Sal Randolph’s piece on Social Architectures as Artforms has shown me a new perspective for thinking about the notion of the useless art object.

Use is both constructive and destructive; it always reconstructs. Contemplation, as in the traditional art experience, is neither destructive nor constructive, it takes a passive stance—the receptive. Use is ruthless and personal. Bourriaud again: ‘To use an object is necessarily to interpret it: to use a product is to betray its concepts.’

Which I guess relates to my perspective that a useless art object is ‘pure.’ A useful art object is merely a product with a specific purpose. Hence misusing a product turns it into an object.

But what gives me direction from this essay is this sentence:
“‘Sculpture’ implies an observer; ‘architecture’ implies a use.”

Because although I feel the art object is inherently useless in a low-brow practical sense of the word*, I am insecure enough about my self-definition as an artist to require a more traditional-looking ouevre of myself. And so I come upon another Nauru-related idea that grapples with notions of usefullness in art as well as development.

It’s called ‘Dirt for Nauru
.’ I drive a tugboat attached to a huge container of dirt across the Pacific to Nauru, where the dirt is deposited into the gaping craters left over from their phosphate mining. But the project is not a development project; it is an art work. More Smithson than Jaar, as it purposefully eschews utility, even when it achieves it.

I love the idea because it steps away from the insidious history of Art as Development and instead presents Development as Art. It is not meant to be useful. It is Art. Any use is beyond my purpose. This as opposed to Art as Development, which lets the artist do his or her art stuff, and benefit humankind as well.

*see if you can’t use it for self defense or to start a fire, its useless