Week 25: Dark Matter Archives & Imaginary Archive

(Group greetings and background chatter)

[Scott]: How is everybody doing?

[Steven]: Okay here in Paris.

[Scott]: So, we've been chatting here on text for a loud.  Welcome everybody.  There's a little bit of an ambient noise, but I think that just might be the lobby where you are right Greg?

(Loud background noise)

[Greg]: Perhaps.

[Scott]: Also, is Olga there?  If so, I think her audio...

[Olga]: Um, yeah.

[Scott]: Are you guys there together?  

[Olga]: Yes.

[Scott]: Maybe I should drop you from the audio reader so that you were not revering off of one another.  You can still be in the text chat, but I can take your audio you're out.  What do you think?

[Olga]: Uh, yeah (inaudible 0:01:00.7).

[Greg]: It is better just a mute it.  

[Scott]: So otherwise, I think what it will echo like crazy.  Okay.  

[Olga]: Otherwise I will just (inaudible 0:01:08.4).  You know I never know which button to press.

[Scott]: Okay, we'll let me know if this doesn't work for you.  I will go ahead and drop you so you can share with Greg's audio.  

(Loud background noise)

Alright, that seemed to be good.

(Loud background noise)

[Greg]: Okay.

[Scott]: Whoa.  Crazy.  So welcome Greg it's good to have you I know that you talked a little bit in the text chat about the New Zealand project.  But, um, a bunch of people who are here know about the Dark Matter Archives and maybe even about the Imaginary Archives.  But some of us don't, and I bet people that will be listening in later won't too so it will be nice to maybe described them both a little bit.

(Horn honks)

[Greg]: okay so you are breaking up quite a bit but I think you ask me to describe both of the archives that we're talking about.  The first one, Dark Matter Archives, Scott has played a crucial role in organizing it and developing it online.  Basically the idea for the project is to continuously upload documents that have to do with mostly unknown histories of collectives, the kind of work that I have been doing research on for the past 10 years or so.  The new book that I have coming out in a few months with Pluto Press is essentially based on this kind of research and materials.  So the archive project here is kind of an extension of this but it is extending into maybe the realm of, you might say, of fiction as much as it is a kind of actual intent to documenting real unknown histories.  Projects here consist of materials, some of which are publications and documents of groups and collectives and events of projects that people know very little about.  In other words, a kind of dark matter.  

(Loud background noise and inaudible chatter)

Okay, so this is not working.

[Scott]: Greg, we hear you really well by the way.

(Typing and loud background noise)

[Greg]: So, I'm going to just continue about the (inaudible 0:04:58.7) projects.  The project here consists of kind of a wooden structure that you will see in the images.  And the material inside of it's consists of archival documents, projects, booklets that I have brought with me.  Material from contemporary services for example, material from political art documentation distribution in the 1980s that I was part of as well as repo history.  And a whole slew of things, some of them fairly obscure.  And these are clipped in sort of eccentric ways inside this wooden structure.

[Olga]: (Inaudible 0:06:03.7).  I did that.  I did already.

[Greg]: I don't think it's (inaudible 0:06:18.3).

[Scott]: I'm actually wrong.  It is not the pause button.  It looks like a little microphone symbol with a line through it.

[Greg]: I'm turning this down (inaudible 0:06:28.2).

[Scott]: Great.  Either way it would work, as long as you don't have two sources.  That's much better.  

[Greg]: You can hear me pretty well?  

[Scott]: Yeah, that's much better.  As long as you feel that you can hear yourself not revering back you'll feel much, much, much.  Like it's much better to talk.  Great

[Greg]: Anyway, so the archives is the kind of (inaudible 0:07:00.1) as I have been calling it because it's kind of a wooden structure.  It extends a set of stairs that go outside of the gallery seemingly to nowhere besides the window.  One of the pictures I sent shows this mysterious stairs that I discovered when I arrived here.  So we continue the stairs inside the gallery.  Kind of a little (inaudible 0:07:25.8).  Anyway, inside this wooden structure there are publications and as I said that, I mentioned that I brought those here, are some of them were created for the project by people here in New Zealand, people in New York.  Each one is from (inaudible 0:07:47.6), which is actually brilliant.  So there are a number of things going inside the space.  So forget the images, you can take a look at some of that.  

One of the publications for example is by (inaudible 0:08:02.4) in New York, a Russian artist who lives in New York.  He essentially created a (inaudible 0:08:10.6) looks like it came from the Museum of Modern Art, but in fact is highlights from the collection of of communists artists.  So it has Picasso, of course, (inaudible 0:08:21.5) and a whole slew of artists all done and away that looks precisely like the museum itself, this document.  He also created another fake document that looks real authentic which talks about Stalin embracing the (inaudible 0:08:41.3) as opposed to depress it.  And so it is very sort of funny, but also conscious of engaging twists on what history might have been if the circumstances have played and themselves out differently.  So I think about this part of the project and an archive of (inaudible 0:09:02.7).  And I'm hoping that in this band of that aspect of it, you know maybe the creating of the project again somewhere in the United States so we could add more material to it.  

