[-empyre-] art and buffy

[Andrew Burrell <andrew@miscellanea.com>]

Hi Stacia and all,

I had meant to imply that the ‘construction’ is happening in  
association with the ‘negotiation’ (and re-negotiation). Your  
definition of ‘negotiation’ does however include both of these  
processes: “working with what's on the table, moving it around,  
reordering it, and, yes, creating something new out of the material”.  
I also agree that no final agreement can ever be made, in fact it is  
the ever failing struggle to find agreement that ultimately defines  
the self.

If art and Buffy are tools for this kind of negotiation, then perhaps  
it comes from the freedom to pose  (and attempt to answer)  
challenging speculative philosophical and ethical questions? They  
provide a space (a site of speculation) to step far enough outside of  
the usual self in order to examine(negotiate) it from another angle.

(As an aside for non Buffy fans, but still on this point, intelligent  
speculative fiction and screen writing has long been at the forefront  
of philosophical investigations into the self. Indeed Buffy (the  
show) presented us with the very question of real/un-real when it  
asked: what is the difference between having a sister, whom you know  
to be your sister because the narratives of your memory / imagination  
informs you that you do, and having a sister that the narratives of  
your memory / imagination informs you of, yet, your intellectual  
deduction tells you otherwise. If your memory and imagination both  
fill you with a love for your own sister, yet you know that these  
memories have actually been planted by an outside force, does this  
love (or indeed this sister) become any less real? (And what if this  
outside force where a television script writer, rather than a group  
of mystics trying to save the future of the planet?) And all of this  
on prime(ish) time television.)

ps: I hope you read my posts with the voice of enquiry, stemming from  
a strong appreciation for your work.

cheers
andrew
--------

andrew burrell
http://www.miscellanea.com