Escape Velocities and Stillness

"Notes Towards a Minor Art Practice"
Simon O’Sullivan
http://drainmag.com Vol 2.2. Syncretism (2005)

It is then as if there must be two moments, or movements, to a minor practice: one of dissent (either a strategic withdrawal as a form of engagement, or strategic engagement itself), and one of creativity (the production of new forms). Art is a name for each of these strategies. We might reformulate this as a question of moving at different speeds to various institutional apparatus of capture, of moving faster, but also, if we take Henri Bergson’s thesis into account, of sometimes moving slower (and sometimes even standing still).[19]

[19] I am thinking here of Henri Bergson’s gap, or hesitation, between stimulus and reaction which in itself allows creativity to arise. See Bergson’s Matter and Memory, and especially chapter 3 ‘On the Survival of Images’ (MM 133-177).

(MM) Bergson, H. Matter and Memory, trans. N. M. Paul and W. S. Palmer (New York: Zone Books, 1991).

See work of Suzy Lake. In particular the concept of Reduced Performing. With attention to the execution of extended breathing in public places. Especially "Extended Breathing on the Steps of the Detroit Institute of Art".

And so for day 1241
07.05.2010