• Preface: What it is and how we did it
• Introduction
• Open Engagement: Making Things. Making Things Better. Making Things Worse.
• A Tracing, Socially
• Draft of a manifesto written in defense of a group of people that did not ask for my defense, using words they would not use and engaging people they ignore
• This is the End: Death and other Sensory Thresholds
• On the Discourse of Ethics in Socially Engaged Art Practice
• Are You Lonely? Make Art For Your Friends
• Interaction! Participation! Engagement! Production
• On Collaborating Within the M.O.S.T. (2003-2008)
• The Politics of Friendship, Or, Who Your Friends Should Be. An Interview with Matthew David Rana and Rick Butler
• On Multi-Tasking
• Making Things Better
• Me, Her and Us: Mapping Displacement with Anna Martine and Mary Anne Brooks at Open Engagement
• You Need To Have That Feeling That Anything's Possible
• Social Practice Art and Tech-Nihilism
• The Persistent Complicity of Heterogeneity
• Squirming
• Don't Just Invite Me To Dinner
• Open Engagement: A Toast to Access and Inclusion
• Thoughts On Social Practice Art
• Before, During, and After
• What is Public Art and Who is Your Public?
• From Every Angle
• What I remember about the video of John Paul II Marina Abramovic showed @ Reed in 2006
• What is there to dance about?
• Global Yawning Manifesto
• Interview: Musician, Movement Artist, Designer
• Clothing Musicians
• No Art But Class War
• Mirror Neurons to the Mona Lisa
• Fragments and Tangents
• Before
• Texts: What we are thinking about when we're thinking about Open Engagement
• After
• Contributors
• Appendix: The Back Channel
• Bibliography

Are You Lonely? Make Art For Your Friends

Artists typically spend hours alone in their studios, pouring themselves into their work. They release their inner selves through art. They discover and develop ideas in a creative medium to communicate with people. The question of why artists create is null and void in this discussion – for the time being, we can accept they do. The questions to explore: why share yourself with the community? Why do artists share their work with the community? What is the best way to do this? Why do people attend art shows? How does the audience participate? and what does the art become?

I believe that this is a circular process that feeds itself. You create art, you have a show, people participate, and you create more art upon what works. What doesn't work? Well, whatever limits the artist's ability to participating meaningfully in society.

For this discussion, art is defined as a reflection of the outside world. Art in its essence is creative; it is a reflection of the world. It is the world simplified as a symbol, and focused into an object. People appreciate this simplicity. They can read into the symbol. They can see themselves in the work. They can use the symbol to interpret the world. They enjoy looking into a piece as opposed to looking out at the world. The symbol creates a defined world of knowledge and identity. It creates a place where the individual is no longer unknown.

There is a sense of solace and safety knowing that no matter how complicated a person may be, they are an individual and not the outside world. The dialogue of art allows us to discern me and not-me. Regardless of how complicated, frightening or dark human nature may be, it is just that, nature. Art offers a safety-net for the viewer. One can step away from it and go back to living and they can use art as a shield. It can be the negotiation of their identity in dealing with reality.

Art catches our attention. It attracts or repels. Everyone has experienced a moment they are caught off guard by art and found themselves: without realizing that they were doing so. Myself. Coming from a musical background, I get chills when I hear perfect four-part harmony. I have learned though time to understand these chills are my semi-consciousness experiencing the sublime.

Art as a public good.

Given the experience of the sublime, art could be considered a public good. It is created for viewing by strangers. While art is viewed by people, I don't think that is what art is for. Art is a sensory expericence. One could argue that in the moment of experience, it is being owned by the experience. There is a transcendence of individual identity. I believe that the experience of the sublime is a sense of oneness with the universe. A feeling of being at home, completely accepted and love. These are moments where the art owns me.

Sublime moments are involuntary. I don't decide when to hear perfect four-part harmony, I don't even know I've heard it unless I feel it. Art has this effect on people, you see people open up when art catches their eye or their ear. These are moments when the piece communicates with the audience. If art captures the mind and attention of others, than it exists for this purpose: art is social and for other people. Art takes on a new life through the interpretation and participation of others. Its purpose is to garner attention from strangers.

Divination: how to create art?

This should provide a clue as to the production of art for the public. Regardless of the artist's statement or themes, the ultimate motive is experience. This can be expanded to the moments of creation, the process of creation, the presentation and the interaction between the audience and the creator. In all of these states of the art's existence, it is an experience, it is being felt by someone. Because it is an experience, it has the potential to control the individual. Sometimes this happens involuntarily, other times the individual chooses to dive deep inside the piece and discover its origin.

Being present in life is the way to create art. Recognizing what makes you feel most alive, and going with that feeling. Art is a connection with yourself, others, the world, and the universe. We are alive in a living universe that doesn't speak English. We need symbols, sounds, colors, and movement to communicate with the universe.

If people are involuntarily controlled by the art they experience, what responsibility lies in the creator? The artist is responsible for themselves. Their artwork is an extension of their intention and energy in a community. Relationships with other people leads to the co-creation of artwork. The viewer, audience, or experiencers are equal parts co-creators because they respond and even project meaning on the work. Through communication in the medium an artist connects the source of creativity to others.

Art on Wall Street

The aesthetic experience can be commodified and monetized. It can be put in a museum. We protect it and sell admission to view the property of investors. This is okay. Some art requires money to be realized, or even made available to the public. For example, feature films are expensive to produce and distribute; they require investors.

Some art reaches extreme highest monetary value due to scarcity. There are a limited quantity of Van Gogh's paintings and unlimited demand to own them. Artists who try to replicate the qualities of valuable work are learning form. They are learning to create something to trade in the Marketplace.

Art on Main Street

The initial impulse is to participate. The impulse is to connect, not with abstractions, like zeros after a number in a bank statement. When I want to be an artist, I want to participate in society as an artist. To do this and be recognized... I have to make what other people recognize as art. If not, there needs to be some other way to validate, or qualify the work as something of value to society.

The effort to express an artistic ideal can be self-isolating. A personal truth requires vision. This can be a visionary statement that is doesn't enjoy public acceptance. But for all the world, a simple recognition that something is of value is made through communication and connection with other people. Artistic value is created by human values and it takes place in society through our relationships with others.