An ABC of Aesthetic Journalism is a an ongoing work created by Fay Nicolson that aims to collect together text, images, videos, and ideas relating to the field of Aesthetic Journalism. This blog was introduced in a performance lecture at the Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen November 09 for the launch of Alfredo Cramerotti’s book ‘Aesthetic Journalism’.

An ABC aims to use the book ‘Aesthetic Journalism’ as a  resource to bring together ideas and references whilst demonstrating some of the strategies found in this field; such as revealing the position of the author or editor, adopting and adapting mainstream methodologies of communication in a self-reflexive way, and revealing the production process in terms of both meaning and material.

The reason for formatting my research in a blog, rather than an essay or a power point presentation (for the lecture), was so that the structure could be less fixed. A viewer can navigate the archive as they wish; moving between categories, digressing to outside links, suggesting things to be included. In this way the archive is viewed, interpreted and ‘performed’ differently by each person who uses it.

Rather than an objective, exhaustive overview of a cultural field, An ABC responds to my own interests as an artist, and therefore, acknowledges the limits of my knowledge and research. If you have suggestions of images, texts, ideas, quotes, links, videos or audio files to be included in this blog/archive please send them to me at: abc.of.aesthetic.journalism@googlemail.com.

Platform for (un)Solicited Research and Advice – DAI / Manifesta

From Jan – Feb 2010 a group of MFA students at the Dutch Art Institute have been invited to intervene directly with this blog as part of their on-going project, ‘Platform for (un)Solicited Research and Advice’. The brief that Alfredo Cramerotti and I have written for students is below:

BRIEF #3

• Why use and explore media platforms as an artist or curator?

• What is the relationship between (mass) media and art in the past and present, and what are the possible future scenarios?

• Can media platforms renegotiate a relationship between art and the locality in a Biennale model?

Through operating as a roving biennial Manifesta must each time address and negotiate a different context with specific geographical, historical and political structures.  In this way, Manifesta offers its curators the opportunity, and the challenge, to engage with local, global and networked communities using a variety of platforms and approaches.

CPS’s approach to curation encompasses (mass) media platforms such as television, radio and newspapers, alongside more traditional exhibition formats. In the context of Manifesta 8 we ask what is the media’s relationship to the construction of a local reality, how does it relate to ideas of truth, fact and history, and what are its possibilities for engaging with new audiences and existing local/global structures?

One of the theoretical bases that informs CPS’s approach to art and the media is the notion of ‘aesthetic journalism’: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/books/view-Book,id=4651/. This is a huge body of research undertaken between 2004 and 2009. We (Alfredo as writer/curator and Fay as artist) have recently collaborated to ‘unpack’ this concept using a practical approach; Fay developed an ‘ABC of aesthetic journalism’ which is published as a blog: http://fayinc.wordpress.com. We would like to involve DAI students in this process of progression from a (theoretical) notion of aesthetic journalism to a practical implementation of this concept (as could manifest itself in biennial models such as M8).

We invite you to engage in the ABC blog by responding to a post/s or by creating your own. You can add to, comment on, critique, extend, oppose or digress from the current content. Responses can take the form of text, image, video, audio or web link. Directly or indirectly consider our opening bullet points in relation to this invitation.  Your approach can be academic, artistic, communicative, reflexive, objective or personal. The only rules are that you cannot delete existing content and that responses are indexed in their respective alphabetical category. You will be given the username and password to the blog for the duration of the project.

Alfredo Cramerotti / Fay Nicolson

http://fayinc.wordpress.com/