"I am interested in the comment about the difference between community art and socially engaged art, which is something I am looking into at the moment. The obvious question is, is there a difference, and I suppose it maybe depends on what the outcome of the work is. If its made for a gallery, can it still be called community art? It would be interesting to hear peoples thoughts on this. 

Attached is the next text. It is 'Becoming Common: Precarization as Political Constituting' by Isabell Lorey, and can be found here as part of the eflux journal No. 17. This essay looks at the issues of precarization through labour. A definition of Precarisation as put forward by theThe Frassanito Network is 'Precarious work refers to all possible forms of insecure, non-guaranteed, flexible exploitation: from illegalised, seasonal and temporary employment to homework, flex- and temp-work, to subcontractors, freelancers, or so called self-employed persons.' 

Precarization is something I have started to become interested in, especially in terms of how artists work and live. It can be seen as an example of how alternative ways of working become part of the system. Working freelance, flexible hours was seen in the 1970's/80's as a way of working without the confines of the Monday-Friday, 9-5 office contracted hours. Is was seen as an alternative away from the structures and rules of the capitalist system. However, as is always the case it seems (see Avant Garde Art, such as Dadaism, Fluxus etc) these alternative ideas are consumed by the system and manipluated so to meet their needs. This way of working is now being questioned, as artists fight for pensions, contracts and artists rights, (see [a-n].)"

The text by Dave Beech, 'Art and Participation' is short and sweet and is actually a blog post concerning the the panel discussion 'The Ethics of Collaboration...' at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), Dublin on 11 March 2011 which raises questions on authorship. It does not necessarily discuss self-organisation but the idea of participation in art especially in relation to the work of Artur Żmijewski. Discussing how the value of participation is never challenged and how 'People in the artworld seem to have subscribed wholesale to the idea that participation or collaboration is an athletic sport in which artists must compete for their form of participation to be deeper, stronger, faster, longer and purer.' That 'In the vibrant public sphere we crave, we would not hope for fewer authors, but for more.' Of particular interest to me is the final sentence 'Participation is the solution for the ethically oriented, but for the politically oriented, it is the universalisation of authorship that holds more promise.' Therefore to create the possibility for self-organisation do we need to consider what exactly we mean by participaton and understand authorship as possible for everyone. I would like to ask can authorship in this context be seen as a replacement for self-organisation and would the possibility of the universalisation of the author create a space for self-organisation and action?

More information and a full audio of the seminar can be found herehttp://www.firestation.ie/projects/project/two-monuments/

"Maybe this topic [self-organisation] is argumentative as it obviously, from where I am coming from, draws on a lot or marxist thought and can be seen to be very pertinent now, I feel, with the threat of cuts to services, the possible dismantling of community initiatives and voluntary services. As well as the governments vision of a 'Big Society' which brings up so many questions on what do they mean by society and the problematic issue of placing communities against one another to gain funding and support from one pot of money, which will inevitably lead to privatised services. With the recent cuts to the arts in England (I am not sure what exactly has taken place in Scotland, maybe you can enlighten me) it seems a lot of community based organisations, especially those who work in digital media have been targeted (Isis Arts, Folly, Access Space, Mute magazine etc.) with the idea that larger organisations will take over the work they were doing. Is this a deliberate strategy to increase the institutionalization of socially minded art? What is to be Done?

With this in mind attached is the next text Communities of the Question or Who Wants to Know? by Susan Kelly. This text asks several questions, 'What is the ‘self’ that constitutes and seemingly generates self organisation? What is the nature of the collective or community produced in this way and how might a mode of self-organisation encounter other forms of organisation? Does it take any specific form?' Taking ideas from two exhibitions Susan Kelly was involved in, the essay will 'set up a framework of concrete practices through which to trace what I believe are the central issues at stake in the concept of self-organisation – that is, the question of community and potential forms of political organisation.' (Kelly, 2006, p233). 

This essay can be found in the book ‘Self-organisation/ counter-economic-strategies’, edited bySuperflex, Sternberg
Press (2006) p. 233-253. I found a free downloadable pdf here of the book on Kevin Flanagans blog."