1) Highlight 3 insights that your reading has helped bring to the surface. Use specific text evidence to link your insights.
2) If you could ask the author 3 questions, what questions might those be?
3) What applications might this work have to your understanding of an ethical approach to community-engaged arts?
4) Consider the work we have been exploring this semester thus far. Choose one artist or project that resonated with you. What ethical considerations were in place on this project?
1. One insight that the reading showed me was in regards to Sierra's comments on the tattoo artist. In the text it says, "It is not the tattoo that is of interest here, but the very fact that the social, economic, and political conditions exist whereby such events can take place." I never thought of his work as a critique on the conditions that lead to the event itself having importance, rather than fixating on the idea of the tattoo or the physical. While there are more critiques to his comments, it shows a level of understanding of the performer and the audience, and their place in a socioeconomic system.
Another insight from the reading that I found interesting was the idea that art must be pulled away from aesthetics. In the text it says, " ...art should extract itself from the useless domain of the aesthetic and be fused with social praxis." This is interesting because it denotes a shift away from postmodernity back into modernity, where the function of art was emancipation over gratification. Art driven by a desire to change structures, whether it succeeded or failed, is the art that best fits the definition of modernist art.
Lastly, the reading helped me understand the inherent relationship between ethics and artistic practice. In the text it says "...aesthtetics involved in the so-called expanded field of pseudo-ethnographic collaborative art cannot be divorced from ethics, nor can they necessarily be resolved in relation to ethics." This helped me understand that the ethical and moral relativism that we see today, where in actions and things undertaken by artists are not resolved based on context. There is no constant shift of ethics, there is only an ethical constant. Olaf Breunnings Home and the whole repertoire of Sierra's work are not resolved by nature of the explanation the artist gives. While Sierra may say that he is highlighting a structure dynamic, it does not change the fact that it is not up to an ethical code.
2. Is there a hierarchical order to different types of collaboration? Is there a defined spectrum?
If ethnography and collaborative art are similar, is there differences between the two?
How can I further research this topic? How can I further be aware of my own ethical approaches?
3. This helped me understand that the only ethical approach to community-engaged arts is the ethical approach to community-engaged arts. While we can create community-engaged art that is not fully ethical, and that may be fine in it of itself, there is no relativism for ethics. And thus if it does not fit the constant standard then it can not be considered ethical. So to apply this to the process of my own work would then be to fully understand the structures and dynamics of the community that we would be engaging with, and making sure that there are no boundaries crossed in the course of the project.
4. One of the projects that resonated with me was the Theater of Witness and Teya Sepinuck. Some of the ethical considerations that were in place for the project was a) the consent of any participant involved and b) a clear understanding of the community that each project was based in. With the chapters that I have read from the Theater of Witness, there is a great deal of effort placed upon anyone involved with making sure that they are the ones who telling the story and that they are okay with being the ones telling the story. If the participants are consenting to collaborate, then the project is ethical as it is from a place of understanding. With the Theatre of Witness there is also a clear understanding from the artist of the community that they are in. To observe and understand the community and its structures and dynamics, and the consequences and reactions of any actions taken inside of the community seems to be a key aspect to it.
1. One insight that the reading showed me was in regards to Sierra's comments on the tattoo artist. In the text it says, "It is not the tattoo that is of interest here, but the very fact that the social, economic, and political conditions exist whereby such events can take place." I never thought of his work as a critique on the conditions that lead to the event itself having importance, rather than fixating on the idea of the tattoo or the physical. While there are more critiques to his comments, it shows a level of understanding of the performer and the audience, and their place in a socioeconomic system.
Another insight from the reading that I found interesting was the idea that art must be pulled away from aesthetics. In the text it says, " ...art should extract itself from the useless domain of the aesthetic and be fused with social praxis." This is interesting because it denotes a shift away from postmodernity back into modernity, where the function of art was emancipation over gratification. Art driven by a desire to change structures, whether it succeeded or failed, is the art that best fits the definition of modernist art.
Lastly, the reading helped me understand the inherent relationship between ethics and artistic practice. In the text it says "...aesthtetics involved in the so-called expanded field of pseudo-ethnographic collaborative art cannot be divorced from ethics, nor can they necessarily be resolved in relation to ethics." This helped me understand that the ethical and moral relativism that we see today, where in actions and things undertaken by artists are not resolved based on context. There is no constant shift of ethics, there is only an ethical constant. Olaf Breunnings Home and the whole repertoire of Sierra's work are not resolved by nature of the explanation the artist gives. While Sierra may say that he is highlighting a structure dynamic, it does not change the fact that it is not up to an ethical code.
2. Is there a hierarchical order to different types of collaboration? Is there a defined spectrum?
If ethnography and collaborative art are similar, is there differences between the two?
How can I further research this topic? How can I further be aware of my own ethical approaches?
3. This helped me understand that the only ethical approach to community-engaged arts is the ethical approach to community-engaged arts. While we can create community-engaged art that is not fully ethical, and that may be fine in it of itself, there is no relativism for ethics. And thus if it does not fit the constant standard then it can not be considered ethical. So to apply this to the process of my own work would then be to fully understand the structures and dynamics of the community that we would be engaging with, and making sure that there are no boundaries crossed in the course of the project.
4. One of the projects that resonated with me was the Theater of Witness and Teya Sepinuck. Some of the ethical considerations that were in place for the project was a) the consent of any participant involved and b) a clear understanding of the community that each project was based in. With the chapters that I have read from the Theater of Witness, there is a great deal of effort placed upon anyone involved with making sure that they are the ones who telling the story and that they are okay with being the ones telling the story. If the participants are consenting to collaborate, then the project is ethical as it is from a place of understanding. With the Theatre of Witness there is also a clear understanding from the artist of the community that they are in. To observe and understand the community and its structures and dynamics, and the consequences and reactions of any actions taken inside of the community seems to be a key aspect to it.
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