The Employee by joshua schwebel
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‘Disintermediation’, Vishmidt_Draft 2_LW+JS notes

Lauren Wetmore (Google Docs) <comments-noreply@docs.google.com> To: Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com>

New activity in the following document

3 comments

architectures

Josh Schwebel

• 3:21 PM, May 14 (CEST)
I have a question about terms and clarity. You have provided clear anchors to differentiate infrastructure from institution. As you say, an infrastructure is a mediation. But then you shift to speak about architectures. Is an architecture an institution or an infrastructure or both, and in which case, what is the relation between a mediation and disintermediation?

Lauren Wetmore

• 7:12 PM, Jul 8 (CEST)

New

I think that Marina is using the term "architecture" to encompass both infrastructure and institution and so it can stand. I think the second part of J's note will be resolved by the next note.
prioritising digital projects for larger players

Josh Schwebel

• 3:47 PM, May 14 (CEST)
I would argue that this is where the intersection between financialization and art funding intersects most explicitly, as the Canada Council for the Arts continues to obfuscate the difference between (not-for-profit) art and (entrepreneurially) viable “digital strategies” by aggressively funding this kind of “art”, which is the least precarious in terms of its proximity to industry.

Lauren Wetmore

• 7:12 PM, Jul 8 (CEST)

New

Marina - can we incorporate a line from what Josh says in this note, to strengthen the point in the Canadian context?
the difference between dead and living labour.

Josh Schwebel

• 2:09 PM, May 16 (CEST)
Is this difference between dead and living labour equivalent to the difference between the performance of assets and the labour of humans?

Lauren Wetmore

• 7:12 PM, Jul 8 (CEST)

New

Should we just say "Marx's dead and living labour" to clarify?

3 resolved

Comments

disintermediation

Josh Schwebel

• 3:30 PM, May 14 (CEST)
Great.

Lauren Wetmore

• 7:12 PM, Jul 8 (CEST)

New

Marked as resolved
and an artwork

Josh Schwebel

• 3:33 PM, May 14 (CEST)
It is both documentation and a performance. There wasn’t really an exhibit, and I think that the work, and this paper, exist in the vernacular of performance, rather than that of the exhibition of objects.

Lauren Wetmore

• 7:12 PM, Jul 8 (CEST)

New

Marked as resolved

Suggestions

Josh Schwebel

• 3:31 PM, May 14 (CEST)
Delete: “in an exhibition”

Lauren Wetmore

• 7:12 PM, Jul 8 (CEST)

New

Accepted suggestion

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Lauren Wetmore (Google Docs) <comments-noreply@docs.google.com> To: Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com>

New activity in the following document

2 comments

architectures

Josh Schwebel

• 3:21 PM, May 14 (CEST)
I have a question about terms and clarity. You have provided clear anchors to differentiate infrastructure from institution. As you say, an infrastructure is a mediation. But then you shift to speak about architectures. Is an architecture an institution or an infrastructure or both, and in which case, what is the relation between a mediation and disintermediation?

Lauren Wetmore

• 7:12 PM, Jul 8 (CEST)
I think that Marina is using the term "architecture" to encompass both infrastructure and institution and so it can stand. I think the second part of J's note will be resolved by the next note.

Lauren Wetmore

• 11:14 AM, Jul 9 (CEST)

New

moving out of the institutions in to the wider structures of life. "institution" as an art institution.
art isas the opposite of labour in capitalist ideology and is reproduced by means of waged and unwaged labour

Josh Schwebel

• 3:38 PM, May 14 (CEST)
You move too quickly for me here. I don’t actually understand who is saying that art is the opposite of labour, and whether or not this is so in reality, or just an ideological stance. Then, if art is reproduced through waged and unwaged labour, how / is it still the opposite of labour?

Lauren Wetmore

• 11:17 AM, Jul 9 (CEST)

New

ideologically opposite

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Lauren Wetmore (Google Docs) <comments-noreply@docs.google.com> To: Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com>

New activity in the following document

6 comments

prioritising digital projects for larger players

Josh Schwebel

• 3:47 PM, May 14 (CEST)
I would argue that this is where the intersection between financialization and art funding intersects most explicitly, as the Canada Council for the Arts continues to obfuscate the difference between (not-for-profit) art and (entrepreneurially) viable “digital strategies” by aggressively funding this kind of “art”, which is the least precarious in terms of its proximity to industry.

