Re: [-empyre-] Forward from Christiane Paul: Is Modernity ourAntiquity?- empyre and empire

[Simon Taylor <swht@clear.net.nz>]

"Are the networked and performative artistic practices in which many
of us are involved a valuable counter-balance and at the same time
the foundations of today's "empire"?"
Christiane

.not counter-balance perhaps but ballast, then to Christiane's question,
yes. And a ballooning discussion like this might remind itself how strong
the lines of false-consciousness are (and in Nietzschean recursion endless)
tying it down to the idea of empire it tries to lift, lift out, take, take
off? (Something I believe Aliette has been very clear on.)

I was put in mind of the following:
"those monolithic forms, which apparently threaten us, are more authentic
and generate more difference than context-specific attitudes, than the most
scrupulous fragmentation can ever generate."
Rem Koolhaas

People still want to be 'shocked'. Art patrons still want their hands
bitten. In this regard, the fort/da tricks of pomo, now-you-see-i,
now-you-don't - or that stuff with mirrors - are hardly satisfactory.

A silly example, perhaps, but in my little coign of the realm, every second
artgrad student is running around with a book on Dada. Kurt Schwitters has
recently entered even serious discussions about artpractice an alarming
number of times.

I tend to agree with John Ralston Saul that we have reached the end of
'globalisation's' ideological tenure and require more ballast not to freely
signify - nothing - endlessly. I like Henry Warwick's answer, too.

Simon Taylor