----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
Yes, I am fully aware that there have been suggestions in past weeks for ways
in which artists have challenged and mediated the various issues of fakery. I
stated that I am interested in furthering this effort, and more specifically,
how we might focus a discussion (and critical solutions?) on the current
situation in the White House, which as you all know, is a complete disaster and
threatens our democracy and the stability of the world at large.
So much has already been said and written about TRUMP, ad nauseum. This is
precisely his intent, to burrow himself deep into the consciousness of the body
politic, until we are so utterly fatigued, so fed up, so unnerved, that we no
longer resist.
TRUMP has lodged himself into the global zeitgeist, well beyond America. He has
penetrated the minds of everyone, everywhere, within earshot of the media. His
aim is to distort our perception of reality by blurring the difference between
truth and fabrication, at the very nexus of our democratic system. With each
lie, each exaggeration, each false twist of the truth, TRUMP closes the
distance between the real and the imaginary.
But this has hardly been thought through. TRUMP’s omnipresence is that of a
blindly mad narcissist playing the role of a demagogue in a reality show, which
is extemporaneously performed in the Oval Office each and every day. It is an
improvisational tour de force that plays out on the grand stage of the White
House, in which we are ALL watching, ALL fixated, ALL tuned in, ALL the time.
We must do more than resist, we must understand this phenomenon that is boiling
up in the body politic. TRUMP preys on our reality, and loss thereof. How? By
refuting the facts, the truth, declaring the media as fake when challenging his
fantastical narrative. In doing so, he collapses the space between truth and
fiction, the real and the imaginary by eroding the distinction. TRUMP is a
torrent of contradiction, a ship without a rudder, a leader without a moral
compass. He is a performer constructing a gesamtkunstwerk (total artwork) built
solely on the power of the suspension of disbelief. TRUMP is a breakdown of the
real.
When efforts to authenticate are declared fake, when there is no longer any
separation between that which is real and that which is not, systems of shared
belief (i.e. democratic ideals) are unraveled. In the face of this post-real
obscuration of truth, reality collapses. TRUMP is now using the Presidency to
lure us all into his fake world of pseudo-greatness, the cult of celebrity, or
as Michael Moore calls it: TRUMPland.
In TRUMP’s world, criticality withers. Democracy is founded on clear and
distinct polarities: right and left, Democrat and Republican, right and wrong,
which allow for debate, argument, and reason. But TRUMP is intent to abolish
all that. Not through some through-composed Hitlerian Mein Kampf ideological
system of German supremacy, but out of a wildly impulsive, self-absorbed need
to be rooted at the center of the public consciousness.
If we are going to preserve our freedoms in this dystopic time, we must, above
all, defend reality against its demise.
Randall
On 6/27/17, 6:24 PM, "Renate Terese Ferro"
<empyre-boun...@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of rfe...@cornell.edu>
wrote:
----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
Thanks Randall for posting this. I’m not sure if you were following last
week but Byron Rich, Kevin Hamilton, and myself were talking about the tactics
and methodologies that artists employ to create resistance. In Byron’s work
particularly as a bio-artist with interests in politics, global climate change
and others he uses (intentionally) imagery both still and video that has been
“constructed” and humor to push against the system. Many artists actually use
irony, satire and other forms to comment and critique cultural and political
issues. We have talked about a number of artists from the YES Men to others
that use these strategies as art practice and theory. This is no way diminishes
the seriousness of the issues but it does highlight some of the injustices that
are actualizing before us critically.
So I mention these just briefly just in case you were not able to sign in
last week. I’m hoping that Ana, Lindsday and Ana Munster will also chime in to
talk about some of their own work and resistance.
