Re: [microsound] Positionality and self-theorization: what's at stake?

[Ian Andrews <i.andrews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

i agree "i'm an artistnot a critic " resonates with the well known phrase
"stupid as a painter" If you can't, or won't, define what your work is,
then must rely on others to misreprestent it.  This was the problem that
confronted groups like Art & Language, and Fluxus. They despised the critic
(especially those of high modernism, Greenberg et al.) and wished to
replace them. They took the job of interpretation away from the critic by
doing it themselves, contexualising their work, and guarding it from
misrepresentation, recuperation, and, as Phil correctly points out,
political propaganda.

The CIA also appropriated  Be Bop into the service of propaganda.  I think
It was Dizzy Gillespie.
Anyone know more about this?

><
>definitions for our work, it may be defined by others in a way that's
>totally opposed to our own purposes.>>
>
>>well, that's their problem and nothing to do with me.
>
>You seem to be thinking on a more personal level than I am. I guess I'm
>thinking of something along the lines of the CIA's appropriation of
>Abstract Expressionism to stand for the liberty and democracy of the US
>and, implicitly, against the cultural tyranny of the USSR. The criticism
>that existed at the time was totally unprepared for this kind of thing,
>because it theorized that the avant-garde artist existed outside of the
>social realm, heroically pushing the rest of the culture forward.
>Because their theorization of their own work was inadequate, their
>practice was positioned in a way that allied them with the worst kind of
>power formations.
>
>Now, I don't think the Bush administration is going to take up glitch as
>an example of how the US is a free society that embraces liberty and
>digital democracy, not like those nasty Muslim terrorists who don't even
>check their fucking email. But there are formations of power that are
>willing ready and able to position cultural production to "their" own
>ends, and if "we" aren't willing to position our own production in
>whatever way, whether "high" or "low" or marginal or mainstream or
>oppositional or whatever, then "someone" may do it for us in a way that
>aligns us with maybe something pretty nasty.
>
>> the work should describe
>>itself and it's place better than any long-winded description and
>>historical context can.
>
>If you really believed that to be true, then why did you bother
>responding to any of these posts? And what constitutes "long-winded"?
>Even a "short-winded" description of historical context (or whatever)
>might be sufficient.
>
>> i'm an artist, not a critic.
>
>Then why are you criticizing my arguments? Of course you're a critic,
>and, in my view, that's the way it ought to be. To refuse criticality is
>still a critical position, and that's exactly my point. There's no way
>out, because there was never any "out" to begin with. Practice is
>theory.
>
>[snip]
>
>Phil
>
>"The gravest danger our Nation faces
>lies at the crossroads of
>radicalism and technology."
>
>George W. Bush
>17 September 2002
>
>:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
>Phil Thomson
>http://www.sfu.ca/~pthomson/
>http://centibel.vze.com/
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/databenders/
>:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
>
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