Re: Update
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We had a meeting and I was really nervous because I didn’t read Sam’s powerpoint before we presented, and it had all these sound effects so I laughed when I was supposed to be serious. We made a movie about an email Harrell sent us and one Sam sent back starring Louis from the Digital Copy Center in Stokes as Harrell.
One other funny thing that happened was the meeting was streamed live online, and when we were setting up James’ friend was already watching it and he sent James a text message saying the picture is blurry and turn up the sound. I spilled a glass of water, Jane grossed me out with some hair, we had a lot of ideas, it started to rain, and that was our meeting.
a few hc graduates watched the livestream at james' bidding.
hc grad | February 12, 2009a few hc graduates watched the livestream at james’ bidding. all seemed impressed by the project itself and each pair’s commitment to it. I think students stand to benefit most from the project’s participatory aspect – the way it suggests that art and artists are not to be cordoned off into hermetic categories, that undergraduates and acclaimed artists can collaborate and learn equaly from each other. I was a bit disappointed to hear some talk of “art” and “non-art,” students who “are creative but not artists.” I’m not sure students should be too eager to classify themselves in such certain terms. They should explore what being artists means before the boundaries of their profession (or the marketplace, their audience, wider community, whatever) confine self-identification to practical terms. Also, anyone should try to define ‘art’ in 30 words or less before they throw around ‘non-art.’
This make me feel really good
DJ Overload | February 12, 2009This make me feel really good
Hi Haverford grad. I was mostly the one throwing around
Sam Kaplan | February 13, 2009Hi Haverford grad. I was mostly the one throwing around “artists” and “non-artists,” so I feel like I should respond. You’re right, both terms are pretty problematic, especially for college students who might not consider themselves much of anything yet. I used those terms because Harrell uses them and because people have used them to describe his work.
But I think Harrell’s and the other artists’ desires to reconcile the terms—which are, you know, at odds or whatever in the “real world,” where people are either “artists” or “non-artists”—will be even easier to satisfy at Haverford because, as you say, students don’t really classify themselves in that way (or at least one would hope that they don’t).
As for a definition of art in 30 words or less, Harrell says, “Let me define ‘art’ as anything that anyone calls ‘art'” (from “Some Thoughts on Art and Education,” available on his website or at web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/visual/wcl/596/Site/fletcher.html).