[Scott]: Uh, yeah, Greg, I'm really interested not by the way.  

[Greg]: Well it certainly connects to the plausible Artworlds (inaudible 0:09:37.2) maybe more through history them through alternative contemporary (inaudible 0:09:44.7).

[Scott]: Yeah.

(Loud background noise & foreign language speech)

[Greg]: Okay, I hear you now talk because you're going through.

[Scott]: (Laughing).  Yeah just to let you guys know Greg, both you and Olga have your audio on at the same time still.  I definitely don't want to be labor that because it's still working but it would be a lot easier for you probably.  

[Greg]: For some reason we can't seem to turn her, we got her mute on.

[Scott]: Yeah.

[Scott]: Okay, can we just do a second of tech support?  Um, basically there's a little window that pops up that says "conference call".  Once you are, really once you are in Skype at all there is a little window that pops up that says "conference call" and you can see the other people inside the call.  Somewhere in there.

[Greg]: Yeah, I don't see that.

[Scott]: Hmm.

[Greg]: But I can see that you can hear me through her computer even know the mute is on.  Let me try system preferences.  

[Scott]: Well does it say it "call on mute"?  What you can do is, there should be a callat the top of your screen and you should be able to see "mute".

[Greg]:   Okay, I solved it a different way.

[Scott]: Okay.

[Greg]: I just went into the system preferences and turned her volume down for some reason, even though what was on mute, it was still working.  

[Scott]: Okay, gotcha.  Technical.  Okay great (laughing) back to content.  Thanks. Yeah, perfect.  So yeah, Steven suggested that maybe the BaseKamp space could be an interesting place to, for the United States version or for one of the versions.  We should definitely talk about that.

[Greg]: yeah, let's talk about it.  You know, definite, I think it would be perfect.  I was born in Philadelphia so it would be really interesting to sort of explore some kind aspects of the history.  I used to work at the state hospital there, which was locally known as by Bilberry and completely demolished the building.  So I have my own set of entwined history with the space of that city

[Scott]: could you tell us some more about the histories themselves?  Or about the different examples of these "what if" scenarios?

[Greg]: yeah, I have another project by Jeffrey Schuler, who is a cinema study faculty member at Berkeley University as well as a filmmaker.  Jeffrey and I have known each other a long time and we're in a reading group together in New York in the eighties.  His project is a series of "what if" movie quotes by Sergey Eisenstein.  As if Eisenstein had completed this Hollywood movie he was once going to make and it didn't happen. Actually, one of the images that I sent you and I think to upload it shows this movie.  It's basically capital, which Alexander (inaudible 0:13:23.6) has also recently done a version of.  So that's one of the projects.  

More recently I'm developing one last" what if" project here and I asked people in New Zealand from Wellington what the general strike had taken place back in the turn of, what was it there really massive sort of strike here, and actually been considered radical political change.  You know, what kind of present would we be living in this, which is the capital city and the sea of the government, how would the architecture be different?  How would (inaudible 0:14:09.7) rights be different?  Gender issues?  And so people are constructing "what if" (inaudible 0:14:15.8) from now and make that into one final booklet.  And maybe I can share some of that with you once I get back a little bit further a long (inaudible 0:14:26.4).

[Scott]: Uh, yeah.  Please do.

(Loud background noise)

[Steven]: Oh yeah, Steven?

[Greg]: The project...

[Scott]: Oh, I'm sorry.  Go ahead Greg.  We can try...

[Greg]: I'm not sure, I think we lost the connection from you to me.  Maybe you can still hear me?  Can anybody hear me?

[Scott]: Oh yeah, we can hear you really well.  We were just these images while you were describing them.  Not to leave you hanging there (laughing).

[Greg]: the other project without another book store called (inaudible 0:16:16.3) and a particular project I created one of sort of a garage kit miniature projects that I like to do.  I took a book on landscape of New Zealand, which you can imagine the landscape here is extremely dramatic and really a big part of some of the cultural the imaginary of the country, and of course if you've seen the Lord of the Rings films you've seen actually some of the local imagery which is where a lot of that was shot.  But, I took a book of photographs on the landscape and then began to do kind of an archeological dig within the book.  I believe I sent a couple of those images as well.   

[Scott]: I like the Moma communist highlights.  So what's interesting is that how conceivable is it that a show like this would happen?

