A study into the effects of using a system to

comment on itself
Eva Hoevenaar
In the essay: “Dispersion” (2002), Seth Price deals, among other things, with the possibility
of art in a non-art context. One of the questions that immediately arise is that: if art were to
be presented in this way, would it also lose its status as “Art”? This is a question of which the
opposite has been asked at least a million times as well: If something were to be presented in
an art context, would that thing then immediately become art?

In his essay, Seth Price theorizes about the possibilities and consequences of an art that
“insinuates into the culture at large”, thereby perhaps losing its value along the way. In doing
so, he does not adhere to standard ideas of how an essay should be written; it is part of an
ongoing investigation, changing as times change. Quotes and references are not used according
to scientific standards and the essay does not have a clear beginning, middle and end. It feels
most like an ongoing stream of thoughts, dealing with similar subjects, asking no single clear
question and definitely not providing clear answers.
It is unusually designed, or un-designed, even further distinguishing itself from ‘traditional’
essays.

One of the effects of this is that it becomes possible to remain deliberately vague, personal,
without being criticized in the same way a traditional essay would be.

Another element in play is the fact that Price works as an artist himself. The essay itself is
directly an example of the sort of insinuation into culture he is describing, and therefore, the
essay is put into an art-context itself.

This commenting on a system by making use of the system is something seen more often in the
art world, and a phenomenon that I find particularly interesting
A project where the use of this way of working is particularly important is “Enjoy Poverty,
Episode 3” (2009) By Renzo Martens. In the following text I will try to define its use of this
strategy, and effects on the artwork.

For the making of this documentary, Mr. Martens travelled to the Congo with the message that
since the situation in Africa is not going to improve, the Africans are better off profiting from
their own misery.

He made an artwork with which he travelled through the country, consisting of large neon
letters in the words “Enjoy Poverty”.

He takes under his wing a couple of young men, currently trying to make a living as
photographers and teaches them that if they were to take photos of situations of extreme
poverty rather than parties and joyous occasions, they could essentially do the same work as
any western reporter, and get paid the same rates.

His message is that the Congo’s most lucrative export product right now is filmed and reported
on poverty. And just like their other export products, The Congo is the last to profit.

The film was screened at the opening of the IDFA film festival in Amsterdam where it was mostly
received with anger and indignation,
Predominately because of several confronting scenes where Martens treats the extreme and
sometimes inhuman situations with carelessness and cynicism. He is accused of being vain,
cynical, uncaring, of giving the young men “false hope”, of profiting of the misery of the
Congolese living in extreme poverty, of provocation for the sake of provocation.

What’s interesting here is that these are exactly the things that he is accusing the world of
documentary making of, in this project. He openly states in interviews that: yes, he is taking
advantage of these people but no more than any documentary maker filming a more traditional
project about poverty in the third world.

So we have a project that criticizes the way information about certain countries is brought to
us, and the huge amounts of money that change hands in the process. Very directly he mentions
reporters and filmmakers sent to these countries in order to record the extreme situations
there, obviously without directly interfering otherwise, and getting paid a neat sum for it.

This project is set up partially as exactly what is being criticized, the film is, in fact, filmed in
the Congo, shows poverty at its most extreme and confronting, is well made as a documentary,
and presented on the opening night of a documentary film festival that is known for the large
amount of third-world projects that are involved in it. Of course it is bringing the maker
publicity and profit.

It becomes easy to draw the conclusion that Renzo Martens is using himself and his work as an
example of what he is criticizing.

I think there are several main layers of information here:

First there is Martens’ statement: development aid is not working, poverty is Africa’s largest
export product, filmmakers and reporters are profiting of other people’s misery.

This statement is not new, nor is it terribly controversial. This could have been a single topic to
base a work on, which would have been perhaps slightly confronting, but easy to do away with
as just one persons’ misguided opinion.

Then there is his opinion that the Congolese can do the profiting themselves, he makes a
hopeful start by training the photographers.

This is where it becomes hard to say how sincere he is. I think this is also the point where the
film becomes more than a documentary, he applies logic to the existing system of information
and turns it in on itself, if there is a demand for this product, and obviously Congo has a surplus
of it, why can’t the country be the one to export it? It makes the film poignant, gives the viewer
someone to identify with, whom they want to succeed.

There is also the fact that the film is a documentary. And, at first, it seems to communicate
exactly how we expect a documentary to.

