Author: Michael Corris  
Posted: 11.11.2002; 14:36:53
Topic: Question 6
Msg #: 606 (in response to 428)
Enclosure:
Prev/Next: 605/607
Reads: 87103

To Thomas, in general: your line of inquiry brings into focus the contemporary obsession with finding solutions for problems. I think that problem-solving and "going-on" have always been thought of as two different worlds by Michael and Mel. That is not to say that going-on doesn't throw up "problems" of its own, or that the general frame of going-on is not itself a kind of problem-set. But problem solving outside the contingencies of going on presents, well, a problem. How can a problem outside one's life world be solved without recourse to bureaucratic means? Michael and Mel seem to be asking: "Where do the problems come from?" It's a question that artists should ask, since so many of their problems (tasks, assignments, briefs) are either generated (institutionally) internally, or plucked from the plenum of (external?) daily life, current events, world politics, etc. To fragment problems, to construct problems from existential fragments may not be, as Michael remarked in an earlier response, teleologically strong, but at least it argues against a bureaucratic standpoint in the world. I don't know how to make a general statement out of this. That is, one that would not be trivial or self-serving. Perhaps, that's the point. Then, would it be fair to say that the avoidance of problem-solving is an horizon of escape from problems? (Your response, 6/6?) It may be interpreted as a blindness, surely. But one that has significant consequences; benefits, if you will, that outweigh the appearance of strategic retreat. Michael Corris (InvCollege@aol.com)

 



Last update: Monday, November 11, 2002 at 9:13:48 PM.
 

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