Date: Tue, 05 Dec 1995 01:51:53 -0500 From: Eric Feinblatt <eric-AT-amanda.dorsai.org> Subject: Re: unsolicited intrusion Ostrow/Kaneda wrote: > I can only assume that you are some failed avant garde artist in the artaud > tradition attempting to shock and repulse. The problem is that adults do > similar things to one another as well as to children . Its a cruel world > and I would suggest you do something positive. Perhaps you should > reconsider your aesthetic and engage in work that has a positive slant. > The abject has had its day, the morbid and moribund becomes banal to easily > in these days of ethnic cleansing and budgetary cut backs. Yeas a good > career move for you would be as a performance artist. Gee, Saul, I think you've made a rush to judgement. I don't think that John Young was promoting the "Right to Life" cause on this list but, rather, was using this quote from the Times as an example of how the tactics of "shock and revulsion" have been appropriated. We find ourselves now on the other side of the fence - not just up against the wall - but thrown there by those who have taken our modus operendi and used it against us. It is not just a question of taking a positive stance but of creating an intelligent discourse that neutralizes such inflammatory "arguments". Sure, we're all beasts but saying so doesn't change things a whit. Hyperbole has often been the most effective way of swaying peoples' points of view. Finding oursevelves now the victims of such method is rather uncomfortable but hardly different from when we were chanting "hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" The point here, and I agree with you, is to construct some kind of instructive analysis. Shibboleths don't work any longer. Even invoking the postive slogans of May '68 (to return to the subject of previous posts), for example, the sublime "Power to the Imagination", rings rather hollow in the face of budgetary cutbacks and ethinic cleansings. But few among us have had the inclination for considered thought - performance has always been easier. -Eric --- from list avant-garde-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- ------------------
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