Re: [-empyre-] on the 'destructive character' (post by Heiner Weidmann)
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Sonja I was very moved for your description of rape as an ancient weapon. I am a member of the pacifist group Women in Black and I traveled with them from Belgrade to Tuzla to march with the Srebrenica survivors most of them women many of them raped. I has never seen so much dignity and stoicism as in those women. My friends Women in Black from Belgrade are mostly Serbs but they have done a wonderful job in solidarity and peace and are accepted by the Bosnian women as systers. Ana Enviado desde Samsung Mobile Mensaje original De: Sonja Leboš Fecha:27/11/2014 22:54 (GMT-03:00) A: soft_skinned_space Asunto: Re: [-empyre-] on the 'destructive character' (post by Heiner Weidmann) So, a little about my work that wanders in the thoughts of reconceptualization of notion of urban, cultural memory, hybrid cities and media. What I found very important recently in my work on city and memory is the art of co(m)-memoration. How do we come together and commemorate collective traumas? Usually, there is a plastic, even more usually huge plastic errected in space that should substitute for our loss. Therefore I studied a little a fantastic architect, Bogdan Bogdanović. (The link on the catalogue of the exhibition is here: http://www.theatreofmemories.eu/documents/pdf/bogdanovic_catalogue.pdf and the initial Mnemosyne publication is here http://www.theatreofmemories.eu/documents/documents.php). He talks about anthropology of remembrance. Also, he knew that already Roman people, in their decadence, started to deviate the human relation to nature -so he talks about Etruscan urban agglomerations as the least form of dialogue between human beings and their environment. He was a master of that kind of monumental plastic, - however there was sth in those monuments of the socialist Yugoslavia - they commemorated resistance and human dignity. However, Bogdanović transcended the concept of socialism, and dug deeper in the extremely complex structure of collective trauma. So he built in stone - for the eternity. I would again remind of what I think is the problem of the civilization embedded in these Roman and Greek concepts of culture: ceasing the moment, grabbing the present, losing the touch with eternal. Benjamin was right also about one very important thing for our discussion: the close connection between media (film at the time that has evolved in so much more, including telematic performance) and military. The technological link is so strong, that it is impossible to think the devices that enable using media and sophisticated devices for the destruction of Other (and Self). About gender war: the 90's in Balkan brought to the fore the enormous power of the ancient weapon of war - the rape. The scope of using the penetration and fertilization of the body of the woman, using the woman as the plain womb for placing the seed of hatred - that is so tragic that one should think of a new language of drama to express it. At the same time similar was going on Ruanda. And then the UN acknowledged that the act of rape is the act of the war crime. And here, with that word: I would like to stop. Put it under the magnifying glass of the tool that Johannes dislikes - etimology. [1150–1200; Middle English werre < Old Norse verri worse] The Act of Worsening the Self to the point of mutilation and, ultimately - Death. Death - the biggest and the most dangerous trap of our civilization. Everybody is so afraid of it. There were times when cemeteries were within the cities. Than they were banned from the core of the urban to the periphery. Fear of Death is what moves the Earth. And that is worse, much worse than Death. Re-member Agamben's musulman? the man not dead but not alive either? non-human, denied by ueber-mensch Sonja Leboš sonjaleboš@gmail.com www.resurbanae.wordpress.com www.theatreofmemories.org www.cybercine.org www.uiii.org 2014-11-27 22:38 GMT+01:00 Johannes Birringer : --empyre- soft-skinned space-- [relayed from Heiner Weidmann, who was our guest in Week 2 but could not write as he felt like withdrawing, or as Erik had intimated, prefering the 'stillness of listening/self-absenting'] ich habe mir überlegt, dass benjamins "destruktiver charakter" doch sehr zentral ist. es ist so was wie ein gegenmodell gegen die "aura": dieser mythos ist ja so offensichtlich nostalgisch und antirational, dass er eben nicht - wie man es benjamin gern unterstellt - ein festzuhaltendes ideal darstellt, sondern im gegenteil, etwas, mit dem aufgeräumt werden muss. aufräumen damit - und es festhalten in einer paradox gegenteiligen form: das war eben die hoffnung, die benjamin in die radikale moderne setzt. die moderne architektur zerstört, zerbricht die innenräume und stülpt sie nach aussen, und es ist doch arbeit (nur keine "schöpferische"), es ist doch produktiv. der destruktive chara
Re: [-empyre-] Notes and a comment -
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Dear Alan I was a bit concerned yesterday for your emotional reaction to what happened in Ferguson. You opened the Pandora's box you brang Ferguson to our table when we started to react and to try to explain the institutionalized violence embedded in the system you didn't want to hear more and refused to continue the conversation. My point is why sort out Isis as villain/culprit/ when the US and Kina and Iran and Israel and so many other countries do exactly what Isis does? Public executions? Saudi Arabia and Iran. Collective punishment? Israel. Death row for 39 years being innocent? The US. Military violence exerted by the police? The whole world. Children in jail without trials. Israel. My point is Isis is only one of these groups using rebellions and violence as a tool for "liberation". The Más Mas movement killed white settlers in atrocious ways to decolonize Kongo and Tanzania. The Israeli bombed civilian targets and killed scores of bystanders to achieve their own state. The real challenge for me is eradicate the violence and the wars at all, from the states telling about 'just wars' or from ISIS. Neither Isis or the US or any country should have the monopoly of the violence. Ana Enviado desde Samsung Mobile Mensaje original De: Alan Sondheim Fecha:25/11/2014 16:16 (GMT-03:00) A: soft_skinned_space Asunto: [-empyre-] Notes and a comment - --empyre- soft-skinned space-- Notes and a comment - In support of Ana - http://www.thenation.com/article/190937/why-its-impossible-indict-cop From Wikipedia - Overall racial context According to The Washington Post, the incident sparked unrest in Ferguson largely due to questions of racism as a factor in the shooting.[155] Protests,[156] vandalism, and other forms of social unrest continued for more than a week,[157] with night curfew being imposed and escalated violence.[158][159] Several of the stores looted during the unrest are Asian American owned, with The Daily Beast writing that Asian Americans tend to be "left out" of the race relations discussion.[160] Also according to The Washington Post, the Ferguson Police Department "bears little demographic resemblance" to the mostly African-American community, which already harbored "suspicions of the law enforcement agency" preceding Brown's shooting, with 48 of the police force's 53 officers being white,[161] while the population is only one-third white and about two-thirds black.[155][162] An annual report last year by the office of Missouri's attorney general concluded that Ferguson police were "twice as likely to arrest African Americans during traffic stops as they were whites".[155] The officer who shot Brown, Darren Wilson, lives in Crestwood, Missouri, 18 miles away from Ferguson.[163] The Los Angeles Times argues that the situation that exploded in Ferguson "has been building for decades", and that protesters initially came from the town and neighboring towns that have pockets of poverty, the poorest of St. Louis, and lists "the growing challenge of the suburbanization of poverty" as the catalyst.