the appropriation of literary processes and the cyclical nature of writing, which translates differently over time.

Lethem’s essay opens with a story of a cultivated older man who becomes enamored by a younger female after traveling abroad and staying in a nearby town before continuing his journey. In this example, Lethem speaks on the context of the story and how history potentially plays an important role on a “hidden, unacknowledged memory.”

Lethem continues with an example on musician Bob Dylan who used appropriation as a tool to incorporate past writings of author F. Scott Fitzgerald and poet William Shakespeare into his love songs. By compiling these verses in his songs, Lethem states that Dylan poses a “paradox through resuscitation,” which urges the listener not to reflect on history, despite the insertion of these moments into modern culture and song lyrics. In doing so, does this gesture of translation authenticate contemporary music despite its historical connotations?

Perhaps the same concept may be applied to artists today, specifically those who are currently in an academic environment. As a constant learning exercise, artists of various media often select previous artworks from other artists throughout history in order to translate them into a new perspective. Is this a form of plagiarism, which exploits previous intellectual properties for personal gain?

Lethem also discusses the theory of “fugitive traditions,” which encompassed visual and auditory media that transformed society by activating a series of historical movements. Furthermore, Lethem explains the understanding of surrealists and how a “crisis of enframing” occurs with an object and its function in society. By analyzing these objects, Lethem notes that surrealists placed these items in opposite media to make them defunct of their original purpose and reveals its identity as a formal item. This concept of “thingness” occurs when the formal characteristics intrigue the viewer to take a refreshed glance at an artwork rather than associate it with other preconceived notions. 

Week Four: Judith Baca

Investigating the influence of public art towards ethnic communities and memorializing history

In the essay titled, “Where Monument Where? Public Art in a Many-Cultured Society,” by author Judith Baca, the exploration of public art continues as it reaches into the barrios and ghettos of ethnic communities. According to Baca, these communities are instead losing their sense of identity when a new monument or artwork is thrown onto a plaza because it is not accurately representing the surrounding community.

At the beginning of her essay, Baca explains that public art tends to mean different things to different people; this is mainly due to a variety of experiences from each individual. Furthermore, each person within a community has a different expectation or vision as to what is called art. Baca compares examples of Renaissance era Italian frescoes, which are considered traditional concepts of beauty. However, she also notes how an observer may enjoy site-specific works from Christo and Jeanne-Claude because of the impact onto the outdoor landscape.

Throughout her essay, Baca states how monuments uncover the past and become a part of our present experiences, and then ultimately an inspiration for the future. She notes how a clump of mud can turn into “a building block of society” where something that was previously disregarded actually built a foundation for the community. In addition, Baca explains the importance of revealing “memory which is contained in the ground” because it marks the passages of ancestors through history and space.

Baca continues by asking rhetorical questions as to what the current generation will memorialize or want to remember. Previously, public art meant displaying cannons from the Civil War in a public park. After removing the dirt and grime of history, the design planners begin to polish the piece and situate it in a central location. Does the meaning of the work change because of the process and physical removal of history?

With numerous events throughout history which recognize forefathers and ancestors, Baca questions if re-imagination of history is truthfully occurring where children and families enjoy picnics in the park. Often, these monuments provide a snapshot of history that sparks our activism and patriotism. However, are triumphs, victories, and adversity resonating with the current generation of tourists who sit on top, vandalize, and take photographs of these artworks on display?

Week Three: Suzanne Lacy

Analyzing the concept of “new genre” public art and its influence outside the museum and on the public audience

In the essay titled, “Cultural Pilgrimages and Metaphoric Journeys,” by author Suzanne Lacy, the concept of “new genre public art” is introduced to the reader as a system utilizing traditional and non-traditional media for a broad and diversified audience. According to Lacy, this system allows the artist to communicate with the audience about the issues directly relevant to their lives rather than creating artworks that do not engage the community. Throughout her essay, Lacy reiterates that art should exist as a response to nature, politics, society, and culture rather than conform to economic domination.

The overall effectiveness of an artwork enhances when an “aesthetic sensibility” is added to accommodate the audience. Some examples that Lacy introduces include race relations, homelessness, aging, gang warfare, and cultural identity. She also mentions toxic waste, which is a common topic today addressed by numerous artists due to the global warming crisis and political agendas. With public art, artists are turning towards creating installations, performances, mixed media, and more conceptual pieces to present to the community. Lacy’s essay emphasizes the importance of experimentation with form and content to engage others into the artworks through social strategy and effectiveness.

