Week 31: b.a.n.g. lab

[0:03:19]

Male speaker: Hello? Uh-oh, getting there, our signal appears to be really good and I’m talking to myself and the other people in this room, hi guys? How are you?

Male speaker: Hello?

Male speaker: Oh Greg, hello there?

Greg: Hi Scott Rigby—and everybody else at Basekamp.

Male speaker: Hello, well hello Greg?

Male speaker: Oh sorry I’ll mute my mic.

Male speaker: Hello Theresa? And –oh no you can unmute it if you want feel free. We are just going to try adding the other people back because of the signal issue but the signal is supposed to be really good right now so we will see if it works. Give me just a sec but in the meantime I will pass here to see them.

Male speaker: Greg I think you are the only one hooked into this, no the Theresa also.

Greg: I’m honored, oh my daughter is saying hi.

Male speaker: Maybe it works better when I’m in Paris, that’s my narcissism. Oh now I’m hearing the sounds of Kung fu live that’s even better.

[0:05:11]

Male speaker: [0:05:17] [Inaudible] you know it’s like  karaoke when  you are with a group of friends we are sitting  in a small circle you know we could still pass the mic around and talk mainly to ourselves, oh yeah.

Male speaker: Is there anyone else actually? Who can hear us? Greg, Charisa, Jessica, Charlotte did we want to call him?

Female Speaker: There are clients and institutions world wide, Platinum Investments, a world of Investing. Produced in association with the University of—

Male speaker: Hello?

Male speaker: Greg hey good to hear from you men.

Greg: Hi and how are you, dido. I don’t know this sound like its not going to happen.

Male speaker: No, that can’t be.

Greg: Hello

Male speaker: Jesus. Jessica are you there?

Jessica: Yeah we are here.

Male speaker: Hi? Yes I think Scott’s right the FBI is fucking with Skype but they will give up in a minute.

Jessica: Okay, did you forget the key?

Female speaker: Is there a key?

Jessica: I’m going to put it on mute.

Male speaker: Okay so we will just do the Skype talk show host stick, keep an up beat tone as we patiently await connections. Hi Mathew?  We need to put Greg back on. Yes maybe Greg could you try to host because for some reason maybe that will trick the FBI

Male speaker: Yes that would be nice.

Female speaker: [0:10:54] [Inaudible] I mean I think it’s supposedly our connection is actually quite good.

Male speaker: How do you measure that?

[0:11:06.6 - 0:14:53.0] [Background voices]

Male speaker: Wow so it’s actually extremely unusual to not be able to connect on Skype at all, Skype waits that’s really weird. [0:15:05] [Inaudible] so that half the windows are up there. Yes so how is the going?

Male speaker: Good.

Male speaker: Awesome.

Male speaker:  Yes can’t complain, how are you doing?

Male speaker: Sweet not bad, do you live in Philly?

Male speaker: Yes sir.

Male speaker: Okay.

Male speaker: I live in [0:15:22] [Inaudible].

Male speaker: Yes rock on, super bowl have you been to…

Male speaker: Its exactly six minutes for me to get home to here.

Male speaker: On your bike?

Male speaker: Yes and I know that exactly because my girlfriend works for Billy Archer and Billy archer is what [0:15:40.4] [Inaudible].

Male speaker: Wow super cool.

Male speaker: Yes so it’s awesome.

Male speaker: Yes have you been to any of these events before?

Male speaker: No I scrape in once a few weeks ago, I was in Montreal but I came across you guys but I was interested in the meeting but I couldn’t make [0:16:01] [Inaudible].

Male speaker: Alright, but you live in Philly when you are around?

Male speaker: [0:16:05] [Inaudible] studying French actually.

Male speaker: Okay.

Male speaker: Yes I’m a grab student at [0:16:09] [Inaudible].

[0:16:12.2 - 0:19:23.2] [Background voices]

Male speaker: Hello Tom? Tom? Mr. Eslac. We are hanging up.

Male speaker: Maybe I will try—you went to Adam [0:19:50] [Inaudible].

Male speaker: He wants you to sign in a [0:19:50] [Inaudible].

[0:19:57.2 - 0:25:21.8] [Background voices]

Male speaker: So are people good?

Male speaker: Yes we are great here.

Male speaker: Adam can you hear well?

Male speaker: So the only thing that might be a little complicated I mean not be able to add people if we lose them right away, let me know and I will do my best to read people to the conversation.

Male speaker: Who is in the conversation right now?

Male speaker: basekamp, Jessica, Scott, Slat, Charisa and me. We missing anybody? I’ve basically just called everybody on the list.

