Re: [microsound] London project

[Stephen Hastings-King <roachboy@xxxxxxxxx>]

list comrades!

i don't understand what is really at issue here.

if your political inclinations tie to your work, and together they
move you toward making something that links conditions at either end
of this absurd abstraction that american conservatives label "the war
on terror" then do it--why not?--it could operate as an expression of
solidarity, or as a kind of argument about what types of linkages you
(we?) see between events that are otherwise presented as separate or a
response to an accumulation of horrors etc etc....
..
there are many more (possible) reasons to do this kind of thing than a
general disgust at the reduction of  human beings to an expendable
status (hello capitalism)...a rejection of the signifier "terrorism"
for example...

or another: if the distinction between and act of war and "terrorism"
is the legal framework within which each is defined...and if the
arguments the americans floated for war have been shown to have been
false--it may be that this has no effect on the legal frame, but it
certainly does have one on the way in which one can take that legal
frame, what one can make of it--with a result that the opposition
"terror" and "war" begins, in the case of iraq, to wobble.
if you find that to be the case, say, and find that you could make an
argument about it through your work that would be compelling (as
process or as object) then why not?

a parallel kind of project organized with the idea of encouraging
participation across north/south divisions could address the same
questions and would obviously be very cool to do....but that would
also be a different type of project, one with very different
logistical considerations, and a more complex set of political issues
(the most important of which might not play out across the question of
what various participants choose to address through the project and
how they choose to do it)  which i think christos' post addresses
directly.

for what it's worth, i tend to prefer writing as a medium for
political argumentation simply because it is more direct--sound
manipulation is for me a variant of politics, but it tends to be
performed rather than argued and so appears indirect.   i might be
interested in participating in one of the projects proposed, but would
be more inclined to see what discussions there were about form before
deciding.  for me at least, the form of the project would be a basic
consideration.

stephen

On 7/8/05, Christos Carras <ear@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Zander.Nord wrote:
> 
> >
> > In Iraq it is "just happened" every day. A connection on only one
> > side does not lead anywhere or communicate anything.
> >
> > Why not attempt a real healing connection, do a combined London-
> > Fallujah-Madrid-Baghdad project.
> >
> > Or does that feel like a threatening and dangerous proposal?
> >
> >
> the connection would be at the level of  expressing disgust at the
> reduction of the human being to an expendable unit.
> 
> maybe also at the absolutely basic level of  pain and death as universal
> experiences.
> 
> but i'm afraid that we might be lead by virtuous feelings to believe
> that we are "connecting" when in fact we aren't.
> 
> i say that from the perspective of working precisely in the context of
> cultural projects that seek to make connections amongst peoples of the
> middle east, north africa and southern europe.
> 
> i don't think that in the north - west we have ever really tried to
> understand the view point of these regions: precarious economic
> situation, very limited space for what we understand as civil society to
> express itself in, a feeling of frequent humiliation and anger at double
> standards applied by the west etc etc. and that's in peaceful countries.
> i don't think i can possibly claim to connect (other than in sympathy)
> with gaza or fallujah.
> 
> maybe that's why you're right that it is in effect a threatening proposal.
> 
> [i trust that i don't need to add that i am revolted by what happened in
> london {and madrid, and new york}...but i guess i just did..]
> 
> cc
> 
> 
> 
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