> In other words, the project of capitalist consumer practice is to
> establish an unclear (blurred) realm of overlap between image and space
> for the consumer; by so doing, practices which indend to offer a critique
> of this dominant practice have two _apparent_ alternatives: either to
> flounder in the autonomous (and unimportant) realms which are blurred or
> become dominant practices themselves.
Critical practices can attempt to articulate the _procedures_ of this
'blurring', and the kinds of modifications it compels. And since the
economic forces operate by not only by blurring but by sectioning -
opening rifts, inequalities, and unifications in complex, contradictory
operations - the resistant modes that we're discussing needn't fall into
a this-or-that antinomy: they can operate provisionally and
strategically within those (larger) operations.
One of the things that interests me in a distinction between the image
and the visual (or between image and representation) is that the image
offers a resistant space, 'out of the loop'. The visual is necessarily
wedded to visual technologies and the visual faculty, and thus to the
procedures of visual modification. So by this we can say, the visual
offers a particular site of operation, linked to the technologies of
representation, linked to economic logic, which is involved in producing
an adequate subject. The image holds out against that; it can be the
site of a resistant practice. But it's not so easy to tell where one
begins and the other ends; they overlap. It's like if you have two
rubber bands, you throw them down on your desk, and they will intertwine
differently each time. It's a provisional distinction. I think this is
what you are looking for -- a mobile, procedural 'pocket' that offers a
site of contest, rather than a barricade. It operates on a level that
doesn't always fix with any permanence. You have to invest in it,
defend it, but then you have to know when to move out.
In the East Village we have the street vendors who lay out a blanket on
the sidewalk and very carefully place objects for sale. Out of nothing,
out of the everyday space of the sidewalk, a simple blanket and one or
two objects establishes a very particular relation. But you can walk
back by again later and everything is gone.
It seems particularly relevant to your interest in home shopping and the
mechanisms of consumer culture; its like the opening of state barriers
under the regimes of flexible accumulation. Corporations moving in and
out, exploiting labor, stripping resources, dumping, and moving on to
more cost-effective situations with diminishing statist hindrances.
You asked what the interest is for us in developing such a practice
within the realm of the image. At documenta we are looking at very
specific image-strategies in the context of a culture that is
increasingly dominated by economic concerns, in order to position
artistic and aesthetic practices within these contemporary realities as
critical interventions. It is hoped that these practices can play a
role in progressive political thought. One can see this forum, which is
focused on space, as one attempt to understand the field of operations.
At <blast> our role in this new period is to formulate a progressive
artistic practice in the network, and this forum attempts to understand
the space in which we are working.
But now reading back over this I'm not sure I addressed the conflict you
articulate...
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documenta X Kassel and http://www.documenta.de 1997
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