Lauren Wetmore

• 7:12 PM, Jul 8 (CEST)
Marina - can we incorporate a line from what Josh says in this note, to strengthen the point in the Canadian context?

Lauren Wetmore

• 11:25 AM, Jul 9 (CEST)

New

yes
polities

Josh Schwebel

• 3:51 PM, May 14 (CEST)
Policies?

Lauren Wetmore

• 11:29 AM, Jul 9 (CEST)

New

no
a personal image bank might traverse CARFAC to the sleek conversion in 1987’s I Heard the Mermaids Singing

Lauren Wetmore

• 11:02 PM, May 13 (CEST)
I am not getting the meaning of this sentence, but I am also missing the reference. I need more info on this Canadiana!

Josh Schwebel

• 3:42 PM, May 14 (CEST)
Me neither! I also don’t recognize this reference

Lauren Wetmore

• 11:23 AM, Jul 9 (CEST)

New

sleek conversion is the private gallery infrastructure in the film, CARFAC associated with publish social support
In terms of The Employee, then, the frustrations of public funding could be neatly swerved by heading straight for the crypto markets.

Josh Schwebel

• 5:54 PM, May 15 (CEST)
so many yes buts here...
a quick quote from a recent Momus article on art and the void, re: nfts "The artwork underpinning an NFT transaction is beside the point because what’s being collected is the opportunity to speculate on crypto."
(https://momus.ca/the-artist-is-the-void/?fbclid=IwAR2CjxWSMKjEPHkeHwEAm78YaOtfFwY-YY4VVIvb9Q6xniS9aK5yys4eIQ4)
The reason I quote this is because I think that your connection between the project and the nft craze is forceful, but needs more expanding, just for me to be able to understand the leap.
Because while the project is an attempt to get money, it is also intended to make the endless hoops of bureaucracy and the precarity created by these internecine processes visible. Of course there are other ways to obtain money, but the nft, I think, sidelines the artwork and goes straight for the money, where I think my project is about the circuits and processes and what they, themselves produce in terms of structures and traces.
More on this, I think the idea of producing value out of nothing (without labour) is the ultimate misrecognition of art / and part of institutional critique / site-specific work is in locating the interconnections and extractions between the artistic object and its real-world context. NFTs also imagine that they create value without labour, material, or impact, but in reality they just further alienate the footprint from the foot.
(my project is trying to reconnect these)

Lauren Wetmore

• 11:29 AM, Jul 9 (CEST)

New

marina
the performance of assets

Josh Schwebel

• 5:40 PM, May 15 (CEST)
which assets do you mean here

Lauren Wetmore

• 11:31 AM, Jul 9 (CEST)

New

the general health of the economy - performance of financial asset allows more resources to flow to nonprofits, when financial assets are at a high more wealth is directly and indirectly funnelled
and in turn to have any chance of drawing in the kinds of resources it needs to in turn resource the gallery, as well as supplying some employment for its protagonist.

Lauren Wetmore

• 1:09 PM, May 16 (CEST)
Could we say "and thus the resources it needs must also resource the gallery, including providing employment."

Josh Schwebel

• 2:13 PM, May 16 (CEST)
yes. I also want to understand who the protagonist is here: FCG? Camille?

Lauren Wetmore

• 11:34 AM, Jul 9 (CEST)

New

lw will make this suggestion and marina will approve, the protagonist is the employee art work - the project

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Lauren Wetmore (Google Docs) <comments-noreply@docs.google.com> To: Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com>

New activity in the following document

2 resolved

Comments

elimination of structures of mediation

Josh Schwebel

• 3:25 PM, May 14 (CEST)
To follow up on my previous comment. I imagine that you are describing the neoliberal dismantling of social structures through privatization, reducing public institutions to financial instruments? Is that correct?

Lauren Wetmore

• 2:20 PM, Jul 13 (CEST)

New

Marked as resolved
architectures

Josh Schwebel

• 3:21 PM, May 14 (CEST)
I have a question about terms and clarity. You have provided clear anchors to differentiate infrastructure from institution. As you say, an infrastructure is a mediation. But then you shift to speak about architectures. Is an architecture an institution or an infrastructure or both, and in which case, what is the relation between a mediation and disintermediation?

Lauren Wetmore

• 7:12 PM, Jul 8 (CEST)
I think that Marina is using the term "architecture" to encompass both infrastructure and institution and so it can stand. I think the second part of J's note will be resolved by the next note.