[164] Another aspect of this situation might stem from a system that burdens the poor and black in Ferguson. Minor traffic offenses are the starting point, and the costs spiral up rapidly if the offenders do not pay the fines on time or do not appear in court. The income from court fines represented the second largest source of revenue for Ferguson in 2013. On October 1, 2014, the city of St. Louis cancelled 220,000 arrest warrants - and gave a three month delay to the offenders to get a new court date before the warrants would be re-issued.[165] Boko Haram Slashes Throats, Drowns 50 Civilians in Northern Nigeria Breitbart News - Nov 24, 2014 Scores of Boko Haram fighters blocked a route linking Nigeria with Chad near the fishing village of Doron Baga on the shores of Lake Chad on Thursday and killed a group of 48 fish traders on their way to Chad to buy fish, according to Abubakar ... On torture and the U.S.: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/20/cia-torture-white-house_n_6195032.html Comment - In backchannel with Johannes, I realized my position unfortunately is one of nihilism, combined with anguish; I see no way out of this violence and corruption, and actions of potential healing are for the living of course. A memorial in Ferguson, and there are, will be, many, will not change the tactics of the police, the deeply-embedded, structural, racism that rules the United States; mourning the victims of ISIS doesn't change the tactics of ISIS - and perhaps that's the real question - what can be done to change ISIS itself? And if nothing, you end up where I feel I'm heading, to a state of hopelessness. The world is simultaneously digital flows and abject, tortured, hungered, flesh, simultaneously living online, and moving among so many favelas, so much poverty, polluti
Re: [-empyre-] Cyberwar against St Louis / Ferguson
--empyre- soft-skinned space--But it was what I wanted to adress the arrogance of a system which feel itself as above any judgement and carry on making people unhappy and frustrated. Why is the US endemic violent? Again compare Isis beheadings with Columbine killed or with the lynched blacks I wrote about showed in the postcards of "Without sanctuary". The idea you are arrogant and nobody can judge your acts give you a feeling of total impunity. The impunity is a cardinal sin is the Nazis in Europe or the Serbs in the Balcony and Israel settlers torching olives or the Israeli army bombing schools in Gaza or it's the white police in Ferguson and my own torturers walking some streets I walk, unjudged, uncontested. Ana Enviado desde Samsung Mobile Mensaje original De: Alan Sondheim Fecha:25/11/2014 00:55 (GMT-03:00) A: soft_skinned_space Asunto: Re: [-empyre-] Cyberwar against St Louis / Ferguson --empyre- soft-skinned space-- I agree with you but I don't think the grand jury was arrogant; the deliberation went on for two days and I think everyone is scared as hell. That said, the police are out of control here, there are so many goddamn guns on the street - there was an unarmed black shot just three days ago in NYC in a stairwell! You know who's arrogant? All of us who look at these symbols and say - they're out there, they're not us. But at least in the U.S. it's all us, we're all arrogant, and racism is so embedded in this society that it's a wonder war hasn't broken out here yet. And it will I think. - Alan On Tue, 25 Nov 2014, Ana Vald?s wrote: > --empyre- soft-skinned space-- > Ferguson is going to burn down, that's for sure. And the grand joury > should be conscient and take their responsability about what is going > to happen. That's the kind of arrogant behaviour who make people > angry, frustrated and violent. > Ana > > On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 12:39 AM, Alan Sondheim wrote: >> --empyre- soft-skinned space-- >> >> See images below: >> >> A Missouri grand jury has decided not to indict Ferguson police Officer >> Darren Wilson [www.cnn.com] in the August 9 shooting death of Michael Brown, >> prosecutor Robert McCulloch said Monday. >> >> The incident became a flashpoint for racial tension in the St. Louis suburb; >> Brown was black and Wilson is white. Brown's father and others had called >> for calm ahead of the grand jury's decision, which comes amid concerns over >> the possibility of violent protests. >> >> http://www.alansondheim.org/Ferguson1.png >> http://www.alansondheim.org/Ferguson2.png >> http://www.alansondheim.org/Ferguson3.png >> >> ___ >> empyre forum >> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au >> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu > > > > -- > http://www.twitter.com/caravia15860606060 > http://www.scoop.it/t/art-and-activism/ > http://www.scoop.it/t/food-history-and-trivia > http://www.scoop.it/t/urbanism-3-0 > > > > cell Sweden +4670-3213370 > cell Uruguay +598-99470758 > > > "When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth > with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you > will always long to return. > ? Leonardo da Vinci > ___ > empyre forum > empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au > http://empyre.library.cornell.edu == email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/ web http://www.alansondheim.org / cell 718-813-3285 music: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/ current text http://www.alansondheim.org/sw.txt == ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] introducing week 3
--empyre- soft-skinned space--The people resisted the military in both Chile Argentina and Uruguay. But the military were strong they were supported by the US by Kissinger and Reagan paranoid struggle against the "communists". It was called the Plan Condor an alliance between the armies and polices of the whole continent more horrible and ferocious and lethal than hundred of ISIS, sadly. But all the resistance were futile at the end the resistance won by electoral means and the Americans administration's were not longer supporting the coups, it was a great difference when the Carter administration come to power. It's a great book called Empire's Workshop written by Greg Grandin, It's about how Central and South America were used as workshop to train the US military in counter insurgency torture and an hi ligation of dissidents. Many of the death squads used later in Iraq were used first time I'm Brasil Uruguay Argentina, Honduras and Salvador. Ana Enviado desde Samsung Mobile Mensaje original De: Murat Nemet-Nejat Fecha:23/11/2014 17:32 (GMT-03:00) A: soft_skinned_space Asunto: Re: [-empyre-] introducing week 3 Ana, your confessor (father/police) told you that? Now I understand the radical nature of Pope Francis' statement when he says he is not God to judge whether a gay person will go to hell or not. He is saying I am not going to torture you to save your soul. Here is a symbolic statement that may have actual worldly consequences. That still leaves open the question about the banality of evil. Is it even the gentleness of evil, the piety of evil, the rationalization of evil? Was there among people who were not direct (personal or family) victims of violence in Argentina, an organized resistance against the violence? On Sun, Nov 23, 2014 at 12:40 PM, Ana Valdés wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- Murat you ask the same question I has been asking myself since I was first tortured for 42 years ago. I was tortured by lovely normal people Catholics as my family, going to mass every Sunday. All the people disappeared tortured to death killed in horrible ways were tortured and killed by people as you and me, driven by zeal and hate to everything we represented. We became their enemies their "other", their dark brothers and systers their twisted selves. In my book I told about how I went to a chapel in Madrid to confess and was not aware it was an Opus Dei church. The old priest who confessed me asked me what kind of feelings I had to my torturers. I was unsure I had never thought about it. He said I should love it they were acting that way to save my immortal soul. Ana Skickat från min iPhone ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] introducing week 3
