Yonat
Above drawings: Appeasing and Releasing, performative drawing, 16.3.2021 (PIRG)
Appeasing and Releasing – a mother/artist perspective
‘Commodities never fully appease or release, but keep us coming back for more’ (Braidotti, 2018, p. 11).
Appeasing implies emotional need for peace.[1] ‘Appeasement is the process by which individuals placate or pacify others in situations of potential or actual conflict’ (Dacher Keltner et al. 1997). Releasing suggests accumulated emotional energy that seeks releasing opportunities. Both, appeasing and releasing imply the potential for conflict that inhabits every public space. Culture, traditionally and historically, provides appropriate containers for both, appeasing of emotions and releasing the pressure of accumulative emotional energy.
I have made a watercolour drawing of a square. I mixed blue and green, then with a flat brush laid the paint on a 300gr paper. Next, I lifted the paper and held it up, parallel to the table. The paint spread as I moved and tilted the paper carefully. It made me think of equilibrium and vulnerability. On further reflection, it reminds me of the growing awareness of holding an ‘other’ when I was pregnant.
The shape of a square connects with my mother’s skirt and the skirt’s role as it mutated from accommodating my mother’s large stomach (after giving birth to me), to a tablecloth, to a cover for an outside chair. Throughout the years the fabric lost its colours. However, it preserved my mother’s emotions; its emotional value remained vibrant, un-touched, or perhaps, increased with the passing of time. This emotional value is unquantifiable and irreducible. Within the market parameters it is invisible.
I was interested in the materiality, how the coloured water flow and being slowly soaked by the paper affected by my movements. The drawing process was filmed. The process became performative when the drawing was held in front of the computer’s camera while still wet. Holding and moving the drawing means embodying it by my body’s memories.
What emerges is the notion of emotionally informed recycling in a flowing changing world. This exposes an ecological thinking embedded in the on-going dialogue with my mother. A second point that emerges is inspired by Braidotti who tells us that ‘knowledge production … is multiple and collective’ (Braidotti, 2018, p. 3). Here, knowledge is both personal, inward looking into family kibbutz history and outward looking into PIRG, a group of artists-researchers that engage in acquiring, enquiring, understanding and producing new knowledge and understanding. This multiple and collective knowledge production is done through the method of expanded conversation.
Paradoxically, this method is further enriched by the constraints of the COVID 19 pandemic. Instead of meeting in one shared place, our meeting is mediated by screens. This form of communication is supported by advanced technology, adding drawing tools and new possibilities. Though each of us is in her/his own place when meeting through screens we form a public event, a space that potentially harbours conflicts.
Conversation can be a cultural container. In a diffractive process (Barad, 2007) weaved through this expanded conversation holding the drawing echoes multiplicity: holding a conversation with others at PIRG sessions; the earliest experience of being held in my mother’s body; and the memory and experience of holding my two sons in my body: with care, attention, respect, curiosity, knowing, un-knowing, reciprocity and love.
‘Commodities never fully appease or release, but keep us coming back for more’ (Braidotti, 2018, p. 11).
Appeasing implies emotional need for peace.[1] ‘Appeasement is the process by which individuals placate or pacify others in situations of potential or actual conflict’ (Dacher Keltner et al. 1997). Releasing suggests accumulated emotional energy that seeks releasing opportunities. Both, appeasing and releasing imply the potential for conflict that inhabits every public space. Culture, traditionally and historically, provides appropriate containers for both, appeasing of emotions and releasing the pressure of accumulative emotional energy.
I have made a watercolour drawing of a square. I mixed blue and green, then with a flat brush laid the paint on a 300gr paper. Next, I lifted the paper and held it up, parallel to the table. The paint spread as I moved and tilted the paper carefully. It made me think of equilibrium and vulnerability. On further reflection, it reminds me of the growing awareness of holding an ‘other’ when I was pregnant.
The shape of a square connects with my mother’s skirt and the skirt’s role as it mutated from accommodating my mother’s large stomach (after giving birth to me), to a tablecloth, to a cover for an outside chair. Throughout the years the fabric lost its colours. However, it preserved my mother’s emotions; its emotional value remained vibrant, un-touched, or perhaps, increased with the passing of time. This emotional value is unquantifiable and irreducible. Within the market parameters it is invisible.
I was interested in the materiality, how the coloured water flow and being slowly soaked by the paper affected by my movements. The drawing process was filmed. The process became performative when the drawing was held in front of the computer’s camera while still wet. Holding and moving the drawing means embodying it by my body’s memories.
