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

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

dear Ian you are finally taking US seriously, we have been REASONING from 
the start of this conversation, it is that we are also 'invisible' because
of all that pop-aganda i told you about in an email

we are not only VERY REASONING, we are also very challenging, are we not?

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: Thu,  15:48
>

> 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
>
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