--empyre- soft-skinned space--I had yesterday for lunch a jail comrade she is an Anarchist and spent 13 years in prison, the whole dictatorship. Her husband her sister and her brother in law were murdered in Argentina, disappeared until now. She has been called as a witness to the trials held in Argentina against many of the high ranked military responsable of all it. She is one of the most courageous women I know. Her mother in law is 94 still waiting for his son to be found a bone a part of his clothes anything should be welcomed. Ana Enviado desde Samsung Mobile Mensaje original De: Monika Weiss Fecha:23/11/2014 17:59 (GMT-03:00) A: soft_skinned_space Asunto: Re: [-empyre-] introducing week 3 Ana, When I was preparing the project in Santiago, Chile, one of the women who worked at the Museo told me she was very happy on that one particular day, because they found, she told me, a little finger bone that belonged to her husband’s hand. Now, she said with a smile, I can finally have a funeral for him, after all those years of searching. Her smile was something I will never forget. Monika On Nov 23, 2014, at 12:43 AM, Ana Valdes wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- The Mothers of May started to walk round the plaza de Mayo, in Buenos Aires, silent, with huckles in their heads, carrying posters with the images of their missing children. It was in the 70:s. More than 3 people dissapeared in Argentina and Uruguay. Many were buried alive. Many were drugged and thrown from airplanes to río de la Plata. We are still finding old bones in hidden graves. Ana Enviado desde Samsung Mobile Mensaje original De: Murat Nemet-Nejat Fecha:23/11/2014 02:42 (GMT-03:00) A: christina.spie...@yale.edu,soft_skinned_space Asunto: Re: [-empyre-] introducing week 3 Perhaps the most powerful form of symbolic space is the plaza, from Tienanmen Square to Tahir Square to Maidan (which is a Turkish word) to Damascus to Taksim Square in Istanbul, to cite a few relatively recent examples, the symbolic action most feared by governments. I wrote a poem about thirty years ago "Fatima's Winter" exactly on the idea of the square (attached to a tool) as a potentially revolutionary space. Participants to our dialogue at Empyre may be interested in it. Though published, the poem is not on line. I don't know whether I can include it within the the post or attach is as a document. The poem is a few pages. ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] introducing week 3
--empyre- soft-skinned space--The Mothers of May started to walk round the plaza de Mayo, in Buenos Aires, silent, with huckles in their heads, carrying posters with the images of their missing children. It was in the 70:s. More than 3 people dissapeared in Argentina and Uruguay. Many were buried alive. Many were drugged and thrown from airplanes to río de la Plata. We are still finding old bones in hidden graves. Ana Enviado desde Samsung Mobile Mensaje original De: Murat Nemet-Nejat Fecha:23/11/2014 02:42 (GMT-03:00) A: christina.spie...@yale.edu,soft_skinned_space Asunto: Re: [-empyre-] introducing week 3 Perhaps the most powerful form of symbolic space is the plaza, from Tienanmen Square to Tahir Square to Maidan (which is a Turkish word) to Damascus to Taksim Square in Istanbul, to cite a few relatively recent examples, the symbolic action most feared by governments. I wrote a poem about thirty years ago "Fatima's Winter" exactly on the idea of the square (attached to a tool) as a potentially revolutionary space. Participants to our dialogue at Empyre may be interested in it. Though published, the poem is not on line. I don't know whether I can include it within the the post or attach is as a document. The poem is a few pages. ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] sample from today
--empyre- soft-skinned space--I read Hakim Bey (William Lambert Wilson) at the beginning of the net when Autonomedia started and we all believed the myth "information want to be free". He was a big inspiration for me as well and I think his theory of the TAZ, temporary autonomous zones, is an interesting contribution to a new geography based more on the imaginary than on political borders. Ana Enviado desde Samsung Mobile Mensaje original De: Murat Nemet-Nejat Fecha:11/11/2014 18:22 (GMT-03:00) A: soft_skinned_space Asunto: Re: [-empyre-] sample from today Ana, well not always. Remember Conrad's The Secret Agent? But anarchist had less power than institutional power to wreak destruction and, as far as I know, none of them was a suicide bomber, the tool that gives the modern terrorist the ability to influence minds far beyond their numbers. Interestingly, Hakim Bey regards himself an anarchist and now lives some place, I think, upstate New York in "retirement." His books on Sufism, its subversive position within Islam, had a great influence on my work. I always wandered the adoption of "Hakim Bey" as a nom de guerre since Hakim Bey is the name of the uniformed Turkish police officer, played by Orson Wells, in the film A Cask for Demetrius. Ciao, Murat On Tue, Nov 11, 2014 at 1:04 PM, Ana Valdés wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- I had a discussion with Murray Bookchin once, he visited us, the anarchist collective I lived with at that time, in Stockholm. We translated into Swedish his book about Ecology. He was a true individualist anarchist, he was very suspicious about us, about how we manage to live together work together and spend free time together :) He defended the right to wear weapon and to defend himself against anyone wanting to harm him. For us his these about citizen militie and armed vigilantes to watch the autogestionated societies was unthinkable. You are totally right, the anarchists nihilists from the end of the 19th century and beginning to the 20th century were considered today's terrorists :) But their agenda was less bloody ;( Ana On Tue, Nov 11, 2014 at 3:26 PM, Murat Nemet-Nejat wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- Ana, in the United States, the Libertarians have an idealized version of 19th century America, a De Toquevillean paradise, where "freedom" prevailed. In my view, all these are different, but very related, expressions of alienation. What is the cause of these splintered explosions of violence? At the heart, it seems to me, is the fall of the Soviet Union. In the preceding bipolar world, where there was an overarching threat of a world war/nuclear explosion, these alienations (always there) were suppressed, very often with the tacit consent of the governed. After the fall, the overarching, unimaginable, maximal threat gone, the tacit contract of the cold war is gone. Previously suppressed (or unheard) voices begin to speak with potentially, often violent, centrifugal force. Ironically, a lot of the violence, which the majority of us experience virtually, is primarily the result of increased freedom; second, the exponential advance in digital technology that makes these expressions--often of alienating violence we choose to call terror(ism)--visible to us. One should remember "terrorist" is a word (an ism) coined by politicians starting in the 1970's. I wonder how "terrorist" is different from "anarchist" which was the word of choice a hundred years ago. Do they, in subtle ways, mean different things? Perhaps, "anarchist" (along with had, in 19th century, a philosophical structure underpinning it. Some political thinkers/actors openly embraced it (read The Parisian Arcades or The Possessed). Whereas, in our day, no one, no group embraces the term terrorist; but tries to rationalize it, often calling the opposing party the real terrorist. In that sense, terrorism is a violence with no human face, no intellectual rational; it is a convenient term for those actors of "rationalized violence" (states or would-be states) to distinguish themselves from it. We all in this thread have been asking how an individual, particularly as an artist or a thinker or an actor, can react in the face of the pervasive omni-visible, often virtual but potentially actual violence. In my view, the best an individual can do is to analyze and develop a consciousness of the machinations of this violence, the methods, the techniques it uses to impose itself on the rest of us. Ciao, Murat On Tue, Nov 11, 2014 at 10:48 AM, Ana Valdés wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- Thank you Murat! I feel that the apocalyptical utopies from Boko Haram and ISIS trying to shape their own worldorder are signs of our time. ISIS is invoking the Caliphate, the go back to Al Andalous, a kind of golden age where Paradis
