Tag Archives: method

new feature: facebook field notes

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Dear readers, today is the premiere of a new feature here on Archiving the City: facebook field notes. For many years, I avoided the draw of facebook, but when I joined the Strelka Institute, I was asked by program organizers to join facebook, in order to make participation and communication with colleagues easier.

In recent weeks, I have found myself involved in extended conversations about my Moscow life with friends from around the world. It now occurs to me that these conversations are in fact an extension of my “Shop Talk” series (cross-disciplinary conversations about method), and so I have decided to post some excerpts of chats and emails here, as “field notes.”

(Of course, these excepts appear in edited form, in order to preserve the integrity of the conversation, and the privacy of my interlocutors, as per their requests).

12:03pm
how is going for you in moscow, still boring?

12:04pm
well moscow is getting a bit better

12:04pm
ah thats! great!! actually better
glad moscow is getting u

12:05pm
some of my russian colleagues are slowly realizing how difficult their country is for foreigners, and reaching out a helping hand. i have been invited to several homes of colleagues, to some parties, and today, to some kind of hipster artist collective in an old factory somewhere.

as i said a BIT better. the people are still very strange to me. i have had enough conversations with the young people here to know that they are very tense and depressed about the country’s situation

12:07pm
well, its good to feel happy, even if just a little! so enjoy the BIT more!

12:07pm
many just try to escape into little worlds of hipster intelligentsia

12:08pm
like the kinds Yurchak described in his book? (Alexei Yurchak, Everything was forever, until it was no more)

12:13pm
not exactly. this is a different time. those people were poor and did not have (or want) money and jobs. these ones that i have met are elite in many ways: iPads, iPhone, ieverything. They work in the same little circles of media-art-architecture-design; they have middle class to very rich parents (lots of brands: prada & american apparel feature prominently). They have gone to the best schools in the country, usually due to family connections. However they feel their country “uncivilized” they want to be more connected with Europe and north america. they do not appreciate the mannerisms and attitudes of the older Putin generation, and the coarseness of their country men. so they retreat a bit, but not too much, because they are the young winners of society

i just went to an exhibit of necrorealist art and then after an exhibit of the latest young moscow artists (sponsored by martini and rossi, of course). let me tell you, yurchak’s people had a very different mentality.

12:16pm
gotcha
is a different kind of western influence
a recent aggressive capitalist western influence, different from the processes of westernization taking place during the 80 and 90s under the soviets and right after the end of USSR

12:22pm
maybe. i don’t know if the influence is western, or simply part of a global trend. they look to europe and north america, but at the same time are very insulated within the particularities of their own history–maybe too insulated in fact. this is the cause of the tense depressiveness: they want to be more european, but they are afraid of great distance culturally and historically between their country and the “west.” so it is hard to say western influence. it is very strange. they talk about visiting london, berlin, new york, but never “britain, germany, usa.” so i am not sure if it is that they are influenced by the west, or that they long for some lifestyle that is replicating itself around the world right now: this nondescript international floating life, linked by certain brands and hip places.

for example, it is not as if they long for democracy. non of these people are democratic activists, or would ever do anything like “occupy wall street.”

12:28pm
i hear you–its important to question the idea of “the west”, since it does not say much, and it does not describe processes that as u say, are more “international”–but still london, i agree, is not the UK, I agree, so its more a longing for mega-city lifestyles, but is London and not for example Kuala Lumpur. In this sense, it is not West in general, but still a part of the so larger unspecified western culture

12:30pm
well they also talk about shanghai and hong kong and sao paulo. the studio program is taking us to tokyo.

