A series of important questions with ___ and ___ this morning concerning the potential radicality of art to efface change in the world: articulation of the danger which is as follows: we as artists wish to make something relevant, something important, something which contributes to the world for the better een if admittedly only according to our own ideology - perhaps especially so, to make the world in/as our own image - yet the most radical decision is to not make art, admitting that what is currently accepted as viable artistic expression contributes towards the same detriment that we/I (speaking for myself) aim to oppose, dismantle, destroy. Another problem: assuming that the artistic expression is based on inherent failure (I'm not necessarily admitting this yet!) then how can this "artistic research" itself be validated, beyond the perview of empirical quantization or academic qualification or any pre-existing disciplinary justification catagories, but in its own right, on what terms, to what degree, for what intended purpose if the purpose is to defy the purpose itself? Purposelessly purposive - a Kantian trap/trope.

The exhibition of the Taiwanese pavillion: Tehching "Sam" Hsieh's Doing Time one year performances, punching a time clock everyday and living outside in New York. This work draws a fine line between the performativity of life and art on many levels. The material produced is document of his actions: life bowing to the performativity of the artistic gesture > I am personally willing to go to these lengths - amounting to a sublimation of life to the artistic process - if the results could prove radically justified, yet as ___ was quick to point out the artworld murmur surrounding such a piece is general, muted, confined to certain endurance-work performative circles, and short lived, ie: does not resonate with a wider audience? Of course not, for it is still art and seen to be subservient or less important that the life it is critiquing. The result of the performance is documented in photographic material, physical forms (in conversation with a tradition of found objects and performance props) which allow the process to be cannonized, archived, preserved in plexiglass boxes, auctioned upon the economic market > in other words brought back in to the very system which the piece attempted to break out of. It seems that art at best may serve to transform the artists life into pure experience while reducing her to an artifact to be subsumed/consumed: perhaps an obvious inevitability, but the question as an artist is why? Why would we choose to take on such a path, towards what end or purpose, if the resultant conversation and exhibition and academic research cannot ever hope to efface change in the world? The life of the artist can be transformed, but why would the artist choose such a role and not remain an autonymous individual willing their being into the forms they see fit without the additive/excessive layers of cultural production making a farce of their existence? What quality of life can one hope for under the cloud of perpetual failure? Why not dedicate oneself to more practical ends, of effacing direct (not a question of reality, but of efficacy) change in the world through invovlement with programs, organizations, or institutions directly dedicated to the issues at hand - labor rights, homelessness, identity articulation, classism, or whatever the issue may be? The artist never smiles > just one of numerous aesthetic considerations which were of course carefully chosen to direct the appropriate attention/awareness of the work and sculpt a motivation through the process, but isn't this farce of expression also indicative of the "real" joylessness (suffering) of an artistic existence if it is not motivated by the standards of fortunate and glory (materialism, philistinism) directed by the institutions currently in place?