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Dexter Sinister presents "Only an Attitude of Orientation", five events on five consecutive days in conjunction with the current exhibition An Invitation to An Infiltration at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver. The events will be held in various Vancouver venues one per day over the course of five days from TUESDAY JANUARY 26 through SATURDAY JANUARY 30. The details of each event will be announced the night before via this mailing list together with a short preparatory text:
Such an attitude is marked by both a rejection of absolute truths, and faith in verifiable facts. This is staunch empiricist thinking, founded on the notion that "beliefs" are, practically, "rules for action" and that we only need to perceive the potential function and/or outcome of such a thought's meaning in order to determine its significance. James sums up the pragmatic method as only an attitude of orientation, of looking away from first things (preconceptions, principles, categories, and supposed necessities) and towards last things (results, fruits, and consequences).
There are two introductory points to draw from this. First, that an attitude such as empiricism might be usefully identified and its implications drawn out and considered across disciplines. Second, that it is useful to start with the result in mind and work backwards, in order to design a method oriented towards achieving that outcome. And so in accordance with both: the hoped-for results of our as-yet phantom course are precisely the attitudes demonstrated by the following examples.
See
http://www.contemporaryartgallery.ca/