12:30pm
and some of those Russian, perhaps, might have a lot in common with OWS , in terms of views on social programs, though their lifestyles are a contradiction to the OWS’ claims

12:30pm
i just gave an example of those 3 cities
could be true, i have not asked…

12:31pm
yes, but is your program not all the russians u described above, i mean the parents of those mates of urs

12:33pm
maybe. i thought we were talking about the young people? those comparable to the necrorealists of yurchak’s day. anyway, it is hard to tell, as i have not been here very long, and my impressions are formed from a very strange distance from the people

12:34pm
i meant Russians in general, but yes, generations are different and its important to distinguish

12:41pm
well then i must say i do not know russians in general, and doubt that i will. i am moving in a very specific circle. the city of moscow is organized in rings, quite literally. the city is divided by giant rings of avenues, and people tend to socialize within their “rings.” I was warned when i arrived here never to leave the first two rings, as my life could be threatened by the (poor or working class) barbarians living beyond. So the rings are social and physical and increasing everyday. My work place is on an island across from the kremlin, which is right in the center of the center ring. this island is its own world of media-design-bars-restaurants-cafes-cool-expensive-face-control. not a place for just anyone to come anytime. Given this, it is not clear that i will get far off this island, except to go to other islands as led by my new friends and colleagues. So when I speak about young russians, i am speaking about these islands within moscow/russia.

12:48pm
i see–
it sounds a bit like Nairobi, in terms of urban segregation by different classes…sorry, got to go on skype now–my aunty called–parents etc..lets talk/chat later , if ur still there, keep writing about moscow and its rings, and also who told u not to explore other rings…, well this is what u do , no?

12:53pm
if i go to other rings, it is with the guidance of colleagues. this is not the kind of place to just ride the train and get off somewhere and go for a walk. at least not for me, as i clearly do no blend in most parts of the city. but yeah, let’s chat more later. –a

neighbors

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Jana Leo, My Neighbor, 2002 – 2011

Artist’s statement:

She used to live across the hallway and was the first person I related to when I moved to Chinatown in 2002. She came into my apartment when assembling furniture She pushed the door, smile and look around talking in Chinese and sit in a chair while I was cleaning; for years she knock at my door and gave me “food stamps canned food”: salmon, green beans, carrots and evaporated milk. I used to storage the goods in a closet, took pictures of the labels, and open a can once in while,  when I was too busy to get any other food. She lived by herself and spend most her day in and out from the apartment to the park in front of the building. Years passed like that; she smiled when sees me happy and recognized it was because of the person I have around, who took this picture.In 2008, I expend the whole winter in Spain and when I come back I realized she wasn’t going to the park anymore and that she have caretakers all day long. I asked what happened, (she spoke to me in Chinese and I in Spanish) I realized by the amount of pills and diapers that something serious have happened. She walked along the hallways during the day but never go anymore to the park. I start walking holding her in the hallway. I looked at her feet wearing just sleepers. She looked so frail to me. I imagine carrying her in my back but then asked myself what if she falls. I called social services to find out about the care takers and if they can take her down through complains so I wouldn’t have to do it. A few times, I tried to make her going down the stairs; but she would stop right before the first step. We spent the summer walking in the hallway.

I have a ticket to go back to Spain with no return for a long while. I signed myself a date for crossing the limit; the limit between the hallway and the staircase; the limit between her apartment and the door; the limits between the building door and the park with a street in the middle. I practiced the walk mentally. A Saturday in late August 2009, I knocked at her door and take it to the hallway walk, one step down, she hesitated, I hold her tight, letting her know we were going to make it. She stopped. I indicated that we were going to make it, I don’t know how but was clear to her. I hold her very tied, and her weigh went to the first step and then the other and the other, her fragile body, the feet on sleepers… I put one of her hand on the stair rail and hold her body, one and two and three and four and five and six, and seven…. And one and two and three and four and five and six, and seven and one and two and three and four and five and six, and seven eight we were by the door. She stopped again as if she didn’t want to open the door to life anymore. I opened the door and blocked the way back with my body. She stepped out. She laughed at the sun. Her face illuminated and she talked to me. We crossed the street and find a bench in the park and sit. She was in her park. She was alive. I tried to create a pattern for her so she has to ask the caretaker to do when I am not there.The amount of times I pictured in my mind the trip from her apartment into the park sound silly to say because were so many and we only did it once. We were not just going downstairs, I was crossing my own limits with her and she was defeating death.

I didn’t know her name. We never have any reason to like each other but we did.

This picture in the fire stair in between mine and her apartment to honor her and to recognize that I missed her. Also this picture in the fire stair, that has became my gallery is a piece of art. It recognizes that affinities to people are made beyond age, positions, education, language, or origin.

