A NEWER FORM OF OPEN SCORE
New Incrementalism
Cast of Characters
Zachary Kaplan: A man in his 30s
Britney Tan: A woman in her 20s
Alex Haraway: A woman in her 40s
Alyssa Mak: A woman in her 20s
Scene
New Museum theatre
Time
The recent present
ACT I
SCENE I
SETTING: We are in the basement level theatre of New Museum
ZACHARY
Hi everyone, good morning. I'm Zachary Kaplan, I'm the executive director of Rhizome. I think so far the Open Score panels have been really amazing and I'm so glad we can, uh, keep going.
(coughs)
As soon as I saw Petra Cortright's and Diana Al-Hadid's beautiful new work I knew I wanted to incorporate it into a piece for Open Score, I just wasn't sure how to do it. This panel, New Incrementalism, will discuss the meaning of slight, often barely perceptible changes in the context of Petra Cortright's recent series Incremental Fatalism, and Diana Al-Hadid's show Increments of Relent.
Rhizome as an organization collects and preserves born digital art, but today I want to focus on the social infrastructure art emerges from. At Rhizome dot org our Artist Profiles and editorials provide context for the relationship between art and artist. In these features we hear from the artist firsthand about their practice, or learn contextualizing information and analysis in editorial criticism.
If social interactions and environmental conditioning determine individual personality and behavior, then I think there's a big piece missing from our work at Rhizome; we never examine the relationship between the art and the artist's friends, in order to establish the context for how an artist became who they are through friendships and influences outside the art world.
I'm excited that through today's conversation we will get to know two people who, through incremental interaction over the years, have shaped the artists and their work as we know it. Both Petra Cortright's and Diana Al-Hadid's works are meticulously additive; layers and layers are added over time to achieve a complex visual field. Similarly the panelists have known the artists for years, and each of their interactions add new layers to the friendship, gradually altering the overall impression to an observer.
The first panelist I want to introduce is Britney Tan. Britney is a childhood friend of Petra Cortright, and is now living in Berlin.
BRITNEY
Thanks Zach! Happy to be here.
ZACHARY
The next panelist is Alex Haraway. Alex has over 20 years of experience as a psychology researcher and therapist. Alex has known Diana Al-Hadid for the past six years.
ALEX
I remember it was late summer when I started working with Diana so it's been five and a half years, not six. Just to clarify.
ZACHARY
...
Of course, this is Open Score, and a tacit part of our agenda is to direct panelist appearance fees to our friends. So I also invited art writer, designer and novelist Alyssa Mak to join us today.
ALYSSA
I love the attention you're putting, Zach, on the verbal evolution of art. The repetition of "increment" of course, but also the syntax and author's voice in the titles "Increments of Relent," "New Incrementalism" and "Incremental Fatalism." Al-Hadid is using the language of dramatic poetry, or even a Matthew Barney film title. Our panel title is declarative but ultimately vague and meaningless, which works perfectly for panels since the content-our discussion-isn't created until after the panel is named. Cortright's title is my favorite here, since it gains new meaning in the context of her as author; the drama and seriousness of the title turn to humor in the circumstance of artist as self-aware trickster.
Britney, can you tell me more about the title "Incremental Fatalism" and Cortright's relationship with language?
BRITNEY
Oh, I don't know. You mean like why Petra named it that?
ALYSSA
Yes.
BRITNEY
I don't know. We never talked about it before.
ALYSSA
How does the title relate to Cortright's previous titles, or to her art itself?
BRITNEY
Um, sorry I don't know actually.
ZACHARY
Britney and Alex, I'd love to hear your perspective on Petra's and Diana's work. How does being personally close to the artist augment your experience of their work?
BRITNEY
Uh, yeah sorry I don't know. I mean Petra and I text everyday but mostly about what we are up to, looking forward to, daily frustrations and stuff, or like what books we are reading. We don't really talk about her art that much. And we don't really talk about my job either.
ALEX
Zach, I'm interested in your use of the phrase "personally close" here. It's an intentionally flexible phrase, allowing the subject of the question to project meaning onto it, thus revealing what the term means to them as an individual. In my case, I have met with Diana for years, but–as previously stated–in the context of a doctor-patient relationship. So while she and I have spent hours talking candidly, which certainly qualifies under some interpretations of the word "close," I do not consider the doctor-patient relationship to be "personal" exactly.
ALYSSA
Is the artistic output of a patient a data point you use in assessment and treatment? Do you look at Diana Al-Hadid's art?
BRITNEY
Wait, do you, like, Google search your patients? How much do you know about them in addition to what they tell you in person?
