[-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 74, Issue 3

[Heidi May]

Which makes me wonder, considering the recent overlaps between art and  
education (http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/7976), if art such as this  
should include pedagogical aspects? Pedagogical aspects, that is,  
which are implemented in a way that doesn't feel like someone is  
telling you what to think? How much should be left open for  
interpretation if there is a message intended to be conveyed,  
particularly when societal structures are being challenged?

Best,

Heidi May

On 10-Jan-11, at 5:00 PM, empyre-request at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au wrote:

> Hello all, hello Marc
>
> what if one were to choose not to see the ironies in the  
> Surveillance Studies Network report
>
> (...."surveillance society is better thought of as
> the outcome of modern organizational practices, businesses, government
> and the military than as a covert conspiracy. Surveillance may be  
> viewed
> as progress towards efficient administration, in Max Weber's view, a
> benefit for the development of Western capitalism and the modern
> nation-state." )
>
> or the similar manifesto of the  PCSO Watch project (which has  
> "declared that 'We are all Police now'")
>
> and took them at face value, arriving at the question you raise at  
> the end and leave unanswered...
>
>> what does watching the watchers allow us to do?>
>
> Different agendas, same persisting power relations, and thus one  
> wonders
> where (as Simon writes: "Wikileaks has, by turning the Panoptic gaze  
> back upon the observer, struck a
> significant counter-attack in what might be considered an asymmetric  
> info-war") the counter is.
>
> with regards
> Johannes Birringer