[-empyre-] expanded (CB)

[Jennifer Flores Sternad]

from cara baldwin
(thank you, cara!)

------ Forwarded Message
From: Cara Baldwin <feralysis at earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 13:07:09 -0700
To: "moarquech at yahoo.com.mx, soft_skinned_space"
<empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>, <archivocaminante at yahoo.com.ar>
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Re: expanded

Conversation in an elevator, . looking at the stains on wood :

--Which is better? This, or doing this?

--This.

--Bring him to see or bring them to see?

--Bring them to see.

Alberto Greco, from Manifesto Vivo-Dito, 1963

back in the 90's (can't write this without using a crackly old man
voice) i was saving barricades in my apartment for a rainy day. i put
them on either side of the bridges that connected the city and they
quietly disappeared. i changed my underwear in public and told
everyone i was ana mendieta. learned about chicano cultural politics
and activism. met collaborators and friends marc herbst and christina
ulke and began years of conversation about anything we could imagine
and do together. following seattle we found ourselves spending the
summer in L.A. working with folks setting up an la indymedia for the
2000 democratic national convention. representation. organization, and
lot's and lot's of

pigs. pigs. pigs. pigs. pigs. p pigs. pigs. pigs. pigs. pigs. pigs.
pigs. pigs. pigs. pigs. pigs. pigs. pigs. pigs. pigs. pigs. pigs.
pigs. pigs. pigs. pigs. pigs. pigs. pigs. pigs.

brian holmes wrote about the "inflated art scenes of the 90s" and that
to "be an activist then was not fashionable in any way, it was
considered totally retrograde in artistic circles." critique at this
time lacked currency materially and culturally (narrow sense of the
word) from where i was standing. listening to someone slather on about
68 and a postcolonial theorist's incisive critique of metanarrative i
wondered if the blood i'd seen in images of the diaz school around
genoa g8 was part of someone i loved.
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/genova/pics4a.htm

adorno's "there is no love that is not an echo." floating a desire to
share the acoustic space in which we breath, speak, feel and act in a
way that is occupied and open—but not like a yoga group.

i also respond to eduardo molinari's approach to the expanded,
particularly considering migration patterns across the americas and
would only extend that history and migration (not just recent. not
just one way). grimson and kessler's on argentina and the southern
cone: neoliberalism and national imaginations, and dunbar-ortiiz's
roots of resistance speak to this in a localized and concrete way.

because of the relative economic stability in north america during
2000 most of the art i saw produced/reproduced in institutional
contexts were either new media works of a post modern or minimalist
aesthetic or frothy blown out paintings meant to illustrate 'networks
and flows.' couldn't wait for something to disrupt that. through the
democratic national convention mobilizations met sandra de la loza,
working again with her, marc, christina and ryan griffis and robby
herbst on collectively organized and community-based projects the 2004
october surprise october surprise http://www.theoctobersurprise.org/
and journal of aesthetics & protest http://www.joaap.org/ starting in
2001. the curator at the L.A. museum of contemporary art who organized
the experimental exercise of freedom (with rina carvajal) needed an
assistant— i was able to research and write about artists from
central, south america and italy if i held my cards to my chest.
actually, i was more like a child at the table who would reemerge
occasionally sticky with cobwebs. cards can fit in your back pocket
depending on who / where you are perceived to be. the emphasis on
institutional critique at california institute of the arts was
grounded even as it was too narrowly circumscribed. met etcetera last
october without a joint, sadly. first saw their work in another
institutional context at the centro cultural de tijuana at inSITE
2005. bill kelly and sandra were there as well. sunday morning as
hurricane katrina wound toward new orleans bill kelly, sandra and i
sat the golden glow of the haudenschildGarage listening to what i
found fucked approaches to collectivity, mobility and 'cultural'
exchange. everyone was wearing white linen except sandra and me who
sat talking loudly shit (like children) in the back.
http://www.insite05.org/internal.php?pid=17-357 women are among those
compelled to learn early the many ways and to what extent
representation and invisibility are useful.

can 'we' identify material conditions that urgently need to be
addressed w/out representing others? this is an open question and one
we work from and through every day. i'm on an overpass with berries
falling out of my mouth. precarity gives way to starvation at some
point and i would like to address that.  the black panther party
breakfast program is art.

in addition to 'post politics' what is meant by 'post industrial' at
this moment?

sorry, I know I'm not following form handing threads back in a tangled
sticky ball.

--