Re: [-empyre-]from Renate wondering about who else is out there?

[Gabriela Vargas-Cetina <gabyvargasc@prodigy.net.mx>]

Hello, I have enjoyed this whole discussion very much as a lurker, and maybe
you might be interested in how I relate to some of its angles.  I am a
musician, a theorist and an ethnographer, and could not see any of my work
without some kind of fusion: music helps me think about theory and
ethnography: am I laying out all the melody and punctuation channels to the
adequate beat?  Am I building a strong layered foundation for my particular
(melodic in music, locally situated in ethnography) point?  Is whatever I am
doing developing each of the elements I am mixing?

Theory helps me think about ethnography and music: how would the same song
work if I introduced a different beat or the structures of, say, Plains
Indians' music or music from the highlands of Sardinia, or medieval
fandango?  Or how would the same fieldwork info work if I put them against a
completely different theoretical -or rhythmic -or building background?  It
is a matter of seeing the same things (melody, rhythm, music colour,
whatever) from different perspectives, to see what works best, and then
seeing different perspectives through a specific case (local ethnography,
melody).

Maybe it helps that I only studied music for a couple of years, so the
recording and mixing technologies have shaped what I think and do much more
than straight classical music theory, but in my view one think has to be
exploded and fused with all the others within my own understanding of the
world, so I can make sense of it all together.  This is what my music, my
theory and my ethnography are about, and none can be understood without
reference to the others.


Gabriela Vargas-Cetina
Anthropologist and musician


On 9/21/07 1:53 PM, "rtf9@cornell.edu" <rtf9@cornell.edu> wrote:

