Re: <nettime> "We Wont Fly for Art" pledge has only one day left to run.

["Dan S. Wang" <danwang@mindspring.com>]

Hi Ruth and Marc, thank you for updating us about this project.

The basic problem is that the project does not seem to account for the
pressures that drive some contemporary art people to travel so much. As I¹ve
experienced it, travelling as and because one has gained some status as an
artist is hardly a choice. Our work exists in a competitive field, with far
too little money spread over far too many deserving practitioners. Often,
the paying gigs require some travel, and if you¹re like me, you can¹t afford
to not take them. Moreover, in the age of the post-studio practice, the
dematerialization of art reaches a limit in the body of the artist.
Sometimes making an appearance is the only way to get paid, thereby helping
to make one a living. Beyond that, I don¹t understand why the base of the
hoped-for exponential growth is six. Just an arbitrary number? Kind of like
six months?was that also arbitrary? (Back when you announced this project, I
kept thinking, well, I just did my six months, and now I am about to start
flying again....)

There is also the reality that, for all that comes with the rather
precarious existence of the working artist today, esp for those in new
media, tactical media, social art, and various marginally
commodification-resistant practices, artists often experience travel as one
of the few pleasurable advantages of the career. A better pledge might have
been for all of us to not invite, draft, host, and sponsor other art air
travelers. Stop making the offers to those who can¹t refuse, and instead
rely on the people near enough to not fly. Else the project remains tethered
to the losing proposition of cultivating personal austerities as the first
and last step in solving big problems. As long as that is the strategy, I am
not sure I would use the word ?intervention¹ to describe the project.

I cannot say I am much surprised that only a handful of individuals have
taken the pledge. My guess is that after another couple oil price shocks,
the increasing cost of flying will blunt art air travel greatly anyway.

Dan w.


> 
> "We Wont Fly for Art" pledge has only one day left to run.
> 
> Agnieszka's pledge is the last in the series of "We Wont Fly for Art"
> pledges and it has only one day left to run.
> 
> Originally designed with the potential for exponential growth, this
> collective intervention into the workings and relations of art
> infrastructure is on the verge of dying out...unless... ONE artist
> pledges to refrain from flying for art for 6 months AND replicates the
> pledge here. http://www.pledgebank.com/wewontflyforart5
> 
> warmest
> Ruth and Marc
> http://www.furtherfield.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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