8. JUNE 8
BRUTUS (EVERYTHING IS TRUE - NOTHING IS PERMITTED) 

There is an implicit agreement or contract between an artist and her audience. What is it?

There is an implicit agreement or contract between a teacher and her students. What is it?

Not everyone in a community will agree on everything. So what is the solution?
US solution >> legislate morality (the majority legislates the morality of the minority)
Dutch solution >> you do you (until it harms me)

What was the title of the show? What is the show exploring, primarily? (bodily agency)
Who controls your body?
Is there such thing as a normal/generic human body?

Danger as a topic of artistic inquiry (Chris Burden). What are the ethics of pursuing danger? Why do it?
What is the difference between the performing arts and performance art? The difference between art(ifice) and life?

Violence in art?
What are the ethics? Why explore it as a topic?

What was the difference between the work on the main level ("self-harm" work) and the work on the lower level ("civil rights" work)? [Self-harm work implies privilege, the privilege to choose to harm your body symbolically. The basement work lacks such privilege. Self-harm work is symbolic. Civil rights work is actual/historical.]

Nudity in art?
What are the ethics? Why explore it as a topic?
Whose body is shown? How is it shown? The rotterdam sculpture with the square hole in the middle of the figure is a nude sculpture that involves violence. Why is it somehow more "acceptable" than some of the work in the show?

Regarding Media:
What is the difference between a photo, video, painting, sculpture, object?
What is the difference between a live performance and documentation of a performance?
What is the difference between site-specific art and non-site-specific art?
How would the Brutus show have been different at the Melly space? What space so far have we seen that is closest to the Brutus space? (Wiels).
Overlapping audio in an installation space -- what is its effect?

Is there any single piece of work you would like to discuss?
(I particularly liked the decaying house installation. A smart critique of serious Rotterdam modernist architecture.)

My own general critique of the "self-harm" work >> It is overly symbolic (It doesn't deterritorialize bodies. Instead it further binds and territorializes them.) It is overly reactionary (It relies on someone to be shocked. Like a child saying "poo poo." Once the shock value becomes passe, the work tends to become passe.)