This places him in the context and language of what he is criticizing and this is where we
enter into the point I wish to explore. I would say that If the project had just operated in the
art world it would have not nearly been so successful in creating an uprising. It is so poignant
because it is inescapable for the people it criticizes, it says: I am one of you, this is what you
are doing.

In the film he walks around wearing a straw hat, native Congolese following him, carrying his
bags for him, he is singing. When asked why later, he replies that this is what Bono, (U2) did
when he was there. I think a fine line is being walked here, too much of a caricature would
make it possible to turn away from the film again, if Martens would have been too much of a
nice guy, he would fail to make his point. Because it is hard to say if he is an artist of activist
trying to change the system, or an cold-hearted tv-maker out to make money, no clear opinion
can be formed and the project itself has to be faced.

Another layer of information is the fact that Martens calls himself an artist, the documentary is
paired with a sculpture, the film is exhibited in museums and galleries, besides more traditional
locations for a documentary.

This allows him to step outside the criticism and asks for a closer look at the situation. Because
‘if a project is an art project, it could be that the artist is not saying what he means in order to
make a point’, is how the reasoning goes.

I think the biggest strength of the project in this case is its inescapability. There are many
comments on the current system for development aid, on the way information about Africa is
brought to us, but they are easy to turn away from. A book can be closed, can be not bought,
for a filmmaker however, a well made documentary at an influential film festival is hard to turn
away from.

There is the need for defense, Martens, by acting as one of a group, speaks for the group, and
forces filmmakers and reporters to debate his position. Which turns out to be hard, his project
can’t be denied, but it is hard to objectively deny his point, he is effectively forcing a debate.
This is something that’s very hard to do with either an artwork that works as an artwork or
an all-open critique. Both are easy to put away as belonging to a separate system, unable to
comment on another, this is obviously not the case in Enjoy Poverty.

Another effect is that it calls for a certain self-criticism. Because it is a self-referring thing that
is critical about a system that it is a part of, it becomes implied in watching it that it should
be held up against its own critique. Because Martens is criticizing our system of information
about Africa, while informing us about it, he criticizes his own project as well. For me it follows
that he has to be aware of this and this gives me the idea that his way of communicating was
designed to reach a maximum effect in the viewer. I become very aware of the act of viewing,
my role in consuming the information and Martens’ role as information giver. In this way the
project validates itself, because it already criticizes itself it implies that the state you find
yourself in while viewing is designed, the project is placed above critique. This is further
enhanced by the Martens’ status as artist, it is expected that when an ‘artist’ is a ‘filmmaker’,
there must be some (conceptual) merit in even the worst looking film.

I think this is proven when reading the sort of criticism the film received, there is a lot of
undirected anger. And the explanations for the strong feelings that the film calls forth tend to
be a little unsatisfactory. They are personally directed against ‘bad guy’ Martens, and accuse
the film of: guess what? Profiting of the poverty of the Congolese population.

This strategy for art, to work with issues, force debate and make a direct difference, is
described in the essay “Over-Identification” by the collective BAVO. They see it as a strategy for
art or activism to give effective critique in a world where critique is looked down upon when it
can’t give solutions as well. It is stated that nowadays, a popular strategy for authorities is to
self-criticize, making outside critique effectively useless.
By over-identifying with an opponent’s goals, advocating them as enthusiastically as they never
would their own, the company, government or other type of power structure is embarrassed, to
deny their affiliation is to alienate their followers, to accept it is to alienate others at an equal
level.

In view or Price’s essay, and keeping in mind the strategy of using a system to comment on
itself, I would like to mention the example of Ryan Trecartins’ work I-BE AREA

The original film is an hour and 48 minutes long, but has been broadcasted on YouTube, cut up
into 5 minute bits, in random order.

It is very fast-paced and dramatic, and relates a story of too many characters to name that
intertwines and folds in on itself as it deals with subjects like cloning, adoption and online
identities. The stories take place in separate areas (online?) that reflect moods and their
occupants, but also always, very directly, the ‘real’ world.

The film is an example where it would be hard to state the precise objective of the maker. It
can’t be escaped, however, that the film is born from a certain way of communicating that
comes with specific media and a specific time. In this case it is the online network YouTube, the
internet, reality television and television networks like Mtv.

Trecartin speaks on the subject in interviews, where he states his fascination with the fact that
humanity is currently living in a time of overwhelming transition, where technology evolves
much faster than our understanding of it. “We’re creating and participating in a new natural
that we know nothing about yet. It’s like discovering fire and aliens at the same time.”

