[-empyre-] re/claiming and unsettling / continuing artistic practices

Sat Mar 10 01:28:03 EST 2012

Ana,

I think you are right, insofar as it is a web of intersubjective
relations, a network does imply some pretty hearty obligations and
rights.

On the other hand, network can also imply a relationship among objects
or objectives, as a command and control tool, more or less.

I think sometimes, the lines between the two models of communication,
one humanistic and the other informatic, tend to blend together.

Davin

On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 4:21 AM, Ana Valdés <agora158 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you David for sharing some interesting thoughts. I think networking in
> itself is a value, a virtue, similar to fortitude, justice, prudence and
> temperance, the traditional Christian values.
> When Jose Bové started his fight against MacDonalds and other fastfood
> chains he was using his knowledge and his contactnet to create a new
> network.
> The same thing does the farmes sueing Monsanto.
> All the best
> Ana
>
> On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 10:08 AM, davin heckman <davinheckman at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Ana, I wonder if the reason for this lack of sustained critical mass
>> has to do with some of our deeper structures of belief and motivation.
>>
>> I think the 20th century is committed to technique, and insofar as we
>> have been committed to technique, we have been excellent at sustaining
>> the centrality of our belief in technique and our committment to its
>> practice.
>>
>> I was just re-reading Animal Farm and sobbing, along with my children,
>> over its failure.  We were wondering why such a sound idea was
>> incapable of producing lasting results.  And, the issue is not the
>> problem with "animalism" in Animal Farm....  the problem is the belief
>> that animalism in itself, as a formal system, would be enough to
>> sustain its permanent state.  But again and again in the story, the
>> problem is not animalism, it is a problem with a belief in animalism
>> as an external technique, rather than an intimately understood,
>> subjectively integral, culturally networked way of being.
>>
>> We wonder why social movements often flounder, it has to do with a
>> lack of belief in anything BUT the technical fix.  Find the error,
>> adopt the formula, implement the system....  and then we can live in
>> utopia without having to constantly concern ourselves with creating
>> it.  If we can just get rid of the humans, the animals believe, then
>> the future of animalism is secure.  But, really, maybe to sustain a
>> movement, you have to worry yourself constantly with its perpetual
>> renewal.  Unfortunately, we are conditioned to believe that the
>> problems of life are solved through discrete purchases....  even
>> though we have overwhelming evidence that this is not so....  many
>> behave as though the lack of love in their life can be solved by
>> properly groomed nostrils or scientifically scented skin or the right
>> watch.  They might not believe the specific propaganda claims, but at
>> a very deep level, we are always looking for "fixes," but we doubt our
>> own capacity to become the fix.  I mean, global hunger....  Monsanto
>> says its about their seeds....  but really, the world has food, give
>> hungry people food.  We don't need a scientist or a machine to do
>> that.  Depression....  Pfizer pushes pills...  but really, work less,
>> give your time and effort to people for nothing.
>>
>> The Church was good at building its network because the network wasn't
>> an end in itself.  Sure, for some people it is, and these poor people
>> graft themselves to power and try to take something from it without
>> giving themselves to the spirit of the collective project.  But the
>> network itself grew and sustained itself because people believe in
>> something else, of which the network is supposed, only, to be a trace,
>> shadow, artifact.  Or, to use a more contemporary example--the city--a
>> city does not exist because it is a city, it exists because it offers
>> a means for people to pursue individual existence collectively.  The
>> streets, sewers, buildings, law, etc. exist to support that function,
>> and increase the likelihood that people will join the city to pursue
>> life.  And, a really good city, eventually becomes a metaphor for the
>> life of its people, and then for people more generally.  But this is
>> only a power trick of signification, a way of talking about life
>> through material metaphors.  That Chan reference on this thread,
>> really illustrates this idea quite nicely.
>>
>> Peace!
>>
>> Davin
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 4:03 PM, Ana Valdés <agora158 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Thanks Johannes for a very inclusive post where you pinpointed some of
>> > the
>> > most relevant things we posted these days.
>> > I am as you concerned with the concept of "networking". I think for the
>> > big
>> > capital has never haft problems with networking issues. Rome had
>> > soldiers
>> > and administrators taking to Rome wheat from Egypt, parrots from Africa,
>> > grain from everywhere, wine from Spain, etc, etc. The Catholic Church
>> > based
>> > it's power on networking. Yes, they were vertical and high centralized
>> > networkings but their goal was to keep the empire or their organization