[Greg]: I think it was interesting kind of genesis.  I t was supposed to take place maybe a year earlier and then some things came up that made it impossible to happen.  I think that the idea here was that I was supposed to collaboration, it was unclear what the collaboration would be.  In an ideal world, I would have come here and maybe spent three or four weeks working with people and then produce an exhibition.  That wasn't really possible in terms of the timing and the money that was involved.  And so I had to come up with a kind of framework in which people could kind of plug in and collaborate in a way that was actually not that unlike what we did with (inaudible 0:18:16.8) history where we had a structure which was we create a sign about an unknown history.  And, you have certain dimensions you have certain specifications for that project.  But you are free to kind of work autonomously within that framework.  And that was more or less what I adopted here.   Imagine a future that hasn't happened and create a document for it.  That was more or less the dimension, the sort of parameters of what people could do.  

So, this is how this project came about and I think it's not been maybe 100% successful in terms of the local artists getting into it, but they are beginning to do that now.  But it's been sort of successful with (inaudible 0:19:12.5) particularly.

Oh, sorry Steven.  I meant imagine a future that hasn't happened that was, you know, the sort of limitations for the project itself.  That was the parameters for the project itself.

[Scott]: Gotcha.  Yeah.  I mean, it's incredibly appropriate.  At least from our point of view.  What's interesting is that when we first started talking about Plausible Artworlds as a general direction of looking at, I don't know, just looking at the different kinds of weird like half starved or untapped possibilities for creating cultural environments.  Or creative cultural environments.   We were looking a lot at fiction at first. A lot more than it turns out we've been doing since then.  I think maybe because we keep finding people that have actually started experiments of different kinds, you know, and have a sort of a vibe for the plausibility of those, you know, maybe, I don't want to say (inaudible 0:20:23.6) but you know, fledgling initiative and experiments.  But, to me, and I think to Steven too, and a bunch of other people involved or interested, you know, what's plausible and you can still argue if something is plausible if it hasn't happened.  Or kind of tease out its implausibility or its plausibility and that's part of what makes it so interesting. It's, you know, it could change at any point and maybe with a few differences, a world event or something unforeseen.  There's so many, there's kind of, I don't want to say a butterfly effect, but there are so many triggers.  So many trigger chains that can happen from any event.

[Greg]: Absolutely.  Yeah.  Well, I think what interested me here, and I think you're project was certainly one of the streams that kind of flow into this as well as the yes men publications recently and other projects.  What interested me here was because I'd done all this research into actual histories that didn't' seem to have a future, at least in terms of institutional proper kind of art.  I wanted to think about what would have happened had some of those now mostly overlooked histories been more recognized or had been more successful.  For example, the art workers Coalition in New York in the early 1970s, late 1960s made all kinds of demands on The Museum of Modern Art and other museums.  Some really interesting sort of proposals for example, suggesting that the museums actually provide health care and other social security to artists.  That there are galleries opened up for women artists, for minorities, that living artists have more rights over their work.  Where it's shown, how it's shown, how it's repaired and most of all getting some kind of numeration if the work is sold a second time.  All of this really didn't come about.  All of this was lost, except for one small change that took place in museums and that was that they created free nights.  Artist Coalition demanded that the museums be open for free.  The only thing that happened was that the museums had created one night that was free for people and other museums had the same thing.  So we have that tradition today.  What's really ironic in New York is that Target Corporation has taken to branding Free Night so that if you go there on Friday evening, to the Museum of Modern Art and see their logo all over the place, and yet people really don't know that it's the Artist's Coalition who generated this free night in the first place.

So, getting back to what I was talking about with the Imaginary Archive, what if the Artist's Coalition actually in fact had actually been successful?  How would the Museum o f Modern Art institution change?  What would have taken place?  What kind of institution might it have become?  Would that new institution actually then also gone through a transformation and become, in a sense, just sort of problematic?  Let's say, The Museum of Modern Art, after all these years.  These are some of the questions that I want to raise for the project.  In other words, I don't see the change in the future as being necessarily instantly positive.  I think it can also have some kind of (inaudible 0:24:22.4) and I think (inaudible 0:24:23.3).  And, I think someone is here.  Greg.  Is that GAAG?  Gorilla Art Action Group?  That was one of the spinoffs from Artist's Coalition.  They were involved in, for example, they carried out a number of actions in lobbies of museums against the war.  Perhaps most notoriously, they one of the Board of Directors' fancy dinners, the group along with Lucy Piccard and others, released thousands of cockroaches into the museum and upset the dinner.  The members of Gorilla Art Action Group were actually banned from the museum for many years.  Although one of them now ironically works there today.  These are some of the sort of convolutions that I was hoping people would sort of address.  I think that to some degree, that's starting to happen.   

[Scott]: Greg, so in the Dark Matter Archives, it's kind of a different direction.  I mean, it is right?  In the sense that there may be fiction inside.  There may be fictional projects inside of the Dark Matter Archives, the actual archive material.  But the material itself are all things that have really actually happened on some level right?  I mean, the archive itself is made to be, it's sort of mining things that were invisible in a way whereas the Imaginary Archives are sort of mining our minds.  Kind of what we, are, our collective desires or interests or these, um...

