Comments on: The Busycle http://adaptivereuse.net/2007/01/11/the-busycle/ contemporary metamorphoses Sat, 22 Nov 2008 03:59:43 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 By: Ian Milliss http://adaptivereuse.net/2007/01/11/the-busycle/#comment-190 Ian Milliss Thu, 11 Jan 2007 09:19:21 +0000 http://adaptivereuse.net/2007/01/11/the-busycle/#comment-190 That's fantastic Ben. I also liked the Platypus pedal powered amphibious vehicle on their bio page. There's more Bourriaud in the documents on my website at                                       http://www.ianmilliss.com/documents/BourriaudGlossary.htm and                          http://www.ianmilliss.com/documents/BourriaudInterview.htm I was fairly pleased by the advent of relational aesthetics in the late 90s, I thought here at last is some serious writing about the previously ignored work that had been going on since the mid 70s. While mainstream conceptualism simply sold out ASAP, throughout the world were artists who had extended the political logic of conceptual art into political and social activism (myself included). Little was written about it, mainly by Nina Felshin and Greg Sholette. I was soon disillusioned to discover that Bourriaud was talking about artists like Vanessa Beecroft, in other words the same old tedious irrelevant biennale art, just with a new intellectual gloss. Even the best of the artists he supports like Rirkrit Tiravanija still distort their activities into the art market gallery context. It seems that Bourriaud simply doesn't understand the implications of what he has written, and still thinks there is this activity called art that can be made for art galleries, rather than art being an after the fact tag applied to activities that had cultural impact. I take a fairly hard line that the work has to be utilitarian in some real way, have a reason to exist outside of the art scene, before it can then, preferably much later, be considered in terms of its art/aesthetic value. The Busycle is a great positive illustration of that. (It's not too hard to find negative examples, usually it's a bunch of artists sitting around talking about their irrelevance and calling it relational aesthetics.) That’s fantastic Ben. I also liked the Platypus pedal powered amphibious vehicle on their bio page.

There’s more Bourriaud in the documents on my website at                                       http://www.ianmilliss.com/documents/BourriaudGlossary.htm and                          http://www.ianmilliss.com/documents/BourriaudInterview.htm

I was fairly pleased by the advent of relational aesthetics in the late 90s, I thought here at last is some serious writing about the previously ignored work that had been going on since the mid 70s. While mainstream conceptualism simply sold out ASAP, throughout the world were artists who had extended the political logic of conceptual art into political and social activism (myself included). Little was written about it, mainly by Nina Felshin and Greg Sholette.

I was soon disillusioned to discover that Bourriaud was talking about artists like Vanessa Beecroft, in other words the same old tedious irrelevant biennale art, just with a new intellectual gloss. Even the best of the artists he supports like Rirkrit Tiravanija still distort their activities into the art market gallery context. It seems that Bourriaud simply doesn’t understand the implications of what he has written, and still thinks there is this activity called art that can be made for art galleries, rather than art being an after the fact tag applied to activities that had cultural impact.

I take a fairly hard line that the work has to be utilitarian in some real way, have a reason to exist outside of the art scene, before it can then, preferably much later, be considered in terms of its art/aesthetic value. The Busycle is a great positive illustration of that. (It’s not too hard to find negative examples, usually it’s a bunch of artists sitting around talking about their irrelevance and calling it relational aesthetics.)

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