Rene Gabri on Tue, 23 Nov 2004 00:26:25 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> Re: Signals, Statistics & Social Experiments |
Dear Brian, As I occasionally do, I visited Nettime and was happy to see your text. (I am posting this, because others may find it useful) I enjoyed reading your text and I think it resonates a lot with our Homeland Security Cultural Bureau (hscb.org) story and the closure of Whitebox and all of the story which unfolded after HSCB is still as a government agency. http://dir.yahoo.com/Government/U_S__Government/Executive_Branch/Departments _and_Agencies/Department_of_Homeland_Security__DHS_/. Having gone through that entire process though, I think Ayreen and I experienced/learned something quite specific, which was that as long as thi= s sort of jamming happens to an "outside" force, things are, at least within the art context, all ok, but turned inside out, blurred, and when the art context itself is implicated within a certain matrix, the reaction against such a thing can be quite fierce and un-accepting. I think this lack of openness is a rare find for a field that attempts to dictate its terms through a language of openness, experimentation, ... Things you also allude to and raise questions to but worth considering within the terms I am suggesting. I think an ongoing question which cultural producers have been asking themselves is how radical or critical is something when it can so easily be digested and utilized in the service of Empire. I know, it sounds quite grand, possibly na=EFve, die-hard-revolutionary and I know we are each trying to find the institutional folds to work within or through, but I think this is a central question to ask oneself, no? I mean I too participate in the festivals and biennials that are of interest, and we mobilize our thoughts for/with/in relation to, energies, i= n the best instances use the resources available or given by the inviting institutions, work with the curators or organizers, who can and often are themselves very sympathetic to the aims you may have. And all of this is quite general I know, but I wonder how this also plays out within the kind of interventionism you are suggesting. I wonder what the ethics are of implicating one's own field within the matrices of power, construction of "reality", appropriation of resources, etc. etc. Anyway, somewhat unformulated, but nevertheless, enough food for thought, I hope. Best, Rene __________________________________________________ Rene Gabri 16 Beaver Group 16 Beaver Street, 5th fl. New York, NY 10004 email: rene@16beavergroup.org phone: 212.480.2093 visit: http://www.16beavergroup.org http://www.16beavergroup.org/radioactive http://www.hscb.org http://www.operationhow.org http://www.e-xplo.org # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net