[Greg]: I didn't catch the rest of that.

[Scott]: Yeah, that's because I had a brain aneurysm.  Yeah.  They may be more ironic.  Sort of, these fictional works have a lot of cultural critique in them but also maybe some desire in there too, you know?   I guess I was just thinking that, I'm not really trying to say anything brilliant.   I guess I was just asking because we're now talking about Gorilla Art Action Group and you know, you're talking about these other examples and a lot of that stuff is in the Dark Matter Archives.

[Greg]: That is correct.

[Scott]: I can imagine. I mean, you can probably go on for twelve hours straight just about describing stories from these projects from the archive.

[Greg]: Absolutely.  Absolutely.  I mean, I have collected a lot of these histories and know a lot of these people are sort of knowledgeable about them.  It's not as much of an unknown history as it was when I began this kind of research.  Although, it Artworker's Coalition has become well known, there's probably dozens and dozens of other groups that remain pretty much in the dark, who were just as interesting but continue to be unknown.  I think that's kind of the project that is going on.  I wouldn't want to see an imaginary kind of fictional or para-fictional kind of project completely overtake the literal history in any way.  That's not the intention.  It's more to stimulate a question about history itself and the nature of remembering.  I think this is something that the group Rep History actually managed while it was at its best to do.  It wasn't that it simply put up site specific signs talking about histories that people didn't know about.  It did that.  That was part of it.  For example, marking the site of the first slave market in New York City, or in New York or Old New Amsterdam at the time.  Or perhaps marking where all famous abortionists had their offices.  Those are things we did and it was like you could walk by and discover something you knew very little about.   But what we did that was most interesting and successful was allow those histories, that past, to disturb the present.  Make some kind of disturbance in the everyday contemporary.  That happened particularly when Mayor Giuliani tried to stop several art projects from taking place, it was history itself.  This kind of other archive (inaudible 0:29:23.0) different city where something that just couldn't be tolerated in the new sort of gentrified and obnoxious city that New York has become.  I think some of that is what is the relationship to this notion to the imaginary archive.  To think of the archive itself as kind of politically unsettled bit of information that can (inaudible 0:29:48.7) into the present.

[Scott]: Yeah, Steven was just asking or just sort of mentioned something that was on my mind.  This isn't fiction of escape here in anyway.  I mean, it might be (laughing).  There might be an element of escape or of temporary escape into something.  I don't know if escape is really right.  There's an imaginary that can be fulfilling in its own right in a way, but, it definitely seems there is an interest in disrupting the present.  For sure.  I think that's what Steven is mentioning is you know, that maybe there's not that much difference between certain non-fiction documentation and some of these fiction projects in that sense.  What do you think Greg?

[Greg]: I think that absolutely.  I mean, the way we read history is constantly being read through the imaginary in the present.  It's also being read through sort of the ideology that people participate in the construction of the past.  So, I think these terms like "actual" and sort of "imaginary" are very fluid in many cases.  Obviously, we construct the notion of the past that we use in the present and that's of course what nations do all the time and what polictal parties do all the time.  Why shouldn't, what I sometimes refer to as, the Dark Matter construct its own concept of history or perhaps multiple histories?

I think to answer Steven's question, why shouldn't Dark Matter construct its own history since there was an argument against it.  It would be that history would pose itself sort of the correct narrative, the proper reading of the past.  But I'm sure that Steven and I would both agree that certain ways of narrating history could actually disturb the very concept of historical correctness itself.  And would begin to sort of rethink the very nature of the way history is written.  That's sort of the ideal.  My hope, for example, the book which I just posted a link for, is not that it's going to fill in the areas of art history that we don't know about.  That would be kind of a (inaudible 0:32:48.2) that I'm supposed to be somehow showing people the histories that aren't known.  As if I'm some sort of spelunker in a cave, you know.  My idea is that, and it's not so different from I'm sure, Steven's and others, is this way of thinking about history actually disturbs proper readings of history.  The way history has gone about being constructed, it actually challenges the very notion of how the archive is used and interpreted.

[Scott]: Exactly.   It's not about really bringing this stuff into (inaudible 0:33:30.1) of history, right?  I mean, that's kind of the thing that people say to us all the time too.  It's pretty annoying, actually.  It makes me feel like, it's kind of like imagining what we're involved with.  When we reach out to other people, it's not an attempt to join in this massive kind of gold rush of curatorial head hunting.  Like "hey, let's go to the farthest reaches of the world and find the people you've never seen before and aren't we so wonderful because we've uncovered this special thing and we're inserting this into history".  It's not that.  And I feel like Greg, with your project, my sense and one of the reason's I've always been so excited about it since knowing, the first time you wrote about the ideas about Dark Matter, is that...  I don't know.  It's just a very powerful metaphor.  Um, it's not, I think it's extremely challenging to ideas of what history is and why we even call it that.  Why we give so much weight to this.

