[-empyre-] discussion on track again

[Murat Nemet-Nejat]

I do not know the work. Is it its politics that is keeping it in "enfer" or
the eroticism?


On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 2:38 PM, Ana Valdés <agora158 at gmail.com> wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/arts/design/16eros.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&
>
>
> http://www.expatica.com/fr/out-and-about/arts-culture/Adults-only-as-Frances-National-Library-allows-peep-at-sex-hell_100043.html
>
>
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sex-please-were-french-pariss-dirty-secret-761348.html
>
> And Voltaire's long erotic and politcal poem about Jean d'Arc is also
> there, La Pucele d'Orleans.
>
> Ana
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 4:51 PM, Murat Nemet-Nejat <muratnn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> > Ana, maybe it is because sexual images are easier to censure. The
> authorities create a code, as in the movies. Though they may occur as
> often, if not more, one should not forget scenes of violence are not shown
> in the United States, such as executions that occur every day by means of
> forbidden to be named drugs. Though everybody else saw it, we in the United
> States were not shown images of people jumping off the Twin Towers on
> September 11. As a revolutionary medium (either for the good, freedom, or
> the bad, control) the internet crosses national lines and weakens the
> enforcement of those codes. The "powerless" may actively search those
> sights, access to information. Is that not a way of gain power through
> powerlessness?
> >
> > What I am struggling with is the ambiguous nature of the concept of
> violence. It can be physical or social (beheadings, tortures,
> enslavements), mostly what we are discussing here. But violence can be on
> the level of ideas, something that does damage to our prejudices, jams our
> natural flow of thought (that is partly what Artaud, Bataille are referring
> to, a symbolic violence).
> >
> > Ana, to me the most intriguing part of your post is Voltaire being
> places in the cubicle of hell after two hundred and fifty years in a
> country where, I assume, one can find Sade's writings in public book
> stalls. What is that virulent, violent idea by Voltaire that has lot lost
> its potency after so many years, at least in one country that still
> believes in the power of ideas. That discovery would be the elixir of of
> benevolent violence (a contra-violence), power thtough powerlessness that
> we are looking for. Ciao.
> > Murat
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 10:02 AM, Ana Valdés <agora158 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> >> I was trying to find a red line in our discussion, reading what others
> >> wrote, Aneta, Monika, Murat, Alan, Johannes, Christina, Aristita,
> >> Andreas, Simon, Rustom, Alicia, Leandro, others...
> >> I go always back to Modernity. Yesterday we discussed with Alicia
> >> about Bataille and all the French writers and painters using erotic as
> >> a kind of rebellion against the power, again the etablished norms. In
> >> the French National Library there is a place called "Enfer" (Hell)
> >> where erotic texts written by Voltaire, Diderot and many other are
> >> hidden from public view. They can only be consulted and peroused by
> >> researchers with several degrees of clearing.
> >> Why are these texts so revulsive today? In a society where pornography
> >> is an industry with millions of people employed these texts are still
> >> so revulsive and must be kept secret.
> >> The same with the paintings. Gustave Courbet "L'Origine du Monde",
> >> showing the vulva of a woman, was censored by Facebook several times
> >> only a few years ago.
> >> Bear with me, I am trying to find paralleles here between beheadings
> >> and naked women. The beheadings are shown in You Tube and can be seen
> >> by anyone with a screen nearby, the real erotic seems more powerful
> >> and more dissident and must be kept from the public.
> >> Isis marriages with small girls and the selling of women as slaves are
> >> for me more horrific than the beheadings.
> >> Ana
> >>
> >> --
> >> http://www.twitter.com/caravia15860606060
> >> http://www.scoop.it/t/art-and-activism/
> >> http://www.scoop.it/t/food-history-and-trivia
> >> http://www.scoop.it/t/urbanism-3-0
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> cell Sweden +4670-3213370
> >> cell Uruguay +598-99470758
> >>
> >>
> >> "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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> >
> >
> >
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>
>
> --
> http://www.twitter.com/caravia15860606060
> http://www.scoop.it/t/art-and-activism/
> http://www.scoop.it/t/food-history-and-trivia
> http://www.scoop.it/t/urbanism-3-0
>
>
>
> cell Sweden +4670-3213370
> cell Uruguay +598-99470758
>
>
> "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
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
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