[-empyre-] "What is Bare Life?"

[Susana Mendes Silva <arslonga@netcabo.pt>]

Hi to all,

After reflecting about  "what is bare life?", I will address some  
issues that approach this question and that are related to some of my  
projects. The situations that I find more defying are those when I  
can promote or be in close relation with people, and I must confess  
that I find that as seductive as disturbing.

 In 2002 I made a performance via mobile phone called artphone. This  
happen during Free Manifesta (in Manifesta 4). There was a flyer and  
an online page with my personal mobile phone number and the sentence:  
"Don't be afraid to ask everything you always wanted to know about  
contemporary art". I received the calls and established a  
conversation (about an art issue) either with someone I knew or with  
someone I have never met before. In the version of 2005, presented at  
prog:me, I used skype phone and the visitors could talk to me  
directly from the exhibition space. Even though both experiences went  
quite well and it was not very difficult to overcome some shyness or  
awkwardness, every time I talked with a person it was a very intimate  
experience. Carlos Sansolo (one of the curators of Prog:me),  
expressed this controverse feeling - of pleasure and fear - quite  
accurately:

 "The Portuguese artist Susana Mendes Silva proposed the artphone.  
The idea is quite simple, she provides her address so we can talk to  
her through a microphone and headphones from the computer about  
contemporary art, using the computer as a telephone. I have talked  
many times with Susana, never about art, always about technical  
issues and always presenting one other artist that appeared while  
talking to her. Actually talking to an unknown person on the phone  
gives you a certain degree of intimacy that I always felt terrified  
about. As a matter of fact, I have always felt a certain compulsion  
to confessing things to this unknown voice. My first thought is  
always about the history of sexuality of M. Foucault, about this fear  
of confessing in intimate moments. She says, "have no fear, ask me  
what you've always wanted to know about contemporary art", and all I  
felt was fear. The simple presence of a voice that talks about  
contemporary art has the ability to inspire disturbing or great  
situations for whoever contacts it. We may think it is a reflection  
on intimacy on the internet. The work is not only a proposition, but  
the result of this chat that can never be completely predictable.

Carlo Sansolo, In Notes about the curatorship and exhibition of the  
first new medias festival in Rio de Janeiro.



A completely different experience was art_room, where I used a  
webchat called webcamnow. My performance was developed in the context  
of Identidades Virtuais workshop, and I had set a schedule during the  
month of June. When I began the performance, on the first day, I went  
to room 1 to announce what I was doing by simply posting the  
sentence: "Don't be afraid to ask everything you always wanted to  
know about contemporary art". I moved to a free room (from 30 rooms,  
only three rooms had people in them), and I began to have  
conversations with some of the people. I soon realize that some of  
the users felt like they "own" the website (no matter what room I  
moved into), and they began to become very aggressive towards me. If  
you see the still image of me during the performance, you will only  
see my eyes. I was hiding behind my powerbook, because some of the  
users kept saying that I was showing off too much (even if I was  
decently dressed). In order to avoid some visual disturbance, I ended  
up "veiled" by my computer...

The result was totally the reverse from the other experiences...The  
experience of a certain degree of intimacy, soon lead to fear acted  
as aggressivity and exclusion. In the second day I was expelled from  
the "family and friends" area: my camera was shut down, and I was  
disconnected as a user by the moderator (just because he felt like  
it...he confessed it, when I later protested signed as a new user).

At first I was really furious and sent a complaint letter (that was  
never answered), but soon I realize that this experiment was very  
fascinating and revealing of how a human community can function - in  
a social and political sense - no matter what kind of media you are  
using or what kind of space you are at.



 related: http://www.turbulence.org/blog/archives/001121.html