Re: [-empyre-] Mother Courage, Antigone's bones
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Johannes a quick answer to your direct question. I left Sweden when one million people voted for Sverigedemokraterna now the third party in Sweden. A xenophob party wanting forbid the begging and stop the immigration. I came back to Uruguay not because I am born here, where my Spaniard and Italian grandfathers found a good place to raise their families but because the Uruguayan melting pot felt now energetic and vital. In jail we woke up six in the morning to see the flag being up and six in the afternoon the flag were down. We were tortured with the Uruguayan anthem sounding in the loudspeakers. No fosterland or country for me, thanks. Ana Enviado desde Samsung Mobile Mensaje original De: Johannes Birringer Fecha:10/11/2014 14:50 (GMT-03:00) A: soft_skinned_space Asunto: Re: [-empyre-] Mother Courage, Antigone's bones --empyre- soft-skinned space-- small mix tape, with collected impressions, organized as a sounding board (inspired by Plastic Art Foundation). - Trashman Ana - just watched the first part of your friend Cecelia's documentary interviews with "Maria" begging on the streets of Gothenburg, thinking that Sweden is rich and blessed, and God looks after Sweden, and people there smile at beggars and are friendly. The Roma, she says, can make a living there and then return to Rumania for a while, support family there. Maria seems most pleased that her young children can learn how to read and write. Olga writes that "the current events in my home country Ukraine are a good case study of patriotism" and evoke the possibility that you are "out of frame if you are not a patriot in Ukraine nowadays", and then responds to my question about the re-appearance of the Cossacks, the mythic figure coming alive and real again in the 21st century. My reference to the Samurai and Mishima may be forgiven. Olga also mentions the images (spectacle of the scaffold): < I came across the issue of beheading when I investigated representations of Chechen war. There were videos uploaded by Chechen fighters of beheading young Russian conscripts with knives that were circulating on the net. It caused an ethical outrage of the internet community, especially when Belorussian female blogger posted video on her website under the title: Chechen kill Russian soldies as pigs. She obviously supported Chechen fight for independence as the rest of democratic world ( but at what price?). To mock the morbid curiosity of internet users the false links were created that linked to porn sites instead of videos.> John cautions and asks: " What is terror that is not seen except by perpetrator and victim? that is not discovered and written, talked about. Is it still terror? The media 'observer' changes things profoundly, but how? And in a sense I see this powerful question gain traction after Pia's response to Ana, about whether the observer was close (enough) to actual killings, or whether the violations of human rights as ongoing intimidation, humiliation and degradation are not the terror we speak about, the real violence dealt out to all? Sonja interjected: "News desk is where Mother Courage is busy nowadays, trading, eating her children alive". - Glutmut The odour of the burning flesh, evoked by Sonja's reference to concentration camps, resonates with several accounts we heard last week, also regarding the complex sublime threat manifested in the September 11 attacks. I walked to Ground Zero about 3 weeks later, and the stench was ghastly, and it sticks in one's body and clothes and mind for some time. Carolee Schneemann, the well known body/performance artist, later exhibited her "Terminal Velocity," photographs as a kind of (she says) "'In Memorium' -- an attempt to get closer and closer and closer to the representative figures who were either jumping or thrown out of the windows by the extensive heat and falling to their deaths [on September 11]. I wanted to study them and try to understand aspects of falling and what the absolute dynamic of gravity was going to do. I was not commenting on the social construction of information." [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/11/carolee-schneemann_n_4415261.html] Then what courage, mother. Agreeing with Fereshteh, I would also ask about identification with victims - nosotros somos x - , "how to put myself in their place, to imagine their situation, but it is not so easy. The psychological pressure is so immense that no one can bear it"? Pia speaks of design, and the not-newsdesk patterns, "of some aspects you might not have realized, even if you heard about the bombing and blockade of Gaza, the “targeted” assassinations and demolitions of the houses of suspects and their families." The victimization (more secret, indirect, not public horror show). You answered my question of what you mean by kits
Re: [-empyre-] affect, low theory, and capture
I am not sure about that I saw the Servants by Genet when I was very young and I saw it again recently. It struck me how eternal and wise the play was, how the negotiation with power, sexuality and identity was so well done with all those small protocols dealing with small details of great importance. I think again that place is today as powerful as belonging as class. I am myself a nomadic, living between two continents two or three languages and several sexualities from the polyamory to the non sexuality. Ana Skickat från min iPhone 21 jun 2012 kl. 11:42 skrev Lauren Berlant : > I don't disagree with that--the Auge is great--but maybe we could push a bit > harder on the relation of the transitional to the transformational here, and > on the relation of class to sexuality. In the hotel, the customer is getting > to suspend who she was when not on vacation from herself in the way Auge > suggests (the non-place inducing the habitation of self-misalignment) but the > servant's relation to her is exactly what a servant's relation is, > professional voyeurism as care that, when it has sexual or subjective > consequences, has to be kept to oneself. It isn't a non place for the > servant. > > LB > Sent from my iPad > > On Jun 21, 2012, at 9:24 AM, Ana Valdes wrote: > >> But a hotel is also a way for the nomadic to rest for a while to interact >> with others to listen to gossip to drink to eat to sleep in a bed made by >> some other than oneself. >> The hotel is always transitional a non-place as an airport or a motorway if >> we follow the anthropologist Marc Auge's theory Non-Places. >> Ana >> >> Skickat från min iPhone >> >> 21 jun 2012 kl. 11:13 skrev Lauren Berlant : >> >>> Hi all! I just thought I'd float a few thoughts. >>> >>> 1. The juxtaposition of Jordan's "Hotel" to Montgomery's "Transitional >>> Objects" does raise lots of questions about what kinds of refusal to >>> produce a narrow-veined kinship cluster of likenesses and samenesses do to >>> the general queer project of expanding the plane on which relationality >>> appears as a scene in the psychoanalytic and criminal senses, a moving >>> object and a moving target. >>> >>> In