Pulped Under Pressure Talk Response

Last week there was a talk given by two of the artists who collaborated to put on the current paper exhibition in Wriston - Pulped Under Pressure. While parts of this talk were perhaps a little less than stimulating, there was actually one part that really stood out to me - the process of collaborative paper making.

The two speakers commented that because the process of making paper is labor intensive, often requiring many hands and various steps along the way, it naturally lends itself as a community activity. Thus, many different groups and organizations have either centered themselves around paper making, or utilize paper making as a form of brining together members of the community and empowering them through the process of making art. As someone who's interested in both art and intentional communities (as seen in my involvement with SLUG, CORE, community gardens in the Manhattan, and collaborative video game development communities), this piqued my interest. It made me think about what parts of the process of making video games naturally lends itself to large scale community practices. While I don't have any answers right now, I found it a worth while question to pursue. 

This wasn't the only question this talk led me to. I was also curious about the relationship between authorship and community art builder. Much of the art world is driven my the idea of authorship, of a singular creator producing something. Or even in the case of collaborations, the work is still understood as something firmly 'owned' 'created' by the distinct (other small set of) collaborators. But I find the idea that group of 30, 40, people, most of whom aren't necessarily artists, collaborating together to create a bunch of artistic paper as a challenge to this clear cut notion of authorship. I dig this challenge. I think it's awesome. 

I think that's about all for this lecture. 

Until the next one.