> Thanks Maurice
> 
> Is there anyone else out there in -empyre land
> who works or writes on these relationships that
> is lurking?????  Just wondering what you think.
> Renate
> 
> 
>> Hi Maurice,
>> 
>> From reading the posts, I had in mind a similar
>> idea, but was uncertain about the relation
>> between "critical fusion" and "fiction". Thanks
>> for the explanation. I think it should apply
>> then to all powerful works of art?
>> 
>> It seems to me that in creating specific ways to
>> access some reality, even if in very temporary
>> and contingent forms, the inquirer inextricably
>> formats what is seen and created. Considering
>> that in a painting, in a film, in an
>> installation and so on, the way in which we
>> formulate questions to something called reality
>> shapes in an intrinsic way the results that
>> might be created - there always should be, I
>> think, a critical fusion taking place in good
>> (strong, powerful) artwork, in different degrees
>> of information, fiction and "reality"?
>> 
>> On Sep 21, 2007, at 9:51 AM, maurice benayoun wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi Alice
>>> 
>>> Just to say more about the concept of "Critical Fusion"
>>> 
>>> We talked about this point before and here is a comment by Tim the I added
>>> some more details. Of course as a metaphor, critical fusion directly apply
>>> to nuclear matter. It applies to your work if they are somehow a real fusion
>>> of information/fiction and reality.
>>> The previous discussion:
>>> ***
>>>> I'm very interested in your notion of "critical fusion" as something
>>>> that refers metaphorically referring to the atom (critical mass + atom
>>>> fusion) as something close to explosion, producing the maximum of
>>>> energy-.  It might be argued by many that such critical fusion is
>>>> inherent in art, as something naturally explosive, like the atom,
>>>> waiting to be unleashed.
>>> 
>>> Critical Fusion as a concept belongs mostly to the physical space, the so
>>> called "real world", the one that is not built initially with symbolic
>>> purposes. What I call in French "Fusion critique" (not so different...) is
>>> about entering the social, physical, architectural space with some insider
>>> symbolic inputs that make it more understandable, that help deciphering it,
>>> unveiling undercover aspects of our daily life (as far as we can:-). Let say
>>> it is the opposite of framed art, set inside galleries, inside museums,
>>> boxes: preserved inside boxes, inside boxes close to the confining envelope
>>> on Chernobyl reactor (tribute to Alice) attempting to limit the impact of
>>> art confining it in the sphere of exquisite and delicate mental disorders.
>>> ***
>>> Maurice
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -----Message d'origine-----
>>> De : empyre-bounces@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> [mailto:empyre-bounces@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] De la part de Alice Miceli
>>> Envoyé : vendredi 21 septembre 2007 01:41
>>> À : soft_skinned_space
>>> Objet : Re: [-empyre-]from Renate on a quiet Ithaca morning / From Alice on
>>> awarm Rio evening
>>> 
>>> Hi Renate,
>>> 
>>> That is a very interesting question. Concerning the social/political
>>> "fallout" on actual viewers - actual viewers being, so far, the blog
>>> online visitors or people who attended presentations of the ongoing
>>> process of the project (since it is not done yet, as a matter of
>>> fact, it is only beginning): it has helped, even if to a narrow
>>> extent, to raise awareness and debate towards nuclear energy and its
>>> consequences, and hopefully it will be able to contribute more -
>>> visibility, again, being the central keyword in this discussion. It
>>> has and will be doing this, so I hope, mainly by means of its formal,
>>> conceptual, elaboration - in a quest to create specific images of
>>> particular places. Images that can bear the full presence of what has
>>> taken place in their locations, created in specific ways that intend
>>> to expose their particularities in the very way the images themselves
>>> are generated. As you mentioned the "reality of Chernobyl's site in
>>> its presence and in its history", it seems to me that, beyond being
>>> history, beyond being a historic disastrous event, it is also
>>> "present", as it will sadly remain a catastrophic situation for
>>> hundred of years.
>>> 
>>> I am not very familiar with the concept of "critical fusion", please
>>> let me know with I have answered this in a totally crazy direction,
>>> like not answering it at all / or if there are further points that
>>> you would like to discuss. Thanks.
>>> 
>>> Alice
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sep 18, 2007, at 7:05 PM, Renate Terese Ferro wrote:
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> I've been reading -empyre posts furiously these last few weeks
>>>> between an
>>>> intense teaching schedule so I've been lurking more than I have been
>>>> writing but I wanted to ask Alice and Maurice to respond to a
>>>> couple of
>>>> items in their posts on this unusually quiet morning in Ithaca:
>>>> 
>>>> First to Alice: I'm fascinated by the juxtaposition between the
>>>> reality of
>>>> your interventions at Chernobyl, the photographic traces of your
>>>> work, the
>>>> blog entries and then finally the reception of the viewers to all
>>>> of this.
>>>>  The resonance between the reality of the Chernobyl site (both the
>>>> presence of the site and its history) and its traces must produce some
>>>> degree of "critical fusion" for the viewers to your project. What
>>>> is the
>>>> social/political "fallout" of your project on actual viewers? Do your
>>>> images or blog entries stir up narratives of the event?those
>>>> narratives if
>>>> they exist must contain a blend of fact and fiction given the
>>>> resonances
>>>> of memory.
>>>> 
>>>> And to Maurice: Earlier this month we talked about the affects that
>>>> our
>>>> artistic work might have sociologically or politically on the
>>>> viewer. I
>>>> was wondering if you could comment on real life examples (in
>>>> regards to
>>>> your use of "critical fusion") for example how our  government or any
>>>> other social institution for that matter constructs situations or
>>>> events
>>>> fusing reality and fiction for its own motives. You do the same by
>>>> constructing politically charged events within the VR archtiecture.
>>>> Is there a reasonance between the two--Reality and VR-- and how so?
>>>> 
>>>> I've been reading -empyre posts furiously these last few weeks
>>>> between a
>>>> pretty intense teaching schedule so I've been lurking more than I have
>>>> been writing but I wanted to ask Alice and Maurice to respond to a
>>>> couple
>>>> of items in their posts on this unusually quiet morning in Ithaca:
>>>> 
>>>> First to Alice: I'm fascinated by the juxtaposition between the
>>>> reality of
>>>> your interventions at Chernobyl, the photographic traces of your
>>>> work, the
>>>> blog entries and then finally the reception of the viewers to all
>>>> of this.
>>>>  The resonance between the reality of the Chernobyl site (both the
>>>> presence of the site and its history) and its traces must produce some
>>>> degree of "critical fusion" for the viewers to your project. What
>>>> is the
>>>> social/political "fallout" of your project on actual viewers? Do your
>>>> images or blog entries stir up narratives of the event?those
>>>> narratives if
>>>> they exist must contain a blend of fact and fiction given the
>>>> resonances
>>>> of memory.
>>>> 
>>>> And to Maurice: Earlier this month we talked about the affects that
>>>> our
>>>> artistic work might have sociologically or politically on the
>>>> viewer. I
>>>> was wondering if you could comment on real life examples (in
>>>> regards to
>>>> your use of "critical fusion") for example our how a government or any
>>>> other institution for that matter constructs situations or events
>>>> fusing
>>>> reality and fiction for its own ulterior motives.
>>>> 
>>>> There are so many recent examples but in some of the work I've been
>>>> doing
>>>> for my project "Panic Hits Home" I appropriate public service
>>>> announcements from government sources that fuse fiction and reality
>>>> for
>>>> ordinary citizens In the case of the Cold War, the US government
>>>> contracted major Hollywood studios to produce short films that were
>>>> designed to educate and inform a certain demographic of the
>>>> population.
>>>> One of my favorite examples is a short film designed for businesses
>>>> produced in the early 1950's.  The message of the film was that in
>>>> case of
>>>> nuclear war a business could survive by microfiching all of the
>>>> business
>>>> records then storing these records in a safe place away from an
>>>> urban area
>>>> where the likelihood of a nuclear bomb may be less. After the
>>>> fallout the
>>>> business owner and the workers could reenter from their shelter,
>>>> retrieve
>>>> the safe records and reconstruct business again!
>>>> 
>>>> Or perhaps I can site another current day example shortly after
>>>> 9/11 when
>>>> the government encouraged citizens to prepare for a possible airborne
>>>> infiltration by sealing off a room with duct tape and plastic and
>>>> using
>>>> the website of the Office of Homeland Security to inform citizens
>>>> on how
>>>> to go about doing this.
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks so much again to both Alice and Maurice.
>>>> 
>>>> Renate
>>>> Thanks so much again to both Alice and Maurice.
>>>> 
>>>> Renate
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> empyre forum
>>>> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre forum
>>> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>> 
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>>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> 
> 
> --
> Renate Ferro
> Visiting Assistant Professor of Art
> Cornell University
> Department of Art, Tjaden Hall
> <rtf9@cornell.edu>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre