[-empyre-] introductory questions

[Chaya Litvack]

Hi,

I'm not sure if I can adequately respond your question from yesterday, 
Matt, but I'll give it a go. I suppose the question "destabilization of 
what  - and to what end" might depend on the political or social 
orientation of the art itself, or maybe the questions that certain 
artistic practices provoke by virtue of being situated within specific 
institutional or cultural contexts. My earlier comment was my attempt to 
take into account some of the issues raised last week (especially by 
Irina Contreras and Brian Holmes) and to try to start thinking through 
how documentary interventions, including the dissemination of digital 
artivism, might trouble disciplinary or institutionally sanctioned 
tenets and values. I see a kind of tension between our necessary 
reliance on inherited, often disciplinary-specific ways of making sense 
of documented events (regardless of whether the categories or frameworks 
upon which we depend refer to a pre-given or socially constructed 
reality), and the possibility of a radical break that transcends the 
confines of any given field or theoretical discourse (or profession, for 
that matter). I don't know whether archival or documentary practices 
could nurture a kind of cross- or even trans-disciplinary reflection, 
but I have the sense that if they could, they might offer a promising 
foundation for genuine change...That being said, all this is somewhat 
speculative!

Kester's critique sounds fascinating. Thank you for the reference 
Selmin; I'll have to check it out.

Chaya