Mediocrity

Reba Maybury

MEDIOCRITY

What is mediocrity?
Is mediocrity something you consider? In daily life? In art? In taste? In culture? In
behaviour?
How does mediocrity make you feel?
What sensations and emotions does it unfurl?
How do we identify mediocrity?
As an artist, would you want to be considered mediocre?
As a friend would you want to be considered mediocre?
As a lover would you want to be considered mediocre?
What is similar to mediocrity? And what is the opposite of mediocrity?
Who defines the mediocre?
Can you be purposefully mediocre?
What is the difference between the mediocre and the ordinary?
What is the difference between the mediocre and the excellent?

The aim for this workshop is to promote discussion and the building of each student's opinions and position. Although the topic of this workshop is about the average failing at bettering itself and the unsavoury popularity of the banal, what it hopes to rouse is passion. Boredom is political and mundanity is a disease that we all too often accept.

To define the mediocre you must also define what you believe is good/bad, has value/does not have value, has emotion/ deflects emotion, has relevance/does not have relevance, is clever/stupid, urgent/regressive, fun/boring, inspiring/affected and so on. This may sound obvious but it is surprisingly difficult.

We will discuss work that makes you feel alive, excited, inspired and consider the undergrowth of politics that live within everything.

Notions of art and cultural history will also be examined in regards to these talks. We will read texts, watch the cinema and look at art.

This workshop will be centred around discussion groups and will be about developing your subjective, individual position as an artist. Each student will then be asked to develop a work reflecting on the outcome of these conversations. The only original thing anyone possesses is their own experience.