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Re: "scene" stealing...



On 6/23/02 at 11:00 PM, under the radar <analog_life@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> If this goes down without anyone doing this, then this "scene"
> is worthless and has far less backbone and integrity that
> anyone outside of this little world could have ever imagined.

Perhaps sadly, there's no requirement that members of this "scene"
adhere to a socialist (or anarchist or whatever you'd like to term it)
program.

Which is why I like Raymond William's categorization of this type of
formation as "dissident bourgeois." (See his _The Politics of Modernism:
Against the New Conformists_, Verso Press)

Back in the early 80's the independent film and video scene consisted of
folks like:

Nam June Paik
Robert Ashley
Dee Dee Halleck
Lillian Jimenez
Tami Gold
Barbara Kopple
Spike Lee
the Hudlin Brothers

to name a few that I was acquainted with. All of them came together
under the rubrick of "Independence" and I remember meetings when all of
these folks would have been in the same room together.

In the intervening years, their careers have been on very different
trajectories: some have remained committed to a social vision and
others, well, how many of you watched "The Hamptons" on HBO?

Keep in mind that "revolution" and "bourgeois" aren't mutually
exclusive: 1776 proves that. The socialist revolution happened in 1917.

-Tad