ART DEATH Web action X Tamara Laï-----http://www.art-death01.be.tf/-----Re: Joseph Franklyn McElroy

Service is an act (or when considered a process - an action, series of actions) done for others. Creation is an act (or process). Contrary to Baudrillard, everything did not begin with the object. Prior to the object there is creation. Prior to maintenance, there is creation. Prior to destruction, there is creation. Or perhaps better, transformation (an act), since the only true act of creation would be from nothing into something (the initial act of God?).
Objects never exist or existed, unless we remove the dimension of time, which we are incapable of doing, except conceptually. Concepts never exist or existed - for the very act of thinking transforms them (are concepts capable of being created from nothing?). Art, we understand to be acts (process-actions) of creation (or better - transformation). Art is a paradox, struggling to bring into existence that which cannot ever exist.

The question - are these acts for others or ourselves? For money, for god, for country - these are arguably acts for others. For self expression, perhaps we look at concepts of the "self" or the "other" or the "Other" or identity or a myriad other ways of theorizing about the construct we call ourselves, and see that if any abstraction is accepted, then we have some form of an audience in our head. Even when performing an act for our self, we are performing it for an abstract version of our self. If this is accepted, then self-expression is performed for others.

So Art is an act (process-actions) for others - a Service. Artists, who are providers of the Service of Art (exactly which acts constitute the field of Art is a continually negotiated process), are Service Providers. As long as one Service Provider provides the Service of Art, Art is not dead. That you ask the question and that I provide an answer prove that Service Providers exist. Since the context is Art, I will negotiate with you to establish that to answer the question in the context you have presented is Art. So I provided you a Service of Art. I am a Art Service Provider - thus Art is not dead.
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