[-empyre-] networks of catastrophe + terror/capital

[sdv at krokodile.co.uk]

Sean,

what art speaking of the good are you thinking of ?

The only material i can think of is that which escapes between the shims 
in the machine.

steve

Sean Cubitt wrote:
> A catastrophe in its ordinary running, and a crisis-prone catastrophe.
>
> Fifteen years ago, or maybe twebnty, Jimmie Durham noticed that the 
> invading white men accused the native Americans of rape, scalping, 
> gratuitous slaughter of whole villages . . .  But that of course it 
> was the other way round. Who still believes violence is repressed in 
> liberal capitalist democracies? It is the everyday rapes, pillage and 
> murders by which capitalism manages to profit from its own 
> catastrophic nature. The unending terror that began with Calvin still 
> populates the very heart of commerce (and the state is its executive 
> branch)
>
> The problem now can be phrased like this: The world is split between 
> Evil (regimes, terrorists . . .) and Innocent (civilians, victims . . 
> . ). There is no room left for the Good. What art can do uniquely is 
> to speak of the Good, that is of the very thing that does not exist in 
> or for contemporary capitalism
>
> sean
>
>
>
>
> On 29/11/08 10:21 AM, "Verena Conley" <vconley at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>
>     Excellent point. Of course, terror is endemic to capitalism.
>     Though we still have to define it.
>     Also, since earlier we spoke of catastrophes, it seems fairly safe
>     to say that free market capitalism the way it was practiced since
>     1989 but especially 2000 is the real catastrophe.
>
>     Verena
>
>     On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 5:05 PM, simon <swht at clear.net.nz> wrote:
>
>         Does this mean - the following - the following (too late),
>         which my
>         earlier post was an attempting to articulate: that capital encodes
>         terror? makes use of it in its flows of symbolic exchange? as
>         if having
>         reached a critical velocity, the accident of history is given to
>         returning endlessly?
>
>         Or conversely has there been some sort of symbolic phase shift
>         whereby
>         the simulacrum, the coded world, that Image of
>         thought-as-representation, now only runs by circulating,
>         through the
>         circulation of, acts/networked nodes of terrestrial and
>         extraterrestrial
>         terror? Is capital now entrained in the duration of terror?
>         (As we are
>         entrained in the durations of its spectacular technological
>         means.)
>
>         Simon Taylor
>
>         www.squarewhiteworld.com <http://www.squarewhiteworld.com>
>         www.brazilcoffee.co.nz <http://www.brazilcoffee.co.nz>
>
>
>         Nicholas Ruiz III wrote:
>         > As a reflection of the transparency of evil (Baudrillard),
>         the whole
>         > lot of it, Mumbai, etc.--is commerical art...and the millions of
>         > downloads, transmissions and commentaries are its market,
>         paid for in
>         > broadcast fees, cable and satellite subscriptions and financed by
>         > advertisers: with media art critics and all!  We are
>         enveloped by a
>         > postmodern Roman media coliseum, where gladiatorial urges are
>         elicited
>         > and fulfilled, where spectators take part in the war games,
>         which are
>         > repeated endlessly and archived for posterity on the Network.
>         >
>         > NRIII
>         >
>         > Nicholas Ruiz III, Ph.D
>         > Editor, Kritikos
>         > http://intertheory.org
>         >
>         _______________________________________________
>         empyre forum
>         empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>         http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
>
>
>
> Prof Sean Cubitt
> scubitt at unimelb.edu.au
> Director
> Media and Communications Program
> Faculty of Arts
> Room 127 John Medley East
> The University of Melbourne
> Parkville VIC 3010
> Australia
>
> Tel: + 61 3 8344 3667
> Fax:+ 61 3 8344 5494
> M: 0448 304 004
> Skype: seancubitt
> http://www.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/media-communications/
> http://homepage.mac.com/waikatoscreen/
> http://seancubitt.blogspot.com/
> http://del.icio.us/seancubitt
>
> Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Book Series
> http://leonardo.info
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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