In addition, Lacy raises awareness to the location of the artworks and how access can affect the piece. She mentions the example of a sculpture situated in a public plaza and how the every day audience reacts to the addition in their town. Public art today involves more than just an artist creating a piece, it requires collaboration between a team of architects and designers for “greater public accountability.”

Lacy addresses a specific example includes Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc, which frustrated hundreds of office workers because the enormous sculpture took over the square. Perhaps, they were more angered about walking around the entire structure of the piece rather than its placement on the plaza. Ultimately, Serra’s artwork was removed after receiving much dissatisfaction from the public. However, what if Serra considered this reaction or became surprised by this negative feedback? In fact, Lacy discusses how that relationship between the townspeople and the artist becomes part of the artwork itself. The reaction of the audience needs to be considered with each piece and documentation of this rapport adds to the artwork for future projects.

Lacy states in her essay how new genre public art also entails other forms of intervention such as running for political office or reducing gang warfare in different communities. Just as a large steel structure can intrude on a plaza and cause uproar, so can political action or crime intervention. By engaging in these activities, both the artist and public are raising awareness to these daily issues. According to Lacy, by documenting this process, the artist demands more democratic participation from the public rather than pursue private interests.

According to Lacy, public art is making a shift towards the real environment where “incorporated weather, behavior, and ecology” are equivalent to the meaning of life. In her essay, Lacy discusses how the importance of exploring the “subconscious of cultural identity” and feminist art education. She states that by incorporating the primary audience into the work and educational programs will cater to that real environment wherever it is located. Within her essay, Lacy mentions the term “community of origin” to describe where public art takes place and who it represents in those locations.

Lacy provides an example of a muralist who paints images onto concrete barricades, walkways, and buildings throughout the city to reach people of the barrios and ghettos. In this case, access to a museum or gallery is limited and therefore, access to a diverse collection of art becomes limited. In order to engage the audience, muralists bring their aesthetic sensibility into the neighborhoods. Many times, artists will interact with their audience and inspire them to participate. This form of engagement has influenced graffiti artists to become more than the label as a criminal performing vandalism. These artists are representing their community and often highlight the triumphs and sorrows of the barrios and ghettos that others overlook.

By highlighting adversity within the labor communities, the artist expresses the stories of the people who often become voiceless due to social and political agendas. Towards the end of her essay, Lacy discusses how the community faces violence, racism, censorship, and ecological damage and how the role of the artist evolves to include these “conclusions from different vantage points.” Perhaps through public art, we can realize the true desire to activate each other whether it is through the role of the critic, architect, or viewer. Otherwise, artists can at least take all these viewpoints into consideration during the artmaking process and document it as well. Many times, a public artwork becomes more exciting based on its conceptual process and drawing phases. The work encourages more feedback and the process is better understood since it is open-ended and tangible, which coincides to the characteristics of the artwork standing at the center of a plaza.

Week Two: Duncan/Wallach, Andrea Fraser + Daniel Buren

Analyzing the architecture of museums, galleries, and artist studios through comparisons of tradition and taste

In the essay titled, “The Museum of Modern Art as Late Capitalist Ritual: An Iconographic Analysis,” by authors Carol Duncan and Alan Wallach, the reader acknowledges that museums tend to serve as “ceremonial monuments” based on their architecture and grandeur. Both authors compare the façades of museums to “temples, churches, and palaces” with large staircases and windows as well as labyrinth-like hallways and rooms. For example, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City embodies these characteristics with dozens of palatial steps and golden-colored railings to the entrances. The doors themselves are also gargantuan in size and detail.

In contrast, the authors discuss the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), which has some shrine-like qualities in its interior, like elevated ceilings and windows but for the most part, the MOMA resembles other “megalithic” businesses in the area. The museum, which provides homage to the Bauhaus style with its post-World War II construction, remains simple and clean with its exterior and interior layouts. However, Duncan and Wallach state that the MOMA represents more individual choice and freedom because this is a major theme of museum. Rather than providing grand steps to the entrance, the authors note that transparent glass doors serve as “glass membranes,” between the museum and outside world—specifically from the busy streets of New York. In doing so, the museums invite all types of visitors rather than just the “regular and informed visitor.”

According to Duncan and Wallach, the idea of a museum appears to “affirm power and social authority of the patron class,” which still holds true today. Businesses and patrons who can pay and afford annual museum memberships often receive special privileges for private art viewings or events. In doing so, it appears that the upper class experiences a “higher taste” for art because they can view it from balconies where they are served champagne and listen to classical music. Rather than encourage the public to interact and present abstract works, the museum maintains traditional collections and perspectives.

