[-empyre-] atavistic conservatism

[Eduardo Navas]

Hello everyone,

I posted a couple of videos along with various links to articles and support
sites.  The videos are from the rally which took place on April 8, before
and during Ricardo Dominguez's meeting with school officials.

http://newmediafix.net/daily/?p=2624

Best,

Eduardo Navas


On 4/18/10 7:52 PM, "Timothy Murray" <tcm1 at cornell.edu> wrote:

> Arthur ,
> 
> Please forgive my delay in picking up your thread,which I've been
> meaning to do as I see it woven into comments over the week.  I'm
> especially interested in your formulation of how "atavistic
> conservatism suddenly goes repressively liberal, justifying its
> attempt to shutdown the Transborder project in terms of "responsible
> academic research."
> 
> I think that Nick Knouf's account of the difficulties he's faced in
> received interior University funding for his projects exemplifies the
> "liberal" camouflage sported by atavistic conservatism--that the
> comfort of the majority overrides the injection of tactical thinking
> and art into the core of academic research and artistic thought.
> Therefore the most well-intended jurist can think of innumerable
> reasons why Nick's provocative artistic research (which provides
> access to the underwear of social metadata [which administrators sits
> on what corporate boards, for instance]) can end up having unintended
> consequences across the widest spectrum of society--thus the
> University has a responsibility to protect students such as Nick (and
> the University) from any imaginary consequences by not him with low
> levels of requested funding.
> 
> Interestingly, Renate received word this past week from a low-level
> administrator in one of her units that that program would not
> disseminate the announcement of this month's theme on its listserve
> because "it isn't appropriate."  Appropriate it seems to what
> administrators of college lists deem in their mind to be recognizable
> artistic practice, which would include, of course, her management and
> moderation of -empyre-.
> 
> Ironically, an article appeared this week at the same University
> lauding the commercialization of a new shotgun that had been designed
> in our Engineering MA program. One of the our hopes in framing this
> month's discussion is to reflect on precisely the kinds of paradoxes
> and disparities in thinking about and funding  of artistic and
> computing research that take for granted the appropriateness of
> certain projects and cross-institutional partnerships, such as those
> inscribed in the delivery of weaponry (whether for war or sport) and
> that naturally consider suspicious, under the mantel of repressive
> liberalism, projects and artworks whose research agenda might involve
> the critique of such premises.  The true danger to the stability of
> the University is that the arena for debate and conversation about
> such disparities is being threatened by pressures coming both from
> inside and outside the research and artistic arenas.
> 
> One history of multilayered critical and tactical mediation has been
> provided this week by Geert. whose implications were then extended to
> the current UCSD situation by Horit, Rita, Nick, Micha, Beatriz and
> others.
> 
> We're looking  forward to hearing from more -empyreans- as we
> continue through te next two weeks with additional featured guests.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Tim
>