[Greg]: Yeah, well obviously, this metaphor Dark Matter, it has its limitations, but it's been useful in the sense that Dark Matter has an astronomical concept.  It suggests that most of the universe is physical, it's non-reflective.  Some kind of energies, some kind of mass that's unknown.  Without it, the standard model (inaudible (0:35:07.8) proposes that the universe would fly apart.  It would just fly apart into a void in space.  So, it's an essential anchor of gravitational pull and at the same time it's an unknown.  So that kind of works very well with research and the history of (inaudible 0:35:28.3).  They form the majority of cultural production of the present but they are unseen.  They also anchor the mainstream of the artworld. The one big difference between the two metaphors right there is while scientists are desperately looking for what dark matter is, carrying out experiments, most (inaudible 0:35:59.3) art historians (inaudible 0:36:03.2) the dark matter of (inaudible  0:36:08.4).

(Background noise on Greg's end)

[Scott]: Alright, yeah Greg.  So, can we try that troubleshooting thing again?  I guess my question is, if you and Olga are sitting side by side or in the same spot maybe you guys could share the same audio one way or the other.  Through her mic or yours.  That's what we often do.  Like for instance, we have three people with laptops here right now, but two of them have their, aren't even joined on the audio chat because we can just share.  If we did that, it would be kind of reverby.  So...

Anyway, just suggesting maybe rearranging chairs or something if that could help.

[Greg]: Okay, we found the problem.

[Scott]: Okay, cool.  It's just tech set up.  So, yeah, you were just... Would you mind just repeating that last part again because I think it kind of got blogged out for people?

[Greg]: What I was saying is unlike the scientific exploration of what dark matter is and the search for what dark matter is, the artworld establishment, you might say the curators and the administrators, the art historians.  The people who generally think of themselves as the interpreters or managers of art and high culture.  They're not interested in discovering what dark matter is.  That's a contrast to the scientific community which is desperately trying to figure out what dark matter is, if it exists at all.  Obviously, if the standard model is wrong, maybe there isn't a dark matter.

[Scott]: There might be some difference in opinion out there.  Well, that's actually an understatement.  There's definitely some opinion out there about what would constitute what this metaphor you're bringing up, you know, what would constitute dark matter when we're talking about art practice.  Greg, you know what I mean?  There's on one hand...

[Greg]: Well, I can't.  You'll have to tell me what the differences are since I don't (inaudible 0:39:00.1).

[Scott]: oh, I don't have to know them all, everyone's opinions.  But, I definitely, I'm sure you've heard this as well.  You know, on one hand it's just there's an idea that this could describe, you know, new possible kind of hot artists we haven't discovered yet or something.  For example, you know.  And, you know, whether they're individuals or groups or whatever.  On the other hand, it could describe practices that might not be immediately recognized as art at all, and that might have a difficult time even, being articulated that way under current definitions.  It might be a ground swell of creative activity that is a little bit harder to handle.  Or it might just be, you know, people that are almost, you know, they're just ready to be discovered.

[Greg]: Okay, you're breaking up a little still in your audio.  It sounds like there are some other problems with the audio if I'm reading the script of it.  I think what you're saying is that the dark matter concept could be used to describe artists in waiting.  Waiting to become successful

[Scott]: Yeah, exactly.  I mean, I've heard this.  People try to get their heads around a concept like this that's thrown out there.

[Greg]: Well, I think if you read some of the essays I've written and when you read the book you'll see that's not, let me use the word plausible, interpretation of the way I'm presenting this idea.  I mean, essentially, if you said there would be three kinds of dark matter.  Let me put this schematically in cultural terms.  One would be artist groups such as Artworkers Coalition, who we spoke about.  Who had remained kind of hidden and sort of absent from the historical narrative.  But groups of people who sort of organize around and own redundancy, to use the term that you like to much Scott, recognizing that they are sort of structurally already failed in terms of the artworld.  And simply sort of addressing the politics of that kind of production from the outside margins.  That's the smallest group of dark matter that I talk about.  It's the one that interests me the most because it's the one that's the most self consciously politically aware, but in the smallest (inaudible 0:42:12.1).  If there is a dark matter universe.  

The largest section would be informal artists.  The people that maybe (inaudible 0:42:19.6) would have thought of as artists who could have actually been artists but never had the opportunity.  People who continue to do all kinds of informal art work totally for the sake of doing it for pleasure.  All of which are becoming suddenly much more visible curiously, thanks to internet technology.  And, I think more visible in interest to the business world.  So, we have all kinds (inaudible 0:42:49.2) around how the lines of professionals and amateurs have completely reshaped in a sense, capitalism.  That's another whole discussion.  But, imagine that sort of informal productivity as a kind of dark matter because many of those people actually, are directly tied into the economy of the art world.  Who takes art classes?  Who pays the salary for many, many people who teach art?  Who buys art supplies, thus supporting the professional manufacturing of art supplies from a few art professionals?  There's lots of ways of looking at it.  Who buys art magazine subscriptions, museum subscriptions?  Many of it is done by people who imagine themselves as amateurs or informal artists.

