name: Scott
age: 30
profession: artist / student
location: Glasgow
weekday: thursday
selected tag: collectivity
The typical use of “collectivity” in the 60′s and 70′s, was as a “tool” used by “special interest” groups to articulate political protest. A “collective” in this context was often organised around common struggles of class, race, sexual preference and gender to attract public attention to their needs and demands. Today, “collectivity” and the “collective” has a very different context: rather than assume the massing together of individuals based on being the same, collectivity as a contemporary form seems to point to more diverse, heterogenous, multiple forms, assembled by more loose relations. It’s important to be aware that collectivity is not automatically horizontal and non-hierarchical, it’s a practice. Rather than engage in the constant struggle to include “the other”, the focus could be to be constantly aware of the hierarchical tendencies and always changing power relations that emerge in collective work. Another thing to keep in mind is that collectivity is also often a tool used today to support neo-liberal work forms that exploit labour in diffuse and decentralised ways. Let’s use this web platform to also examine critically the way “collectivity” might be supporting such forms and imagine alternatives.
References:
J.K. Gibson-Graham, ‘A postcapitalist politics’, University of Minnesota Press, 2006.
Katharina Schlieben, “Polyphonous Language and Construction of Identity: It’s Dynamic and its Crux”, in ‘Taking the Matter into Common Hands: On Contemporary Art and Collaborative Practices’, eds. Johanna Billing, Maria Lind and Lars Nilsson, London: black dog publishing, 2007.
John Curl, “The Cooperative Movement in Century 21″, reprinted in ‘The Grand Domestic Revolution Goes On – MIDTERM MANUAL’, eds. Binna Choi and Maiko Tanaka, Utrecht: Casco and Bedford Press, 2010.