Research- Artist (Harry Sanderson)

Harry Sanderson
http://rhizome.org/editorial/2013/oct/14/artist-profile-harry-sanderson/

'I suppose it's a really tricky position for anything that tries to be politically engaged—the inevitable credibility you give to the objects you take as the basis for your critique. You appropriate technology in an attempt to show it in a critical light but at the same time you reproduce those conditions.'

Platforms for work that are politically engaged often have this sense. The sense that any publicity is good due to the fact the attention is still turned upon it however if more action was taken when the work is in contact with the viewer then possibly the socially engaged element wouldn't be playing into the hands of the problem. More relevant to technology than classic media, one of the reasons I moved away from video work. Much of the modern world uses screens and temporary media to convey messages and art. However, I intend my work to be lasting to metaphorically show how the subject matter of the work is lasting. Much of the modern world today seems very temporary and my work is not something I intend to add to the list. Understanding without action is merely observation so it is key my works are understood.

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'"Human Resolution," in which you argue for the need to recognize "the exploitation and violence required for [digital technologies'] continued production". All your works seem to involve a specific move that isn't about exploring the face value of an image but instead the different ways it instantiates meaning and relations of various kinds. ' (interviewer)

'There is an alternate way of thinking about things, and I found that resisting apathy and an "oh well technology's always exploitative so you should just get over it" mentality was a positive thing for me—for both my work and my well-being. It's more interesting to not get over it. That's why I can't answer the "what can we do" question because I find using technology to critique a problem more interesting than having a technological solution. I'd rather be engaged in a struggle for something than have any kind of solution where we can make a better internet or a better credit card or something.' Re-engagement with the capitalist structure, aiming to improve a situation and not just document it. Documentation, as mentioned earlier, plays into the hands of the corporation.

'There's that Ashbery poem we were reading the other day where he says "much that is beautiful must be discarded so that we may resemble a taller impression of ourselves." There's a constant aspiration toward this image we've created of ourselves that we can't ever quite get to which is this, I suppose, want or desire: the "big other."' A line taken from the poem 'illustration' which concerns the value of sacrifice and self awareness. Awareness extending past material goods and risen into further purpose.

“Illustration”, By John Ashbery

1.

A novice was sitting on a cornice

High over the city. Angels

Combined their prayers with those

Of the police, begging her to come off it.

One lady promised to be her friend.

“I do not want a friend,” she said.

A mother offered her some nylons

Stripped from her very legs. Others brought

Little offerings of fruit and candy,

The blind man all his flowers. If any

Could be called successful, these were,

For that the scene should be a ceremony

Was what she wanted. “I desire

monuments,” she said. “I want to move

Figuratively, as waves caress

The thoughtless shore. You people I know

Will offer me every good thing

I do not want. But please remember

I died accepting them.” With that, the wind

Unpinned her bulky robes, and naked

As a roc’s egg, she drifted softly downward

Out of the angels’ tenderness and the minds of men.

2.

Much that is beautiful must be discarded

So that we may resemble a taller

Impression of ourselves. Moths climb in the flame,

Alas, that wish only to be the flame:

They do not lessen in our stature.

We twinkle under the weight

Of indiscretions. But how could we tell

That of the truth we know, she was

The somber vestment? For that night, rockets sighed

Elegantly over the city, and there was feasting:

There is so much in that moment!

So many attitudes toward that flame,

We might have soared from earth, watching her glide

Aloft, in her peplum of bright leaves.

But she, of course, was only an effigy

of indifference, a miracle

Not meant for us, as the leaves are not

Winter’s because it is the end.