There might be a third component, and this is an interesting one in that most artists who are trained as artists, most professional artists who go to art school are basically failed before they even graduate.  They're structurally failed.  They can't possibly succeed because it's not possible for everyone to succeed in the way the art world is structured now.  Not everyone work can be galarized.  So, in a sense, the question is, what role do they play in the economy of high art?  And that's a question of course that you could answer quickly by referring to Marx's idea of the army of the unemployed, but it doesn't completely work in this situation for two reasons.  The classic Army of Unemployed is there to help lower the price of production, actually, the price of the commodity of labor itself.  So if you're working in a particular industry and most people are unemployed, you're fear that you might be replaced by one of them lets you accept a lower wage for the work.  In the art world, it's a little different.  The people who really are successful actually the value of their work is increased by the Army of the Unemployed.  That would be the price of the work itself.  

Steven, are you off line or are you just lost with what I'm saying?

[Scott]: Steven has actually been dropped from the call, we're actually just adding him back.

[Greg]: Okay.  So, I was making sort of a long...

[Scott]: It was really good Greg.  Oh, sorry.  Just saying it's really good to hear your descriptions. Okay, we'll add Heather back as well.

[Greg]: I think Greg Scranton's work is great.  I love that.  I wish I had that, I could have used that in my book.

[Scott]: (laughing) totally.  Nice one Greg.

[Greg]: So, I'll just wrap up this last point that the other way that the Army of Unemployed is quite different in the art world, is actually most artists who come out of art school train as professional artists.  Inevitably structured to fail in every league, continue to support the art world and reproduce it. They have to.  What they do is even when they're complaining about the art world, for their gossip at parties, whatever, they're helping to reproduce its system.  But of course, they're also talked into it in more ways than once which includes teaching art, buying magazines, going to museums, all those things that support the art world.  What you might say is a (inaudible 0:46:35.5) concept would be embrace your redundancy.  Embrace the fact that you are structurally going to fail and begin to sort of use that as a point of liberation.  Understand that it's a kind of freeing thought and go on to organize yourself that gallerizes your production without the gatekeepers of the art world necessarily having to sort of stamp your work with their approval.  And I think that gets back to the artist (inaudible 0:47:08.0).  I think in one way or another, whether it's conscience or not, that's exactly what they're doing.  They sort of accept the idea that they're not going to participate in this kind of gallarization.  And they try to discover self gallarizing, whether it's through politics or social engagement, or whatever.  That's a little bit more about the dark matter idea (inaudible 0:47:34.4) why artists who have not yet been discovered is not quite the right interpretation for what I see.

[Scott]: Yeah, absolutely.  And you wouldn't say Greg, that when you say that they must reproduce this, you wouldn't say that each individual must reproduce this for themselves, I would guess.  Just that for the system to exist as it is, it must be reproduced by the individuals who maybe don't really see any benefit for not doing that.  It seems to be all the benefits in the world, promised in a way.  Or at least tentatively promised if you do.

[Greg]: I'm just adjusting Olga's set.

(Loud background noise)

[Male group member]: Can you hear him?

[Scott]: Yeah, barely.  I don't know if what I said came through.

[Greg]: Okay, I'm back.

[Scott]: Okay, great.

[Greg]: I'm sorry.  Could you just repeat your last question?

[Scott]: Yeah, um, at one point during this, and I really grasp, I mean I really I think I have a pretty firm idea of what you mean.  By the way, with my comment earlier about how this can be misinterpreted, I don't necessarily mean by people who carefully read what you write (laughing).  You know, more so, most ideas are not passed around by people who carefully read texts.  They're just sort of notions that kind of get spun through word of mouth.  Sort of oral history in a way, kind of contagious thoughts.

 Anyway, I really think it's important to hear someone like you elaborate about this out loud and talk about it because it's the way a good number of people really get their information.  And feel like they can really grasp it, and there is less chance of it getting lost because there is a greater chance of them finishing listening than finishing reading your book.  This is sad, maybe, but probably true.  So I'm psyched about it and I guess there was just one point in what you said and before we get onto these kind of long questions here that are being typed out, you were saying that artists who are part of this group are not gallerized yet, they must reproduce the system.  And I get the sense that what you mean isn't that they must reproduce it for themselves but that for the system to exist it must be reproduced by them.  And they or we or whoever, may not necessarily be aware or have any real incentives to not reproduce it.  But yet, there seem to be all the incentives in the world promised or tentatively on offer when you do.  So how to get passed that for people who are going through art school and trying t6o get their heads around what world they want to live in or even just what kind of life they want to have themselves.  And how they can position themselves in whatever system is currently out there.  Not being a teacher myself, but having been in that realm too, I can see it being hard to convey that information and get the conversation about that going in a way that is really productive.  So, anyway, that's not really a question it's more of a statement of curiosity and I'd be interested to hear what anyone thinks about that.  Maybe as we address these other questions that are coming up.

