The Functional Site/Sitings of Public Art

1)James Meyer distinguishes between two notions of site specific art: Literal and functional. He describes the functional as one that "may or may not incorporate a physical place...Instead it is a process, an operating ocurring between sites. It is an informational site...It is a temporary thing, a movement, a chain of meanings and imbrecated histories: a place marked and swiftly abandoned" (25). Although we did not read the entire article, I don't see how this can be a widely accepted definition of site specifc art. What he refers to in that same paragraph in examples are photographs and video recordings, text and physical places...these are all completely different things. What does he see as common ground in these "types of site specific art?" Aren't these all things that can be replicated because they are recorded on some medium of film or paper? I do not see the relevance to site specificity, and the immense differences they pose to the "literal site" make me skeptical that he is describing an entirely different category of art.

2) In Kwon's first article, he argued that the changes in site specific art have taken away the beauty of what this style was originally meant to do. In this article, he seems to follow Richard Serra's description of site specific art, which at first glance supports the groundwork or platform that was laid by the first definition: site-specific art is conceived and determined by the environment and locational aspects where the work is to be made; to change or to move the art would be to destroy it. Here we see a common ground between Kwon and Serra about the roots of site specific art. However, Kwon argues in the first article that the artwork was meant to be subject originally, but that once it was integrated into the social, political, and economical realm that the meaning behind it turned into a process which defeated the purpose of the site specific art as a noun in its environment. The confusion lies in a quote from Serra where he states that "the preliminary analysis of a given site takes into consideration not only formal but also social and political characteristics of the site" (74). He fights in court against "the people" standing behind the original definition of what site specificity is and how it is motivated and cannot be removed, but he then contradicts the whole idea that was established in the first place by attaching a concern with the social. How can he stand behind an argument that does not neccessarily make sense? Is it plausible that any artists could pick and choose from any definition and mix and match to the standards that apply to their own ideas or arguments?