Material for thought

Few quotes from the book “Issues in curating contemporary art and performance” by Judith Rugg and Michèle Sedgwick:

• As cultural agents, curators and artists participate in the production of cultural value. Exhibitions are, therefore, contemporary forms of rhetoric, complex expressions of persuasion, whose strategies aim to produce a prescribed set of values and social relations for their audiences. [Paul O'Neill]
• Exhibition: maximizing the shock while avoiding the risk of boredom, which would strip of its entertainment value. [Paul O'Neill]
• What is apparent is that artists, their work and practices exist and are claimed under the banner of a larger economy of culture. [Alun Rowlands]

List of system theories as enumerated by Ludwig von Bertalanffy in “General System Theory” (1968):

• Classical system theory, basically maths.
• Computerization and simulation using models.
• Compartment theory: “the system consists in subunits with certain boundary conditions between which transport process takes place”.
• Set theory, which studies general formal properties of systems.
• Graph theory concerned with topological space.
• Net theory, a generalisation of sequences (http://en.allexperts.com/e/n/ne/net_(mathematics).htm).
• Cybernetics: “A theory of control systems based on communication (transfer of information) between system and environment and within the system, and control (feedback) of the system’s function in regard to environment.”

According to the psychologist Jean Pieget, “young children do have a lot of fantasy in thought. They may imagine that they are magically affecting things. And they have to learn to distinguish certain ‘fantasies’ which are to be called ‘reality’, namely the ones that pass the tests of reality”:

• that stand up the experience of reality
• that everybody sees
• that resist being pushed
• that are not affected by how you think about them
• …

Read in “Thought as a System” by David Bohm – 1992.

In his book “Vinyl Leaves, Walt Disney World and America”, Stephen M. Fjellman analyses Disney World and how it incarnates a postmodern society based on consumerism. Here is a summary of his thoughts.

The Tour Eiffel from the World's Fair of 1900

I’ve read recently the excellent book from Jay Winter “Dreams of Peace and Freedom – Utopian Moments in the 20^th Century“. It is part of my curatorial homework for the exhibition “Living the Dream of Modernity” that I’m preparing to launch very soon. Here is a summary.