With essays and performance scripts from Daniel Buren and Andrea Fraser, readers understand that museum patrons and sponsors appear disengaged with the artists as well as the public. The authors collectively mention how museums are similar to cemeteries with displaying artworks. In order to hang any paintings or framed works, these pieces are often mapped out, measured, leveled and then ready to hang. Such a process could be representative of gravestones and markers on the ground versus the wall. 

Duncan and Wallach also address the issue of how museums must combine numerous artworks into one show to make sense and therefore, curators often reference “authoritative literary sources” to justify their decisions. In this neutral space, curators face several challenges while examining myths and traditions, various “sacred texts,” as well as the potential or retraction of corporate sponsorship. Both authors shed light that this task is not easy because there is so much content to take into consideration, which can also lead to “spatial disorientation” for the curators and museum viewers alike.

In the 1991 performance script titled, “May I Help You,” by artist Andrea Fraser arranges a makeshift exhibition space where individuals serve as docents for unsuspecting viewers that enter the space. According to the script, the docent repeatedly asks rhetorical questions to the viewer and continues speaking with barely any hesitation. Their own ideas are spewed out and often become random thoughts from a stream of consciousness. One word sparks another idea and the viewer appears confused without providing any real interaction.

At one point, the narrative becomes intriguing because the docent said, “Pleasant things are non-necessary things--that’s our inheritance.” In stating this, Fraser provides insight of how museum patrons and sponsors may view craftsman, artisans, and laborers as a lower class because they are more concerned with production rather than exposition. Fraser’s docent appears hypocritical when she notes how the museum encourages “prompt payments” and continued financial support, however, she enjoyed free admission for serving as a volunteer.

In another one of Fraser’s performance scripts titled, “Museum Highlights: A Gallery Talk,” she addresses the interior layout and exterior landscapes of a museum. By providing insight to sculptural gardens and how important it is to spend time with art, Fraser enlightens the reader about tradition and disorder. At one point in her script, Fraser notes, “If we do not possess art in a city, or beautiful sports in the city, we cannot expect to attract visitors to our home town.”

Based on essays from these authors, it appears that museums and galleries are not interested in chaos and disorder because it does not work well and create a coherent theme for an exhibition. For the museum in Pennsylvania, Fraser discusses how the area is full of laborers and technicians who come from an industrial and rugged region. By having them visit the museum with its neat carpet and displays, Fraser provides a contrast between “dirt and disorder” to a “spotless” scene.

In Daniel Buren’s 1970 essay titled, “The Function of the Studio,” the author addresses the concept of an artist’s studio as well as how the space is used and acknowledged. Buren mentions the clear distinction that society places on studios as rooms for “production” whereas museums are for “exposition.” The author notes how visiting an artist in his studio still provided just as much mystique and excitement as a museum despite the environment among tools, supplies, and other machinery.

By investigating essays written by Buren, Fraser, Duncan, and Wallach, the reader gains more insight on the decisions behind curating a museum space or gallery and how important production is to certain communities surrounding exhibition spaces. A docent in one of Fraser’s performance scripts states how there is “no discovery in auctions and museums” because at that point in an artist’s career, the excitement of the work fades because it no longer takes risks.

After a lengthy process to become part of a museum collection, an artist appears overanalyzed and familiar to the viewer. Instead of questioning: “Is this Art?” the artist’s retrospective becomes a collection of souvenirs and trinkets of their artmaking process. Furthermore, the essays note how “history records the mundane experience” by breaking down its form and understanding its visual language. In doing so, the viewer gains more training in taste because he or she becomes more cultured and sensitive. Since museums highlight traditional systems and propaganda, perhaps art appreciation becomes more of a learned phenomenon where a taste is acquired and cultivated rather than derivative from pure aesthetics.

Week One: Hans Haacke + Jackie Stevens

Investigating the (financial) meaningfulness of art within museums and galleries

In his 1986 essay titled, “Museums: Manager’s of Consciousness,” author Hans Haacke addresses the idea of industrialization within museums and galleries throughout the world. Previously, these buildings and spaces served solely as opportunities to display artworks for public viewing. Now, the concept involves a process tainted with social expectations, traditional beliefs, and cultural concerns.

By observing the architecture of a museum, a viewer acknowledges the large, towering columns and marble staircases. Based on its architecture and grandeur, museums now resemble holy sites where artists may endure either repentance or salvation for their work. This perception ties into Haacke’s essay where he states that directors and curators of museums often force their own propaganda into the work.

