[curatorial.net] tagging as curating

[Olga Goriunova]

dear Franz, dear all,

> --- And more general: Can tagging be considered curating without
> lapsing into generalist statements as "everything is curating"?
>   
it is a good question, with a number of layers embedded in its 
structure. value in art is produced via mechanisms very different to 
those i.e. governing the development of software. with software, there 
are compilers but with art, there are no formal criteria that a piece or 
process can be evaluated with. therefore, in the sphere of culture we 
can't go (in my opinion) totally collaborative, and i.e. anonymous, 
where everyone would be a creator and the structure will be flat. 
structures can be flat but as foucault taught us, power relations are 
horizontal. it doesn't mean there are no 'leaders'.
on the other hand, it doesn't mean the transformation isn't happening. 
for me personally, the blurry zones where hierarchies and orders are 
questioned are most interesting. it's difficult, though, to define the 
zones and the in-between spaces, but for bourdieu, for instance, it's 
easy: the art field is bound to art institutions, education, history, 
etc. so the spaces and attempts  ignorant or rebellious against these 
routes of making art happen are what we're all interested in, i guess.
to try answering your question, Franz, more practically would involve 
questioning the production of value in tagging and curating. user 
taxonomies work because people find similarly minded people whose 
collection of links they like to explore. would it work in art in such a 
direct manner, or there is some transformation done to this logic at 
stake? how big such a platform can grow, how many visitors and users 
doing the taxonomies it can attract? how can it accomodate the 
subjectivities of those making the connections to harvest their 'social 
powers'? it's techno-aesthetic set of questions, where every 
philosophical statement on art is rendered a technical desicion and vice 
versa.
sorry, it's a bit messy stream of thought. i would be very interested 
too in seeing working taxonomies in 'curating'. i don't see why a 
taxonomy of someone can't be considered a show, or a collection of 
taxonomies can't be seen as establishing a canon and a history of a 
particular field, but the question is what are the power relations 
within these processes, what are their centrifugal dynamics, how things 
get distilled and seen, and how it all relates to what we know about art 
and its modes.
olga

> Best wishes, Franz Thalmair
>
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