[iDC] (no subject) - ethics

Tue Dec 18 04:55:52 UTC 2007

Luis,

thanks for initiating this thread. "collective intelligence," not to  
say, "collaborative intelligence," can go only so far without raising  
this issue, which, as you point out, is far from central to the  
discussions on this list. Though there is a truly international  
constituency here, (when it pays attention), it is far from  
"representative" of the political spectrum that in fact uses and  
critiques the medium of ICT. The need for continual prompters on the  
list is a sign of the alienation of iDC from the social contexts of  
its contributors. The list is often informative, and though one can  
hone ones own critical skills here, [ read, academic profiteering]   
it doesn't become what it advocates: an institute of creative  
distribution - to effect the social world. It's model seems to be  
data mining, not social change, in fact.  We need only look to APC  
and the like to make this difference apparent.

For that to happen, iDC would, as a collective, have to take a  
political position. Emphasis on, "political." Which is where your  
challenge, Luis, enters the iDC picture.

For instance, one has to wonder about the negative role iDC plays, in  
sociopolitical terms, when it is monitored by ad-men from facebook to  
cite one example. There is a "techno-apologist" quality to iDC that  
is predominant.

With this as backdrop:  i want to comment on your long overdue  
challenge here that: there is no good unethical art

As much as I want to support that statement, ALL definitions of  
"ethics" are of course, "political." So we don't want to make the  
same mistakes of 70's social movements..... [this needs a great deal  
of commentary which i forego here] Susie Gablick is a PC travesty,  
for example.

footnote 1: i define "morality" as a system of values base on  
essentialism. i define "ethics' as a system based on constructivism  
[anti-authorship and authoritarianism - the debate of  
poststurcturalism that began with Hume in the 18th century...].

footnote 2: there has been much commentary about the shift from  
"politics" to "ethics" during eras when the former has been gutted of  
popular participation. translation: "political" action by the popular  
in the US and much of the Western world, has been entirely eviserated.

Thus your other question:

  "Is our primary mission as artists [people] to produce commerce  
fitting monuments to ourselves, or is it to use art to help bring  
ethics into the picture?" --

would have to substitute "ethics" with, "politics."

Politics requires something much more demanding that mere "good  
values." It means strategic and tactical "actions" that might not  
conform to the purities of "ethics."

Thus, Q.E.D., ethics can aid and abet conservative politics. MoveOn,  
Amy Goodman, Michael Moore, etc. all continue to support "lesser of  
evil" voting, which only maintains the status quo. They steal  
"progressive" "values" and mainstream them in support of the  
Democratic party..... A hopelessly naive form of reactionary  
politics, and a form of passivity that maintains the status quo.

This is counter-intuitive for those who are wrapped up in  
"bourgeoise" ideology, which has been the target of most of the  
theorists that many on this list ascribe to: Foucault, Delueze, etc.  
etc. Which is to say, many on this list risk hypocrisy.

Except when other astute, "political", strategies and tactics are  
seriously considered, there is no hope in the future.

So, to reiterate Luis's fine tuned challenge: Sandler or?

mark bartlett

On Dec 17, 2007, at 12:13 PM, Luis Camnitzer wrote:

> I would like to start a new stream here, a little less technical  
> than usual, but that I feel should be vented so that technical  
> matters don't run away with us. There is not much to moderate on  
> this, just to talk and listen. Merry Superstition Days to all.
>
> At the end of Second World War, Fred Sander was imprisoned by the  
> Soviets and interrogated. Sander had been an engineer for the Topf  
> Works, a company that specialized in incinerators. In his work he  
> had developed a high efficiency system for the furnaces in  
> Auschwitz by introducing conveyor belts and using the corpses as  
> added fuel. At the time of his imprisonment Sander was bitter. He  
> had tried to register his system with the Patent Office in Berlin,  
> but his application had been rejected with the argument that his  
> creation was considered a secret of the state. The decision did not  
> by any means imply a value judgment, and that wasn't Sanders  
> problem. What embittered him was being denied the deserved credit  
> for his creation and individual intellectual effort.
>
> I don't know how precisely the words author and authority are  
> etymologically connected, but it might be interesting to look at  
> them in one ideological continuum. I always was suspicious of  
> authority, and increasingly am becoming suspicious of authorship.  
> While as artists we don't fit anymore into the romantic image of  
> the individual chosen and damned, based on authorship we are still  
> pursuing individual recognition by higher authorities and expecting  
> the appropriate rewards. This is specially so in the U.S  
> professional artist model (a model that is taking over the world),  
> where artists are trained to be producers of articles for  
> consumption and to use their name as a trade brand. We therefore  
> become open to have our production shaped by the market rather than  
> by collective cultural needs. Of course, the market can be  
> considered as a collective cultural marker that identifies our  
> society, but it is here were the parallel with Sander becomes  
> rather threatening (at least to me). Sander felt that with his  
> invention he was helping Germany win the war--that he was a good  
> citizen--and he saw no difference between himself and a combat  
> airplane designer. Somewhere the ethical component seems to have  
> gotten lost.
>
> Some questions worth discussing, or at least to possibly  
> contextualize our work: Are being rejected by the Patent Office in  
> Berlin or by MoMA in New York on the same ideological plane, with a  
> difference in degree but not in quality?  Is our primary mission as  
> artists to produce commerce fitting monuments to ourselves, or is  
> it to use art to help bring ethics into the picture. Is there good  
> unethical art? (Which is different to good art made by unethical  
> people). Are we to be producers of objects or shapers of culture?
>
> Luis Camnitzer (camnitzer1 at gmail.com)
>
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