[-empyre-] what is Bare Life -- Susana Mendes Silva

[Christina McPhee <christina112@earthlink.net>]

Susana et al  ---

About  the intimacy and fear the 'artphone' inspired in Carlos Sansolo.

> 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.
 That's so interesting.   Erotic emotions and fears in the anonymous  
exchange  'ask me anything you want to know about contemporary  
art.?"   Would it be different if  we substituted 'anything you want  
to know about guantanamo?'



-christina