thoughts on the reading

One theme addressed in this course that really interested me was the political and cultural shifts that are occurring now as our society based on the fundamentals of material commodities moves more and more into the realm of the intangible. While earlier writers like Jean Baudrillard and Hans Magnus Enzenberg debated the possibility of Marxist revolt through new media, more recent essays dealt with whether the Marxist model is still applicable at all, since many formerly material relations of control and exploitation have disappeared, and been replaced by virtual relations. One essay that really opened my eyes was the Critical Art Ensemble writing about “Nomadic Power and Cultural Resistance.” The metaphor of nomadic power was very clear and scary. It brought together many aspects of contemporary tools of control: secrecy, conspiracy, obfuscation, spectacle. While many cultural critics have pointed out these issues, and complained about the omnipresence of corporate control and immediate co-option of transgressive elements, I felt that this essay not only did this effectively but provided a good model of how to revolt within this seemingly impenetrable system.
While I have often felt that the problem with internet protest and dissent is that it the virtual action does not have as much clout as a physical action in the street, the potential strategies that hackers could use to subvert that were imagined by the CAE convinced that the internet is the way to go. While free sharing and the challenging of copyright laws is quietly subversive to the capitalist system, it is exhilarating to envision more radical acts that can be done virtually.
While hackers are important, many articles also gave artists the imperative to act within the cyber system to imagine models of change. Bill Viola gives artists the imperative to understand how these systems are affecting our ways of seeing and thinking. They must not be technophobic but instead be on the vanguard and help define this vision. Artists like Lynn Hershman who create interactive works are also subtly challenging media culture. While the internet is highly interactive, I feel that as it evolves, in its most popular forms it is gradually being transformed into a passive experience like all our other media consumption. By creating works that force audiences to interact with media in an uncomfortable way, the audience must reconsider their relationship to all media. As an artist reading these articles gave me direction and perogative to create.