ALEX
Interesting question, I'm not sure if I can answer. The main aspect of doctor-patient confidentiality is clearly defined: anything a patient says to me will not be shared with anyone else, except to protect the patient or others from serious harm. Your question I suppose addresses confidentiality of my practice itself...which I guess is not protected.
(Laughs) OK, sure, I'll tell you. Yeah, of course I Google my patients, or at least the interesting ones. I'm busy I don't have time to do all of them.
ALYSSA
And what do you think of Al-Hadid's art?
ALEX
It's good. I mean, I like art and Diana's work is beautiful and strange. But it's a little too abstract I guess, for me to know how it could have direct impact on my work with her. Her interviews or artist talks might be more personally revealing but watching those would take too much time so I actually haven't gotten around to it.
ZACHARY
Alex and Britney, can you tell us a little about yourselves personally, and how you met the artists?
BRITNEY
Well I grew up in Northern California. Now I live and work in Berlin, doing marine biology research, specifically studying the recent history of microscopic or slightly larger lifeforms. Oh, and by "recent history" I mean the past 50,000 years.
I met Petra in sixth grade. I was transferring into the K to 8 school Petra had gone to her whole life, and the school assigned Petra to me as my orientation buddy, to show me around and stuff. I hated that school, but I have to admit Petra and I got along pretty much instantly so whoever assigned her to me knew what they were doing or got lucky. Our first conversation was about the Brian Jacques series Redwall (laughs).
ZACHARY
What about you, Alex?
ALEX
The typical impulse in response to "tell us about yourself" is to provide a broad biographical outline, oriented to highlights of professional achievement, or otherwise tailored to the audience. Being as I am a panelist at a museum, but not an artist myself, it's not immediately clear to me what thematic emphasis I'm supposed choose in my answer.
BRITNEY
I mean, you could just talk about yourself, or your personality. I always really wonder what my therapists are like on their own time, or what they do for fun. Or just tell us something interesting.
ALEX
(Laughs) I'm not practiced at talking about myself but I can try for you.
What I am like on my own time, or what I do for fun... I read a lot, so, Britney, you and I have that in common. I just read an amazing Ken Saro-Wiwa novel about the Biafran War called Sozaboy, and have been trying to find someone else who's read Sozaboy to talk about it with... I watch a lot of TV shows and movies.
I was working on a screenplay for a feature film for a while, and tried reworking it as a TV show, until–well, this is embarrassing but funny I guess. Which, probably qualifies perfectly for "just interesting." So I was working and reworking the screenplay, and one day ended up telling a patient about it. Kids growing up in suburban isolation, unable to meet or connect with other people with the same interests and personalities they have. And it's in the late 90s when the internet existed but their families didn't own computers yet so, to them, the internet didn't exist at all.
Anyway my patient told me the story was dumb and compared it to Forrest Gump. And they were right (laughs). So I stopped and haven't worked on it since.
ZACHARY
What are the ways you have impact on the artistic output of your friends?
BRITNEY
I don't know. I do love Petra's art. It's beautiful. And, as her friend, I feel like I have a deep understanding of what art has meant to her through various phases of her life. Like as a creative outlet, or as a source of validation and recognition for her skill and expertise. And how the actual way she works and paints is like a personal interior world that no one else can inhabit, and is completely hers, and how important that is.
My impact on that world is nothing specific. Just the way we are friends, and what friendship means. Like friendship is a source of fun, or intellectual stimulation, or the comfort of connecting with someone else who understands you. Who you can be your real self around without pretending to be someone else. So, in that way I guess, the fact that Petra has close friends like me or whoever else, probably enables her art or creative process in some way. Like without friends, her art might be more about isolation or something.
ALEX
Like Britney is saying, mental health, or self-reflection or any other clarity that comes from therapy almost certainly has an impact on Diana's work.
That said, there are many subtle ways individuals influence each other by acting as role models. Mostly it's our human instinct for mimicry, that when we see others around us acting certain ways we unconsciously want to imitate them. And sometimes it can be a conscious decision too, that we see a friend doing something we admire and want to try it too. And in groups, or just between two individuals, it's not always clear who started something, the two can amplify certain traits that are echoed between them.
BRITNEY
That totally reminds me of how I end up influencing friends to be healthier. I mostly don't talk about it in like a didactic way, but eating a healthy diet, fitness, and getting enough sleep are really important to me.
ZACHARY
I next want to ask a question that puts us all on equal footing. What is the last really great art you saw? Regardless of our roles within the art industry–our positions as creators or audience, commentators or participants–as individuals we always retain our role as observers. Alyssa?
