boggs
I guess I’m just confused as to how Baudelaire invented originality in infinite copies- yes, he was a translator, but that is not quite the same as a copy. I think it is a little more straight forward to understand the idea of creating original works through means of multiple copies that all exist together at one time. The sociopoetic experiment really just sounds like mass production and the feigning of art as “customization”. I suppose that I took that the wrong way-(today I am reading and writing simultaneously). To re-evaluate:
“the term sociopoetic describes artworks that use social situations or social networks as a canvas…how situations function poetically (or sociopoetically…”
“how artists and poets manipulate and score situations.”
“social situations that function as part of an artwork or poem”
The thing that I find most interesting in Boggs’ project is the “artificial value” that is created. I do understand how it frightens the government, I think it is less, at least for them, less about him using the money and more about them worrying it will fall into the wrong hands. It is all good and fun and subversive for the people who participate in this network but say, someone else got a hold of the drawing. Anyhoo- that’s really not the point of the article. What I meant to address is that Boggs’ creates a whole new market. A community. A group that agrees to abide by certain rules, and crosses over from one group to the next i.e. getting actual correct change for his Bogg’s money purchases.
To be honest- I think this guy is a shmuck. It is an interesting concept and power to the person who has passion to follow their own but, really. Why mess with this. I have no moral feelings about it, whether it’s right or wrong. I just see this as more hassle than progress. I think his money becomes counterfeit as soon as he tries to pay for something and the people don’t know it’s not real. Whether, or not they choose to follow along is the point. When they do, then yes, that is the interesting part. That is where the social agreement and collaboration begins. That is the gift economy. I think I may be wrong, that he always only gives it to people who know about it. So, in that case. Then yes, I think it is quite progressive.
I like the part where the waiter brings the change back, as a drawing. That seems to be to be the most successful part of the works. But, I also just like the idea of more people being involved. It seems to make the project less sneaky when more people are in on it.
I wonder if they charged tax on the Boggs’ bill purchases. It doesn’t seem like they should- since it’s not a political transaction.
Now that we have all this straightened out- no, not real money, yes small group of people participate. I wonder how exactly the government got involved. And why, they feel the need to intervene. (I know- my opinions have changed, and all in the span of a few paragraphs. So-
“I can neither read nor write what you produce, but I receive it,”
okay- so can someone explain all these references?
“[20] Artists have often imagined the combination of Surrealism and Fordism, the combination, that is, between American efficient know-how, also known as Big Business, and European Avant-Garde absurdity. Of course, this combination is always conjured as a Kafka-esque nightmare in the style of the film Brazil”
I think I have heard of this-
“teachers” followed orders to inflict supposedly fatal shocks to “students,’” to see what the teachers would do. it was intense.
What I’m thinking is just that it is all more focused on the idea of getting together, either knowingly or giving to people an experience that changes the way they think about what it is going on, what they value and how that value, in Boggs’ case, manifests itself.