Thanks Randall for starting out this week. Appreciated. Renate
Renate Ferro
Visiting Associate Professor
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Department of Art
Tjaden Hall 306
rfe...@cornell.edu
On 6/27/17, 4:14 PM, "empyre-boun...@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf
of Randall Packer" <empyre-boun...@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of
rpac...@zakros.com> wrote:
>----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>Dear List:
>
>Since August of 2015, I have been chronicling the TRUMP phenomenon, which
I refer to as XTreme TRUMPology. Here are 50 posts I have written to date:
http://www.randallpacker.com/category/xtreme-trumpology/
>
>I see the developing fake news issue as the catalyst of a much greater
problem: the intentional distortion of reality for the purpose of gaining
political control. Fake news is a means to an end, what happens when morally
bankrupt demagogues are in pursuit of absolute power.
>
>To this end, it beholds us to construct critical “weapons” that we can use
to deconstruct and defuse this diabolical fakery, and it is my hope, that
during this next week, the empyre list can serve as both a virtual roundtable
for discussion, as well as a space for developing tactical methods we can
employ as media artists, theorists, and educators in our everyday lives and
work. Some of these methods have already been identified in past weeks… I hope
to see more!
>
>These are dangerous times and I am interested in the kinds of critical
tools we can develop collectively to combat the torrent of fakery and
disinformation that is consuming our government, our country, and the world.
>
>It’s time for action.
>
>Best, Randall
>
>
>On 6/27/17, 8:48 AM, "Randall Packer" <rpac...@zakros.com> wrote:
>
> Greetings all… I am gathering my reportage on this critical issue, one
that threatens to engulf our collective grip on reality. Here in Washington,
DC, the tension is palpable as we see democracy hanging by a thread in the face
of the steady, hypnotic torrent of disinformation emanating from all corners of
the government. I don’t take this responsibility lightly as an empyre reporter,
and will be posting my first dispatch later in the day.
>
> Best,
>
> Randall :::: from the underground studio bunker in Washington, DC
>
> On 6/26/17, 5:17 AM, "Renate Terese Ferro"
<empyre-boun...@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of rfe...@cornell.edu>
wrote:
>
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Thanks to Kevin, Byron, Murat and Aviva for participating this
week as we reflected on the notion of the fake in regards to science and art.
I realized about midway through the week that the questions that arose were
important and thoughtful ones that actually would make an excellent month long
topic in the near future on -empyre-. Kevin reminded us of the trend where
truth-claims of scientists have been undermined for political causes. It also
reminded me of the fraud that big science and the pharmaceutical industry have
been accused of where research studies have been manipulated for economic gain.
Artists can provide the critical space using the tools and methodology of
science to create critical spaces where the public can pause, reflect, and
activate a sense of resistance.
>
> Welcome to Randall Packer, Ana Valdes, Ana Munster and Lindsay
Kelley. Ana Munster and Lindsay were our guests during week one and we welcome
them back as we close down our topic. Ana Vales has been a long time
participant of -empyre- and we welcome her back this week. Randall Packer
participated in a panel with me at ISEA in Singapore last year. We warmly
welcome all of them to further discuss Fake News within a global context. Bios
are below.
>
>
> Lindsay Kelley (AU) Working in the kitchen, Lindsay Kelley's art
> practice and scholarship explore how the experience of eating
changes when
> technologies are being eaten. Her first book is Bioart Kitchen:
Art,
> Feminism and Technoscience (London: IB Tauris, 2016). Bioart
> Kitchen emerges from her work at the University of California Santa
> Cruz (Ph.D in the History of Consciousness and MFA in Digital Art
and New
> Media). Kelley is a Co-Investigator with the KIAS
> funded Research-Creation and Social Justice CoLABoratory: Arts
and the
> Anthropocene (University of Alberta, Canada).
>
>
> Anna Munster (US) Anna Munster has been at UNSW Art and Design
since 2001 on a full-time tenured
> basis. She is an active researcher with two sole published books:
An
> Aesthesia of Networks (MIT Press, 2013), and Materializing
> New Media (Dartmouth College Press 2006). Her current research
> interests are: networked experience, media arts and theory, data
and radical
> empiricism, nonhuman and perception, new pragmatist approaches to
media andArt.
