“Ideological victory can look just like ideological defeat. When one’s enemy accepts one’s terms, one’s point of critique and resistance is lost, subsumed. The dimension of antagonism (fundamental opposition) vanishes.” – Jodi Dean
Today everyone sings the praises of participation: leading academics hail active audiences who remix commercial culture, established curators wax poetic about relational aesthetics, web 2.0 executives and marketing experts applaud openness and connectivity, conservative economists have discovered the benefits of collaboration. Interactivity, access, engagement are the highest ideals of the new order, ideals taken by many to be synonymous with democracy. Participation is perceived as politics, and vice versa.
Not An Alternative’s installation at the Tate Modern’s No Soul for Sale show was inspired by artist Rikrit Taravanija’s influential work “Tomorrow is Another Day,” a piece that welcomed people into a gallery remodeled as an apartment, where they were met with free food, interesting conversation, even a bed to rest on. As critic Claire Bishop points out, the tradition of socially engaged art that Taravanija is part of assumes that “the creative energy of participatory practices rehumanizes – or at least de-alienates – a society rendered numb and fragmented by the instrumentality of capitalism.” The problem, as Jerry Saltz complacently observed, is that many of the people who accepted Taravanija’s invitation were art world denizens – dealers, curators, creators, and wannabes – who already felt entitled to access the space.
beka's blog
THE LIMITS OF PARTICIPATION
Symbols, Branding and Persuasion: An Art & Politics Presentation Series
If advertising is the engine of capitalism, then brands are its symbolic currency. Branding is a complex communications system of signifiers that leverages psychoanalytical principals of irrationality and desire. As activists and socially engaged cultural producers we recognize the problems associated with a culture designed around consumption. Unlimited growth in a finite ecosystem is a recipe for global catastrophe. The practice of branding is a central force driving the system towards its inherent limit. How are we to respond?
A typical reaction is to reject branding/advertising with anti-advertising rhetoric. But the successful negation of representation is as likely as erasing language. After all, signs and symbols are the basis of communication. Another approach would be to deconstruct the internal workings of branding, making visible the ways in which society and individuals are determined by irrational drives, skillfully manipulated by corporations. Becoming aware however does little to circumvent a pervasive practice that ignores rational understanding as it preys on our subconscious.
With these challenges in mind this presentation series plans to explore the mechanics of the branding industry, it’s principles, and tricks of the trade. To see what lessons we might learn. How might activists and cultural producers leverage the tools of advertising, marketing, public relations and spectacle production? Can we produce our own brands in the service of a progressive politics? Does a brand communicate a fixed message, or can it be interpreted to signify a variety of meanings? If so, can we intervene upon and appropriate brands to point them in a direction of new meaning?
The Change You Want To See Gallery
September 24 - November 5, 2009
With Douglass Rushkoff, Stuart Ewen, Joo Young Oh, Carrie McLaren, Steve Lambert, Stephen Duncombe, Jessica Teal, and Loid Der
Events live-streamed at http://livestream.com/notanalternative
SNIFF - A Public Interactive Projection
The Change You Want To See Gallery is currently hosting SNIFF: public interactive projection project by Karolina Sobecka, with software design by Jim George. The projection can be viewed from the sidewalk outside the gallery after dark from Thursday, September 17 - Sunday, September 20. The project is associated with the 2009 Conflux Festival.
As you walk down the street you are approached by a dog. He is on his guard trying to discern your intentions. He will follow you and interpret your gestures as friendly or aggressive. He will try to engage you in a relationship and get you to pay attention to him. Sniff is an interactive projection in a storefront window. As the viewer walks by the projection, her movements and gestures are tracked by a computer vision system. A CG dog dynamically responds to these gestures and changes his behavior based on the state of engagement with the viewer.
Sniff from karolina sobecka on Vimeo.
Clay Shirky Talk on Open Source, Activism, and Creative Practice
On June 18, 2009 internet theorist and author Clay Shirky joined us for a talk on the concepts of fork and failure in the open source process, particularly in the context of activism and creative practice. This event was part of the monthly Upgrade New York programming series, co-produced by Not An Alternative and Eyebeam. Part 2 below the jump.
Upgrade NY: Clay Shirky on Forking, Failure, and Open Source (Part 1) from Not An Alternative on Vimeo.
Video from "Subversive Tech in Burma" Event
"Subversive Tech and Burma's Struggle for Democracy" involved a presentation by Digital Democracy on the use of technology inside and along Burma's borders, footage from the Sept 2007 Saffron Revolution, where mobile phones and the internet allowed protesters to coordinate and publicize the largest protests seen in a generation, and a Q&A with "Stanley", a Burmese computer programmer and chairperson of the All Burma IT Students Union.
This was the inaugural event of the 2009 Upgrade New York art and technology programming series, pertaining to open source activist and creative practices, co-produced by Not An Alternative and Eyebeam.
Subversive Tech & Burma's Struggle for Democracy (Part 1) from Not An Alternative on Vimeo.
