power settings - thoughts

[Kim Cascone <kim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

on 9/3/03 7:42 AM, microsound-digest-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> i would hate to feel that somewhere out there are some parameters
> set by someone (talking about power issues) which alone determine
> quality of art.

some early morning coffee-fueled thoughts:

you can't escape this...trying to escape this raises a logical paradox...any
time someone 'selects' one thing over another they are exercising their
right or ability 'to choose' which is a form of power...and by selecting one
object from many others the selector inadvertently shrouds the object in an
aura that has a culturally perceived property of 'quality'...these
'selections' travel as cultural memes and influence others to make similar
selections and hence form concentrations of objects/services, i.e., genres,
email lists, record shops, etc

an essay I read recently recounts an incident where the night janitor for an
art gallery 'cleaned up a mess' that was actually a piece by Matthew Barney
which was on exhibition...the janitor obviously didn't perceive the piece as
containing any of the commonly known aesthetic signifiers that constitute a
'work of art'...he lacked the cultural knowledge pool which is used to map a
set of signifiers to other signifiers...

any record label, music shop, festival, magazine, concert venue, webzine,
etc is a collection of choices made by those who hold the purse strings
(power over both people and process via capital) and hence reflects a
hierarchy of power or a power structure...any entity that is actively
involved in exchanging money for a service or an object becomes a part of a
larger power structure (economy)...so how does one break this loop?

droplifting is one possible way to achieve a break in one area as it
involves a minimal engagement with money and control/power structures...it
feeds parasitically off of these structures by embedding itself into them
for little or no cost and offering an unsolicited chance to choose...

I am reading James 'Postmodernism' in which he describes the concept of
'wrapping' one conceptual object around another...droplifting can possibly
be described in this way as well...

speaking of which, I will put up the invite for the droplifting project this
weekend...

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