19 : Proposals

Description

Shifter’s 18th issue considered the temporality of intention as a prior condition for action—an impetus that is often understood only after an action has already been performed and is then reformulated and narrativized in one’s consciousness. For Shifter 19 we have invited a small group of artist- educators to each contribute a “proposal.” We see the proposal as an embodied form of intention that often requires collaboration in order to be realized, trusting in another’s willingness to extend and enact one’s desire. When a proposal enters into a social contract, its pulsating potential constitutes the conditions of possibility for alternate ways of thinking and acting. When you propose you also expose the terms of your relationship with another, in turn making yourself vulnerable, awaiting, anticipating the utterance of the other. You initiate an exchange that couples power and intimacy. A proposal in this sense is a speech act that establishes a social form for desire in advance of its fulfillment. Thus, the knot of intention and desire, embodied in the proposal creates the conditions for the realization of an idea through negotiation and collaboration.