ALYSSA
I haven't seen good art in months. I don't remember, it's kind of like "when did you get a six pack?" I actually don't remember but it just happened vaguely in the past year. I remember two specific pieces where I had an overwhelming nonverbal epiphany after seeing them. It's the desire for stress relief and a new internal architecture from which to perceive the world. Amazing art didn't change me overnight, and for weeks after I thought that I was still the same person. But that was obviously untrue, it changes everything. I felt like exactly the same person and, I think, I treated people the same as before. But that was so clearly untrue. Everything changed.
It was Hito Steyerl, The Tower and ExtraSpaceCraft at the Berlin Biennale.
I am rarely struck by formalist beauty these days, like purely from visual aspects. I used to be shocked by raw beauty more often, such as in a Winslow Homer seascape or Kay Sage dreamscape. But now, I only find that magnitude of beauty and fascination in the concepts and interior mental epiphany art can activate in me. Like Sara Ludy's work with digital sculpture or Makoto Aida's drawings about the media's consumption of women's bodies.
ALEX
I don't know the last time I saw art that really meant a lot to me. I love museums but I haven't been to one in more than a year. The last time... it was a snowy day and by coincidence 3 sessions in a row were canceled so I walked to the Frick Collection. I remember being struck by the beauty of the Frick Mansion, and the old master paintings in the collection. And struck by the sadness of the exploitation and oppression that generated enough wealth to establish the collection and museum. Enacted by Henry Frick as chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, and financier of Pennsylvania Railroad, upon immigrant laborers and the disempowered. I wandered through the halls and central atrium wondering if it was worth it. It wasn't.
If the Frick Collection lasts literally one million years, or temples in Egypt or any ancient monarchy, the beauty and enjoyment we gain as observers won't be enough to make up for the pain, suffering, oppression and slavery needed to build it.
BRITNEY
Aren't there a million good unknown artists all the time, why does the art industry have to be so centralized and focused on really expensive art? I mean obviously the art industry is incentivized to inflate the prices of artwork so they can earn more money, I just mean it's ridiculous and not fair.
ZACHARY
Are you advocating for commodification of art?
BRITNEY
Um I just mean if beauty in art isn't scarce we don't need to act like it's so exclusive. The beauty you seek in art isn't that hard to find, or that hard to activate your own personal reaction that you think you're perceiving beauty. If anything, isn't it your own fault if you are incapable of finding beauty in art, or just in the world around you?
Whatever, I just mean it's stupid that art is so expensive but the fault doesn't lie with the artist or even gallerists, I'm not blaming you or them. The problem is wealth inequality.
ALYSSA
I'm reminded of how Hal Foster describes his first experience with art, and why he is a critic instead of an artist. He talked about this in his panel with Ben Lerner at Frieze last year, and he's written about it before too.
Anyway Foster tells the story of being 12 years old in Seattle, at his best friend's house, and in the living room where they don't really hang out usually Foster looks at this painting they have for the first time. It's abstract, and he thinks two things. That it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. And why do they have it and his family doesn't? Foster says it's this instinct for social criticism, and resentment, that makes him ineluctably an art critic instead of an artist.
And the painting was a Rothko (laughs).
BRITNEY
Wait what was the painting?
ALYSSA
Mark Rothko is famous for making, like, big squares of color and it's beautiful and abstract or whatever.
BRITNEY
(laughs)
ALEX
That is a great story, and it's especially great that a child can love abstract art with none of the social context we have like which artists are famous and supposed to be good and we are supposed to like. Foster as a 12 year old didn't know who Rothko was, or that he was supposed to love it. So this is like a control experiment proving Rothko is good (laughs).
ALYSSA
Exactly. If we were real formalists we wouldn't need any context for the art or even to know the artists' names. The work would stand on its own, above the artist.
BRITNEY
Like the transition in an author's career when their name is bigger on the cover than the book's title.
ZACHARY
Britney what is your experience in a museum like, or when you're surrounded by art professionals? To me, art is my favorite thing in the world, and my obsession. And it's my job and how I make money. So on a fundamental level, when I'm in a museum, or just discussing art, I am surrounded by the thing that gives me sustenance. Art gives me nourishment. Intellectually and socially and emotionally and monetarily so literally I buy food with money I make in this world. How is that different for you? Or for you, Alex? What do you think about when you look at art?
BRITNEY
I guess when I go to a museum it's just for fun. And I'm mostly unaware of which artists are famous or good. I love art like paintings where I can see brush strokes the artist's hands made. I imagine what the artist was like, where they were when they made this piece, what the room was like. As though the artist and I are connected across time by placing our full attention on this object.
