Archive for the ‘theory’ Category

Judith Butler

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

Judith Butler: As a Jew, I was taught it was ethically imperative to speak up

By Udi Aloni

24/02/2010

[...] I think we have to get over the idea that a state has to express a nation. And if we have a bi-national state, it’s expressing two nations. Only when bi-nationalism deconstructs the idea of a nation can we hope to think about what a state, what a polity might look like that would actually extend equality. It is no longer the question of “two peoples,” as Martin Buber put it. There is extraordinary complexity and intermixing among both the Jewish and the Palestinian populations. There will be those who say, “Ok, a state that expresses two cultural identities.” No. State should not be in the business of expressing cultural identity.

- haaretz.com

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barthes by barthes by bart

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

barthesbart

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altermodernism: the age of stupid

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

What is most terrifying about Bourriaud’s Manifesto therefore, is its absolute lack of acknowledgement of the real and dangerous future that we face. Rather than speaking out and demanding the dramatic changes that are necessary, it seems to support a continuation of the status quo of the last twenty years. In his video interview on the Tate website, Bourriaud describes the purpose of the altermodern as the “cultural answer to alterglobalisation” (Bourriaud 2009a). However, rather than questioning the carbon-heavy lifestyles that a globalised world promotes he seems to complicitly buy into them, insisting that “our daily lives consist of journeys in a chaotic and teeming universe”.

- Ellie Harrison, Altermodernism: the Age of Stupid

while in my last post i simply had trouble being persuaded by what Bourriaud claims, the above article goes right into taking Bourriaud’s word for it and criticizes him for not acknowledging the environmental problems and impending doom of earth and the human populace. interesting take on the subject, seems like Bourriaud’s fancy for internationalism and the altermodern manifesto’s effect on how artists view their practice will only make the age of stupid a reality… if jetsetting is going to get you into the Tate Triennial, who’s going to think about reducing carbon emissions?

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altermodernism

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

POSTMODERNISM IS DEAD

A new modernity is emerging, reconfigured to an age of globalisation – understood in its economic, political and cultural aspects: an altermodern culture

Increased communication, travel and migration are affecting the way we live

Our daily lives consist of journeys in a chaotic and teeming universe

Multiculturalism and identity is being overtaken by creolisation: Artists are now starting from a globalised state of culture

This new universalism is based on translations, subtitling and generalised dubbing

Today’s art explores the bonds that text and image, time and space, weave between themselves

Artists are responding to a new globalised perception. They traverse a cultural landscape saturated with signs and create new pathways between multiple formats of expression and communication.

- Nicolas Bourriaud, Altermodern Manifesto

…

[...] in every spot of the planet, you can see this new cultural stratus, coexisting with the layer of traditional culture and some local specific contemporary elements. Saying that it is the privilege of the artistic jet set is a pure denial of the worldwide violence of the capitalist system, or an extreme naiveness.

- Altermodern: a Conversation with Nicolas Bourriaud

…

i can’t decide if i agree with what Bourriaud is proposing. understood that he is offering a new paradigm for thinking about the present trend of contemporary art -  i am not quite convinced that this ‘new cosmopolitanism’ is as pervasive as he claims it to be. perhaps i am just ‘extremely naive ‘, but i can’t help but feel that he is focusing his argument on the most visible players of contemporary art (by defaut those who are most priviledged). There are still many, many MANY people who aren’t flying from one place to the next, who aren’t ‘nomadic, third-culture hybrids’.

this declaration that ‘post-modernism is dead’ just REEKS of elitism.

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achille mbembe: the invention of joburg

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

Achille Mbembe, Sarah Nuttall, Lindsay Bremner, Rita Barnard at Slought Foundation:

The Invention of Johannesburg [mp3]

“In many senses, there is no metropolis without a necropolis. Just as the metropolis is closely linked to monuments, artifacts, technological novelty, an architecture of light and advertising, the phantasmagoria of selling, and a cornucopia of commodities, so is it produced by what lies below the surface. In the case of Johannesburg, the underground is not simply a technological space emptied of social relations. It does not exist only in an abstract realm of instrumentality and efficiency. In fact, it always was a space of suffering and alienation as well as of rebellion and insurrection. The French equation between underground space and revolution or insurrection (the dream of radical equality evidenced in the signifier of the Catacombs) holds in the case of Johannesburg. [...] Johannesburg clearly shows that one of the characteristic features of a metropolis is an underneath. [...] The underground is not to be understood simply in terms of an infrastructure and various subterranean spaces (sewers and drainage systems, underground railways, utility tunnels, storage vaults and so on). The world below (the underworld) is also made up of lower classes, the trash heap of the world above, and subterranean utopias. Like the nineteenth-century European city, the vertical and racial segmentation of the Johannesburg urban world was given structure and order by what it relegated beneath. As far as Johannesburg is concerned, more than the surfaces of the vertical city with its skyscrapers, the underground seems to hold the keys to unlocking the secrets of its modernity.”

- Achille Mbembe and Sarah Nuttall, “Introduction: Afropolis,” Johannesburg: the elusive metropolis (2008) [more at slought.org]

…

i really wanted to attend this lecture in person, but alas classes got in the way. for those who know my work, Mbembe’s writings really influenced me, especially for eGoli, 2008. not to mention the invaluable one-on-one critique i got with the generous Lindsay Bremner, who took time off just to speak to me about the piece, as additional input from a ‘non-fine arts’ and slightly more theoretical point of view.

Posted in africa, cities, lecture, philadelphia, south africa, theory | No Comments »

achille mbembe on how to think of africa

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

Carte blanche à Achille Mbembe. Conférence du 28 janvier 2008 organisée par le Groupe d’initiatives et de recherches sur l’Afrique de la Sorbonne, avec Achille Mbembe, Jean-François Bayart, Richard Banégas et Saïd Abass Ahamed.

the video is in french, but it’s not terribly hard to catch what he’s saying (despite my rusty french) as mbembe speaks quite clearly.

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