Lauren Wetmore

• 11:14 AM, Jul 9 (CEST)
moving out of the institutions in to the wider structures of life. "institution" as an art institution.

Lauren Wetmore

• 2:18 PM, Jul 13 (CEST)

New

Marked as resolved

Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

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Lauren Wetmore (Google Docs) <comments-noreply@docs.google.com> To: Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com>

Lauren Wetmore resolved a comment in the following document

1 resolved

Comments

a personal image bank might traverse CARFAC to the sleek conversion in 1987’s I Heard the Mermaids Singing

Lauren Wetmore

• 11:02 PM, May 13 (CEST)
I am not getting the meaning of this sentence, but I am also missing the reference. I need more info on this Canadiana!

Josh Schwebel

• 3:42 PM, May 14 (CEST)
Me neither! I also don’t recognize this reference

Lauren Wetmore

• 11:23 AM, Jul 9 (CEST)
sleek conversion is the private gallery infrastructure in the film, CARFAC associated with publish social support

Lauren Wetmore

• 2:31 PM, Jul 13 (CEST)

New

Marked as resolved

Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

You have received this email because you are a participant in this thread. Change what Google Docs sends you. You can reply to this email to reply to the discussion.

Lauren Wetmore (Google Docs) <comments-noreply@docs.google.com> To: Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com>

New activity in the following document

5 resolved

Comments

mediations

Josh Schwebel

• 3:49 PM, May 14 (CEST)
Which mediations do you mean here?

Lauren Wetmore

• 2:45 PM, Jul 13 (CEST)

New

Marked as resolved
polities

Josh Schwebel

• 3:51 PM, May 14 (CEST)
Policies?

Lauren Wetmore

• 11:29 AM, Jul 9 (CEST)
no

Lauren Wetmore

• 2:45 PM, Jul 13 (CEST)

New

Marked as resolved
the performance of assets

Josh Schwebel

• 5:40 PM, May 15 (CEST)
which assets do you mean here

Lauren Wetmore

• 11:31 AM, Jul 9 (CEST)
the general health of the economy - performance of financial asset allows more resources to flow to nonprofits, when financial assets are at a high more wealth is directly and indirectly funnelled

Lauren Wetmore

• 2:47 PM, Jul 13 (CEST)

New

Marked as resolved
and in turn to have any chance of drawing in the kinds of resources it needs to in turn resource the gallery, as well as supplying some employment for its protagonist.

Lauren Wetmore

• 1:09 PM, May 16 (CEST)
Could we say "and thus the resources it needs must also resource the gallery, including providing employment."

Josh Schwebel

• 2:13 PM, May 16 (CEST)
yes. I also want to understand who the protagonist is here: FCG? Camille?

Lauren Wetmore

• 11:34 AM, Jul 9 (CEST)
lw will make this suggestion and marina will approve, the protagonist is the employee art work - the project

Lauren Wetmore

• 2:52 PM, Jul 13 (CEST)

New

Marked as resolved
the difference between dead and living labour.

Josh Schwebel

• 2:09 PM, May 16 (CEST)
Is this difference between dead and living labour equivalent to the difference between the performance of assets and the labour of humans?

Lauren Wetmore

• 7:12 PM, Jul 8 (CEST)
Should we just say "Marx's dead and living labour" to clarify?

Lauren Wetmore

• 2:50 PM, Jul 13 (CEST)

New

Marked as resolved

Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

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Marina Vishmidt (Google Docs) <comments-noreply@docs.google.com> To: Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com>

New activity in the following document

1 comment

It also has consequences for the critique of those institutions as a resource for artistic practice

Josh Schwebel

• 3:28 PM, May 14 (CEST)
This is a brilliant observation, in that a critique of institutions cannot grasp the larger power mechanisms engulfing those institutions. Rather, a critical perspective must address infrastructures. So my comment is, can you make explicit (in brief terms) what those consequences are? Or, just unfold this deduction more explicitly.

Marina Vishmidt

• 9:42 PM, Jul 13 (CEST)

New

I worry about frontloading that here, as I think I do that (maybe too elliptically?) in the rest of the text.

