Re: [-empyre-] vigilar y castigar
Dear Johannes, I believe that I should probably offer some clarifications in response to your thoughtful reply. Most importantly, I don't want to suggest that all art accomplishes the same end (I am talking about the larger conception of art as techne, where, perhaps, a subset of techne would be those works which strive for poesis). When I think of art, I am not simply thinking of the Fine Arts, critical arts movements, socially invested art communities, and, even, subversive designers who have managed to find themselves in commercial firms. Rather, I am thinking about the general tide of art, which includes all the symbolic activities of culture, sensual or conceptual and aesthetic, empistemological, or practical. So, to answer your concern, I would say that there is a great deal of art that strives for meaningful resistance. but that these works are exceptional against the larger backdrop of cultural production (which ranges from highly-wrought, big budget consumer media productions down to quotidian presentations of self). My sense is that resistance is not simply registered in a dialectical way, and that in the course of forming opposition to various systems of oppression there are always opportunities to for multiple expressions of resistance (which is why, as you note, it is difficult to manage public consciousness). US history is filled with examples of counterinsurgency, the most obvious examples being the conspicuous rise of racism whenever an economic downturn inspires a progressive turn. When rich people start getting richer and working people start getting beat down, the class critique is diluted by populism that pits working people against working people (it's the Mexicans! the blacks! the Chinese! the Irish! the Unions!). It is so recurrent, that I would be inclined to say it is human nature (certainly, Rene Girard's work on scapegoating affirms this inclination) but the fact that these populist turns are fairly consistently backed by capital and fairly well-orchestrated at this stage suggests that this is a strategic move, rather than a purely accidental one. Panopticism IS a powerful metaphor for the way that culture operates. In this sense, there is no resistance to a process which is a general process of culture (except, maybe, to live alone in the woods, without a community). On the other hand, there is something meaningful about what priorities and which culture is programmed into us. We can live in a culture that is built by market forces, with human priorities taking a back seat. Or we can cultivate ways of being that arise from communities that are ordered by the people who inhabit them. So, I am not talking about resisting the panopticon, but talking about a struggle for control over systems of representation. I think it is easier to see that art from a blank anthropological view, over our lifetime, has expressed an ironically posthuman set of priorities--the service of markets, the expression of those markets, and the general reification of market mythology. Rather than surrender to the bleak view that resistance is futile or flee to the false view that resistance is inevitable, I hope to join my voice with the growing chorus of people who are saying that a better world is possible, but we have to work for it. We need critical thinking. We need aesthetic practices. We need each other. I hope this helps clarify Davin On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 1:31 AM, Johannes Birringer johannes.birrin...@brunel.ac.uk wrote: dear all if allowed (as it's part of last week) , can I briefly take up Cynthia Rubin's response, where she proposes that now that everything is digital the need to push artists to define themselves as tied to a specific medium is now longer relevant, as anyone who is computer literate can move from video to still image print to 3D output. What counts is the idea, the research behind the work, the concept... and wonder what that means? why would there not be plenty of practitioners out there, in many part of the world, who still define their practice (and I mean this obviously in relation to the theme of our discussion here on the panopticon/netopticon) through their medium of choice, whether it's painting or theatre or photography, etc.? and thus in relation to protocols, gate-keepers, guardians, control mechanisms, techniques, formal languages and art markets and venues and professional sectors? Some of these practices will indeed continue quite perfectly sans-web, and no new protocols need be invented.. Cynthia, you ask : The mode of presentation is also dependent on what is available and what is the trend of the day that is likely to get work seen. Do artists make works specifically to post them on YouTube, or would they make the same works to show at film festivals, or to sell on DVDs? i doubt much that artists make work specifically for YouTube (some may do so, many may
[-empyre-] netopticon and personal culture
Dearempyreans, Is the panopticon a powerful metaphor for the way that culture operates? Or ought one to be looking rather for an image adequate in the way that in itself it establishes resistance, perhaps in the way of paradox? A critical image, then, an image adequate to the task of questioning systems of representation. However, to talk about representation in terms of systems might be misleading. Certainly, there exist specific systems of abstraction, substitution, and hierarchization. You might say that representation is organised by representation, reasoning by induction from the synecdoche that systems become evidenciary in particular instances of representation, and that so given ought to be submitted to judgement - resisted, maybe. A matter of following the dictates of the figure of speech and heeding the judgement of the System. Which leads me to ask whether the panopticon-as-metaphor here deployed has been exhausted of critical content? Of push? Whether its relevance is topical o r tropic? I have been following the discussion around the concept of the netopticon with both interest and