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

[Ian Stevenson <audile@bigpond.com>]

Dear List,

I am glad I provoked some reasoned response.

Claudia wrote:
>in my humble just blah blah blah ...

I guess perhaps you thought I was not being constructive in my response
about evaluation and the potentialities of net art. I am quite serious about
finding ways to objectively validate my aesthetic responses or at least to
find ways to talk about them.

Keith wrote:
>All art is political. Work which unconsciously or
>carelessly engages with the political structures
>around it is often bad and therefore boring.

I agree, and I would add to unconsciously and carelessly - over
simplistically, although I have no specific examples to hand to back this up
with.

>Perhaps it is a mistake for you to look for work(especially
>about race) that makes you feel positively or work
>which less than difficult.

Not "feel positively", I meant respond to positively in an evaluative sense.
Difficult is often most challenging and therefore most rewarding.

>I certainly hope that anyone who considers themselves to be invested in
>racism finds my work about race disturbing.

My point about being a racist (I don't know what you mean by "invested in
racism") is that I am situated within power structures. To be racist is to
be prejudiced, to pre-judge based on race alone. No matter how self aware I
attempt to be in my engagement with the world, I still react to people and
situations in a prejudiced way. I attempt not to act on this prejudice but
it is there. It is part of who I am, which, although my identity evolves
with experience, I attempt to be aware of.

When I see this darker, unreasoning part of myself represented within an
artwork I recoil. This is a successful work, in my evaluation. On the other
hand, when I see this complex relationship with my own identity represented
in simplistic and bombastic terms, I do not respond positively to the work
and I get the sense that it does not have much to offer me.

Danny wrote more about POV. This is what I am trying to offer those working
in this field - an idea of what my POV as a white male is to works involving
race politics. We should not just see these works as holding up mirrors to
society but as mirrors to ourselves.

Damali wrote:
>art isn't meant to make us feel any one particular emotion, or make
>us think any one particular thing, but i do believe that art is made
>to make us think and feel. if it doesn't get rid of it.

My sentiments exactly!

Thanks for your comments.

Ian S