Re: [-empyre-] Do You Still Own Your Reality? (forwarded from GeriWittig)

[saul ostrow <sostrow@gate.cia.edu>]

Randall
Beyond  the traditional interventionist strategy of EPDC -- what is its
politics -- does it seek to empower its audience or does it merely
inform -- does it organize or merely leave people as they were before
having been informed 

As you might suspect from these questions my  I view  politics as
constituting the performative rather than the informational  -- Its all
fine and well to believe one is engaged -- yet that engagement must
extend beyond the relative freedom of the cultural sphere
Saul



> >
> > I wish you could have seen our recent installation, the Experimental
> > Party DisInformation Center, installed at LUXE gallery right in the
> > heart of the 57th St. gallery district in NYC during the Republican
> > Convention. Also the heart of the NYC Gucci neighborhood. Not a
> > typical place for political art.
> >
> > In any case, we had everyone from students to activists to red meat
> > Republicans, etc. going through the gallery. Around 5,000 people in
> > two weeks. There was one group of students from a New School
> > sociology class that had been given the assignment to view the show
> > and interview me. The Professor said the show had "opened the eyes"
> > of her students to the current political climate and the use of
> > propaganda by the Republicans. These were kids not at all experienced
> > with contemporary new media art, so this struck me as particularly
> > compelling.
> >
> > To get to the point, US DAT is a form of "performance art" that
> > dissolves the border between the virtual and physical realms of
> > galleries, Web sites, press releases, live performance, etc. It is
> > intended to reach people viscerally in its use of fantasy and satire,
> > which I believe, has been effective in drawing a large audience into
> > thinking about complex issues that might otherwise be inaccessible.
> >
> > I believe that if art has a political message, it needs to touch
> > people, it needs to connect with people and the world they live in.
> > Otherwise, you are right, it comes off being not only humorless, but
> > colorless and ineffectual.
> >
> > Randall
> >
> >
>