enjoyment. That we lost a family member to facebook addiction may be accounted the source of my interest, with which, consequently, enjoyment has no truck. I mean 'lost' in the 'lost contact' sense and in the sense that we might speak of one who has succumbed to any other sort of addiction, the 'substance' of that addiction, moreover, being as substantial as it would be for any other; an assertion I'd like to substantiate through offering a brief description, because the susceptibility to becoming addicted to the habit of fb tells us something about the netopticon. In Dennis Gansel's The Wave (Die Welle) [2008], the susceptibility of students in a liberal school, with a liberal-minded teacher, to being swept up in a wave of autocracy - a becoming-fascist - reads more like a definition of (neo)liberalism than an awareness-raising exercise about the dangers of what happened ... happening again. Susceptibilities acting as negative proof except that they can be instilled through the wearing-down of resistance, through habituation, so perhaps closer to lines crossing the neoliberal ethos, by which it becomes what it is but was before only virtually. This person over approximately a year - a year less ordinary for having a greater share of emotional upheaval for her than others, particularly for her - loved fb, and used it at first to give expression to her taste in music, art, uploading videos and images, sharing and commenting on them, frequently updating her profile. Her investment of time and interest increased quite rapidly, to the extent that the outsider remarked the greater frequency with she was using fb and longer stretches she was online. The insider remarked that she always seemed to be online and that she would comment compulsively, especially on her own posts, even if others were not doing so. The insider also noticed the halo of positivity surrounding her fb utterances as it grew more and more pronounced and things shone more and more brightly and positively. Certain insiders started to find her utterances odd, oddly uncommunicative, confrontingly gnomic at times and self-referential, despite the sunshiney attitude. When the outsider remarked on her spending so much or even too much time fb-ing, just how great her emotional investment was became clear, to the point that she would remove herself and her laptop away from the vicinity of people she felt were critical of her behaviour. Difficult with family. When the insider challenged her online to defend the increasing eccentricity of her fb persona, she both took the argument offline, calling it a betrayal, and unfriended the critic. But the moment of the gulf becoming evident between her online 'positive' - Michael Jackson would call it 'blanket' - behaviour and her offline aggressive territorialism regarding a media network she made personal rather than social, the moment of there appearing a split between the two, was not the decisive one. Because you're right, of course, this did not look like the pathology of an addiction, just some online acting-out. Self-creation. New media infatuation. I began to think her activity had taken on a pathological dimension when she gave up fb. I was not around for the 'break' which some say occurred when she did, the screaming, tears, the as sudden descent into a depressive lethargy, but received a letter, an email, telling me a piece I'd written and posted at Square White World giving my reasons for having left fb several months earlier had been written to her, for her alone. I was allegedly talking to her. Same with another thing I'd written, Dear Visitor it was called. She was off fb for several months and the addiction reasserted itself with a vengeance. To avoid the betrayals of possible critics, this time she adopted a new identity, made new
[-empyre-] vigilar y castigar
Greetings - Thanks to Davin for this post. It is inspirational to think that if we work together we can challenge the status quo, and I want to believe. We are in a transitional time. Navigating the mine-field of resistance to the system is a difficult under-taking, as any innovation is viewed through the lens of the familiar. In my experience, however, when offered the opportunity to participate in something truly meaningful, something that truly operates outside of the art world, significant numbers of artists will embrace the opportunity. That the same individuals might also jump at the chance to show in a high profile commercial setting is an indication of the complexity of the situation, because if no one knows who you are or ever sees your work, how meaningful is your resistance? As for my previous comment about medium, apologies if my typo added a layer of confusion. I meant to write no longer relevant (not now') as in: now that everything is digital the need to push artists to define themselves as tied to a specific medium is no longer relevant, as anyone who is computer literate can move from video to still image print to 3D output. What counts is the idea, the research behind the work, the concept... What this means is that artistic conception is not as tied to the process of a technical craft as it once was. In recent history, moving from the technical skill set of paint-on-canvas to the skill set of bronze casting was more daunting than the current situation of moving from digital paint to digital 3D model building. Historically, of course, there was a time when artists had ateliers with skilled assistants, and therefore were perhaps similarly freed to experiment beyond their own technical expertise. In our era, however, we are just returning to that point of working with artisanal collaborators, and the software in our computers functions as one form of collaboration. Once we cross the threshold of basic computer literacy we know that with a little patience with own learning curve, we can do almost anything (as far as technical skill goes) and find an on-line community or other resource to help us figure out what we need to know. Cynthia Cynthia B Rubin http://CBRubin.net ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