And I imagine what the painting has seen. What it saw, sitting in the artist's studio for days or months or years. Locked in dark crates, shipped to galleries or museums or homes. And I wonder if it misses the artist and being touched and shaped, or if it's more fun to be in a museum and see everyone walking around. What does a painting want? Are paintings happy or sad to hang on a wall all day? How can we help paintings achieve their dreams? But that's mostly like me being silly when I'm getting bored at a museum (laughs).
ALEX
As I mentioned a little earlier, at museums I mostly think about the social and economic context for the pieces. What are the systems that enabled these artists to make their work, and what systems chose these artists to be displayed and acclaimed. Who are the workers the patrons or collectors stand on, or who the artist does.
In a way the specific exploited group is different for every aesthetic movement, depending on time period and geography. Feudal peasantry, agriculture, textiles. Colonialism of course. Industrial revolutions across the world. And always finance and banks.
ALYSSA
Good question, I hadn't thought about it exactly but my default context for examining work is, I think, about media and connectivity. It feels like all contemporary art is a reaction to the global connectivity of the internet and digital sharing. Twentieth century art feels like it's almost always about modernization, and mass media like TV, radio and newspapers. And for much older, medieval art, I always feel intensely and personally the loneliness and isolation these artists must have had. Religious art was everything then, and people had no exposure to anything beyond where they were born or any other circumstances out of their control.
To answer the other part of the question, art is my job, like you Zach, but it's also so much a daily grind that I feel distanced from it. I don't just get to write about art I love; I write about art that is new or famous or will generate clicks and ad revenue. And I don't write to express and discover my own thoughts and feelings about art; I write clearly and concisely–or sardonically in the right situation–in a way that aims to satisfy my readers so they keep generating more ad revenue, I mean keep reading and stay on the site. So I end up feeling out of touch with the original love and fascination for art that got me here.
ALEX
And actually when my client is an artist or art professional, I am being paid with money they made in the art world so indirectly I make my living from the art world and need it too (laughs).
ZACHARY
I've always felt lucky that I enjoy my job, and I don't feel burnt out the way other friends have over the years, kind of like how you're talking about it, Alyssa. In a way I have a very long attention span, so I can get through the necessary and annoying or repetitive tasks I have to do, and still feel good about the fun or rewarding parts of my work.
Overall, do you enjoy your jobs?
ALEX
"I enjoy my job" is something I tell myself to survive. My job is... well it is exactly what it is, the sum of its parts. It's a paid position of regular employment. Depending how the question is framed, the answer can be yes I enjoy that I support myself and use the money to pay rent or buy food or buy things I take pleasure in or donate to help others. And I enjoy having a positive impact on the lives of my clients, and I enjoy exhibiting skill or mastery and getting better at my role as therapist. But do I enjoy waking up when I'm tired, or having 10 appointments a day when I'm more in the mood to read a book at home, or do anything else in world? (laughs)
ALYSSA
Kinda same. I mean it's a grind. This job is a really good early step in my career. I'm gaining a lot of great experience, meeting a lot of great people, and yeah it's fun a lot of the time. But obviously I don't enjoy it in the visceral way I enjoy a rave, like when Suzanne Kraft plays French Kiss at seven AM, or Scuba plays 3 hours of Aurora Halal tracks.
And, like you Alex, making money to support myself is huge. My parents were always really conflicted on my career choice. Most of the time they really pressured me into conventional jobs like being a mechanical engineer or lawyer or something. But sometimes they would see that art is what I love more than anything and they wanted me to have the opportunity they didn't, to work with something I really loved. So just making enough money to support myself so my parents don't think they were total failures motivates me a lot (laughs).
BRITNEY
(Laughs) You know I always felt like my parents breathed a sigh of relief and started to like Petra a lot more once they were sure I was going to be a scientist. Like they didn't have to worry about an artist being a bad influence on their daughter's career choice anymore (laughs).
Kinda unlike you guys I actually love the main parts of my job. I love collecting data in the field, I love working in the lab, and I love interpreting my findings and the work of others in my writing. Not to, like, rub it in but I get to work alone a lot when I want to and I also get to collaborate with others when I want.
Work still pisses me off plenty, like every sexist racist idiot in my department who asks me out or tries to unload their emotional problems on me and expects my sympathy or help or something. And all the men who don't take my published research seriously, or republish my findings and get all the credit.
ALYSSA
Oh my god totally. And I don't enjoy the lower pay I get compared to men working my same job.
BRITNEY
Despite all that, I also love the real world impact and larger legacy my scientific research contributes to, like leading to incremental environmentalism.
