Interventionist Art QuickTimeª and a

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Lord Napier in red tape, 2004 by Eleonora Aguiari

http://paperfigspage.blogspot.com/2007/07/eleonora-aguiari-lord-napier-wrapped-in.html
Can an artistic intervention truly bring about an unforeseen way of
thinking, or it is more a matter of creating a sensation of
"meaninglessness" that shows the absurdity of the situation?

Can an artistic intervention translate social tensions into narra

tives
that in turn intervene in the imaginarylandscape of a place?

Can an absurd actprovoke a transgression that makes you abandon

the standard assumptions on ht eTIFF
sources of conflict?
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Can those kinds of artistic actsbring about the possibility of

change?

In any case, how canart remain politically significant without

assuming a doctrinal standpoint or aspiring to become social
activism?

For the moment, I am exploring the following axiom:

Sometimes doing something poetic can become political and
sometimes doing something political can become poetic.
Francis-Alys
definition
Interventionist art:

• action carried out to call to attention or critique

a topic, place, issue
• takes place in public space, private spaces
• happens as legal or authorized actions
• happens as illegal or unauthorized actions
definition
Interventionist art:

• has a long history dating back to Dada,

Futurists, Surrealists
• it’s been embraced by artists who followed
including Situationists, Fluxus, Post Modernists
and “post-post modernists” now happens on the web
(hacking) as well as in physical public spaces
definition
Interventionist art:

• can be humorous, using absurdity and the

surprise to create impact.
• can be serious and sometimes dangerous or
even life-threatening.

Although we are focusing on “art” related

interventionist actions, intervention is used
a lot in political arenas to demonstrate in
support or against public policies, circumstances
or events.
• history dating back to Dada, Futurists, Surrealists:
DADAexamples

• Marcel Duchamp - Readymades

“Dada was principally a matter of questioning the artist's behavior as people envisaged it."

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Duchamp and Readymades, 1913

duchamp

• Ordinary objects placed within an unordinary setting: toliets, bottle racks, bicycle wheels signed
and placed within the formally structured context of a gallery.

• Move from “retinal art,” that which speaks to the eyes.

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Caberet voltaire

Sidenote: Caberet Voltaire

http://www.cabaretvoltaire.ch/about/english.php

• Caberet in Switzerland that opened in 1915, just after the beginning

Of World War 1.
• Many artists, writers, performers fled to Switzerland, a neutral country,
To escape the onslaught on the war.
• Caberet Voltaire opened by Hugo Ball, Emma Hemmings and others
and became a popular place for performances, spoken word & plays.
• The spirit of the cabaret was anarchism - open critique of events of the day.
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• history dating back to Dada, Futurists, Surrealists:
FUTURISTS

Futurists:

• Began in Italy in 1909 by an Italian writer by the name of Filippo Tommaso

Marinetti
•.Futurist Manifesto” which condemned anything past, and stressed
A view to the future and its innovations and promises:
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“Museums, cemeteries! …We want no part of it, the past…We
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are the young and strong Futurists!"

• The Futurists praised war as a means by which to cleanse society of the old
and create a tabla rasa (clean slate)

• Futurists worked in every medium including painting, sculpture, ceramics,

Text, design, architecture, literature, music, food, film fashion, theatre…
Aerial Mission by Tato, 1930
• history dating back to Dada, Futurists, Surrealists:
FUTURISTS

Futurists:

• Luigi Russolo - Noise Manifesto/The Art of Noise

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• history dating back to Dada, Futurists, Surrealists:
Surrealists

Surrealists:

• Emerged around 1925, following the Dadaist

• Experiments and interventions in images, processes and observations
within the landscape (rethinking and reimagining space)
• Work across disciplines - painting, photography, film, drawing, literature
• One group viewed the movement as producing work with philosophical and psychological
impact.
• Others, like Andre Breton, consider Surrealism as a movement that created real
political changes.

• Andre Breton: "simplest Surrealist act is an act of random assassination”

• “To those who urge us, whether for today or for tomorrow, to consent that art
should submit to a discipline which we hold to be radically incompatible with its nature,
we give a flat refusal and we repeat our deliberate intention of standing by the formula
complete freedom for art.

From MANIFESTO: TOWARDS A FREE REVOLUTIONARY ART

This manifesto was written by Andre Breton and Leon Trotsky in Mexico in the late 1930s.
Diego Rivera was a co-signatory.
• history dating back to Dada, Futurists, Surrealists:
Surrealists

Surrealists:

• errance - the desire to be led astray

• walking with a camera. Taking a picture when an alarm goes off.

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From Sophie Calle’s Suite Vénitienne

wod
PUBLIC VEHICLES
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HOMELESS VEHICLES
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HOMELESS VEHICLES
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HOMELESS VEHICLES
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HOMELESS VEHICLES
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HOMELESS VEHICLES
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LARGE SCALE PUBLIC PROJECTIONS

PROJECTIONS
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Washington square park

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Track the Trackers - gps, surveillance, public space

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From Sophie Calle’s Suite Vénitienne

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acconci
Vito Acconci, Following
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City system by Lee Walton

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World Heritage Beer Garden, Lijiang Studio Residency

Sarah Lewison
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C.1700

Mark Brest van Kempen

• futurist performances
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Anna banana

Anna Banana
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Degrees of confluence project

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Jenny Holtzer
 truisms

Projections
Truisms QuickTimeª and a
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Jenny Holtzer
 truisms

Projections QuickTimeª and a

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adaweb

Jenny Holtzer
Critical art ensemble
 Flash mobs

Improv everywhere
• Grand central station
• High 5
• pillow fight club
Monument intervention

A unique first at SFSU/CIA

Interventionist art/tactical media are actions that raise
questions about existing spaces, issues, topics, artworks
public assumptions. The actions can be web-based
(hacking), performance (actions in public spaces),
written (published manifestos).

Interventions can be authorized or illegal.