Male speaker: Jessica is right though we did write the word project a little too often in that write up. I think we are going to have to…

Jessica: I didn’t even know how to sign up; it’s been pretty ubiquitous in everything I have been reading since the day I think. Yes I…

Male speaker: Our secret plan actually is to make words like user ship ubiquitous so that people think that it’s normal to talk that way and then it will be normal.

Jessica: can you guys hear the air conditioner that’s running right next to me?

Male speaker: It’s horrible, no it’s fine.

Jessica: No? Nothing? Okay.

Male speaker: No.

Male speaker: Can’t hear it.

Male speaker: Carissa yes it looks like you have muted your audio successfully although you should feel free to chime in at any point of course.

Steven: So listen, Steven here, I think we are going to have to not wait for Ricardo because he could be bat George Bush airport in Houston waiting for his connection or he could be on that connection somewhere between George Bush airport and whatever the airport is called in San Diego. Yes it’s no joke and unfortunately it’s actually called the George Bush airport and there is a very large and very naturalistic sculpture of the man whose name the airport bears. Yes grosses is definitely an understatement. But I think we should start without him and Scott momentarily disappeared here, I don’t know if it’s really—Adam do you want to give your spin on the work of the b.a.n.g Lab? Maybe you know actually what b.a.n.g actually abbreviates, maybe not.

Female speaker: Adam we will be back in a minute he took the dog to go pee.   

Male speaker: B.a.n.g is bits, atoms, neurons and genes, I don’t know specifically the origins of that but obviously his work with Critical Art Ensemble [phonetic] [0:29:12] and such probably you know comes out of the stuff they were doing with genetically modified food testing and bits, atoms, neurons I don’t know, but that’s what it stands for if that’s useful.

Steven: That’s useful, who knows when the disturbance project begun, not the—there I used the project word again, but not specifically the device but the US Mexico border disturbance art project of which the transporter immigrant tool is merely one of the manifestations.

Male speaker: My limited knowledge is ECD is been around for a while but I’m trying to do a little bit of quick research to help flush this out. I thought that they grew out of heat; it was sort of something that grew out of CAE Critical Art Ensemble.

[0:30:23]

Steven: No definitely that’s a fact but the interesting thing is that the Critical Art Ensemble explicitly has stepped away from the whole concept of electronic civil disobedience which they endorsed in their first project and in their first book.

Male speaker: Right.

Steven: But already I the second book they had said that it’s like by the time the next five minutes conference took place it was already history. And they made a very compelling argument for that; I mean I remember working on that a little bit. They said that, you know, by the time it had seized to be a grey zone but had actually become a black and white zone that was really the--. It’s just like protest had already moved off the streets into the electronic sphere and it was time to move elsewhere  so I suspect that it was at that time that Ricardo and others developed this, the boarder disturbance art project  but I was wondering if somebody knew the details on that one.

Male speaker: I have limited details at the tips of my synapses, anyone else want to chime in or even just help flush it out via researching online. I have to step away from my laptop so I will only have my phone with me but let me know if we lose anybody on the chat and I will run down here again.

Adam: I think—I just got back sorry this is Adam, I think that the big thing with Ricardo and with the b.a.n.g  lab and then there is another person whose name  I don’t have in front of me but its somebody who is at UC, maybe Santa Barbra I don’t remember. Is they used what they had  developed for the  disturbance theater which is a way for anybody to go to a site, one single site, click on it and it will send a hit to another website as a  way to disobey by just opening the page. Like a way to have you know a sit-in on a website and the reason that Ricardo has been on the news recently is because they turned that’s same technique against the University of California as part of the action or the insurrection if you will that was happening over the last two semesters, the fall and the spring semester. Is that who it is? Could be. I know he is not tenure track faculty or tenured faculty so I think he might even be at more risk than Ricardo is.

Male speaker: Yes he does like GPS like lands art, he directed like land stuff using GPS so I think he has been involved for obvious reasons in terms of the trans-immigrant or transporter immigrant too. He is, I’m just linking this up, and lecturer with security of employment is how he has listed himself at UC Santiago. So here I will send a link to the—let’s see, oh shoot no that’s not it. Yes here it is I will send this and then I am actually stepping away here.

Steven: Isn’t this a little unprecedented I mean what’s the point of actually having tenure if you can take it away from someone, I thought the whole point was that it allowed you to feel free from the threats of them, I don’t  know , of a repressive environment, even relatively  repressive.