The infrastructure is also mechanized with arts managers acting as chief executive officers running a business, which involve large amounts of money and personal interests. Their organizational goals involve budgeting time and finances as well as providing price categories for each artwork. Haacke’s essay brings up questions such as: How is art valued? How much is an artwork worth? Why do social mentalities influence this decision?

According to Haacke, these institutions involve a tangled political system where open interpretation in the social arena does not exist but rather a museum director will make decisions based on ideological bias. Often, a board of trustees serves as the ultimate authority but their credentials could be questioned. Is senior leadership within museums trained in the arts or in financial motives and management?

Throughout the country, universities are adding arts management to their curriculum in an effort to make the artwork of students more marketable. Haacke states that museums are constantly looking for more “censored” work and thus, the work becomes more appealing to corporate sponsorship and public grants. As a result, art students strive to receive recognition and funding from their sponsors by manufacturing what Haacke states as “social products.” Therefore, the traditional system continues where art students become more like public relations executives, in an effort to represent their work to the world. 

Haacke said that museums and galleries have a dependency on economic vitality and try to attract as many tourists and attention as possible. This is seen in museum biennales and retrospective shows, which receive a lot of hype to generate funding for both the individual artist but also the museum or gallery representation.

Artists are now marketing themselves with a greater street presence, using vibrant posters and print materials to advertise their gallery shows as well as expanding their audience with websites and blogs online. The show itself becomes a stage production with a paid staff who set-up, takedown, and accommodate viewers during the opening. Perhaps this is part of the grand scheme to draw in more attention and potential art collectors to purchase works. In his essay, Haacke describes a certain “dependency on economic vitality” that occurs with a successful show in a particular area. The entire community benefits from a collection that receives high appraisals and funding. According to Haacke, in these situations, “art for art’s sake” does not exist because the artworks created are solely for financial gain and strangely, that becomes a form of validation.

With Haacke’s essay on meaningfulness and propaganda, Jackie Stevens presents another example of personal agendas benefiting a third party. In Stevens’ 2000 essay titled, “Why are biotech companies suddenly sponsoring art about genes?” Stevens states that some artists, curators, and stockholders are avoiding market crashes in other countries by expanding artistic endeavors to “misunderstood industries.” In doing so, artists reach out to various science-related organizations in an effort to receive funding, space, and sponsorship.

Stevens also said the purpose of the show is to generate reassurance that public concerns are heard and being addressed. By placing an “industry-friendly spin” on hot-button topics, artists are generating more revenue for themselves and those who are invested in them. Towards the end of the essay, Stevens notes that the content of the show is irrelevant since the purpose is to exchange mediums and create financial gain for both parties involved.

According to Stevens, one stockholder in the arts said that he became aware of biotech stocks because he followed where the government was funding programs. As a result, he became conscious as to what products or services that had a future beyond the duration of the art show. One aspect is to provide morbid visuals to add a sense of shock value to the public. Stevens wrote that since the government spends funding on genetic research, it makes sense for artists to invest in the same realm. Suddenly, non-profit spaces become real estate as long as “educational” values are attached to the show and it somehow raises awareness to a social issue.

By generating “worthwhile associations” and using better marketing tools, artists become the public relations executives as discussed by Haacke in his essay. The value of the artworks themselves may diminish but at least the objective was executed to put on a production in the gallery space. According to Stevens, these shows feed into “troubling and dangerous corporate agendas,” rather than encourage pure artmaking that possesses a deeper meaning from the artist.
 
The two essays from Haacke and Stevens raise awareness to the financial appraisals that museums and galleries place on artworks, which are based on third party agendas. Both authors describe the cyclical nature of art shows where sponsorship and funding is required to become more successful and ultimately receive more validation from the surrounding community. Stevens wrote that by supporting art shows about genetics, collectors themselves buy into the deceit because they believe they are investing in educational endeavors that heal social issues.

Both essays investigate the political agendas of museums and galleries, which often cater to public grants and corporate sponsorship. By tying in a controversial or environmental issue, artists may succeed better when it comes to receiving funding from other organizations. Although more than two decades have passed since Haacke’s essay in 1986, the ideas still resonate that artists are becoming more and more inundated with marketing tactics and business-savvy practices in order to display their work to the general public. Rather than creating art as a response to nature or to emulate nature, artists become cut-throat businesspeople who abuse political power for economic gain. More recently, Stevens’ essay in 2000 examines how a financially-powerful third party gets involved by investing stocks without an interest in the artwork itself or its meaningfulness.