Dear everyone, Following a visit yesterday at the COP show in furtherfield, the following text kind of occurred:
Prometheus was punished and banished by the gods. Zeus, the one that afforded many humans with a child such as Deus for a single yet omni (potent) being. Deus, a free gift with an ontologically attached price that, in my mind, seems infinitely growing like an interest rated loan - that very Zeus punished Prometheus for providing humans with a gift. Another gift, of a different kind and category. Prometheus’s gift is stolen. Like a stolen kiss, or a stolen sight, and a stolen wonder - the gift of stolen fire. Energy that is free from someone capitalising on the need for energy. Our fire? Your fire? Fire as just the sensation of energy. Energy had to be stolen, like water and food, energy Wants to be free when certain beings are around. (I suspect that indeed, we'll get a sentient being from a "machine" when that being will begin to be concerned about their energy..) Energy is anarchic. Hence, I think, the Agamben anarchists, aka ruling classes that by virtue of deciding rules are, like a deity, that zeus’s child, outside the law. Legal outlaws for whom any breach of that right, is the most frightening thing ever. Energy from Prometheus to humans without a cost barrier is deadly for the gods. Gods afterall, rely on power. Prometheus letting power go away through a gift, betrays here his own kind and category. He becomes his own type and must be dealt with before its too late. Energy or power? Like gods and law makers: Large museums and galleries. Numerically exchangeables - aka money - well endowed small galleries and museums. Institutions of any size, shape and money with "good" connections - like zeus before them - have the power. To keep the power, children need to be gotten rid of, and shows are made for that. Make it powerful so that it engulfs imaginations. Shows that indeed exhibit their power. Shows that exhibit, more than anything else, an ability and a deity-given right - to set cultural tones. Power to shock and owe audiences, visitors, investors. The power to get the spectacle gig thing on the road. Power to bring together highly priced and prized objects, to put together a bunch of people who both provide content to an institutions' exposure and, at the same time, are happy to bask in that very light and soak in what might feel like the sun. However, as the story of Prometheus suggests - in my mind at least - power comes with its own payment, its own loan-shark attached. Power, once exercised, drains energies. Usage of power, like the switch of a light bulb, opens a process of using energies that may never come back. Without energies, power risks remaining a large, well connected, highly visible and well endowed shell made of a burnt house of cards with drawing of white elephants smoking shisha. Is there a need to mention particular social, political and cultural examples here, or shall we move on to the point..? Nietzsche had a bit of an issue with notions such as "father-land". He suggested child-land. The child is to do with futures rather than a focus on past. We the children are the creatures that keep moving. Like a child's naivety that provides a new perception, a perspective that move an ingrained mode, aka tradition, we can move into the future - as we do, like ants, dead or alive. As a paul klee naively fueled shapes that move between drawings and paintings.. Indeed, like a painting that moves on a wall nearby* and both objects move between cultural and historical references - the children get it, they dig the fire. The kids got the energy. No power, but energy that moves into the unknown and risks losing its non-known-ness, by getting power.. The children of that Punk god, Prometheus, they are kids of time. These are the ones that get the energy to search from the Prometheus event into unknowns and non-knowns. The children that refused power and keep that punk as the beating energy? The children of Prometheus, in my view or just a wrong mind, manages to keep the energy, keep the fire alive, while avoiding power. Maybe not avoiding but simply not requiring it? Because these kids, they have the energy! Energies can be turned into powers by minds of audiences, but that, I think, is a different story, or a reply to this one..? ;) Thanks for the experience of COP, the thoughts and with a hope this bit of unedited text does not fail the subject.. *The description is to do with 2 objects and their placement at the exhibition. Have much fun - rain, sun and space journeys for mitochondria, one of the very early punks.. ahanon xxx _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
