[-empyre-] complicit post

[Timothy Murray]

Welcome to the New Year, everyone.

>>I wonder if others in the -empyre- community share my curiosity as 
>>I enter into the new year finding posts coming across my screen 
>>that could be understood to be dismissive of intellectual history 
>>("the legacy of Adorno's aesthetics is problematic for us because 
>>it has become academic") and/or of the benefits that might be 
>>derived from philosophical or cultural thought, whether inside or 
>>outside of the academy ("I wonder whether anyone outside of 
>>Academia and the art world knows or cares about Adorno or Agamben 
>>for that matter").

I certainly agree with Johanna that part of our responsibility as 
artists and thinkers is to question and challenge notions of the 
world and art that have become formulaic.  But I wonder if you, 
Johanna, could clarify what you mean by "academic" in this context, 
especially since I value your academic study of alphabetic 
historiography and digital aesthetics, just as I appreciate the 
academic contexts that have brought us into productive conversation 
in the past.


Best wishes,

Tim







>>  gh comments below:
>
>On Jan 2, 2010, at 9:59 AM, Johanna Drucker wrote:
>
>  > But the legacy of Adorno's aesthetics is problematic for us because
>  > it has become academic, and because it is premised on a description 
>>  of the world and of art that have become formulaic.
>
>gh comments:
>I think I learned about Adorno from reading Artforum in the 1960's. He 
>was referred to by art writers in support of the conceptual art of the
>time. I wonder whether anyone outside of Academia and the art world
>knows or cares about Adorno or Agamben for that matter. It occurs to 
>me how bizarre a marriage the art world is taking academic theory and 
>philosophy and melding it with the aesthetics of marketing and desire. 
>In New York we often look to Europe for the theoretical underpinnings 
>of art. It's an odd idea but it gives some veracity or credence to art 
>works. The other verification is of course the market. If art sells 
>than it must be good enough for someone to buy it.   As I've often 
>quoted Rimbaud here it is again sort of paraphrased," all an artists 
>needs is a poet and a patron. "  Of course poets were the first art 
>theorists entrusted with the task of explaining an art work. The 
>patron obviously gives monetary  support to the artist.  In the 21st 
>century art world there is an art industry that includes Academia, 
>galleries,museums, alternative space, artists collectives, art fairs, 
>arts festivals etc.. all of these function as patronage to a greater 
>or lesser degree.  The word complicit has a negative connotation as if 
>being involved in these mechanisms has a taint to it. That's a strange 
>notion.  I've aways thought an artists is part of a culture and times 
>even as they stand apart from it and try to present their own work.
>
>G.H. Hovagimyan
>http://nujus.net/~gh
>http://artistsmeeting.org
>http://turbulence.org/Works/plazaville
>
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>_______________________________________________
>empyre forum
>empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>http://www.subtle.net/empyre


-- 
Timothy Murray
Director, Society for the Humanities
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/sochum/
Curator, The Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell Library
http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu
Professor of Comparative Literature and English
A. D. White House
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853