Author: John Abbate  
Posted: 08.11.2002; 05:12:10
Topic: Question 2
Msg #: 602 (in response to 418)
Enclosure:
Prev/Next: 601/603
Reads: 91883

Thomas: Excellent term, "webness". You say: "Criteria like webness are replaced by criteria of strategical values for activistic goals in social and political fields." But to what extent does self-referentiality and an association with ART compromise these activistic goals? The struggle against monolithic corporate and state control of the internet is a political one, and the signifier ART attached to this struggle, because of its inherently playful, spectacle driven (thanks Y.B.A.) and conservative associations in the minds of the public, may only serve to dilute one's message. Also, with ART, one tries to steer a path between a naive logocentrism that presupposes the transparency of media, and a castrated formalism that signifies little or nothing of concern outside itself. With Heidegger, we could say that the best art manifests the struggle between material or medium (earth) and the telos of signification (world). It is difficult to see how the effectiveness of an action to bring about political change is enhanced by art, which, although not a-political or autonomous (everything is political), seems nevertheless to be governed by a logic that distinguishes it from the field of political action per se.

 



Last update: Saturday, November 9, 2002 at 2:45:51 AM.
 

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