Better and worse. As we augment our capabilities we augment our capacity to improve and fuck things up, in more or less equal measure.
Best Simon Simon Biggs Research Professor edinburgh college of art [email protected] www.eca.ac.uk Creative Interdisciplinary Research into CoLlaborative Environments CIRCLE research group www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ [email protected] www.littlepig.org.uk AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk From: Alan Sondheim <[email protected]> Reply-To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity <[email protected]> Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:12:52 -0400 (EDT) To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] DIWO at The Dark Mountain And we're doing a lot better in some ways than we realize - compare labor laws at least in the US to 19th-century ones (read Engels on the Brit working class for example) - for that matter look at the treatment of prisoners of war in a good deal of Mesopotamia - or at modern medicine. We're primates with exaggerated aggression and a brutal sense of territory compared say to bonobo - and we have the means to implement this brutality. We're also victims of our own success as one billion starving indicates, a species blooming and poisoning our own nest as a result. - Alan On Wed, 28 Oct 2009, Simon Biggs wrote: > Two things concerning the Oour civilisation is fucked¹ thread. > > Firstly, had they only just noticed? It is a given that any civilisation is > doomed (eventually). > > Secondly, it seems rather arrogant to suggest that you might have some sense > of a potential solution. People have been tragi-comically unsuccessful over > centuries seeking a way out of this mess (civilisation). > > I¹d rather live in a fucked up world that in somebody else¹s utopia. What > often fucks us up is other people¹s solutions. Sartre had a few words on > this theme. Another useful image here is the ship of fools (Bosch and > Breughel¹s versions are decent places to start). I can¹t really see any > other viable model of the social, nor any model other than the social (for > humans). > > Best > > Simon > > > Simon Biggs > > Research Professor > edinburgh college of art > [email protected] > www.eca.ac.uk > > Creative Interdisciplinary Research into CoLlaborative Environments > CIRCLE research group > www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ > > [email protected] > www.littlepig.org.uk > AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk > > > > From: Michael Szpakowski <[email protected]> > Reply-To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity > <[email protected]> > Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:41:46 -0700 (PDT) > To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity > <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] DIWO at The Dark Mountain > > <"Our civilisation is fucked! What are we gonna > do?" > > Well if it is reducible to that, why didn't they just say that? > And if that is all they meant, why are we worrying about *art* and not > *doing* something? > I live for art but if I *am* in a boat going over a cataract I don't paint a > picture of it. > The prolix style & ridiculously self-regarding and overheated tone came from > the manifesto, not Edward's clinical dissection of it. > I say clinical dissection, because although it's undoubtedly true that > Edward can *write* whereas these folk can't, I agree what matters is the > ideas and, far from a Canute moment, Edward assists us greatly here too > although he admittedly draws back from the obvious conclusion, which is that > there is no separation to be made between the tone of the manifesto & its > content. The truth is the bombast is not accidental, but integral. It arises > out of a fundamental poverty of thought. The rotten style is a function of > the intellectual void at the heart of the whole enterprise. > Civilisation bad? OK. Let's see them give up the internet, polio, smallpox > and TB vaccines, printing, film, anaesthetics, amplification, antibiotics, > map making, mathematics, musical instruments, a world governed by some > attempt at rationality and not ghosts, devils and malign Gods. Fuck it > -let's give up the written word, which after all is an attribute of > civilisation. Let's return to a lifespan of 25-35 for most people, carried > for the most part in a desperate attempt at subsistence... Why not go even > go further back in the search for a chimerical purity, the one that > relieves us of the responsibility of actually *doing* anything that might > change anything, and give up cooking food. > Artistically the, quite random, privileging of "stories" could come straight > out of one of those expensive screenwriting courses which both contribute to > and in turn chart the market led corruption of the art of film... > Just to be slightly more polemical, too, on the question of localism. To > spell it out - who are the current most high profile proponents of the idea > of artistic localism in this country? - the bloody BNP, with their, in > fairiness unrequited, love affair with English folk music. Of course I'm not > accusing the manifesto authors of being soft on Nazism, just of a failure to > read history, to be even a tiny bit politically literate, to look and to > think. > I think you're right on your central point though, Bob -the manifesto does > essentially boil down to those two phrases, which is why it's a recipe for > utter political passivity with a couple of quite randomly subjective and > unthought out artistic afterthoughts bolted on. > michael > > > --- On Wed, 10/28/09, bob catchpole <[email protected]> wrote: > >> From: bob catchpole <[email protected]> >> Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] DIWO at The Dark Mountain >> To: "NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity" > <[email protected]> >> Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 11:44 AM >> Edward, >> >> The 22-page manifesto can be summed up in two sentences >> "Our civilisation is fucked! What are we gonna >> do?" A declaration and a challenge. >> >> You say your problem isn't really with the former. >> Given it's momentous implications your response - a >> complaint about literary style - is pure tragicomedy. A >> classic Canute moment. And an example of an of issue >> described in the manifesto. >> >> Bob >> >> >> Edward Picot wrote Tuesday, 27 October, 2009 >> 22:06:31 >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> My problem with this is >> not so much to do with the >> ideas behind the Dark Mountain Project as the language and >> manner in which they >> are expressed. Let's have a look at some typical bits >> of >> phraseology: >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> -----Inline Attachment Follows----- >> >> _______________________________________________ >> NetBehaviour mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > > > Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201 > > > == email archive: http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/ webpage http://www.alansondheim.org sondheimat gmail.com, panix.com == _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201
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