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RadioActive:
by Francois
Bucher
=========
Several points regarding the (radioactive)
project and the reactions it produced.
I read the intention of this piece in a very simple way, I read it through
the knowledge of the people who made it and through the context of their
expanded practice. I also think there needs to be an answer to some arbitrary
assumptions on the part of some respondents.
There is an expression in Spanish "pelar el cobre" to "reveal your copper".
This is what Renee Gabri and Ayreen Anastas's piece has done to some of
their respondents. The tacit "Cultural Bureau" has made its appearance
in righteous moral stances such as: "these artists will never get another
show in New York". The real Cultural Bureau is unnecessary; it is clear
that Tom Ridge can rest on that front and delegate in peace. Yes, go ahead
and make political work as long as it doesn't disrupt anyone or anything,
as long as it is neutralized and safe. The art world is full of "political
work", everyone knows that nowadays it sells to have a revolutionary edge,
even The Gap, even bankers. So there is a subliminal message being
broadcast here: don't cross the line, don't try to raise a real problematic,
uncomfortable, dislikeable, imprecise but bloody real discussion about
the climate of censorship in this country. Stay with the work that looks
dangerous and which is completely drained of all its power to alarm. Godard
once wrote a review on a film called PRAVDA and said "we discover that
what was made here was a political film and not a film politically". "Political
work" has become in many cases a genre; an operation such as this fiction,
silly as it may seem at a first glance, is acting politically, creating
thought around very difficult issues, assuming a risk, putting itself
on the line, breaking a discourse that pretends that we are active in
resisting the steady way in which all civil liberties are disappearing
in the name of national security, when many of us are not taking the urgent
stance that it demands.
If you think about it, even if the operation is not particularly gracious
or innovative, what else could have been as effective in producing a discussion,
an urgent discussion about censorship, about the kind of highly sophisticated
strategies that might need to be deployed in a situation such as the one
that is silently and securely installing itself in this country? And about
the passivity in which the whole of America is entering an era of surveillance,
(and more specifically, of acute self-surveillance)? The responses that
claim that this alienates the art world are completely wrong from my point
of view. The moment of a shock is the moment of an activation of
thought, it is precisely the moment of de alienation. And the piece
was successful in doing so. Another position, the one of the individuals
who saw this as a strategy for career advancement is just the bluntest
and most naïve way for someone to reveal their own hidden agendas
(also, so what if it were true?S let me rephrase: "it reveals their guilt
regarding their own secret agendas"). As a direct response to both responses
stand the actions of the two artists who have clearly not been playing
the game of easy art world credits.
Fortunately for this situation then, the work was been made by two people
who have proved over several years their commitment to creating a platform
of serious, focused discussion. Their actions speak for themselves, they
have been steadily forming a community through reading groups on critical
world issues and have taken an increasingly active role in promoting serious
analysis on urgent matters. So they are not pranksters nor "shepherds
crying wolf" as some have named them resorting to antique moralities,
but people who consider the passivity of a community that doesn't fully
realize that the wolf is already here. And that the wolf doesn't
have the form of a wolf, and that the contingent truth of all these matters,
of all political positions, is only visible in the short circuits that
actions such as these create. Not in liberal positions that are
repeatedly spoken. This is, again where their politics lie. This is what
speaks for them, the commitment to trying to create a real discussion,
where we, the enlightened art world are no longer safe, on the side of
those who are in the know. It is revealed to what degree we need to include
ourselves, and this abstract notion - the "art world"- in the equation
(nobody complains when the hoax is not on the art world, that, precisely,
seems to be the taboo). In a certain sense we are deeper in the
problem because of our spontaneous arrogance and righteousness, which
has been duly expressed during the last two days. Nothing is more dangerous
than assuming a common ground that doesn't need to be discussed, or assuming
that there are clear cut oppressions that are objectively there for us
to protest against; or truthful unmediated information on urgent affairs
of the world; or a benign government that will perform a self examination
after a protest or a signed petition, and redress its wrongdoings. This
work revealed more than anything the desire for censorship that the art
world has (as Lucas Ospina said), that is, the desire for an external
oppressive force to fight against. But the reality is that the question
about who is censoring now is far more complicated, and perhaps much more
a matter of introspection. The closing of a gallery in Chelsea, the spontaneous
reaction of all artists protesting in front of the gallery would have
been perfect for everyone to come together in disgust in front of a despicable
action of the state. But things are not that simple, unfortunately we're
not in Salem anymore. Martha Rosler said it clearly today in her
email "The sad truth is that at present we don't need official censorship.
Our cultural institutions have learned to do it very well all by themselves"
If anything this work was very successful in revealing the need for all
of us who have entered the internet world in the candid way that we have,
without a full knowledge of its mechanisms, sources and codes, that there
is a simple way to know who owns what domain, or where we're getting our
information from, and who owns that information. The few people that did
a little research on the matter, the ones who searched the name of the
director of the cultural Bureau for example, where able to determine that
the search produced zero results. Others went all the way to finding
out who the domain owner was and saw the whole picture. I see this as
a very important byproduct of the action.
The piece doesn't want to be genial nor beautiful nor clever, it is not
the broadcast of "the War of the worlds", which by the way I'm sure no
one would condemn today even if it brought real panic to millions. It
clearly wants to trigger a discussion, for an issue, an extremely urgent
issue to be brought to light. The artists have used the oldest strategy
of all, the creation of a fiction that is set forth to reveal a truth.
In this case what is revealed is the urgency of a reality that is in front
of everyone's eyes (which is why the absurdity became believable).
Many have condemned them with the argument that there are enough
real issues to be concerned with and that this has caused unjustified
anxiety. As much as I respect the voices that have taken this stance,
I do think the agitation is not at all unjustified and I also think that
this community has not fully awoken to its new reality (as Shelly Silver
wrote today), and that there are not many mechanisms left that would have
been so effective in activating an energized conversation such as this
one.
It is understandable to become enraged when being fooled, but maybe
what follows is to try to understand the motives of an action such as
this one. To position it by becoming aware of the context of the executors
and to go to next level which may be to recognize that something was indeed
triggered, and that the conversation that is taking place around this
piece is precisely what was intended, and moreover that it is particular
to it. I think the high moral grounds from where some of the responses
were spoken are too similar to the high moral grounds of the department
of Homeland Security. And that is really an uncomfortable thing to watch.
I stand by the notion that this work is that of two artists whose
intention is to trigger a real, truly engaged conversation. That it springs
from an intuition that is actually common to many of us; an intuition
that says it has all gone too far already. The last point is perhaps that
we need to wake up to the fact that there will not be a clumsy Cultural
Bureau to fight in an epic battle of liberals against repressors; that
effective resistance to censorship now is far more complicated.
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