Adam: Yes you are absolutely right its, well for just different reasons but I think tenure was for what my limited understanding of it is that it’s to protect professors research interest that for some reason your research interest are at odds with the institution they can’t can you for that but the argument with Ricardo is that he fundamentally and unequivocally broke the law. and therefore you know you can’t  fondle your students, you can’t be belligerently drunk and show up to class and fall  over and you can’t break the law of there is grounds for dismissal regardless of whether or not you have tenure. And so they are claiming that he has literally broken the law and therefore they have the right to excuse him and strip of tenure. Again I am talking about stuff that I think I know about but obviously it would be much nicer if he were here to discuss that.

[0:35:12]

Steven: Yes and I hope that he is going actually be able to join before the end of this but I’m just trying to flush it out a little bit, of course the reason there is tenure is because in every single case where the employer would like to terminate an objectionable faculty members research practice they could always say that it was, you know, at odds with the law. I mean maybe it’s—after all he didn’t exactly murder someone so if we are not talking about a criminal offence, are we?

Adam: Yes can you hear me?

Steven: Yes.

Adam: Yes I think it can be charged as criminal activity yes, what’s that?

Female speaker: That was my [0:36:05] [inaudible].

Steven: That’s the investigation Adam could you spell it out a little bit.

Adam: Oh I was going to go even further on that  point because I feel it’s important to point out that he was tenured based harshly on the research that he had done with electronic disturbance theater.

Male speaker: Exactly.

Adam: If what he did to the UC is illegal so was what he did before, so they tenured him on something that they are now going to pretend is illegal now that it’s been turned on now.

Male speaker: That’s right Adam I think that’s absolutely correct.

Steven: But civil disobedience is not a crime, it’s not legal of course but it’s not a crime. It’s not and under some circumstance I think at least it is a crime not to aid persons in danger and couldn’t you argue that a GPS device that allows them to find water in a desert situation even if they are attempting to enter across the border without a VISA, that in fact helping them not to die like hundreds of other people actually have would actually be in keeping with the law?

Adam: I don’t think that’s what’s under—that’s not what’s being used against them, sorry, it’s the sit –in, the virtual sit- in. the denial of service attacks that they ran giants UCSD website as well as I’m sure the paritymarcudoff.com website surely probably didn’t help his standing with the college or the university.

Steven: Greg I’m not the only person with a little bit of a bewildered look on my face, could you say a little bit more about what that was, what they are charging him with, what he actually did or is alleged to have done?

Male speaker: I will do my best I’m literally, you know this is way too much information but I am literally standing over a toilet with  poop in it from my daughter so I’m like doing lots of things right now. Uh oh, yes.

Adam: What he was charged with was what I was talking about a little bit ago, you go to a website, you click on a link. Anybody can do it they announced it to the entire web and you go and you click that link and that link is redirected to the website. So it’s basically as if everybody goes to a website at the same time and clicks a link, it’s also known as the denial of service attack when it’s used, when a whole bunch of remote servers are used by hackers or people who are pissed off at somebody. So basically what they are doing is crushing the UC foundation or I’m not exactly sure what part of UC but they were crushing the website using this technique, does that make sense?

Greg: Yes exactly and if you guys, I don’t know if you Google searched flood net? Flood net was one of the original, you know, denial of service sort of hacker attacks website, Flood net.

Female speaker: So that’s illegal then and that’s what he is being charged for?

Female speaker: Yes.

[0:39:57]

Steven: Nice, thank you, okay this kind of—I mean I really wanted to bring a little bit of that information because it goes back to an exchange which we had or at least I was involved in  and Adam was involved in on the basekamp list  a few months back. Because I think that it raises the whole question or at least for me it raised the whole question of the politics of art today because one way to avoid the, a strictly kind of legalistic defense by saying oh well you gave me tenure for something and now you are taking it away from the same thing so in fat you are involved in a legal contradiction as much as me.

I mean of course that’s—all arguments are good arguments in a case like this in law but in fact  the politics of art also comes up in an entirely different way because one of the, it seems to me this is Steven speaking, that one of the tendencies which art has in cases where its threatened with censorship and in fact beyond the fact that he risks losing his tenure and therefore his job is that also it’s a direct attempt to sensor his art practice and to sensor art practices more generally which use civil disobedience as a material and field within the prevue off art. Is to say no you can’t, you could forbid this if—you could say  it’s illegal if I wasn’t in the art department. If in fact if I was doing this as just any old employee of the university, but in fact because its art it has a special status and it has a preferential status.

I mean it has a symbolic status because we don’t like free and democratic society to sensor art and it has a particular ontological status, in other words that’s it actually is what you are accusing it to be but at the same time its only a proposition of what you are accusing it to be. And for me it’s a huge issue which way art is going to fall on that question, is it going to say listen I think it’s really important to—sorry I’m laughing at the poop joke there. It’s really important to decide whether art should attempt to get out of difficult situations the way no other human activity could by invoking this particular status which it alone has. Or whether it should no these political issues are really what’s important and if we say its art then we are actually saying its juts art and therefore not the harmful and potentially censorship deserving real thing.