What emerges is the notion of emotionally informed recycling in a flowing changing world. This exposes an ecological thinking embedded in the on-going dialogue with my mother. A second point that emerges is inspired by Braidotti who tells us that ‘knowledge production … is multiple and collective’ (Braidotti, 2018, p. 3). Here, knowledge is both personal, inward looking into family kibbutz history and outward looking into PIRG, a group of artists-researchers that engage in acquiring, enquiring, understanding and producing new knowledge and understanding. This multiple and collective knowledge production is done through the method of expanded conversation.
Paradoxically, this method is further enriched by the constraints of the COVID 19 pandemic. Instead of meeting in one shared place, our meeting is mediated by screens. This form of communication is supported by advanced technology, adding drawing tools and new possibilities. Though each of us is in her/his own place when meeting through screens we form a public event, a space that potentially harbours conflicts.
Conversation can be a cultural container. In a diffractive process (Barad, 2007) weaved through this expanded conversation holding the drawing echoes multiplicity: holding a conversation with others at PIRG sessions; the earliest experience of being held in my mother’s body; and the memory and experience of holding my two sons in my body: with care, attention, respect, curiosity, knowing, un-knowing, reciprocity and love.
Above images: Archive item: Mother’s skirt (1961 – on-going) Mother’s skirt, Watercolour, 42x30cm, 2020
[1] Etymologically, it means to reconcile, c. 1300; to make peace, c.12 Old French; peace, Latin (From: appease | Origin and meaning of appease by Online Etymology Dictionary (etymonline.com).
Reference
Dacher Keltner, Randall C. Young, and Brenda N. Buswell, ‘Appeasement in Human Emotion, Social Practice, and Personality’, in AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR Volume 23, pages 359–374 (1997)
Karen Barad (2007), Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter, Durham: Duke University Press
Rosi Braidotti (2018), ‘A Theoretical Framework for the Critical Posthumanism’ https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276418771486 Sage Journals Volume: 36 issue: 6, page(s): 31-61
Yann Moulier-Boutang, ‘Introduction to Cognitive Capitalism’ 2019 (YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/tzQTZGFcfT0)
[1] Etymologically, it means to reconcile, c. 1300; to make peace, c.12 Old French; peace, Latin (From: appease | Origin and meaning of appease by Online Etymology Dictionary (etymonline.com).
Reference
Dacher Keltner, Randall C. Young, and Brenda N. Buswell, ‘Appeasement in Human Emotion, Social Practice, and Personality’, in AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR Volume 23, pages 359–374 (1997)
Karen Barad (2007), Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter, Durham: Duke University Press
Rosi Braidotti (2018), ‘A Theoretical Framework for the Critical Posthumanism’ https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276418771486 Sage Journals Volume: 36 issue: 6, page(s): 31-61
Yann Moulier-Boutang, ‘Introduction to Cognitive Capitalism’ 2019 (YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/tzQTZGFcfT0)
Jane
Yvonne
The road of the missing
The texts of Braidotti and Boutang open a door of hope. They give me a sense of not being isolated with my thinking and my feelings. A possibility that the world may actually be maturing to allow room for everyone, of all shapes and sizes, creeds and colour, and all creative activities. Even though there are still The Missing, those seen as Other, a place I believe I exist in. I celebrate that at least it is becoming known that we are missing.
As far as I am aware, PIRG is the only situation I have seen us acknowledged as such a missing group as artists, not to mention those who dare to be an artist researcher.
The period of drawing allowed my longstanding frustration a means to express itself. I can only speak here for my-self, I am not attempting to project any such thinking onto other individual members of the group, but, as an artist - what do I have to do to have a worth that can genuinely sustain me in our monetized world.
I do not want to be a charity case (however, I am totally dependent on another to fund my activity, materials, space, adventures into exhibitions), equally I do not want to divert too far, actually not at all, into teaching (I did this for years),of being an undervalued ‘tool’ in someone else’s toolbox, or into selling domestic drawings or paintings, although my early strides as an artist have many to offer, and are part of my journey, but only when understood in the context of the years of my work. Not fitting into an Art Funding criteria because I don’t seem to be able to shapeshift sufficiently to meet the box ticking requirements and criteria, leaves me naked.
Is my work just not up to it, does it fail, if so on what level? Judged by who? There is no sheet of paper or form filling that holds me to its bosom.
With works in collections such as New Hall College Cambridge, Merseyside Art Trust (from where two works disappeared when the trust was disbanded), ArtUK, Gwynedd Museum, the Centre for Cancer Immunotherapy Research, Chicago and London private collections, in addition to having had several solo shows and shown in many mixed shows including New Contemporaries, RA Summer Shows, - one might hope there was a means to provide for myself. Not so.
