Nicolas Bourriaud, Post-Production
Post-production are artworks based on pre-existing material and are often a response to the chaos of our global culture.
Some of Bourriaud’s arguments on post-production artwork that I found interesting spurring some relevant and not so relevant thoughts:
Bourriaud states that when an artwork is based on pre-existing material, the piece is inscribed with a network of signs, symbols and significations instead of originality. The central question shifts from ‘What can we make that is new?’ to ‘How can we make do with what we have?’ The navigation between the chaos of objects, images and references becomes the art itself, and the process becomes more important than the end result.
I find this liberating, both for myself as an artist and for society in general. It is recognition, in some ways, that all art is based on the art preceding it and adds an element of honesty to the artwork and artist. I have always found the ‘originality’ claims of artists to be skewed towards a dishonesty and also egocentric. For me, honesty in art and in the process of making art is one of the elements that separates quality art. Using pre-existing works makes imitation or copying impossible. As Bourriaud says, ‘one can denounce nothing from the outside; one must first inhabit the form or what one wants to criticize.’
Bourriaud sees the process of post-production artwork as a profound transformation of the status of artwork because each work is not positioned as the ‘termination’ point of the creative process but as a way station for others to continue the process. Everyone is able to create their own story and add their own narrative in response to the work. And as each work is reinvested, it prevents the work from disappearing through time.
I find this concept intriguing because it assumes a level of collaboration between artists, a process I believe is the future of art, especially when art functions as a mirror of culture. Culturally, scientifically and psychologically, we are breaking our self- imposed boundaries that we erected to separate, label and classify information, allowing us to become highly specialized. We have dissected life to the point where it is now hurting us on many levels – i.e. the podiatrist doesn’t understand the body and hence doesn’t understand how the knee is causing the foot problem. We need to reconnect what we learned through specialization back into a larger holistic picture. We can reconnect through relationship and collaboration.
We all live surrounded by a chaos of images and objects. We can no longer look at them from any sort of distance as they infiltrate and influence our lives on a detailed and daily basis. They form, to a degree, who and what we are and many of our responses are to these objects and images. Consequently, there is a need to use pre-existing materials and their inherent signs and symbols to express ourselves. And we need, as artists, to steer away from any stigma of copying because we all copy.
I do not consider whether the sharing is consentual or not to be relevant to the intellectual argument. That is for law students.
Bourriaud, in writing about the function of art, states that art brings collective scenarios to consciousness and offers us other pathways through reality, especially the case in post-production art which makes statements about our daily lives, down to the minutest detail.
Bourriaud writes as if post-production art is THE art movement and there are no other relevant art movements happening at this time, which is not the case. It feels exclusive. I would have preferred if he would compare post-production artists with other artists working in this time and what they have to say through their work. This would give a more inclusive, holistic picture.
Rip! A Remix Manifesto – taking material from the Internet and remixing it to make art. Sounds great except for the ‘small’ problem of copyright, which prevents the material from entering the public domain for the artist’s lifetime plus 70 years. That can be 5 or 6 generations to put it into context.
I enjoyed watching Rip!Remix. It is well edited and certainly entertaining. How dangerous it is to lock up our cultural symbols and thus prevent them from changing, morphing or evolving. I have to ask - do we lock up our minds when we copyright material that we grew up with, is in our daily lives, that we use to communicate, and forms part of our identity? I would say yes. Those that have the power often will do anything to keep it. And this can, over time, manifest itself into a gridlock of ownership of ideas that makes creativity in a public sphere impossible.
Bourriaud sees works of art informed by other objects as the eradication of the distinction between production and consumption. He states that consumption is not only the motivator and motor for production, it is by definition, also production. They are one and the same thing. A pair of jeans is not a pair of jeans until we wear them. He elaborates on Duchamp’s’ argument that the act of choosing is the artistic process and is enough to establish the artistic process, i.e. to give a new idea to an object is production.
Giving an object a new function is not only creative; it is critical in this era of recycle and reuse. The artist’s work and the material needed to produce that work is not more important and does not supersede the need of the planet on any level. Art is part of this moral argument. Using the objects and images that surround us is an act that mirrors a vision of the future.