ZACHARY
What do you mean by incremental environmentalism?
BRITNEY
Well the point of my biology research is to gather data and evidence on causal relationships between habitat and marine population health. Then my data and findings are analyzed in comparison to findings from other scientists studying different life forms, different environmental factors, different regions or different time periods.
And eventually our published research might impact decisions individuals make about pollution and consumption. Like do I buy clothes I don't really need, manufactured by low paid women living in poverty in Bangladesh. Or impact bigger decisions, like should I have kids. Or decisions not even from individuals like should city/state/federal government regulate plastic bags, or should corporations reduce inefficient water consumption habits and other pollutants.
ALEX
Hm, so the point of research like yours is to contribute, on a small scale or indirectly, to improving individual quality of life.
In comparison to your work, as a therapist I am trying to improve the lives of individuals directly, by working with them one-on-one. And I have always felt that even if I improve someone's life only by a very small margin, or only temporarily, it's worth it. By helping them manage depression or anxiety or anything else, successful therapy doesn't mean curing someone or making them completely happy all the time. Compare someone miserably depressed all the time, to someone miserably depressed who gets to feel OK for one hour. That might make a huge difference to them. Feeling better briefly is worth it.
And rationally, by extension, I have to think it's the same even if I don't know them personally, or work with them directly. Having a small positive impact on someone on other side of planet is just as important as a small impact on someone I know.
BRITNEY
I'm interested in individual actions where, if everyone did it, the world would be a better place. And I'm really interested in which of these actions are binary and which are, um, incremental.
Voting for example, where it's really important that everyone do it. But if not enough people vote for your candidate, it's the same outcome as if no one did. But for pollution and environmentalism, each tiny reduction in carbon emissions has a direct impact on the rate of global warming, or each animal not killed is one fewer animal living a life of tortured pain.
ALYSSA
Good example. I feel pretty defeatist when it comes to environmentalism or animal rights, but you're right, unlike voting each individual contribution does have an impact even if it's hard to measure.
ZACHARY
We're almost out of time, thanks so much everyone for being part of this.
ALEX
Thank you for having me. It's actually been really eye opening to be part of this panel, and to meet people who really love Diana's art. I didn't understand the direct positive impact her work has on people's lives. It makes me appreciate, in kind of a naive awestruck way, how little we know about even close friends or acquaintances. I actually wish Diana were here herself, since I know she doesn't get much direct feedback on her art from the people who love it and are inspired by it. She would have no idea if a family went to her show at the San Jose Museum of Art and loved it, what emotions they felt as individuals, or what that shared experience meant for them as a family.
BRITNEY
Thank you, Alex, it's really great to meet you. A lot of the time I never feel like I click or really connect with Petra's friends in the art world. Partly I feel self-conscious about not being an artist myself, as though when they ask what I do and I say I'm a biologist, they are disappointed. That they wanted me to say I'm an artist or gallerist or someone else who can help them social climb (laughs). But I really enjoyed hearing about your life and perspectives.
And I made a note earlier, I'm definitely going to read Sozaboy. Thanks for the recommendation. I just read Half of a Yellow Sun last week.
ALEX
Oh, I'm really happy to hear that. We'll have to keep in touch after you read it.
Zach, how do you think the panel went? I was really nervous before this, I had no idea what I would talk about, or what the panel was supposed to be about, or how I would be relevant to it. Did we perform satisfactorily?
ZACHARY
Oh definitely, you were all amazing.
There are a few metrics for evaluating how a panel went. On a really fundamental level, silences are the biggest indicator that a panel failed. And the three of you totally talked the entire time, so that was great. On top of speaking continuously, everything you said while I was paying attention–and not secretly checking my phone under the table–was coherent and interesting. I think there were about 14 times that people laughed, and that seemingly sincere expression of emotion was great too. Audiences love that.
A slightly more grim metric for success is how many tickets are sold. We don't put on Open Score just to make money, but selling tickets does indicate that people are engaged and appreciate the events we put on. We actually didn't sell that many tickets today, probably because, well, you aren't famous artists like the other panels. But I'm still very happy with how it came out, this panel does a lot to demonstrate Rhizome is conceptually playful and experimental. And hopefully a lot of people talk about us on social media.
My personal favorite metric for the success of our panels is when the participants genuinely enjoy each other's company, and start to become friends literally onstage during the panel. I want Rhizome as an institution to feel personal and to never be intimidating, so helping artists or other participants form fun social relationships is crucial. Additionally, I think it's fun for the audience too. Even if it's voyeuristic, watching other people become friends satisfies some of the feelings for social warmth or human connection I have myself.