>> > floating.
>> > Why should be so difficult for "us", grassroots movements, students,
>> > peasants, social leaders, artists, intellectuals, commited people, to
>> > act
>> > the same way?
>> > Ana
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 3:34 PM, Johannes Birringer
>> > <Johannes.Birringer at brunel.ac.uk> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> dear all
>> >>
>> >> thanks for all the postings herel
>> >> I was intrigued to read the conceptual (theoretical) notions offered,
>> >> perhaps as a form of political thought or analysis, alongside the
>> >> reports
>> >> from the activist fronts and resiliences, and here
>> >> i especially found it helpful to hear of movements allowing us to
>> >> imagine
>> >> the urban contexts to be also, possibly, in strategic dependence
>> >> politically
>> >> on the non urban (the regions and hinterlands).
>> >> So, thinking less of 'swarm' logics and emergences, and more of
>> >> grown/rooted resiliences and how they are/were "tactics of the past."
>> >>
>> >> kamen argues:
>> >> >This notion - of retreat, of losing the centre - is something I'm
>> >> > researching right now in terms of art practice>
>> >>
>> >> could you elaborate on that, and your proposition that citizens
>> >> "produce
>> >> public space",  perhaps also in response to Alan Sondheim;s justified
>> >> skepticism, and his mentioning of the "resilient governing forces"?
>> >> I was also trying to think of Aristide Antonas speaking about the
>> >> situation in Greece ("Athens," he suggests, is "emblematic for the
>> >> future" -
>> >> why?) , and wanting to hear more from Leandro about how he
>> >> values the rural based Sin Tierra movement in Brazil  (i remember them
>> >> occupying a huge strip of space going down the hill towards the
>> >> government
>> >> sector in Brasilia, i remember the red earth or sand where they had
>> >> camped).
>> >>
>> >> So many different locations were mentioned, in these past days, the
>> >> struggles seem always local, and how to you compare Fukushima and, say,
>> >> the
>> >> Organizing for Occupation (O4O) movement to protest foreclosures of
>> >> houses
>> >> auctioned off in Queen, New York?  [cf. Gary Younge, "The Itinerant
>> >> Left has
>> >> found its home in Occupy, 27 Feb 2012, Guardian,
>> >>
>> >> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/26/us-left-home-occupy-middle-america].
>> >> Does it however require, as Zizek maintains, to think in totalities?
>> >> (and to
>> >> assume neoliberal global capitalism to be one such totality unavoidably
>> >> present and powerful?)
>> >>
>> >> I am going to try tomorrow to report on a discussion we had in London
>> >> last
>> >> week when Slavoj Zizek came for a talk on "The Deadlock –   Crisis,
>> >> Transition, Transformation: Revolutionary Thought Today", and his
>> >> analysis
>> >> of
>> >> the OCCUPY movements was not encouraging (suggesting that 2011 was the
>> >> year of the revival of "radical" politics, in its emancipatory form
>> >> [OWS,
>> >> Arab Spring, mass protests in Europe] as well as in its reactionary
>> >> form
>> >> [Hungary, Scandinavian countries, etc.]., Zizek hinted that, however,
>> >> the
>> >> very massive visibility of these protests does bear witness to a
>> >> frustrating
>> >> deadlock -- what do the protesters effectively want? Do they contain a
>> >> vision which reaches beyond moralistic rage?).
>> >>
>> >> I am unable to say anything yet, have conflicted feelings and am trying
>> >> to
>> >> understand what "networking" means now; I was in Yamaguchi, Japan, last
>> >> week
>> >> for a workshop; and my friends in Tokyo, who had been much worried
>> >> about the
>> >> fall out from Fukushima, tell me that "the status of Japanese society
>> >> has
>> >> been changing completely. It is said that Mt. Fuji will be active; and
>> >> very
>> >> interestingly, after the disaster last year, the leading companies move
>> >> their head office to Osaka.  For example, Panasonic has moved their
>> >> head
>> >> office to Osaka and their procurement department has moved into
>> >> Singapore !
>> >>  Thus, even in performing arts, we hope to construct huge networks all
>> >> over
>> >> the world (not limited in internal Japan)."  I participated in such a
>> >> networked project last week, but it was not activist or politicized,
>> >> and
>> >> thus unrelated to resilience, resistance,  recalcitrance. It had an
>> >> artistic
>> >> side and an educational outreach side (to communities & children), but
>> >> there
>> >> was not a single reference to politics in four days.
>> >>
>> >> regards
>> >> Johannes Birringer
>> >> dap lab
>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> >> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
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>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
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>> >
>> >
>> > "When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with
>> > your
>> > eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always
>> > long
>> > to return.
>> > — Leonardo da Vinci
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
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>
> "When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your
> eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always long
> to return.
> — Leonardo da Vinci
>
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