Jennifer's piece the mutilated recombined dolls produce no anchor but an >>> anxiety about how to stay in relation; while in Jordan's piece the erotics >>> of stuckness, of a binding to the signifiers of desire, can become both >>> fetishistic of what appetite stands for and, because dedramatized by the >>> music and slow, inarticulate mise en scene, drained of fetishism's drama to >>> demythify or intensify the sign. Hotel in a way is about not a desire for >>> expansive perverse queered transition but a queer stuckness that doesn't >>> expand into the world but expands time into the enigma of relation itself, >>> on the verge of shattering without the fetish's drama and pseudo-finality. >>> >>> >>> 2. This leads me back to Zach's insistence on negativity as that which >>> seems negative: withdrawal, subtraction, immeasurability, escape from >>> capture. I said this to Zach last spring when we were talking about the >>> common and sex, so this is where we are stuck, but: I think it's a mistake >>> to take the state's biopolitical aesthetics of the subject's and a >>> population's forced appearance and translation into data as the defining >>> taxonomy of the moment, because by copying the dominant fetishizing idiom, >>> repeating its own profound stupidity about the relation of information and >>> knowledge, even in resistance to it, you reproduce its idiom as the idiom >>> of the world. Any representation of relational processes (or of >>> object/scenes, as I call them) makes a new closet and a new disturbance. >>> Practices of exposure and literalization are false comforts. (I feel this >>> as well about the romance of the nomad--being a nomad is a lot scarier and >>> incoherently scavenging than Braidotti suggests! That's one way to read >>> Patricia's poem...) >>> >>> I think it's a sign of the crisis of the reproduction of life that the >>> world's "we" are in that literalization, the sheer immeasurable description >>> of the materiality of affect in action and relation, is everywhere seen as >>> necessary for a new realism. >>> >>> XxoL >>> Sent from my iPad >&
Re: [-empyre-] affect, low theory, and capture
But a hotel is also a way for the nomadic to rest for a while to interact with others to listen to gossip to drink to eat to sleep in a bed made by some other than oneself. The hotel is always transitional a non-place as an airport or a motorway if we follow the anthropologist Marc Auge's theory Non-Places. Ana Skickat från min iPhone 21 jun 2012 kl. 11:13 skrev Lauren Berlant : > Hi all! I just thought I'd float a few thoughts. > > 1. The juxtaposition of Jordan's "Hotel" to Montgomery's "Transitional > Objects" does raise lots of questions about what kinds of refusal to produce > a narrow-veined kinship cluster of likenesses and samenesses do to the > general queer project of expanding the plane on which relationality appears > as a scene in the psychoanalytic and criminal senses, a moving object and a > moving target. > > In Jennifer's piece the mutilated recombined dolls produce no anchor but an > anxiety about how to stay in relation; while in Jordan's piece the erotics of > stuckness, of a binding to the signifiers of desire, can become both > fetishistic of what appetite stands for and, because dedramatized by the > music and slow, inarticulate mise en scene, drained of fetishism's drama to > demythify or intensify the sign. Hotel in a way is about not a desire for > expansive perverse queered transition but a queer stuckness that doesn't > expand into the world but expands time into the enigma of relation itself, on > the verge of shattering without the fetish's drama and pseudo-finality. > > > 2. This leads me back to Zach's insistence on negativity as that which seems > negative: withdrawal, subtraction, immeasurability, escape from capture. I > said this to Zach last spring when we were talking about the common and sex, > so this is where we are stuck, but: I think it's a mistake to take the > state's biopolitical aesthetics of the subject's and a population's forced > appearance and translation into data as the defining taxonomy of the moment, > because by copying the dominant fetishizing idiom, repeating its own profound > stupidity about the relation of information and knowledge, even in resistance > to it, you reproduce its idiom as the idiom of the world. Any representation > of relational processes (or of object/scenes, as I call them) makes a new > closet and a new disturbance. Practices of exposure and literalization are > false comforts. (I feel this as well about the romance of the nomad--being a > nomad is a lot scarier and incoherently scavenging than Braidotti suggests! > That's one way to read Patricia's poem...) > > I think it's a sign of the crisis of the reproduction of life that the > world's "we" are in that literalization, the sheer immeasurable description > of the materiality of affect in action and relation, is everywhere seen as > necessary for a new realism. > > XxoL > Sent from my iPad > > On Jun 20, 2012, at 6:56 AM, Ana Valdés wrote: > >> I saw in the city of Umeå in the North of Sweden a very interesting >> exhibition, "Lost and Found Queerying the Archive". The curators Jane >> Rowley and Louise Wolthers built the show around some central and >> pivotal questions: identity, love and sexuality. Many of the voices >> presented are anonymous, people questioning themselves, searching for >> some belonging, for some identity, asking themselves about normality >> and normativity. The norms are made of conventions and consensus, >> agreements, historical memes written on people's experiences and >> stories. >> For me personally it was a great "aha" moment to read Rosi Braidottis >> "Nomadic Subjects", a book where she writes about our fragmented >> identities, our ability to wander between different identities and >> belongings but not staying in one. >> Ana >> >> On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 2:44 AM, Zach Blas wrote: >>> hi all-- >>> >>> i’m finally jumping in here again after some great posts from >>> patricia, lauren, jordan, and jack again! >>> >>> i’d really like to pull in some empyre subscribers to this discussion, >>> so i wonder if we can try to tackle some more general questions about >>> the stakes and stances around affect and its relations to queerness, >>> digital technology/media, and political art. >>> >>> patricia and lauren, you have already somewhat laid this out, but i >>> think it would be great to hear more about how you parse affect and >>> feelings and what those frameworks / structures of thinking permit, >>> enhance, delimit, enclose. in my experience, discussions around affect >>> always run up against conflicting approaches to defining it as well as >>> how it relates to feelings or emotions. >>> >>> patricia, it seems that many theorists and writers who focus on >>> technology, the nonhuman, and the new materialisms you have already >>> mentioned engage affect through a deleuzian / spinozan approach. and >>> they do so because it affords them a particular way to think technical >>> / nonhuman
Re: [-empyre-] welcome to paradise