Adam: I think that, you probably know better than I would actually because its more in your field but I think that women’s studies department, queers study department, several political on the fringe of humanities departments have done the same sort of thing where they use this sort of activity, this radical political activity and use it as a defense that it is academic research to some degree. I’d have to look up for examples to disagree with you fully but I think there are other fields where you could make the same argument as art.

Greg: Hey this is Greg; I will chime in when I can. It’s sort of not to related specifically back to Critical Ensemble writings or anything like that but I know in terms of digital resistance which focused  on you know electronic civil disobedience. You know some of the questions they raised was, you know, not even whether or not its art but whether or not something like a denial of service can be considered terrorism in that anybody could--. You know and they talk about this now, this is like the huge hot button topic with, who is the dude that, you know, the guy that got--. The guy who said that there was going to be an attack from Al Qaeda and then it happens and now he is talking about you know a cyber attack on America as being terrorism. But like the whole argument of that particular essay or that particular section of the book was that terrorism only occurs when you know there is a physical body included in the harm that’s done. and you know that’s a pretty radical statement obviously but to some extend it sort of relates to what we are talking about in that whether or not its art or it’s you know activism, you know maybe it’s all in the language I don’t know.

[0:45:04]

Adam: I guess the other point that was raised earlier that related more to the transporter project than I think, well I don’t know. I guess it may have related to this too, actually it did never mind sorry to sort of like prep us saying nothing yet with saying a lot. But basically the question that we were discussing earlier in, not earlier tonight but earlier in sort of long back and forth email exchanger. One of the points that was raised was wasn’t—forgive me if I missed this while I was stepped out for a second but isn’t this part of what you risk  when you do work that I guess that challenges ideas  about what’s legal, that rides the grey zones of contested space? And I am not saying that once you do that you deserve to be canned or you deserved to be slapped or whatever, just that like isn’t this kind of a potential  outcome of that type of, you know of that type of risk and if not then  what are you actually risking you know?

If you are not even prepared and I’m not talking about Ricardo in particular but just if on isn’t prepared to actually risk something as, I don’t want us to call it trivial, but something as non-life threatening as losing your job for explosive political maneuver you know that rides the line of legality then what are you prepared to risk you know? And I guess I’m not saying that the question should be whether he deserves to be fired but just whether that’s the thing that we should all be up and arms about or whether the issue itself is, I don’t know.

Greg: Well I think there is no question that he is prepared to lose his tenure or he wouldn’t have done it I mean the man I remember him speaking before and I have read a few things, he knew when he did this especially attacking the UC site that that was a risk. However I think it was clear from the last time he talked to us that he was turning his entire academic career into a struggle and part of the struggle. I mean he put-- I remember the best that he did was somebody said that this re-situation of…

Adam: Yes that’s true.

Greg: But there is a reason with—there was a Wall Street Journal article that said this is the reason we shouldn’t have tenure and he put that in front of his tenure application. So he is really using tenure politically it’s not that he is hiding from it, he is going to go all the way with this as far as losing it or not losing it in my opinion.

Adam: Yes for sure, do you feel that the students that are protesting his loss of tenure are missing the point or are they somehow joining the struggle obliquely? You know because it seems like what he is doing isn’t about his tenure he is just using that as a point or a as opposition from which to challenge certain issues and ideas. And it seems like the protest should really be centered around those issues and ideas not so much –I mean I want to support him too I’m just saying, you know, if you see what I mean.

Greg: Yes but I think what the students are doing in California are doing is standing up for their rights as students overall. So the same people who are supporting him are also occupying building and getting arrested themselves or they were until summer came and know it’s kind of tied off which is hilarious.

Female speaker: Yes because it gets me that this guy is being put at risk  for something which happens which is like a supped up version of something that happens to me practically every time I go on the computer, I mean it’s ridiculous.

Greg: All those things that I am imagining you are describing are also illegal and it’s just hard to track those people down, they don’t stand behind it with, again, a physical body. They hide behind it through a series of tubes of you will.

Steven: One of the questions that—now to come back to the specific to the trans-boarder tool itself and its ilk. It’s very clear that those kinds, I mean to call them tools is to underscore the fact that they have a use value, in fact that these things of course they have a symbolic value I’ll get to that in a second. But they also have a true use value; they actually work or are supposed to work and are supposed to be helpful and useful.

