Re: [-empyre-] re-delineations

Patrick Simons <patricksimons@gloriousninth.com> · Sat, 09 Apr 2005 19:55:16 +0100

This is a misrepresentation of my position but there does not seem to be a
great deal to gain by my reiterating it.
So perhaps this would be a good time to return to the more potentially
interesting area raised by Kate and others before I offered this diversion?
What about it Empyricists?
best wishes
Patrick

on 4/9/05 2:21, Jordan Williams at jordan@cartocorpus.com wrote:

> But, saying that new media art practice might not be able to be
> transgressive politically because it uses a form that is employed by,
> implicated in capitalism is akin to saying that words cannot be used to
> transgress. After all, words/writing as a form are the tools par excellence
> of capitalism - the coding mechanism found in the law for example. This
> seems to me to be as problematic as saying that all new media is necessarily
> transgressive because it is 'rhizomatic'.
> 
> How does one artistically transgress without representing - and how does one
> represent without using some form - the body, writing, new media, the canvas
> - that has not been born out of or appropriated by capitalism?
> 
> I think Debord would appropriate new media as he appropriated architecture,
> cartography and film in order to resist and transgress, while at the same
> time decrying instances of new media which were oppressive.
> 
> Jordan
> 
> 
> On 9/4/05 7:45 AM, "Patrick Simons" <patricksimons@gloriousninth.com> wrote:
> 
>> Phew
>> Well I suppose I overstated the extent to which critical engagement is the
>> poor loser in the dialogue between art and life and Christiane et al are
>> surely right to question the simplistic nature of my case....
>> BUT
>> Ryan's got it right surely when he points out the correlation between the
>> focus and perceived solutions for the IT sector (perhaps the military
>> industrial complex locates it more accurately) are very very close.
>> 
>> The growth of Sci-Art funding, the use of media art as spectacle, the
>> attempts to commodify net art, to develop models of consumption of open
>> ended, networked art is institutionally driven (I suggest) and unless this
>> process of incorporation is resisted then I think the fine balance between
>> making work with and about high end capitalisation falls into becoming a
>> patsy for the technocrats.
>> 
>> I wonder what Guy Debord would have made of the situation?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> on 4/8/05 5:43, ryan griffis at grifray@yahoo.com wrote:
>> 
>>> i think Christiane and James' reminders in the projects that are out
>>> there is important. there is some great work that is taking technology
>>> on within a political economic framework.
>>> i do think it's important though to keep this in its avant garde
>>> context... there may seem to be a good number of publications out there
>>> that do take a critical look at IT and art, but that number becomes
>>> marginal in the larger scope of publications that take the form of
>>> design manuals, technical guides and otherwise celebratory accounts of
>>> technology. there's a whole other world of "computer art" out there
>>> that isn't even part of this conversation.
>>> my question comes from a perspective familiar with institutional
>>> critique and politically oriented conceptual art as well as tactical
>>> media. i'm wondering how art using IT can also be a criticism of it, in
>>> a meaningful sense. with the histories of conceptual art and inst.
>>> crit. pretty accessible now, i think there is firm ground from which to
>>> ask how these practices' challenges hold up. i'm wondering how art that
>>> relies on the same mechanisms it is trying to critique presents a
>>> meaningful challenge to those mechanisms. this seems especially
>>> relevant to tech-based art, which is utilizing, without question, one
>>> of the most rapidly developing product markets as a base. there are all
>>> kinds of concerns here, from labor to environmental justice. at the
>>> least, i think we could be asking what is driving our need to solve
>>> problems through technology in the way that we are. how are we even
>>> arriving at a consensus of what the problems are? my feeling is that
>>> the problems a lot of IT-based art, even the critical work, seems to
>>> ask are very similar to the ones the IT industry is -  and the
>>> solutions are: more technology, more places.
>>> i realize that there are fissures in all of this, and many holes in the
>>> way i'm framing it, but i think the questions remain pertinent.
>>> i don't buy James' assertion that hacking products necessarily changes
>>> our relationship to the process of production/distribution/consumption.
>>> i may run linux on my iPod and use it to record and podcast community
>>> meetings, but i still bought the iPod, will most likely pay for a new
>>> battery when the short life span on the current one dies. i'll also use
>>> it mostly like everyone else, to play music in my own little bubble as
>>> i move through the city. critical art ensemble (among others) have
>>> noted that open source and hacking are not intrinsically oppositional
>>> to capital.
>>> yes, "this is what democracy looks like" made use of the ubiquity of
>>> digital video equipment to make a political document that could be
>>> distributed and inform thousands more than were actually there about
>>> what when on in Seattle and why. but this project, like tactical media
>>> in general, is just that - "tactical," not strategic. it's not
>>> questioning the desire for and use of the media involved, it's using
>>> whatever means are available to deal with something. tactical media is
>>> all about short term goals, by whatever means sufficient.
>>> in thinking about some of this, i was reminded about the reception of
>>> Jonah Brucker-Cohen's WiFi Hog by the open wireless community.
>>> http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/2003-August/
>>> 007437.html
>>> http://locative.net/tcmreader/index.php?secology;brucker-cohen
>>> both the art project and community wireless projects are "critical,"
>>> both are positioned against the corporate/private model of IT...
>>> again, i'm not really certain where i'm going with this, so i apologize
>>> for the luddite-sounding rant.
>>> best, ryan
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre forum
>>> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
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>> 
> 
> 
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