Re: Re: [-empyre-] race, net-art, strategy

<aka.leafa@xtra.co.nz> · Sat, 26 Jul 2003 20:13:09 +1200

I think that there is no escaping the way things are and as strange as things are for me a lot of the time as a black woman in largely 'white' setting if that is not too inflammatory to use...I have learned a long time ago that if you don't know how to operate within the dominant power/racial structure, as a black person, you get absolutely nowhere. 
I really think Danny's point about 'essentialising' as a 'white man' thing is very much my experience. THIS 
There is no question when one is working in a specifically European aesthetic or imposing an essentially French and Eurocentric reading of artworks and locating where all art should be relegated to as far as style and content - but when discussing work from a perspective or peculiarity towards ethnicity, there appears to be very little interest in such 'essentialist' and 'bad'art. It is an issue with which I find difficult to negotiate in my practice. Damali is employing satire to discuss a very volatile issue and does it with style/humour/lived experience. I think her brilliance lies in the fact that she is able to discuss her work in the most Universal way [possible and satire was essentially a European genre is it not? No doubt that not all viwers will appreciate the African american struggle...but even as a black woman in another country...I am letting my hair grow long from stubbly no.2 , and since it has grown rather 'bushy' I have had 3 'white' women ask me if they could touch my hair. Oh how quaint!
> 
> From: "claudia raddatz" <claudia@anat.org.au>
> Date: 2003/07/25 Fri PM 03:13:46 GMT+12:00
> To: "soft_skinned_space" <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] race, net-art, strategy
> 
> i love VARIERTY, i wouldn't like to live in a UNIFORM WORLD ... 
> 
> there is nothing wrong with 'them' and 'us' and 'they' provided that:
> 
> WE ALL RESPECT EACH OTHER LIVES,
> 
> WE DON'T GO AROUND THE WORLD TAKING OTHER PEOPLES LAND AND SAYING 'THOSE'
> PEOPLE WEREN'T EVEN THERE (which is exactly what happened in Australia)
> 
> QUESTIONING SUCH STUPID THINGS AS: DO 'THESE TYPES OF PEOPLE' HAVE SOULS
> LIKE 'US' (spanish pondering in the Americas)
> 
> DESTROYING OTHER PEOPLES SACRED LANDS AND THEN CALLING IT PROGRESS
> 
> the system in power at the moment likes UNIFORMITY because it is easy to
> control people this way ... i am weird and i like it like this, i cannot be
> put on a box and then tagged with: you are this ...
> 
> this system in power, actually intends to create alienated robots that spend
> an entire life consuming products
> 
> it is a stupid system ... once more i am propping the agenda here!
> 
> cheers claudia {;-)
> 
> 
> ----------
> >From: Danny Butt <db@dannybutt.net>
> >To: <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> >Subject: [-empyre-] race, net-art, strategy
> >Date: Fri,  12:27
> >
> 
> > tV wrote on 24/7/03 2:09 PM:
> >
> >>> much at all of what they have been giving for centuries
> >
> >> Critically, isn't the problem this "they" though?
> >> Ie not essentialising a human based on colour, over generations?
> >
> > Kia ora koutou - de-lurking here thanks to all for an interesting discussion
> > in an area of critical importance - as a few have noted our methods for
> > exploring race in new media are so undeveloped, the languages and forums
> > available so transitory. It annoys the hell out of me that race gets so
> > little discussion in so many supposedly "political" forums which - surprise!
> > - happen to be dominated by white guys. So much to be done! Thanks to the
> > empyre crew for getting this moving.
> >
> > I wanted to comment on Tobias' point above, because the rhetorical move he
> > makes here is to my mind actually "the problem": shifting discussion from
> > particular power relationships (say, between whites and negroes)  to
> > abstract, "universal" phenomena (say, "racism"). It's a move which attempts
> > to take us as subjects out of the relationship: to seek a space where we
> > *don't need to think about race* because we are not complicit in its power
> > relationships, we are not "essentialising", "oppressing", or doing any bad,
> > racist things.
> >
> > Now while that's nice and everything, surely our cross-cultural interactions
> > show this to be unrealistic. We are always white, brown, black, male,
> > female, wealthy, poor, educated, *in relation* to another person. This
> > difference or solidarity creates a power dynamic. I think to seek flight
> > from this power dynamic is to relegate it to the subconscious and place it
> > out of conversation/negotiation. This is a standard default strategy if yr
> > white and male because we are aware that in any discussions of that dynamic
> > we are in positions of privilege not of our own choosing, and this makes us
> > uncomfortable, and probably racist! Who wants that? So white male culture
> > presents itself as not cultural - in Sharon Traweek's terms white male
> > culture is the "culture of no culture" - it's just the "way things are". We
> > seek to move discussions into abstract terms, rather than, like linda,
> > acknowledge the very personal ( and often excessive and uncontrollable)
> > emotions these power imbalances cause. So to avoid doing bad things, we
> > withdraw into a "safe" position - but it is that withdrawal which is the
> > engine of race conflict! That move to my mind also becomes a bit
> > paternalistic if it privileges a "universal ethics" (e.g. essentialism is
> > bad) - a white ethics! - through critiquing a specific intervention like
> > damali's. In the *realpolitik* of race relations, our abstract ideals are
> > challenged through the lived experience of our relations to one another. My
> > view is that understanding our experience of those relations in their
> > fucked-up, messy, unbalanced, irrational, unfair, and inherently *political*
> > specificity is the way the relationships can move forward. And I think as a
> > contribution to *that* project, Damali's rent-a-negro.com is a significant
> > initiative.
> >
> > best,
> >
> > Danny
> >
> > --
> > http://www.dannybutt.net
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
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