Hi Claire,

According to Negri “nowadays production is more social, more related to the immaterial and the cognitive – he continues-; is this why the new system needs dominion forms that allow it to create individuals suited for its needs.” Since the beginning, art production has been characterized by its interest in representation and the production of objects of consumption reflecting the super-ego of the artist (Levinas, Lacan). Seeking differentiation, the interaction of modernist variables fixed the art process condemning the result of an artwork (Greenberg). That does not happen more. Since the second industrial revolution over-specialization has been quoted and re-quoted resulting Paris Hilton: the accumulation of mediocrities for its re-consumption (Negri). In current artistic processes medium has become support, hence invisible, an artwork now can exist through narrations (Schank, Research 1). Lets say that if we make contact with something for which we have clear references, we see through it right into them: the artwork as an invisible platform for relations (Bourriaud). For the artwork to become apparent it must possess a twist. Let´s call this twist a hidden secret or doubt (Deleuze, Sebeok) that we would try to discover and is the reason why the artwork acquires relevance. This generates a new reference in our backs turning more complex the aesthetic experience. The Fatboy Slim effect takes place: the looping and re-looping of references and references of references narrowing the temporality of the experience heading towards simultaneity (Lyotard). During modernity the ideal of the new triggered production, now we do it through historic collages from the history toolbox (Bourriaud). Contemporary anti-narrative as production strategy (Prince, Barthes): Tarantino’s flashback based storytelling while filming different genre scenes for the same movie with success (Iconoclasts: Tarantino vs Fiona Apple).The secret, in the case of the producer, arises from the differentiation generated through the collaboration during the process thanks to the dynamism of interpretation the artwork acquires (Peirce, Research 1). Nowadays “we need narrations to help us understand contemporaneity and to design strategies (De Certau). There is nothing anarchic in it. We have the need to organize and we will have to do it from the ‘common’” (Negri). To establish relations (Bourriaud) is to narrate (Schank). Through this knowledge is produced (Schank). Collaboration based production is a way to find the “common” mentioned by Negri.The “common” is what I call the variable axis in the modernist artwork production system (Research 2). It behaves as a center to which the variables should relate in order to achieve a successful communication. “[Lacan] would argue that the best socially collaborative art does not derive from a superegoic injunction to ‘love thy neighbour,’ but from the position of ‘do not give up on your desire.’” This produces a series of confusions caused by the simultaneity of meta-processes happening. Metapong has always been about production strategies, but at the same time it is about what Isaac and I are experiencing at the precise moment of producing art. Temporary interests like identity (The Usurpers) or metastasis (Sugar bowls) belong to an ontological level of our strategies while production itself to an epistemological one. It is as if Metapong is the artwork and the rest are just pretexts to achieve visibility. Now, there are leaks from one territory to another (Deleuze). It is then that everything gets confused and the fun begins. After all, epistemological tangles are our thing.

Because of the nature of the above I propose to develop my thesis through narrations in an blog. I propose to do a weekly entry (minimun) for the rest of the academic year until April 15, 2008, dedicate May to its edition (including comments) and have the final thesis ready by June 15.