[Greg]: Yeah, I totally concur with what you're saying.  But, you know, it's going to require peoples' minds being shaken up a bit in how they participate or reproduce a system that structurally locks them out the rewards that it holds out, as you say.  Which seems to really sort of plentiful.  And of course, people do actually cross over and grab the brass key, there's no question about that.  It's just that the point of view of the structured system can only be over a small number of people.  So, what would sort of full employment in the art world look like?

[Scott]: You know, or maybe.  I don't know.  I was just going to say or maybe it's not necessarily a good idea to shoot for full employment in the art world but to see these different fields of activity that could be called art worlds ad being other realms to help kind of pinch hit and fulfill some of those needs.  I think Michael has a question or wanted to...  Oh, my mistake.  I'm jumping the gun here.

Anyway, did that come through at all or is the audio just crap?

[Greg]: No, we're getting most of it.

[Scott]: Okay.

(Loud background noise)

[Michael]: Hi, this is Michael at BaseKamp.  I'm really intrigued by this idea of what full employment could look like if all artists were sort of employed in their field.  A couple things that sort of come to mind as, maybe certain moments such as the WPA maybe being some sort of attempt at something like that.  Or artist placement groups.  I'm wondering.   I'm trying to imagine what that would look like.  I'm curious about your thoughts.

[Greg]: Well, I kind of agree with Scott in that the idea of full employment in the art world might be maybe more (inaudible 0:55:06.2) than realistic.  Maybe what I was meaning was that artists could take responsibility to sort of collectively represent themselves in a way that could provide numeration for all those who participate in the art world but don't receive any of its benefits.  In other words, to begin to really think about collectively trying to develop (inaudible 0:55:33.7) security and full participation from people who are doing creative work which maybe extends even beyond professional artists at this point.  We have to begin to rethink the notion of value cultural production.  That seems to me what many of us, Steven I know, and others have been interested in for some time.  I don't know if that's an answer but I don't think APT would be the model.  Although, I find it very interesting.  Excuse me, I mean APG.   What I do think is that so many artists today could take greater advantages of these new technologies to begin to try to in sense, create some other system of (inaudible 0:56:32.9) for each other.  A kind of peer to peer art world, we'll call it.  And you know, maybe this economic crisis, which is only really beginning to effect contemporary art, maybe it will shake some things up and open up some possibilities for another way of gallerizing peer to peer art worlds.  Gallerizing artistic practice.

[Chris]: Hello? Can you hear me?

[Greg]: Hi Chris, yes.

[Chris]: Yeah, I was just saying that some of the artists might not want full employment.  Some of them might not be taking it seriously or just be doing it for the heck of it or something like that, you know?  That might not be their main interest.

(Inaudible comment from background)

Yeah, (inaudible 0:57:30.9)

[Greg]: I'm sorry.  I missed the first part.

[Chris]: That they might not be interested in having full employment for the artists.  Some of them might be.  

[Greg]: I'm not sure who you're talking about.

[Chris]: Well, some of them might...

[Greg]: You mean the artists? Some artist or some not artists?

[Chris]: The artists.  Or some of the people that we would consider artists.

[Greg]: I don't think that forced employment is a good idea if that's what you mean.

[Chris]: Yeah, yeah.  It's counterproductive.  Okay.

[Scott]: Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead.

[Greg]: I think... No go ahead.

[Scott]: Well, I think I was just going to state the obvious.  Those ideas of slacking, they sort of sometimes brush up against a sort of focus on labor gaining work for everyone.  It's interesting because often there are similar goals on a high level.  But on a level for the individuals involved, there are differing motivations.

[Greg]: Right.

(Loud background noise)

[Scott]: Greg, that's a fantastic idea.  

[Greg]: How about if we do that after we do the Imaginary Archive.

[Scott]: Yeah, maybe at the same time.  Maybe the boot camp can sort of be maybe compulsory voluntary to help put the show together.

[Greg]: Absolutely.  Or we could tell all the artists that they're going to go on a residency and when they get there, lock the door and make them start.

[Scott]: That's kind of what we do already (laughing).  No, I'm just kidding.  We're actually the only ones who work our (explicative 1:00:14.7) here.  Everyone else just slacks off.

[Greg]: No, I don't think so.  I think artists work really, really, really hard all over the place.  You know, it's just incredible.  You're working all the time.  You're working 24/7 and basically you're working in your sleep.  It's the way, of course, a lot of precarious workers in sort of knowledge industries now live.  It's like you're constantly tethered to the electronic office, to the turning out creative solutions for problems.  The system has mined itself deep into our psyches.

