G.H. Hovagimyan Lecture

G.H. Hovagimyan is a man with a compelling history and many fascinating points to make.

G.H. talked to our class about living as an artist in NYC in the '70's and '80's. He mentioned how rare and expensive new video cameras were and told a story of buying a hot one off the street. I was reading the NMR before class and G.H.'s story reminded me of a quote from Hans Enzensberger in the '70's:

"Tape recorders, ordinary cameras, and movie cameras are already extensively owned by wage earners. The question is why these means of production do not turn up at factories, in schools, in the offices of the bureaucracy, in short, everywhere there is a social conflict..."

Like Enzensberger, G.H. is very anti-capitalist and very anti-commodity when it comes to art. G.H. made the comment that "tagging" on the web is very interesting, because it subverts the traditional broadcast model; however, G.H. still warned against the fact that everything is still based on popularity.

When going through his blogs and websites, G.H. showed us a non-linear narrative video, in which he closed his eyes and shuffled all the clips around. In the end, the completed video still made decent sense. This technique is like The Oulipo and combinatorial literature featured in the NMR.

I think what I found most interesting about G.H. Hovigimyan's lecture is his question of how does one dictate what is art while resisting making it into a commodity. I believe it is the same with all information: Who decides what is worth consuming? And can we resist reducing everything to a consumer product?