The drawing from today tells of the road of the missing, the reduction in creative freedom to think and create. The hiding away and devaluing of the soul of artists. So much more subtle than in years and wars past. Removal from social consciousness, by downgrading creativity in the education curriculum. Belittling artists, by apparent generosity, through school residencies.
Grayson Perry was accused (by his colleagues) of selling out, he pointed out he did not want to live ‘on the bread line for ever’, and so joined the capitalisation of chosen artists. What else was he, or all the well-paid artists, meant to do, of course they need to earn sufficient in order to live and maintain their practices.
The social contribution of the majority of serious artists is invisible, unlike a house, or shoes, or bread, it is not considered an essential output, but rather a luxury. The hidden wealth of art can only be seen in its absence, when a corporate body or individual rises up to control, deciding to disband artists. Only then does it become apparent that the riches created by soul artists (invisibly enabling freedom and democracy) have been reduced to ashes.
The texts of Braidotti and Boutang open a door of hope. They give me a sense of not being isolated with my thinking and my feelings. A possibility that the world may actually be maturing to allow room for everyone, of all shapes and sizes, creeds and colour, and all creative activities. Even though there are still The Missing, those seen as Other, a place I believe I exist in. I celebrate that at least it is becoming known that we are missing.
As far as I am aware, PIRG is the only situation I have seen us acknowledged as such a missing group as artists, not to mention those who dare to be an artist researcher.
The period of drawing allowed my longstanding frustration a means to express itself. I can only speak here for my-self, I am not attempting to project any such thinking onto other individual members of the group, but, as an artist - what do I have to do to have a worth that can genuinely sustain me in our monetized world.
I do not want to be a charity case (however, I am totally dependent on another to fund my activity, materials, space, adventures into exhibitions), equally I do not want to divert too far, actually not at all, into teaching (I did this for years),of being an undervalued ‘tool’ in someone else’s toolbox, or into selling domestic drawings or paintings, although my early strides as an artist have many to offer, and are part of my journey, but only when understood in the context of the years of my work. Not fitting into an Art Funding criteria because I don’t seem to be able to shapeshift sufficiently to meet the box ticking requirements and criteria, leaves me naked.
Is my work just not up to it, does it fail, if so on what level? Judged by who? There is no sheet of paper or form filling that holds me to its bosom.
With works in collections such as New Hall College Cambridge, Merseyside Art Trust (from where two works disappeared when the trust was disbanded), ArtUK, Gwynedd Museum, the Centre for Cancer Immunotherapy Research, Chicago and London private collections, in addition to having had several solo shows and shown in many mixed shows including New Contemporaries, RA Summer Shows, - one might hope there was a means to provide for myself. Not so.
The drawing from today tells of the road of the missing, the reduction in creative freedom to think and create. The hiding away and devaluing of the soul of artists. So much more subtle than in years and wars past. Removal from social consciousness, by downgrading creativity in the education curriculum. Belittling artists, by apparent generosity, through school residencies.
Grayson Perry was accused (by his colleagues) of selling out, he pointed out he did not want to live ‘on the bread line for ever’, and so joined the capitalisation of chosen artists. What else was he, or all the well-paid artists, meant to do, of course they need to earn sufficient in order to live and maintain their practices.
The social contribution of the majority of serious artists is invisible, unlike a house, or shoes, or bread, it is not considered an essential output, but rather a luxury. The hidden wealth of art can only be seen in its absence, when a corporate body or individual rises up to control, deciding to disband artists. Only then does it become apparent that the riches created by soul artists (invisibly enabling freedom and democracy) have been reduced to ashes.
Wenke (Daniel)
Noriko
I totally agree that artists have many positive attributes and skills (curiosity, open-mindedness, etc.) that they can offer to ‘generate links’ and enable ‘pollination’ with other professional activities. Creating connections, collaborating, and learning from others is definitely the way forward in order to create a posthuman world.
However, I often find it irritating how people praise the potentials of artists but then fail to recognise that artists are also makers and that their practice often results in the making of artefacts. ‘Pollinating’ may not be about ‘showing or selling’ but artists do have to make a living somehow. Unless there is adequate support for artists that recognise their practice (and financial requirements), I think there is a danger in artists feeling used or exploited.
My drawing tries to illustrate some of this irritation I felt listening to Boutang’s thoughts on how artists could contribute towards the making of a pollen society.
However, I often find it irritating how people praise the potentials of artists but then fail to recognise that artists are also makers and that their practice often results in the making of artefacts. ‘Pollinating’ may not be about ‘showing or selling’ but artists do have to make a living somehow. Unless there is adequate support for artists that recognise their practice (and financial requirements), I think there is a danger in artists feeling used or exploited.
My drawing tries to illustrate some of this irritation I felt listening to Boutang’s thoughts on how artists could contribute towards the making of a pollen society.