> Do you have enough time?


As you see, I seem to have not enough time to get all my things together 
punctually... Over all, I guess, everyone has just exactly the same 
amount of time - about 24 hours a day... so, how should I extend that 
amount? It seems to me not so much a matter of "enough" or "not enough" 
but much more a matter of personal mismanagement...


> How do you use free time?

As a descendant of the Suabian tribe, a southern German mutation, I tend 
to use my free time to do more work.


> How does your free time (should you have it) affect your (artistic) work? 

Never thought about this before... to me, free time often is vanishing 
time, time that doesn´t leave a trace... pure luxury...


> Marcel Duchamp, perhaps the greatest avant-garde artist of the last
> century stoppend working as an artist in 1912. This fact had an enormous
> influence on modern art. On 11 November 1964 Joseph Beuys actually
> dedicated a complete art-action called “The silence of Marcel Duchamp is
> overrated” to this refuse to work.
> How do you explain this enormous effect Duchamp´s ´not-work´ had? And
> what do you think about it?

Every refusal is worth to be overrated... A capitalist culture of  
streamlined working should definitely admire someone who takes a 
break... and a breath of fresh air... I think that it is overrated, 
though... even though I do think that he was courageous enough to not 
hide the moment when the well of inspiration had dried out... and he 
probably just had some better things to do in the meantime - which is 
something most artists don´t dare to think - that there could be 
anything better than art. What if he had never restarted to speak?


> In an recent essay Lev Manovich states that since the end of 1960s,
> modern art has far more become a conceptual activity and less a question
> of “medium” or “techniques” (thus, for exemple he assigns software-art
> to craft).
> That means art could easily be considered as part of the “vita
> contemplativa” - the contemplative life - and could be referred to as
> (perhaps last) counterdraft to the “active” spectacle of the global
> capitalism. What do you think about that?

Art surely fulfills the task of  shooting the spirits to higher levels, 
high above the regular goals of a capitalist life.
On one hand, most often, an audience is willing to believe in an artist 
if he/she seems to lead the humble life of a day-dreaming genius who 
lives on tinned sardines, red wine and great inspiration. On the other 
hand, an artist who definitely does not get involved into public 
attention and into the mechanics of the art market is never taken 
seriously, not even by the tax office... I think, one of  the artist´s 
tasks is to create a balance between being in the society and being 
somehow never really in its middle but at the boarder. Creating a 
counterdraft while being involved in the "real life" - that probably 
really takes a lot of contemplation.


> There is a coincidence between art and free software. As a rule, except
> appreciation both do not gain much money and are commercially exploited.
> For free software this is allowed and desired but not for art. What do
> you think: Will the free-software-model increasingly become valid for
> art too (that means we will have complete cross-subsidizing and
> self-exploiting).

I hope it won´t. I don´t think it does any good to dissolve the process 
of communication between an artistic statement and its perception by a 
recipient to a completely airy relationship. It´s good to know where 
something comes from and it´s good to see where it goes to. And for an 
artist, getting a financial equivalent for the work you´ve done is one 
way to be in touch with society - just like everybody else who creates 
something that is of importance for a public cultural life.


> Only a few artists make a good living - despite supposed highest
> appreciation. Doesn’t society owe them at least paid leave?

Surely it does...  but for my part... if I have free time - either paid 
or unpaid -... I work.