Thanks again Johannes for your careful reading. When I saw Les Magiciens and when I read the cathalog I was struck again for the huge variation of expressions, looks and gazes. All the artists were presented by their own value not because they were token artists of a special culture. Why should Cuba's Jose Pepe Bedia paint as Cuba's Wilfredo Lam, a surrealist painter friend of Breton and Dali? Lam spent more time in Paris than in Cuba. Bedia lives now in Miami. We are speaking about nomadic subjects, local and global at the same time, why should we ask painters or writers to be stuck in a static world representing our colonized ideas of how the Middle East or India or Africa should be seen? Ana Skickat från min iPhone 3 maj 2012 kl. 09:59 skrev Johannes Birringer : > > > thanks for the responses received, > and for the clarifications, Christiane. > Arshiya's reply is not entirely resolving my curiosity about media art and > origin/place and issues of (self) representation or frameworks for such > visibilities of lives and forms past and present, and as you, Arshiya, > write: "not content of the works but what influences the choices ...are they > culturally determined?" -- what do you mean by choices here? and, shall we > use the example of Raqs Media Collective, as they have come to stand in > perhaps for new media art in India (having of course been well positioned in > western exhibitions such a documenta which made them become known), yes what > determined their concepts and choices or, if we don's ask that question, what > made their formal and conceptual modes of presentation or installation > particularly interesting and perhaps different or seemingly different, in > the manner in which they displayed conversations between video or still > images and text, sound, software, performance, sculpture and found objects > and so on. Raqs of co > urse have curated shows in Europe (manifesta 7), and so one would have to > have further dialogue, Christiane, about your proposition that > >>> > My point being that a Venice Bienniale curated by Raqs Media Collective > presumably would look very different from one curated by Francesco Bonami. >>> > > it is presumable point, but i am not so sure after all, whether it is quite > so easy, > > and Ana, you point to "Les Magiciens de la Terre", and if i remember it, the > outrage or discomfort that it caused for some had to do precisely with the > fact that it did not do what you say it did, namely "artists from Kuba, > Africa and South America were presented for their own premises" .. We'd > have to go back and look at the controversy, perhaps;but in your post, as > you go on speaking about the different modernisms and modernities, of course > i agree with you completely, also about the discourse creators and > dissiminator engines; and i think "Les Magiciens de la Terre" was > fascinatingly problematic in the apparent attempt to quietly display these > modern or postmodern artists side by side without acknowledging [any > significant] different contexts or production environments and ritual or > secular or political or distinctive frames and embeddings > > > with regards > Johannes Birirnger > > > Ana schreibt: > > In my nove to Montevideo I shipped almost my entire collection of books, > around 3000 books now crambling my small apartament in Montevideo. I look > often at some of the Art cathalogs of the exhibitions I saw and loved, > Documenta X wonderful political texts, L'Immateriel, Lyotard's postmodern > exhibition at Beaubourg. > And I read today, again, regading our discussion, the cathalog of "Les > Magiciens de la Terre", if I don't remember wrong the first world exhibition > where artists from Kuba, Africa and South America were presented for their > own premises. > I think it's again a matter of paradigm, the Western had Modernity and > Expressionism and all these changes produced by painters and artists working > and living in the big European metropolis, London, Paris, Vienna, Barcelona, > Madrid, Prag, Rome, Berlin, etc. And New York painters and artists come to > Europe and moved back and forth and were also a part of these movement. > But the Middle East didn't have a Modernity, not either Africa. And the > Latinamerican Modernity was shaped in other forms than the Europeans or North > Americans. > But, again, the problem is who generates the discourse, who is the one giving > certain Art the rang of Art and classifying other Art as naif or amateur or > just primitive, > The critics have the monopoly of the discourse as well the curators and the > marchands and the auctioners and the researchers, if their context or borders > are not wide enough to reach to other parts of the world and see Art in their > own context, we are never going to have a fair conception of Art who changes > the world and our lives with it. >>> > > ___
Re: [-empyre-] Welcome to Anne Balsamo our guest moderator for May, 2012:, Designing Culture: The Technological Imagination at Work
Such a nice presentation, Renate! I met Anne (hello Anne nice to share with you a virtual space) in Oslo and in Stockholm, with Hal Foster. A great conference and some very enjoyable hours in my hometown at that time. I think Anne's books about knowledge and technology are belong the books anyone should read to understand the shift pf the paradigme between the analog world and the virtual world. Cheers Ana Skickat från min iPhone 2 maj 2012 kl. 11:50 skrev Renate Ferro : > Welcome to Anne Balsamo (US) for the May 2012 on -empyre- > soft_skinned space, Designing Culture: The Technological Imagination > at Work > I met Anne at Irvine at the Digital Arts and Culture conference a > couple of years ago. It was before her book Designing Culture was > published but our conversations revolved around the subject of > tinkering which for both of us was an important part of the creative > process. Anne's book now out is the one that I recommend to all of my > art, architecture and engineering students both undergraduates and > graduates as they begin their collaborative work in prototyping > physical computing projects. I am thrilled that she accepted the > invitation to moderate this month's discussion and I look forward to > her guest's discussion in our -empyre soft-skinned space. > > A bit about the month--Each week for the month of May, Anne Balsamo > will engage guest participants in discussions about the “technological > imagination at work.” The conversations will explore topics that > focus on practices and projects that “take culture seriously” as a > platform for technological innovation. These projects—and indeed the > participants—demonstrate the rich possibilities when cultural theory > animates the technological imagination. She will be sending out this > month's introduction soon but I would like to welcome her to -empyre. > Her biography is below. > > Anne Balsamo (US): Biography > In her new book, Designing Culture: The Technological Imagination at > Work (Duke, 2011), Anne Balsamo offers a manifesto for rethinking the > role of culture in the process of technological innovation in the 21th > century. Based on her years of experience as an educator, new media > designer, research scientist and entrepreneur, the book offers a > series of lessons about the cultivation of the technological > imagination and the cultural and ethical implications of emergent > technologies. Balsamo is full professor at the University of Southern > California, where she holds joint appointments in the Annenberg School > of Communication and the Interactive Media Division of the School of > Cinematic Arts. From 2004-2007, she served as the Director of the > Institute for Multimedia Literacy at USC where she created one of the > first academic programs in multimedia literacy across the curriculum. > She was one of the co-founders of HASTAC (the Humanities Arts Science > Technology Advanced Collaboratory)--an international virtual network > that promotes the work of the digital humanities. In 2002, she > co-founded, Onomy Labs, Inc. a Silicon Valley technology design and > fabrication company that builds cultural technologies. Previously she > was a member of RED (Research on Experimental Documents), a > collaborative research-design group at Xerox PARC who created > experimental reading devices and new media genres. She served as > project manager and new media designer for the development of RED's > interactive museum exhibit, XFR: Experiments in the Future of Reading > that toured Science/Technology Museums in the U.S. from 2000-2003. > Her earlier book, Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg > Women (Duke UP, 1996) investigated the social and cultural > implications of emergent bio-technologies. > > Her curatorial and design work includes several projects of “public > humanities,” including an interactive documentary of the 1995 NGO > Forum at the 4th UN Conference on Women, an exhibition for the > International Museum of Women, a webcast of the 1996 Summer Olympic > Games, and, most recently (and currently) a series of digital > experiences to support the exhibition of the AIDS Memorial Quilt (The > Quilt in the Capital) in Washington DC in the summer of 2012. Her > areas of research focus on the cultural implications of emergent > technologies, the design of public interactives, and the distributed > museum. She has received support for this research from the MacArthur > Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and through the National > Endowment for the Humanities Digital Start-Up Grants. Her first book, > Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women (Duke UP, > 1996) investigated the social and cultural implications of emergent > bio-technologies. Drawing on this early work in feminism and > technology studies, she is now involved in a global effort to build a > massively distributed online curriculum called FEMTECHNET that will > support the simultaneous delivery