By nearly all objective means, the film should be and is impossible to watch, with storylines that
are constantly interrupted and wind in on themselves. However, it does make such efficient use
of the known and popular way of communicating that is associated with contemporary television
making, that it becomes something that is intuitively watchable and possible to follow,
entertaining and mesmerizing.

I BE-AREA feels like an over-the-top glorification of the aforementioned system of

communication. Like its negative sides have been blown out of proportion and layered and
combined into this film. The idea comes to mind that it should be hard to follow, annoying to
watch, impossible to understand, but the fact that it is not becomes quite apparent. This faces
me as viewer with questions about the media that are being referenced, and the difference
between time I live in where this way of communicating is possible, and any other time in the
past where it obviously was not.

One could say this is a similar strategy to BAVO’s political Over-Identification, of which Martens’
work is an example. In Trecartin’s case, the strategy’s ability to force the observer into an
opinion and at the same time deny the information needed to ‘place’ the project, is used
differently.
Rather than criticizing a specific body, and asking for radical change, Trecartin asks questions
about the time we live in.
However, I would say that the process is similar. I-BE AREA is so obviously grown from and a part
of the topic it questions that the only thing that sets it apart is the fact that it is completely
exaggerated, and obviously designed.

This confrontation is more personal: if I feel like I should not recognize this, and yet it is
intuitively a reflection of parts of everyday life for me, what does that say about the life I live,
the time I live in?

It might be different for an older generation; there could be a confrontation between their
inability to understand I-BE AREA, and the realization that it is a product of contemporary
media.

Another difference is that in Trecartins’ work, the element of self-criticism is not so apparent to
me; perhaps because the film is set up as a wild ride rather than something I have control over. I
think it also has to do with the fact that the way the film is brought to the larger public, through
YouTube, or with the knowledge that it is widely available, is something where alterations and
mistakes are implied.

In I-BE AREA there is another element that is particularly interesting, and that ties in with
Seth Price’s essay: the fact that this project not only reflects on today’s media and ways of
communicating and storytelling, it also manages to create an ‘artspace’ on Youtube, where it
functions as an example of what Price calls for in his essay.

This can be seen when one reads the comments on YouTube for I-BE AREA, only a few of them
express confusion or the lack of comprehension, because the online comments treat the work as
art, (perhaps because they are from people that know the project?) another layer of information
is added, they effectively explain how to look at the project. It would be a shame if the
comments section somehow crowded over with “I don’t understand” messages, but even so, this
added feature of YouTube seems to work well with Trecartins’ films.

In “Dispersion” the author calls for a certain type of art, of at least theorizes about its
possibilities, and because his essay does not function entirely as a traditional essay it becomes
natural to apply his process of thinking to his own work. In doing so, I find it harder and harder
not to see the essay itself as an attempted answer to the questions it poses.

Even the choice not to use references and quotations according to the rules fits with the
dispersed situation he sketches, where archivation and methods of publication make the work.
The essay is published on his website and freely downloadable in .pdf form, where it seems to
work better than in a printed version.

Again, to me, what happens is almost a call for criticism, because I become aware that the
essay is being elevated to ‘art’ status, I automatically hold it up to its own light to test it
according to its own reasoning. Does the essay work as a work of art?

Again this process seems in line with the essay’s investigation. In ‘Dispersion’ it is not nearly
as important to me if this was the author’s intention but it can’t be denied that his choice for
this way of working self-criticizes and creates awareness around the act of reading, and raises
questions about the authors’ presence. For me, this cancels my doubts and makes the essay
function as a work of art in essay shape.

I can imagine that there is a danger in using this method of communicating as well, in all three
cases, the fact that the project self-criticizes and functions in an art system as well as a system
outside of art, means that it becomes nigh-impossible to criticize from within the first system. A
reporter in Africa could hardly criticize Martens on his means of communicating, and it is almost
impossible to say that “Dispersion” is a badly written essay because it’s chaotic and vague.

Like Price mentions in his essay, contemporary art seems to always be more or less conceptual,
and I think there is a risk of seeing every mildly unusual gesture in the art world as a comment
on the system. This makes everything worthwile, and effectively, worthless.

However, the question that follows is if this is a bad thing. If art can exist outside the traditional
‘art’ space, perhaps it can create space and leeway for comments on other systems, perhaps
the usage of the word ‘Art’ (capitalized) can create attention for other projects and valuable
experiences, that would have otherwise been ignored.

If anything, identifying with systems as a strategy for opening them up, exposing them as flawed
or gaining new perspectives on them seems like a strategy ideally cut out for contemporary art.