Author: Camila Friedman-Gerlicz

I was most interested about the implications of the death of the author that we discussed at the end of class. I agree with the criticism that by calling for the death of the author, minority groups are prevented from getting to be the author.  As Battersby outlined, the artist as genius is a very male idea, and I find it problematic that white men (Barnes and Foucault) are saying that there is no need for an author. By doing this we are depriving all those who have not had the chance to be authors.  The death of the author also signals a finite stopping point of the idea of the author, and allows no room for growth or change of the definition of the author. If we allow new and different voices to be authors, the idea and role of the author will also change.

I do think that strategic essentialism is a good way to change the definition of the author.  If a large group of voices are not being heard, it is good to give those voices a platform to speak.  I am aware of the danger of strategic essentialism perpetuation the idea of otherness in underrepresented groups, but I think the good outweighs the bad.  I heard an example on a podcast about the cable channel FX, whose CEO prides himself on letting all the showrunners run their shows with no interference. This sounded like a great place to work as an artist.  However, a study was done, and FX came in near last in the number of women and minority directors.  This was not a conscious decision on any of the showrunners parts, but they were hiring their friends and colleagues, who happened to be mostly white men.  As soon as people became aware of the issue and talking about it, more minorities and women were hired, whose voices could be heard.  I think that the art world (as well as all other parts) will benefit from a greater diversity of authors, as well as more definitions of authors.

I find it depressing to think of ourselves as subjects that are always lacking as Lacan says, but it feels like as an artist I am trying to connect to and understand the world in a way that I haven’t been able to before. The world is constantly changing and moving, and we are constantly changing with it, so it makes sense to think that we are never quite sure of ourselves, and always searching for a more whole or resolved version. Art is one way to engage in this search.

Although I do not feel like I make work that is overtly about all of my identity, I am constantly trying to make work to understand my relationship to what I am interested in and why I am interested in those things, and how that fits in the wider world.  My art is definitely my attempt to connect to certain parts of myself and the world.  This is the way that I see art as an Ideological State Apparatus.  Art is influenced heavily by the beliefs and values of society, but since it is a mediation between the self and the greater world, there is the ability to make ideological changes over time. At the end of our discussion, I was left with the question of who/what is the Subject when we are talking about art as an ISA. Althusser gives the example of the church as a Ideological State Apparatus, and it is obvious that God becomes the Subject.  He says that the Subject “interpellates all individuals as subjects”, but I cannot think of a single central idea that brings into being all artists as subjects.  The church was a concrete example of a ISA, and it was helpful to understand some of Althusser’s ideas, but I am interested in how an institution with less built in structure functions as and Ideological State Apparatus.

I am particularly interested in the Sol Lewitt article we read this week.  I have been a fan of Sol Lewitt’s work for a very long time.  I was first drawn to it visually in the geometry, color and scale, and I liked it more once I learned about some of the concepts behind it.  I love math, so I love his pieces that directly address a problem of geometry, permutations, or counting.  I also resonate with the ideas of problem solving and following basic rules to an end.  These are ideas that I am often exploring in my own work and it is also what fascinates me about math.  The idea that by defining a few basic rules, an entire field of mathematics can emerge. I try to employ the same philosophy when I make as Lewitt, who says to, “Select the basic form and rules that would govern the solution of the problem.”

While I agree with almost all of what Lewitt says in “Paragraphs in Conceptual Art”, I disagree when he says that the idea is the most important part.  I am very interested in the physical product of my work.  Many of the ideas I am working with right now have to do with math, and I have already spent many years studying them. I want to engage with these ideas in a different way.  This is where I can see some of the ideas of Deleuze becoming relevant to my work.  I do not claim to fully understand Deleuze’s ideas about becoming, but I am interested in the power of art to bridge a gap between two things, or maybe not bridge the gap but exist in the space between two things.  The way I am understanding the idea of becoming is that it is a resonance between things that cannot be fully explained by either of those things.  I am interested in exploring the ideas of math through my art because I would like to access something that I was not finding when only studying math.

Here are a couple of pictures of some Klein Bottles I’ve made.