[-empyre-] Future Tense: Alternative Arts and Economies in the University

[christopher sullivan]

Hello I have been silent for a while, but I will chime in,
that as intelligent people , we have to look at what is really happening.
as opposed to what we wish was happening so that is fits into our academic
notions of institutional critic, and censorship. 

     
In Jo-Anne's passage, I feel that the political situation, is greatly placed out
of proportion to the economic. 
one might say " a break down in the global economy, has lead to less expendable
income, and thus pressures on schools to provide a more pragmatic educational
"product" This challenges Art schools, Liberal arts colleges, to address whether
there fields of study are luxuries." 

In these social and political situations, we are not going to be able to make
any strides unless we remain seriously critical of the pitfalls and overt
nature of things like tactical media, and find ways to take the focus away from
the professors, and back to the quality of education we provide our students,
meaning there vision, their growth, their work.. 
There should be a clear line I believe, between ones study, scholarship, art,
and what happens in your classroom. otherwise, we are just trying to create
safe clones of our attitudes, politics, agendas. 

I have always been amazed at the boring sense of agreement in Art education, and
political oriented scholarship in particular. by this I mean the notion that
though we come from different places, we should all have read the same
materials, and agree on all major topics, primary to this, is the notion that
everything is about representation, and everything is an illusion created by
prejudices, the government, the media..Ignoring the more interesting
conversation that some serious shit is actually happening. 
I.E. people sneaking across any border in droves, is a problem.

I unfortunately have been as disappointed in my fellow faculty in these times,
as I have been with administration, probably more.

to diversity of thought.  Chris.






Quoting Green Jo-Anne <jo at turbulence.org>:

> Hi All,
> 
> For those of you participating in this month's conversation who are  
> not at UCSD, this conference has just been announced and ought to be  
> of interest. From the website: "Universities from London to Sussex, from  
> Athens  to Vienna, and from Berkeley to Santa Cruz, have experienced  
> protests, occupations, walkouts and other actions directed against  
> the encroaching privatization of public education."
> 
> "The last two years have witnessed an unprecedented crisis on college  
> campuses around the world, as the social compact that governed higher  
> education in the United States and Europe for the past half century  
> has begun to collapse. Universities from London to Sussex, from  
> Athens  to Vienna, and from Berkeley to Santa Cruz, have experienced  
> protests, occupations, walkouts and other actions directed against  
> the encroaching privatization of public education. This crisis has  
> been particularly acute at the University of California, the flagship  
> public university system in the United States. Dramatic funding  
> cutbacks, layoffs, furloughs, and fee hikes have been combined with  
> an upsurge in the sort of racist and sexist attacks that often  
> accompany periods of economic turmoil, as the perception of dwindling  
> resources  leads to the predictable search for scapegoats. This  
> complex mix of  economic, cultural and social forces places  
> particular pressure on the status of the arts within research  
> universities, and the very notion of the university itself as a haven  
> for liberal arts education. New tensions have opened up, between the  
> arts and humanities and engineering and science, and between public  
> and private funding  sources and priorities, even as new solidarities  
> have emerged, among  and between staff and faculty, graduates and  
> undergraduates, disciplines and departments."
> 
> More here http://www.ucira.ucsb.edu/2010SDCallforProposals.html
> 
> Warm Regards,
> 
> Jo
> 
> Jo-Anne Green
> Co-Director
> New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.
> 917.548.7780 or 617.522.3856
> Turbulence: http://turbulence.org
> Networked_Performance: http://turbulence.org/blog
> Networked_Music_Review: http://turbulence.org/networked_music_review
> Networked: http://networkedbook.org
> New American Radio: http://somewhere.org
> Upgrade! Boston: http://turbulence.org/upgrade_boston
> 
> 
> 
> 


Christopher Sullivan
Dept. of Film/Video/New Media
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
112 so michigan
Chicago Ill 60603
csulli at saic.edu
312-345-3802