>
> Anna regularly collaborates artistically with Michele Barker in
> the School of Media Arts, COFA. Barker and Munster are working on
a large-scale
> multi-channel interactive work, HocusPocus, which explores the
relations
> between perception, magic and the brain. They have been awarded a
New Work
> Grant, 2010, from the Australia Council for the Arts to realise
this work.
> Recent collaborative projects include: Duchenne’s smile (2-channel
DV
> installation, 2009), The Love Machine II (photomedia installation,
2008–1¬0),
> Struck (3-channel DV installation, 2007).
> She is a partner in a large international project, Immediations
<http://senselab.ca/wp2/immediations/>, hosted
> by Concordia University, Montreal and funded by the Social Science
and
> Humanities Research Council, Canada. She has held two ARC
Discovery research
> grants in new media and art: 'The Body-Machine Interface in New
Media Art from
> 1984 to the Present, 2003–5' and 'Dynamic Media: Innovative social
and artistic
> uses of dynamic media in Australia, Britain, Canada and
Scandinavia since
> 1990'. She is also an investigator on an ARC Linkage project,
> 'Australian Media Arts Database', which will utilise innovative
user-lead and
> open source databases to create a history of Australian media arts
in an
> international context.
>
> She is a founding member of the online peer-reviewed
> journal The Fibreculture Journal <http://fibreculturejournal.org/>
and has co-edited two special issues on Distributed
> Aesthetics <http://seven.fibreculturejournal.org/>and Web 2.0
<http://fourteen.fibreculturejournal.org/>. and on the editorial advisory
> board of LeonardoBooks (MIT Press), Inflexions, CTheory,
> Convergence, and Scan
>
> Randall Packer (US) Since the 1980s, multimedia artist, composer,
writer and educator Randall
> Packer has worked at the intersection of interactive media, live
performance,
> and networked art. He has received critical acclaim for his
socially and
> politically infused critique of media culture, and has performed
and exhibited
> at museums, theaters, and festivals internationally, including: NTT
> InterCommunication Center (Tokyo), ZKM Center for Art & Media
(Karlsruhe),
> Walker Art Center, (Minneapolis), Corcoran Gallery of Art
(Washington, DC), The
> Kitchen (New York City), ZERO1 Biennial (San Jose), Transmediale
Festival of
> Media (Berlin), and Theater Artaud (San Francisco). Packer is a
writer and
> scholar in new media, most notably the co-editor of Multimedia:
From Wagner to
> Virtual Reality and the author of his long running blog: Reportage
from the
> Aesthetic Edge. He has written extensively for publications
including: MIT
> Press, Johns Hopkins University Press, the Leonardo Journal for
the Arts &
> Sciences, LINK, ART LIES, Hyperallergic, and Cambridge University
Press. He
> holds an MFA and PhD in music composition and has taught
multimedia at the
> University of California Berkeley, Maryland Institute College of
Art, American
> University, California Institute of the Arts, Johns Hopkins
University, The
> Museum of Modern Art, and most recently at Nanyang Technological
University
> (NTU) in Singapore. At NTU, he is an Associate Professor of
Networked Art where
> he founded and directs the Open Source Studio (OSS) project, an
educational
> initiative exploring collaborative online research and teaching in
the media
> arts. At NTU, he organized the Art of the Networked Practice |
Online
> Symposium, a global event which featured participants from more
than 40
> countries around the world. Currently he is organizing the Third
Space Network
> (3SN), an Internet broadcast channel for live media arts and
creative dialogue.
>
>
> Ana Valdes (UR) Ana Valdes writer
> Art curator and social anthropologist born in Uruguay and
political prisoner
> during several years. Lived in Sweden and became engaged in the
Palestinian
> struggle for an own state. Now she is working with a former inmate
of
> Guantanamo writing a book and making a film.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Renate Ferro
> Visiting Associate Professor
> Director of Undergraduate Studies
> Department of Art
> Tjaden Hall 306
> rfe...@cornell.edu
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
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>
>
>
>
>
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