Re: nettime Thomas Hirschhorn exhibition
at one time, voltaire, who used to drink fifty cups of coffee a day [recipe: one pound coffe to one pound water], lived on the border of france and switzerland so he could escape into switzerland each time he saw the french king's officers coming up the mountain to arrest him (for his political crimes=writings). have the tables turned now? chris # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime Questioning the Frame
I want to comment briefly on Coco Fusco's impassioned and cogent remarks on maps and war. I spent the year 1981 (the first year of the Reagan administration) hiding out in the bowels of the Library of Congress in Washington researching a book on the causes of war that I never wrote. One of my main conclusions was that modern wars are fought precisely because of maps. Modern states are defined in terms of their control of mapped territories. maps have a certain look in which it begins to seem plausible or necessary that some boundaries are wrong or artifiical, and so must be changed. For example, consider Northern Ireland. Because Ireland is a distinct island on the map, the map-reader's eye can easily conclude the whole island should be one color. (Only one island in the entire world has more than two different nation states on it: Borneo; only a handful have two; while tens of thousands of islands are within one state. Likewise, the map-reader's eye is unhappy with enclaves surrounded by other countries or the lack of clearly demarcated borders, or any territories that belong to no one. In principle one could imagine several countries interpenetrating or overlapping on the same space. Australian tribes, for instance, had overlapping home areas or areas through which they moved; modern mapped states cannot accommodate such ways of life. (The famous topological four-color mapping theorem would have made no sense in a world in which a single territory could have overlapping colors.) Obviously this thesis could be developed much, much further, but perhaps I've made the point: without maps, what would wars in the modern sense be? Where would they be fought? How would victory, or even partial victory be gauged? Why would they seem necessary? What would the defenders defend? So, while Coco is of course correct that the damage done by wars are done to real people on the real earth and not on maps, maps and the sense of necessity they seem to offer cannot be separated from modern wars. I say modern very deliberately. Pre-Modern wars were (or perhaps even are) different; they were not fought over maps. Post-Modern wars -- if acts of violence such as terrorism can be thought of as acts of war -- are also not about changing the color on maps, necessarily, but about the control of attention through other representations such as TV screens or websites. Or so I suspect. Best, Michael # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime Thomas Hirschhorn exhibition
Hi, I'm a curator in New York. that's ok NY Times reports that Thomas Hirschhorn exhibited an artwork in Switzerland wchich criticizes Swiss nationalist, and the annual buduget of the museum cutted from $38.9 million to $1.1 million. I wrote one article about Hirschhorn, so if you are curious about, please check it. The figures in the preface are wrong, but the article states it correct. The budget is cut from the Arts Council of Switzerland [www.prohelvetia.ch], which gave the money for the Hirschhorn show. The other figure: the show did cost about 180'000 Swiss francs, that's roughly said about 120'000 US bucks. The reaction of the parliament wasn't very promising, but during the debate harsh voices from outside - not only the artist's commnunity! - were heard, and we can assume, that not the last word has been spoken. Though one thing is clear: Pro Helvetia needs to be reorganised. Looking at the quality of Hirschhorns work there are different oppinions around. Today he sells better than the P.Rist, but there is a lot to ask how he voices his issues. I have seen better satirical works about (and in) Switzerland, and that since years, including state funded theatres. So, he is a bit late, and maybe a bit stupid: He says, there is too much democracy in Switzerland, and that was not meant to be understood as ironic comment on Switzerland. The other thing, Hirschhorn said he would no more exhibit in Switzerland as long Blocher is in the Government. Now he exhibits in the Swiss Centre in Paris, and that is as much Switzerland as you can get. If he would have done the same thing in Switzerland - not in Swiss showcase in Paris - we would talk more about other issues of his work and how this really effects us. And, what are the aspirations of Michel Ritter? Well, there you go Thomas Hirschhorn! Andreas Hagenbach, artist living and working in Basel, Switzerland. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
