[Nettime-bold] Re: G2000Conf2000 Re: totalitarianism in cyberspace?

[baseekins@netscape.net]

 I support them but I also have 
> my own, separate work that deals with the question of artistic or 
> intellectual genius and the hierarchical systems we still have left with from 
> the earliest civilizations.  Hierarchy, control, and production for sale are 
> still the main concepts we use to organize genius (which I use to describe 
> cognitive, expressive, and perceptual faculties ALL humans possess--not just 
> the Einsteins and Picassos or Newtons.)  

This focus is why Genius2000 might be the single most important (unofficial) organization/(serious) cultural prank of the present era. Developing a society of radical, utopian democracy is absolutely contingent upon replacing all hierarchical concepts of genius with the recognition that genius is a basic cognitive function shared by all human beings. The right to exist in poetic thought is the birthright of all human beings, not just a few people lucky enough to network their way into an MFA program, or into the NY City art scene, or into Hollywood. The fact that our society uses its systems of media and education to degrade the capacity for genius in the overwhelming majority of people is ultimately every bit as disgraceful as the fact that our economic system is dependent upon a certain percentage of people being destitute.

The problem is what I like to call "celebrity reality." People in our culture grow being told constantly, in school, in books, on television, at the dinner table, on the playground, etcetera, that celebrity is the most meaningful type of existance possible. Everything in the media and in our educational system encourages us to identify, not with the real human beings in our immediate community, but instead with glamourous stars. For the vast majority of people, these stars are MTV bands like Limp Bizkit and NSYNC, television stars like the WWF and the Friends cast, and of course sports stars. For the special, educated classes, these stars are more select and elite--poets who appear in the New Yorker, "Independent" film makers, "serious" fiction writers, Jazz musicians, etcetera. The important thing is, everybody is trained to look up and away, to identify with "the real people," while quietly suffering daily life amid the "herd."

The hierarchy of genius is toxic, but it is widely embraced, first of all by the stars it creates and second of all by the thousands, maybe even millions of people who dream of joining it. Just like the Pope couldn't admit that there were craters on the moon, the head of a prestigious museum cannot admit that the wonderful, dedicated rich people who pay his salary and afford him a nice house on the lake have made all their money on the backs of viciously exploited workers, and at the expense of the very ecosystem we all depend on. 

The quick answer of course would be for everybody to stop participating in corrupt institutions like museums. There are a couple of obstacles to that, though. "Educatated people" love to visit the museum because it makes them smarter than the people who go watch a pro hockey game. Artists dream of being in the museums because it will "prove" that they are real, better than most of their peers, etcetera. 

The importance of Genius2000 is that it makes explicit the connections between the hierarchy of genius in academics, literature, and art and the continued ability of our unsustainable, suicidal, homicidal economy to function. Max Herman has challenged countless "stars" from the art, academic and literary worlds to openly discuss the basic, undeniable fact that their own prestige and comfort is paid for on the backs of starving children. Most of them have been silent, which is no surprise, but in the process, Max and his allies are building an ever widening discourse community, filled with creative, engaged intellectuals and artists who are more committed to the future of the planet than they are to a tawdry "art career." The lines have been drawn and pity the fools who step to the wrong side, because the great styrofoam SWORDS OF SATIRE are sharpened and ready.
 
> The hierarchical system still controls the world of art and literature, as 
> well as entertainment, education, academics, and politics.  Its control 
> however gets weaker and more desperate all the time--think how desperate Bush 
> is right now, probably more than you or me--and it won't take much to inform 
> the general populace.  This will make voting, among other things, effectual 
> and beneficial again.  The downside is that those of us who want to be 
> artists, writers, and leaders must accept a diminished and more distributed 
> authority.  The old guard says this is mere laziness and lack of talent but I 
> disagree.  In the future, people will just be great and historic in different 
> ways, according to different standards than in the past.  Lots of established 
> people today don't want to give up that authority--their role as selected, 
> paid, admired geniuses--and so they fight me.
> 
> One risk of the internet is that it will only be used as it is now used by 
> the large media corporations.  It's important to be independent as well as to 
> work with others.  That's why I have my own Network, so I don't get absorbed 
> by say NBC, as I surely would if I chose to work with them.
> 
> >  
> >  I am learning to discover and trust  my own genius, its brilliant, its 
> > powerful its all over
> >  and it leads my life which is great fun. Perhaps you'd like to write 
> > something for us
> >  to post about it...just checked out your website the link to the god 
> project 
> > is broken but
> >  it makes me most curious, what is it - found the link to Noam though, that 
> > will do for now <g>
> 
> I could definitely write something but I would need to know what style etc., 
> so please send me your site address.  "The God Project" was by Eryk 
> Salvaggio--similar in some ways to Genius 2000 and thankfully proving I am 
> not some kind of supergenius who gets ideas no one else can--and consisted of 
> the results he found searching for "God" on major search engines.  His 
> current site is www.one38.org but I think he may have lost the God Project 
> when his computer got a virus.
> 
> It's funny how I end up getting into aesthetic or expressive ideas when I 
> think about Chomsky and his ideas about propaganda and corporate media 
> control.  I think this is because experiencing one's own genius is very rare 
> and unique and often frowned upon--we are expected to let the professional 
> artists and thinkers fulfill genius for us and then buy their works.  But I 
> agree, using your own genius is the best thing in the world; the second best 
> thing is being able to do it within a community of people who are also doing 
> it.  Or maybe vice versa, who knows.  
> 
> Optimism is very good to have, but so is fierceness.  Genius will change the 
> world once we start letting it happen, so as one of the speakers in my video 
> says, "--and imperfections.  Don't expect everything to be in its place.  And 
> then take that little extra step."  That's a reassuring and emboldening kind 
> of thinking, for me.
> 
> Max Herman
> The Genius 2000 Network
> http://www.geocities.com/kempfhut.JPG
> 
> >  
> >  
> >  pdm 
> 
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