Hey Steven, Are you working for Packer or Murdoch? Hmmm... Maybe we can get you work with ACA ... you should have quoted the complete paragraph i wrote - not just the first line. Also, don't take non-linear-time too seriously - i said my thing first - then brad forwarded what he forwarded ...My point when I said what I said was that it would be strategically beneficially to know what the plans of the corporations are going to be - by being 'inside' them.
Ouch! Although it seems a bit of a leap to suggest that because
I used a technique that you seem to think is the domain of the mainstream
press, I might be in their employ!! If I were using that technique
I would probably be doing it to deliberately skew the issue, or misrepresent
both you and Brad Brace. What I was actually trying to do was to
take elements of two different threads to suggest a third point, which
is to say that cultural practitioners may be R & D guinea pigs and
then have to pay for the privilege
Your point, however, seemed to be more about effecting change from inside, as it were. This is fair enough as far as it goes, but if, for example, I were in fact working for dear old Kerry or Rupert do you really think this would be possible?! Even with the benefit of inside knowledge of the workings of the corporations, what would or could one do about it?
Or is your point that from the inside one is in a position to warn the hapless victims of corporate power of further impending exploitation and erosion of choice. In which case you better get a job with Microsoft as it tries to wriggle out of its anti-trust suit!
John Laws would even a happier boy if it wasn't for someone on the inside, but 'outing' this sort of thing is unfortunately a rare example as most of us are just happy running around and around in circles.
Laws is a bit of a high profile sacrificial lamb, a welcome diversionary
tactic while behind the scenes and after the fuss has died down it's business
as usual. I expect that all that will be learned from the affair
are ways for these cash-for-comment activities to be conducted with greater
discretion!
Anyhow, maybe we should ask, what are the positives of working within corporations - and also what are the positives of working inside educational institutes (free access to the net!!) and cultural institutes (prestige?)
Which is a strategic position to be sure, in terms of access and
prestige, but that's about it.
It could be said that institutions increasingly determine cultural activity through a pernicious and slippery form of censorship which only just stops short of censure. Much of this can be through determining the form of the work produced by prescribing the media, the content or the context of the work. For example if the only funding available from funding bodies for experimental production is for, lets say, 'digitally based' and/or 'interactive' work, or if corporations make it attractive for educational institutions to use certain software, made by certain manufacturers, then the work produced often does seem to become the R&D work for software companies in league with the cultural imperatives of the government agencies. This seems to mark a paradigm shift from earlier conventionalised positions where the 'avant-garde' was perceived as doing formal or aesthetic R & D which would inform 'mainstream' practice.
Should we be concerned about this? And, for that matter, who are
'we'? Or is it not an 'us and them' situation where the artists are
constantly having to compromise work for the pragmatics of actually being
in a position to produce work? Do we rather all (artists, corporations,
government, education) form elements of a cultural whole that relies upon
the co-operation of all the parts? In this latter formula there seems
to be little scope for work of a critical or dissenting nature (explicitly
or implicitly) that would fall outside the imperatives of the convergence
of larger cultural and economic agendas. I am not convinced that
the sort of self exiled position that Brad Brace adopts while bombarding
with pronouncements is a useful strategy. But what is?
And why isn't there much discussion on this list by the other people on it?
Good question
Steven
