Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 09:05:05 +1000
From: Edwin Coleman <edwincoleman-AT-mail.bigpond.com>
Subject: Re: art/capital


Massumi may have written what you say he has, but is that any reason we
should accept his absurd claim that it is capital that 'goes by the name of
"reality" in our society' ? How does quoting his private language argument
ground the real question : can art be revolutionary ? Is there any evidence
that anyone except a few artists think it ever was ? Is there any evidence
that it ever was ?
Discussion that stays in the mode of vague but exciting won't influence the
real powers at alrge.



At 10:15 17/06/99 +0100, Danile Haines  wrote:
>Briam Massumi has written:
>
>'Every society creates a quasi-causal system of this kind. In capitalist
>society 
>the ultimate quasi-cause is capital itself, which is described by Marx
>as a 
>miraculating substance that arrogates all things to itself and presents
>itself 
>as first and final cause. This mode of simulation goes by the name of 
>"reality." 
>
>'The other mode of simulation is the one that turns against the entire
>system of 
>resemblance and replication. It is also distributive, but the
>distribution it 
>effects is not limitative. Rather than selecting only certain
>properties, it 
>selects them all, it multiplies potentials: not to be human, but to be
>human
>plus. This kind of simulation is called "art."'
>
>(http://www.anu.edu.au/HRC/first_and_last/works/realer.htm)
>
>
>in its own way, this drawing of a distinction between art and capital as
>different modes of simulation re-enacts the ever-popular-in-the-20th-
>century idea that art is a revolutionary and social-transformatory
>experience.
>
>on the other hand, one could argue that in the 20th century art has been
>more effectively de-politicised and recooperated within capitalism's
>"mode of simulation" than ever before... artists have become incredibly
>institutionalised (educationally) at the same time as the (pop)
>psychology of "personal expression" has made it possible to sidestep the
>social or political implications of their work. add to that the
>appropriation of concepts like creativity, spontaneity, and novelty by
>corporate multi-national culture and  - quite aside from taking up a
>moral position on these changes - it seems odd that the image of art as
>"revolutionary" is more popular than ever... 
>
>lacking confidence in macro-politics or global capitalism,
>hierarchically organised opposition and "the party", there seems to be a
>faith in liberation-through-art or through-culture circulating within
>critical discourse, the "collapse of high and low" culture
>notwithstanding...
>
>so is this a naive and romantic nostalgia? or can an artistic mode of
>simulation elude and radically augment and even overturn capitalisms
>mode of simulation? if so, how? if not, why not?
>
>dan h.
>-- 
>"...musicians must substitute for the limited variety 
>of tones posessed by orchestral instruments today 
>the infinite variety of tones of noises, reproduced 
>with appropriate mechanisms..." 
>
>	Luigi Russolo, 'The Art of Noises' (1913)
>