Re: [-empyre-] welcome to paradise
dear Johannes and all of you fellow empyreans! Today is my first Mayday day in the country I was born on it after 34 years of exile in Sweden and it's a day of mixed feelings. This day is now celebrated from the government, we have now a "worker's government". I contributed with four years of jail to put this people in charge. Am I happy? Did we acomplish what we believed when we fought idealistic and without very deep thoughts for an utopy, fora fairer world without social differences? Now I know with the facit on hand that we never made any endurable change because we did'nt know the only change comes from within. Cheers Ana Skickat från min iPhone 1 maj 2012 kl. 12:48 skrev Johannes Birringer : > > May-Day greetings to all comrades our there... > and perhaps time to discuss things need not stop after eight hours, > if we all slow down time just a bit? > > > > From: empyre-boun...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au > [empyre-boun...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Renate Ferro > [r...@cornell.edu] > Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2012 4:26 PM > To: soft_skinned_space > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] welcome to paradise > > Thanks Johannes for actually asking two very important questions that > I'm hoping we can end our discussion with. This discussion will be > open for another eight hours or so. After that time I will be > introducing our next guest Anne Balsamo. > > Renate > > On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 8:32 AM, Johannes Birringer > wrote: >> thank you, Motoba Naboko, for this very interesting posting. >> >> >> In regard to your example of "Welcome to Paradise," I'd be interested in >> asking whether you underlying question - Which representation parameters do >> they identify with? - refered to the generations of Africans living there, >> do the photographs (representations by others) of their presences (and >> pasts), their self-representations or fictionalizations, or whether your >> question could be expanded to refer to audience in Spain, or in Europe or >> the West for that matter, and how how you track the question one's a show or >> exhibit like this, or a conceptual undertaking like this, travels to be >> shown elsewhere? >> >> thanks also to the comments by Arshiya which we received. "Being Singular >> Plural"? has anyone seen it and could we hear some comments? (New media >> from India, that was your phrase, can you perhaps comment on how you mean >> this? do you refer to media productions made in India, or media arts works >> focussing on "India" and what would it be? sorry i have not seen the show). >> When we talk in such terms of cultural location, or even "origin," what >> exactly do we mean, >> And in Veleko's case, how does one visit the "locals"? >> >> >> Finally, it puzzled me to no end that no one seems to disagree with >> Christiane's resigned-sounding point of view : >> >> ... the "globalized art world" seems to adhere to a largely Western paradigm >> of artistic expression. I was thinking about this phenomenon when I saw The >> Ungovernables (http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/448) at The New Museum >> in NYC. I very much liked a lot of the art (only 3 artists were from the >> US), but -- the different subjects of the work aside -- most of the artists >> seemed to have gone to the same "art school" (no matter if they were from >> Africa or Colombia or ...). It would be great to see more art with a >> distinctly different aesthetic language from other parts of the world; I >> would assume that it is precisely this "difference" (visual or conceptual >> languages that are not easily categorizable) that poses problems for the >> global art scene. There is a need for more international curatorial voices >> who could introduce this art. >> >> I think there a great deal of work with distinctly different aesthetic >> languages from other parts of the world existing and being produced. >> >> Your last sentence, Christiane, is a bit confusing to me, as surely you are >> not arguing that globalized/international curatorial voices should/could >> introduce globalized/international art scene art? When you say "More >> international curatorial voices" (outside New York), whom do you have in >> mind? >> >> respectfully >> >> Johannes Birringer >> dap lab >> >> >> >> >> motoba naboko schreibt > >> I have been unable to follow up all the discussions, but since we have one >> more day to go I thought that it would be maybe useful to present you here >> some of the ways in which in my curatorial practice I have tried to >> challenge notions on Otherness and Western paradigms, particularly in >> relation to the so-called African Other… >> >> My first attempt was to inscribe Africa and a new meaning of Africanness in >> the realm of cultural institutions in Spain. The CAAM, Centro Atlántico de >> Arte Moderno in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria gave me that opportunity, while I >> was
Re: [-empyre-] most influential, most dangerous, most courageous women
Some names I should like to add, Flora Tristan, grandmother of Gauguin and one of the first socialists, Florence Nightingale, the writer Nathalie Barney, the Nobelprize Rigoberta Menchu, Emma Goldman, Virginia Woolf, Christine de Pisan, The Rennaisance painter Artemisia Gentileschi, the suden Kristina of Sweden, who abdicated and died in Rome. Ana Sent from my iPad On 7 mar 2011, at 21:24, christina wrote: > Try finding information online about many of these women. These are not all > famous people. Check it out. Some are, many are not. Yes, Les Annalistes > had a profound contribution to 'the history of everyday life' (Aries, etc.) > Natalie Zemon Davis is a > particularly notable historian in re the 'invisible' in women's history. The > heretics of Carcasson-- I used Ladurie's book as the basis of a new media > studio at Santa Cruz (undergraduate digital lab). > > > Let this exercise support one another , not tear each other down. > > Hoda Aminan > Eula Gray > Mary Wollstronecraft > Mary Whang Choi > Elizabeth Gurley Flynn > Sussan Tamassebi > Rosa Luxembourg > Asadah Faramaziha > Parvin Ardalan > Suely Rolnick > Esha Momeimi > Axelline Soloman > Elena Gil > Phyllis Wheatly > Frances E. W. Harper > Gloria Anzaldua > Shirin Ebadi > Ingrid Washinawatok > Ana Mendieta > Marija Gimbutas > Helen Keller > Mercedes Amaiana > Fusae Ichikawa > Lola Rodriguez de Tio > Florence Kelly > Victoria Mxenge > Nawal El-Saadawi > Ada Lovelace > Eileen Gray > Pat Hearn > Elizabeth Peratrovich > Minerva Mirabal > Sappho > Sylvia Beach > Marilyn Monroe > Nancy Spero > Minerva Bernardino > Ginetta Sagan > Lee Bul > Margaret Atwood > Lee Lozano > Charlotte Moorman > Jane Jacobs > Joan Mitchell > On Mar 7, 2011, at 8:54 AM, Ana Valdés wrote: > >> Allow me to add some