[-empyre-] politics anabashadly

[nat muller]

renate,  there was an interesting piece on the bbc about the role of  
social media.  would like to share it with the list:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12400319


On Feb 9, 2011, at 15:21, Renate Ferro wrote:

> Thanks so to Larissa and Isak, Horit and Nat for laying the  
> groundwork for our discussion this month.  In regards to Nat's  
> comment again that Tim pointed out below, I have been so moved and  
> glued to the events being broadcast here in the US from Egypt via  
> cable television, network television and National Public Radio.    
> The relationship between geopolitics, media and aesthetics is so  
> obviously before us that  early last week during my class,  
> Introduction to Video and Sound ,I decided to talk about the  
> relationship between mass media, viral networking and its affects of  
> late on political networking.  Interestingly I was saddened when  
> many of my students, themselves eighteen and nineteen, though users  
> of Facebook multiple times a day, had not a clue what was unfolding  
> in the MIddle East. (Only one used twitter irregularly).
>
> For the remainder of the semester it will be politics, politics,  
> politics unabashedly.
>
> In solidarity.  Renate
>
> On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 8:39 AM, Timothy Murray <tcm1 at cornell.edu>  
> wrote:
> Thank you ever so much Horit and Nat for your forceful and  
> compelling statements about your work and the challenges faced by  
> artists and teachers in the throws of conflict.    I'm particularly  
> thankful to Nat for honoring the memory of Ahmed Bassiouny, the  
> sound and media artist who as killed during the events of January 28.
>
> I can't help but note the commonality of Horit and Nat's posts given  
> their emphasis on "the situatedness of media" and how  "the politics  
> and aesthetics of mediation" impact, as Nat puts it, "accountability  
> and affect within an artistic context."   I can't think of a better  
> way of describing the interventionist work of Horit, which I've been  
> following and admiring for years as she has worked perilously with  
> other feminist artists at the Israeli Palestinian checkpoints,  
> checkpoints that imprint the very ontology of 'mediation' on those  
> passing through it.
>
> I welcome more thoughts by Horit and Nat (and certainly by members  
> of the list-- recently subscribed members should know that they are  
> free to join in the conversation, and can do so by replying to this  
> e-mail) about how they understand the interrelatedness of  
> accountability and affect within the artistic context.  One wonders  
> whether such interrelatedness wasn't being practiced by Ahmed  
> Bassiouny on the day of January 28, when his capture of sound and  
> media would have been so crucial for the rearticulation of events  
> happening so rapidly.  Or perhaps, in this instance, his very  
> presence on Tahrir Square provided corporeal media through which  
> such capture was itself an expression of resistance.
>
> Then there's the flip side expressed by Nat, how to "teach a class  
> on this topic
> without the class becoming a seminar in political history or a lesson
> in activism only. " I must admit to having fallen under suspicion at  
> times over the years by students who have felt that both my choice  
> of artists under discussion and my emphasis on political topics  
> crossed the line into activism.  From my point of view, I feel that  
> we are imprinted with the ideological framework of our working  
> conditions, which in and of themselves might constitute the very  
> political histories or lessons of activism.  Conversely, I was  
> recently speaking with an American graduate who wishes to work on  
> tactical performance but whose professors urge her to select the  
> oeuvre of "artists" for evaluation.  Couldn't the performance of  
> Tahrir Square stand-in for such an artist?  Might mediation come  
> into play when the public stands-in for the private, in a way in  
> which creative approaches to social media might stand-in for more  
> traditional means of artistic expression?
>
> Tim
>
>
>
> -- 
> 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
> 27 East Avenue
> Cornell University
> Ithaca, New York 14853
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