2 resolved

Suggestions

Josh Schwebel

• 3:28 PM, May 14 (CEST)
Replace: “showsing” with “addresses”

Marina Vishmidt

• 9:42 PM, Jul 13 (CEST)

New

Rejected suggestion

Josh Schwebel

• 3:29 PM, May 14 (CEST)
Add space

Marina Vishmidt

• 9:43 PM, Jul 13 (CEST)

New

Rejected suggestion

Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

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Marina Vishmidt (Google Docs) <comments-noreply@docs.google.com> To: Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com>

Marina Vishmidt resolved a comment in the following document

1 resolved

Comments

art isas the opposite of labour in capitalist ideology and is reproduced by means of waged and unwaged labour

Josh Schwebel

• 3:38 PM, May 14 (CEST)
You move too quickly for me here. I don’t actually understand who is saying that art is the opposite of labour, and whether or not this is so in reality, or just an ideological stance. Then, if art is reproduced through waged and unwaged labour, how / is it still the opposite of labour?

Lauren Wetmore

• 11:17 AM, Jul 9 (CEST)
ideologically opposite

Marina Vishmidt

• 9:48 PM, Jul 13 (CEST)

New

Marked as resolved

Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

You have received this email because you are a participant in this thread. Change what Google Docs sends you. You can reply to this email to reply to the discussion.

Marina Vishmidt (Google Docs) <comments-noreply@docs.google.com> To: Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com>

New activity in the following document

1 comment

prioritising digital projects for larger players

Josh Schwebel

• 3:47 PM, May 14 (CEST)
I would argue that this is where the intersection between financialization and art funding intersects most explicitly, as the Canada Council for the Arts continues to obfuscate the difference between (not-for-profit) art and (entrepreneurially) viable “digital strategies” by aggressively funding this kind of “art”, which is the least precarious in terms of its proximity to industry.

Lauren Wetmore

• 7:12 PM, Jul 8 (CEST)
Marina - can we incorporate a line from what Josh says in this note, to strengthen the point in the Canadian context?

Lauren Wetmore

• 11:25 AM, Jul 9 (CEST)
yes

Marina Vishmidt

• 9:55 PM, Jul 13 (CEST)

New

I find this a little too obtrusive in the text - can it be a footnote?

1 resolved

Comments

In terms of The Employee, then, the frustrations of public funding could be neatly swerved by heading straight for the crypto markets.

Josh Schwebel

• 5:54 PM, May 15 (CEST)
so many yes buts here...
a quick quote from a recent Momus article on art and the void, re: nfts "The artwork underpinning an NFT transaction is beside the point because what’s being collected is the opportunity to speculate on crypto."
(https://momus.ca/the-artist-is-the-void/?fbclid=IwAR2CjxWSMKjEPHkeHwEAm78YaOtfFwY-YY4VVIvb9Q6xniS9aK5yys4eIQ4)
The reason I quote this is because I think that your connection between the project and the nft craze is forceful, but needs more expanding, just for me to be able to understand the leap.
Because while the project is an attempt to get money, it is also intended to make the endless hoops of bureaucracy and the precarity created by these internecine processes visible. Of course there are other ways to obtain money, but the nft, I think, sidelines the artwork and goes straight for the money, where I think my project is about the circuits and processes and what they, themselves produce in terms of structures and traces.
More on this, I think the idea of producing value out of nothing (without labour) is the ultimate misrecognition of art / and part of institutional critique / site-specific work is in locating the interconnections and extractions between the artistic object and its real-world context. NFTs also imagine that they create value without labour, material, or impact, but in reality they just further alienate the footprint from the foot.
(my project is trying to reconnect these)

Lauren Wetmore

• 11:29 AM, Jul 9 (CEST)
@maviss@gmail.com | You mentioned that you would like to expand on this.

Marina Vishmidt

• 9:57 PM, Jul 13 (CEST)

New

Marked as resolved

Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

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Lauren Wetmore (Google Docs) <comments-noreply@docs.google.com> To: Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com>

Lauren Wetmore resolved a comment in the following document

1 resolved

Comments

It also has consequences for the critique of those institutions as a resource for artistic practice

Josh Schwebel

• 3:28 PM, May 14 (CEST)
This is a brilliant observation, in that a critique of institutions cannot grasp the larger power mechanisms engulfing those institutions. Rather, a critical perspective must address infrastructures. So my comment is, can you make explicit (in brief terms) what those consequences are? Or, just unfold this deduction more explicitly.

Marina Vishmidt

• 9:42 PM, Jul 13 (CEST)
I worry about frontloading that here, as I think I do that (maybe too elliptically?) in the rest of the text.

Lauren Wetmore

• 2:05 PM, Jul 18 (CEST)

New

Marked as resolved

Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

You have received this email because you are a participant in this thread. Change what Google Docs sends you. You can reply to this email to reply to the discussion.

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