Altered States

Altered States

Edited and designed by Laura Davidson.

Featuring work by Beverley Bennett, Charley Peters and Paul Mendez

12-Pages Issue 8: Altered States

Introduction by Laura Davidson

“A revolutionary action within culture cannot have as its aim to be the expression or analysis of life; it must aim at life’s expansion. Misery must be pushed back everywhere.”
Guy Debord

The European Avant-Garde set a precedent for art as a force to transform the cultural and social landscape. It was seen by some as a break out agent attempting to shift the dominant powers that had ravaged the continental landscape during the First World War. Almost 100 years later, art has become synonymous with selling, consumption and the ‘market’. Questions need to be raised about how art practice can reclaim and challenge prevailing powers, without being echoed by the capitalist mainstream. Art, it feels, has lost its radical edge. The exhibition Radicals and Non-Conformists at London’s National Portrait Gallery curated by TBC founder Beverley Bennett, showcased work inspired by radicals in the 19th Century. Further work was produced for the previous issue of 12-pages. It still remains elusive whether art today has the capability or desire to challenge the society it is inhabiting. The theme for Altered States arose from a reading of Gene Ray’s essay Avant-Gardes and Anti-Capitalist Vector published in Third Text, May 2007.

In the article Ray sets out various revolutionary hypotheses derived from the theoretical. The overall impression is that art has to develop an ability to be: nomadic (in reference to Deleuze and Guttari), uncompromising and unaware of it’s own significance. The importance of art in culture, Ray claims, is stopping art practice from becoming Avant-Garde once more. Art needs to escape. Revolutionary actions are not to be uncovered exclusively in the atelier of the contemporary practitioner. Instead, suggestions for the living artist are to look beyond the discipline of art, look toward revolutions in science and medicine, creativity in protest and transgressive lifestyles, still hidden and being newly formed. Not much different from the approaches of the now canonised André Breton, Alexander Rodchenko, Claude Cahun and Marcel Duchamp. How we now navigate through these ideas in a post-post modern world seems heavy laden with social responsibility. Almost so heavy in fact, it could lead to a creative block. A breaking free needs to be started off small, like the woman in the Netherlands who escaped from prison by digging a hole with a spoon.

The Altered States brief simply asked contributors to consider art as a catalyst for change. It was important that these ideas were considered in the widest possible sense, to bring a sense of plurality to a changed state. As we know too well, the drive for a reformed state in Europe post WW1 lead to in Germany, Italy and Spain the spectre of Fascism and in the East of Europe the steel face of Communism. Such extremes of belief today seem less significant in the age of Web 2.0, where multiple states of exchange between individuals can seemingly co-exist. As 12-pages’ editorial remit is to create a discourse around contemporary drawing practice and it’s definition, the featured outcomes additionally challenge the ‘drawing’ in some way.

Altered States will be published on 12-Pages, Tuesday 19th July.

12-Pages Online Project Space Call for Submissions - Issue 8

Roger Hiorns, Untitled, 2008. Atomised passenger aircraft engine.

TBC Artists' Collective has now announced an open call for submissions to its July 12-Pages Online Project Space. Applicants are asked to make a new artwork in response to the theme of 'ALTERED STATES'.

The Avant-Garde was a crucial force in transforming the cultural landscape of Europe after the bloodshed of the First World War. Cultural production became an important element of social and political transformation. Art became a way to question and protest against the established powers. The artist became a revolutionary figure. Today artistic production is synonymous with  the world's most dominant ideology: capitalism. The artist is tied to the art world and the art market.

Taking inspiration from the events of the Arab spring and the reaction to the public spending cuts in the UK this year, July’s 12-Pages brief aims to focus on artistic practice as a catalyst for change. However, it is important to make clear that the work submitted does not have to be overtly based on political struggle. Work produced should evidence the process of art making as an agent of change, which leads to an altered state. This should be interpreted in the widest possible sense. As far as possible drawing should be evidenced in the final outcome.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

• Send all images as JPEGs, minimum 72-maximum 150dpi, min 400Kb, max 1Mb

• Send all text documents as .doc, unless presented as a 'drawing' or 'image' in PDF format. Limit  body text to 3,000 words

• If the contributing artist has a clear idea as to how their word should be displayed, the desired      layout should be submitted as a PDF. The editor's decision is final.

• Short artist biography of no more than 200 words

OWNERSHIP

• 12-Pages does not accept previously published material, and does not expect works commissioned for 12-Pages to be used elsewhere before publication of the issue concerned

• The contributing artist retains full rights to their work. If the artist wishes to reprint or publish the work in future, TBC Artists' Collective asks that the relevant issue of 12-Pages be credited

• Due to the high volume of submissions received, TBC Artists' Collective can only enter into correspondence with those whose works have been accepted, and cannot give critical feedback on submissions.

• Editor-in-chief has final say over all editorial decisions.

All responses should be sent to Laura.Davidson@tbcartistscollective.org by midnight on 30th June 2011 to be considered for inclusion in the 12-Pages Online Project Space. ALTERED STATES will be published online in July 2011.