[iDC] IPF09 Conference thoughts

[Saul Ostrow]

If all that presently supports the notion that culture has a political and social function is the traditions and beliefs that extend form the mid 19th century, bourgeoisie's struggle to use culture to capture social power - then those who employ art as a means to critique the present disparity between need and aspiration, are merely seeking the fulfillment of the bourgeoisie's promise of emancipation and betterment. Consequently, though their position seems antithetical to that of those artists who wish to express themselves based on the most intuitive in-put, both reproduce, replicates and perpetuates the same logics, conventions, and histories. From this perspective, it is necessary for us to begin to re-think the role that cultural production be it education, science or what is traditionally called art plays in modeling paradigms relevant to how we might self-reflexively determine our agency and being in the world.  Such a practice requires that we develop contingent positions that will allow us to redraw the bounds of our cultural domain by over-writing the residual programs that continue to order and limit our abilities to act in accord with our collective self-interests. This task, necessitates a critical re-reading and re-thinking of self and agency on an on-going basis, as well as a striving to take into account the inhibitions and deformities that everyday life imposes on the systems network of discourse that order the social inter-change and employment of knowledge, as well as the development of technologies, and cultural production.



On 12/7/09 2:04 AM, "Kevin Hamilton" <kham at uiuc.edu> wrote:


I would contrast these two moments thusly:

- Looking at a thing as an essence or archetype VS. looking at a thing
as information.

- Viewing subject as synthesizing subject VS. viewing subject as an
overloaded navigator, dependent on others to synthesize.

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