This picture was taken by Simon Lund a Saturday afternoon, sometime in August 2009.Jana Leo
August 5 2011
New York

evidence

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In January I went to White Columns to see, “Looking Back,” an exhibit surveying artwork shown in New York in 2010, curated by Bob Nickas. The work was a mix of mostly New York-based artists, young and old, living and dead. One piece that caught my attention was by Candy Jernigan:


Candy Jernigan, Found Dope: Part II, 1986 (detail)
Found objects on paper 28 in. x 39 in.

Broken bits of used crack vials are pasted into into grid formation on a large poster, sealed behind glass, like the butterflies of a 19th century natural historian. Beneath each artifact in the grid is small even block handwriting, marking the date, time and location of its collection, e.g. June 11/Second Avenue at Third street/west side/10 AM. At the center of the grid, towards the bottom, is a hand-drawn map of a section of Manhattan’s East Village, running from Houston Street in the south to Eighth Street in the north, and west to east from Broadway to Avenue A. A small dot on the map is marked with the words “We are here.” Is “here” the site of the piece’s original exhibition, or the home of the artist?

Seven months after seeing this piece, it stays with me as an influence in my own work. The simplicity of the idea, the dedication of the artist to the everyday routine of walking around her neighborhood, and the obsessiveness of collecting and labeling that pariah of all New York trash–used drug paraphernalia–all combine into a portrait of a neighborhood at a particular moment in its history; a moment all but unimaginable in today’s East Village, with its moneyed and policed revelers. What sorts of trash might an observant walker find on her morning walk through the same streets, two decades after Jernigan?

an other order

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Adrian Piper, Pretend not to know, 1989

Order may be private or public. A friend of mine owns an enormous collection of classical music. His CDs fill the walls of a whole big room, floor to ceiling. What is interesting here is that they are chronologically organized by the composer’s date of birth. The order is eccentric because, to his wife’s despair, the owner and recipient of that order is just one person.

Then there is what we can call a public order. Here, there is a distance between the owner and the recipient. The word “order” acquires its double meaning of organization and directives for behavior. In this double interpretation, the owner of the order is the power structure. The order is codified in laws, decrees, and protocols, or is simply expressed through abuse of power.

It is here that art becomes a fundamental activity because it is one of the important tools in creating alternative orders. Using what is essentially a private order, the artist challenges the established and public order by proposing others. When the artist is good, his or her systems are unexpected and revealing. They subvert and expand existing knowledge, at least for the brief instant that passes between creation and the assimilation of the contribution.

–Luis Camnitzer, “Museums and Universities,” e-flux journal #26

my notebook

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I am old school. I still keep most of my thoughts and ideas in an actual notebook. Yes, a notebook made of dead trees.

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new problems

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There is a first, false idea that needs to be set aside, which is that the philosopher can speak about everything. This idea is exemplified by the TV philosopher: he talks about society’s problems, the problems of the present, and so on. Why is this idea false? Because the philosopher constructs his own problems, he is an inventor of problems, which is to say he is not someone who can be asked on television, night after night, what he thinks about what’s going on. A genuine philosopher is someone who decides on his own account what the important problems are, someone who proposes new problems for everyone. Philosophy is first and foremost this: the invention of new problems.

–Alain Badiou. 2009. in conversation with Slavoj Zizek, Philosophy in the Present

speaking with specters

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Luis Camnitzer, Last Words (2008). Excerpts from the final statements of death row prisoners, taken from website of the Texas Department of Justice.

What seems almost impossible is to speak always of the specter, to speak to the specter, to speak with it, therefore especially to make or to let a spirit speak. And the thing seems even more difficult for a reader, an expert, a professor, and interpreter, in short, for what Marcellus calls a “scholar.” Perhaps for a spectator in general. Finally, the last one to whom a specter can appear, address itself, or pay attention is a spectator as such. At the theater or at school. The reasons for this are essential. As theoreticians or witnesses, spectators, observers, and intellectuals, scholars believe that looking is sufficient. Therefore, they are not always in the most competent position to do what is necessary: speak to the specter. 

–Jacques Derrida (1994), Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, & the New International.