Re: <nettime> Wark, Criticism, Democracy

[McKenzie Wark <mw35@is6.nyu.edu>]

-- i meant to say something about this "boycott Austria"
idea, but i got sidetracked. 

It seems to me the opposite approach may have more merit.
Art can have an affirmative function, perhaps more effectively
than a function of critical negation. I can't see much
mileage in not supporting the Austrian right by not making
art in Austria. Why not advance the possibilities of a plural,
cosmopolitan world by making art that makes such values a
reality? 

If there's a virtue to radical art/culture it is that it
escapes from the dialectic of state and counter-state, or that
it can. It can be an instance of another kind of world, with
other ethics, other economies. Why not put some of those
other worlds, other economies into practice, in Austria?
Not in opposition, just outside the dialectic of opposition. 
An affirmation of other possibilities. 

Its not a question of making propaganda, of 'representation'.
It's a question of making at least some corners of the everyday
function according to another ethic. 

k


______________________________________
McKenzie Wark  http://www.mcs.mq.edu.au/~mwark
Guest Scholar, American Studies, New York University
"We no longer have origins we have terminals"


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