(Background noise)

[Scott]: So, Olga.  This is probably as good of time as any to just quickly mention this as a side note.  When Greg and Steven and Jato, the crew was over in Beirut, I didn't get a chance to mention that at all.  About the potential project and recording, so I hope that you've been able to connect.  But if not, maybe it would be good to just mention to you guys, Greg and Steven, that there might be some interesting connections although he's doing something with Efflux.  Maybe we could either talk to Anton or just talk to... One way or the other, try to make some connections.  For example, I think Olga would like to do some kind of a project.  Yeah, anyway, maybe we could talk after this about opening some communication channels about that.

Anyway, more on that later.

[Greg]: I just sent a little excerpt, actually, a quote from Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine talking about this concept of (inaudible 1:03:15.5).  FYI.

(Loud background noise)

[Scott]: Okay, Olga.  I'll try to type it up in a bit.  Not to derail this conversation.

So, yeah.  Um.  So Greg, so far how do you feel about how the project has been received in New Zealand?  Have you been able to talk to a number of younger artists or other groups that might be there?

[Greg]: Yeah, it's gone well so far I think.  What I can tell is I've had two radio interviews involving the project and people would ask me some very interesting questions.  People in the book store and the library were very open to the project.  I think it's a little bit odd a new experiment for the people here.  Both having someone in residence from so far away, at least for this particular alternative space.  I also think that many of the artists here are not as publically engaged with ideas as many of us are in Europe and the United States and so that's been kind of a new phenomena for them.  But I work with some great people.  One of them is an artist name Mary Hewitt and Mary's helped me construct the archive.  She went and got me recycled wood and helped me put it together.  But he also does really interesting work.  Actually, not so different from (inaudible 1:05:33.5) work in some ways.  He's working on a video project now about sites where the Maury encountered the colonists, the European colonists (inaudible 1:05:47.5) and he's kind of reviving that history of this video.  He also created a publication to that effect, which is in the archive itself and I think I have some images on my Facebook.

I think that we lost our connection.  Can you hear me Scott?

[Scott]: Yeah Greg, we can hear really well.

[Greg]: Okay.  So, I think, overall, the (1:06:37.9) been good although I think they've been a little bit puzzled of what it's all about.  Although I think they're starting to get into the spirit of it quite a bit.

So, at this point Scott, it might be better for us to move on (inaudible 1:07:17.0) here.

[Scott]: Oh hey Greg, um, I think you guys traded now all of a sudden.  Now Olga's audio is on and yours is off.  No actually, did you drop from the call?  I think so.  Let me try adding you back.

[Greg]: We lost you for a minute there.

[Scott]: Okay, there you go.  I think we dropped you from the call accidentally because of the connection.  Has anyone else, well, anyone that can hear us, not been dropped?  We'll ask in text.  But yeah, okay, great.

I'm definitely interested in what Steven just said (inaudible 1:08:14.7) just asked about as well.  

[Greg]: What?  I'm trying to find it.

[Scott]: Let's see.  7:40 pm, oh wait, that's a different time for you.  It starts of "Greg, are you in cahoots with..."

[Greg]: I don't see Steven's comment, sorry.

[Scott]: We'll repaste it real quick.

(Loud background noise)

[Greg]: Someone asked me, I'm not sure who.  Is this you Scott?  About Souly and about Anna?

[Scott]: That was a question that Steven asked.  I was just curious if you had seen it or what you thought too.

[Greg]: Yeah.  There both people that I've worked with in different ways.  Anna certainly contributed to the book as well as I have recorded her extensively in some places.  I'm not directly involved in their archive projects but maybe that's something that can actually come about.  That'd be great.  So, I think that'd be fantastic Steven.

Anyway, I think that we need to kind of move on and get back to some work here.

[Scott]: Well Greg, we often end a bit before this two hour mark. That's more than a maximum than a minimum.  So, it's wonderful to be able to connect with you while you guys are over there.

[Greg]: Yeah, I really appreciate the opportunity, it's been great.  It's been great to do this for the (inaudible 1:10:38.4) you know, we'll have to do it from the next strange location we end up in.

[Scott]: (laughing) exactly.  Um, yeah, maybe one of the upcoming strange locations can be this weird place called Philadelphia.

[Greg]: That sounds great.  The city of brotherly love.

[Scott]: Indeed.

[Greg]: I forget that W.C. Fields, who was born there, has on his tombstone "at least I'm not in Philadelphia".

(Laughing)

[Scott]: Alright, well Olga and Greg, thanks again.  And to everyone else who has joined us.  Even though a few people just joined us.  We're recording this.  All of these chats.  You know, just hit us up if you want to hear more of this before we get a chance to move through the editing process and all of that.  So, yeah thanks again.  We'll follow up and we'll see you next week.

Later everybody!

[Greg]: Sounds good.  Bye Scott.

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