Marxistic perspective to the discussion :) But if we >> see which kind of women we know about, for their lives or for their deeds: >> the most of them are aristocrats, nuns or well educated women, an exception >> at the beginning of this century. >> The class prospective is also applicable to men, we know about generals, >> emperors or kings, but very little about peasants, soldiers and workers. >> The Academy and the books are often written from above and it was only the >> Annales School, in France, who started to talk about "les petites >> histoires", it means the tales of everydays life. As in Mointalloux, the >> book written by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladourie or Bread of Dreams, written by the >> Italian historian Piero Camporesi. >> These books are about European heresies, crushed by the authority of the >> Church of Rome in alliance with wealthy princes. >> Very few women were able to fight with their own class and with the >> oppression of the system. Many of them chose to be nuns, as Hildegard of >> Bingen, to avoid matrimony and mootherhood, to be able to sing, write and >> create. >> Ana >> >> On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 8:02 AM, cara baldwin wrote: >> What does this have to do with drawing, you ask? In a typically modernist >> approach to figure and field we're instructed to balance figure and ground >> in a way that is 'convincing'. Even if we 'solve' this problem by way of >> recourse to an overall composition-the multitudes-we are left with the >> responsibility for our own discernment and action. >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >> On Mar 6, 2011, at 10:51 PM, Cara Baldwin wrote: >> where might 'we' might best focus our energies; figure and ground or the multitude? >>> >>> My answer to this question took less than a second, actually-- the >>> multitudes. Figure and ground will take care of themselves. >>> >>> This is an expanded field, certainly; and one in which figures are >>> articulate led not just differently-but more or less visibly. >>> >>> 'According to a study by the Centre for Women and Gender Studies, nearly 85 >>> per cent of the United Arab Emirates population of four million is migrant >>> workers. In Bahrain and Saudi Arabia 65 per cent of the workforce are >>> expats. In Kuwait it is 82 per cent, and in Qatar almost 90 per cent.' >>> Women are systematically and historically divested of rights and >>> representation. They resist definition and are difficult to organize >>> because of their illegibility-at a scale that is global, and radically >>> local. >>> >>> >>> >>> On Mar 6, 2011, at 3:06 PM, Ana Valdés wrote: >>> Dear Christina, allow me to dissent a little bit :) At the Intifada the women had a very crucial role, I met Leila Khaled some years ago in Amman and her tale of her hitchjacking of two planes in the Eighties: is really atonishing. And I come myself from a generation of women engaged in gerilla warfare in South America. I spent four years as political prisoner in Uruguay for that. I think it's a kind of media issue, we "common women" don't fit in the hero's stereotyps. Cheers Ana On Sun, Mar 6, 2
Re: [-empyre-] Transborder Tool
Interesting work, Claudia! I did myself à similar research for one of my books about cyberculture. Maybe we can exchange material. I liked the work of Anne Marie Schneider with the Blender platform and the work of Italian and Spanish independent companies, as Möller Industries and others. Ana, om my way to California to explore new paths in the hybridization of Art and activism Skickat från min iPhone 24 apr 2010 kl. 21.50 skrev "Claudia Costa Pederson" : Thank you Renate and Tim for the invitation. I would like to extend my support to Ricardo Dominguez and the research undertaken at the b.a.n.g. lab. Que les vay bien. A little partial background on my current work: I'm wrapping up a thesis on electronic games by artists using the medium for political ends, elaborating thereby on the notion of play as social relation. I'm looking at this from parallel activist perspectives of tactical media and indie games in response to the commodification of play in the creative economies of today, and drawing from historic avantgardes in which play and games were central for critiquing existing forms of organization from which innovative forms of artistic and activist practices emerged. I'm familiar with Dominguez' work in terms of my research and teaching at the History of Art and Visual Studies at Cornell. The network disturbances of EDT are a standard work in the writing seminar on Tactical Media that I been teaching. It is a difficult work to discuss with students born around the time that the Zapatista uprisings were taking place. That said students were dismayed at the recent developments relating to the transborder tool, which they see relating to the events around CAE's bioterrorist case. To their mind these works are not so much about producing working tools, but interventions in the border politics of immigration and the interdisciplinary turn of the university. I should say that most of these students are in the sciences. Their immediate concern is whether the Transborder tool works as a practical aid to immigrants crossing, and if not, they see the reaction of the USD managers as excessive. Technical research, as they see it in general ought to be subject to equal standards. I'm equally worried but not surprised. As other guests on this list, Rita Riley and Nick Knouf, among them, have said the university as an institution is conservative. But to such a degree as to re-track tenure? especially if tenure was given on the basis of the same research? We are all precarious workers, I explained to my students. The university has traditionally been a precarious environment for activists and artists. The university was founded on the model of the monastery. It can be argued that the transborder tool fits within the monastic tradition of hospitality and humanism, however. The tool as Micha explains is conceived in the service of the oppressed as a form of humanitarian aid. It challenges the Transcendentalism enmeshed with the American tradition of conflating technological and social progress. In the process it ends up revealing the contradictions of research. The tool is designed on the processual principles of performance art, and poetic traditions connected with the act of walking. How does it work? It is an ambitious project. It seeks to combine GPS data, and API (application programming interface) and an authoring layer that allows for editing, with poetry, and transborder solidarity. The team is still working on encryption in order to prevent militias from finding aiding sites like the water deposits left by border angels for immigrants braving the desert. They are also working on translation interfaces to include indigenous languages, English, and Spanish. There are also issues about power usage related to the length of the journey, as well as reception because of the weakness of GPS signals. It is no good to deal with a "out of service" in the heat of the desert. In any case, GPS enabled technologies are used by border patrol and smugglers already. In the broader public context, the attacks on the work of Dominguez and CAE relate to the fears of contamination emerging in conjunction with the celebratory discourses of hybrid economies. In the context of the university, it is the issue of funding that is at stake. In meager times artistic and humanist research is always the first to go, given that applied science continues to be framed as the motor of social progress, the equivalent of economic prosperity, and the means to peace and stability. This is in a nutshell the neo-liberal argument. Now, a tool designed to safely navigate unaccounted-for 'others' through the borders between Mexico and the US, seems to poke a big hole in our guiding principles? Claudia Costa Pederson ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre ___
