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

["claudia raddatz" <claudia@anat.org.au>]

i don't see art as a passive reflector of reality ... as Bertolt Brecht, who
apparently wasn't very nice with the women who loved him, i say this just in
case he would be disqualified for this reason, wrote something that really
makes sense to me:

"Art is not a mirror to reflect reality,
but a hammer with which to shape it"

i have done a lot of reading and research about BULLYING ... it is not WHAT
WE THINK PEOPLE SHOULD FEEL what needs to be addressed BUT WHAT PEOPLE
ACTUALLY FEELS ...

i worked once with a beautiful artist, she was truly talented and incredible
friendly and happy, when we were inside the studio, but when we were
outside, she would always feel AS IF people were making fun of her, she just
couldn't help it ... i don't know what had happened in her life that make
her this way ... but this is the way she WAS!

as the facilitator of the workshops, I never tried to tell her she was WRONG
for feeling this way, instead i made the point to stay in the studio with
her during the short breaks and organised for all of us, the rest of us, the
ones who didn't feel lost outside in the open to have lunch in the studio as
well ...

it was a slow process but by the time we had all the designs ready for the
murals, which is what we were making, the artist i am telling you about was
ready to go out, not a lot but with us and she painted her bit and had fun
and at the end was very proud of her piece ... she didn't come the launch
but we showed her the photographs, she felt good ...

BULLYING comes in many forms and shapes and under many disguises as well, it
is NOT WHAT WE THINK PEOPLE SHOULD FEEL the important thing IS HOW PEOPLE
ACTUALLY FEEL ...

humble is rare, FORBERANCE is even rarer!!!

cheers claudia {;-)

----------
>From: "Ian Stevenson" <audile@bigpond.com>
>To: "soft_skinned_space" <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>Subject: Re: [-empyre-] race, net-art, strategy
>Date: Mon,  16:00
>

> Thanks Danny for making an opening for saying what I had wanted to say. Many
> race political works are alienating for a white racist such as myself. It's
> the process of identification, which is what creates much of the positive
> aesthetic effect in the work which I respond positively to, that makes me
> turn away from these works. It is often the characteristics of others, in
> which we see ourselves mirrored, that we dislike most. I find much political
> art boring - I find race political art disturbing and difficult. We are all
> situated within power structures. I look forward to the race political art
> that finds the subtlety to engage the confused and only partly self-aware
> racists such as myself. The net has the potential to be a medium for this
> kind of multivalent expression.
>
> Ian S
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Danny Butt" <db@dannybutt.net>
> To: <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Sent: Friday, July 25, 2003 12:57 PM
> Subject: [-empyre-] race, net-art, strategy
>
>
>> 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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>>
>
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