[0:50:06]

So that’s clear that that use value of those kinds of objects brings something to art, in other words it gives it teeth. But my question really is what does the fact that they are also to be understood as propositions and as informed by an artistic self understanding, what does that bring to them as tools? You know and it’s a question which I wonder for so many of the practices which we discuss within the framework of plausible art worlds, is that these things could just exist as the real thing. You don’t need to know that they are art for them to work for their use value is not dependant on their artistic status or their artistic claim. But the fact that that they have that artistic claim what does that do does that enrich them? Does that make them doubly useful? Or does it just make them kind of awkward and a little bit artificial.

Now Greg’s right that in the write up Ricardo specifically describes the trans-border tool as performing poetry right. I’m never sure what that word poetry actually means you know, when we say something is poetic it’s kind of like saying its artistic and it begs the questions but…

Adam: Yes it was definitely unclear but it seemed like when  we were talking with him he was using poetry as more of like a word where he is describing like that which occurs is out of his control, it’s just  sort of the unknown, the you know, sorry yes I will leave it at that.

Greg: Excuse me also isn’t it using art’s historic relationship to the symbolic realm or sort of arts—well yes its, the history of art is a history of people trying to build meaning out of doing things. Doing things and making things to present to other people, to present that meaning to other people through different, you know, through different means. Through the written word, through images, through activities you know actions or whatever.

Steven: But isn’t that valid for those of us who know something about a particular history of conceptual art and couldn’t it, I mean the type of people who are liable to be users of these devices are not really liable to make heads or tails out of that history. And so what is it really bringing to them? is it bringing  something or is it really just appeasing our conscience as you know sort of post conceptual  art efficienity that we want art to be a little bit more corrosive than it actually is. And so, this isn’t my position I am being a little bit of the devil’s advocate.

Greg: Yes.

Steven: But I have encountered these cases where people just, you know you can explain to them why it’s so doubly cool that it has this double ontological status but  some people just don’t get and I understand why they don’t.

Adam: But Steven yes I’m curious you know when you talked about the fact that the tools as we would  imagine much in the way that I don’t know Marks would describe tools or you know  Adam Smith  would describe tools. I am wondering in this case how many like does  the utility of a tool depend on how many people use it or how it’s  used  because I’d really love to know like how many people actually used this device or how many people actually know that it exists. Because I mean it’s much like, you know, like a readymade you know. Like it’s a bottle rack like do people use it as a bottle rack? Like I don’t know how many people actually use this tool and so is it more of a gesture, a political gesture, a gesture of solidarity, a gesture of humanity that you know. I just wonder if it’s truly a tool as we imagine you know a hammer or a fork or a spoon or whatever else is a tool.

Greg: Yes I am also extremely curious about those practical questions relating to under what conditions and how often, how frequently these tools have been used and to what effect and in fact if we had the opportunity to talk to him those would be some of the questions I would be most interested in asking him, but to return for a second just to the question about the artistic component of these tools. I mean I don’t know the good professor’s intentions and I am not familiar with his work really personally but it would seem to me that at the end of the day the artistic component probably reduces to just a kind of nice gloss that you know educated people like ourselves like to kind of add on the real practical value of a tool like this. And that’s not to be cynical or to criticize you know the importance or the value of the artistic glosses that we add to, you know, to practically useful and politically effective tools or strategies.

[0:55:49]

But I call it the kind of gloss that we would add to the fact kind of expos facto only to probe the question, I mean you guys’ talk a lot about plausible art world is the term that you guys use. I mean I find something very interesting and attractive about the idea of art kind of coming to the scene expos facto as a way of kind of justifying political practices to kind of make arguments about they should be distinct from legal instrumental calculations. And so I am interested in  the  possibility that perhaps the functions of the artistic component is itself a kind of political strategy, something that we kind of add on after the fact to defend  the justifiability of projects like these. Do you see what I am saying?

A way  in which art is kind of just like a kind of cultural marker, a kind of signifier in which we can kind of justify or reclaim deviant and radical political practices that kind of keep a good faith for the University  for instance. I would be very interested to see if a discourse about how these tools, these very kinds of subversive tools are in fact art, I would like to see if that  argument could keep him his job, if that could save him from legal trouble. because then it would be a really interesting way to understand the artistic component as  kind of a political tool itself to kind of salvage and protect these kinds of subversive practices and inventions.

Steven: [0:57:27] [inaudible] enjoying unequal society?

Adam: Steven was just asking if wouldn’t that just revalorize the symbolic privileges that art enjoys in an unequal society, back to you.

Greg: Well if those symbolic privileges that art enjoys are going to be authentically and legitimately honestly channeled into fighting for the rights and the capabilities of people who don’t profit from the privilege of art then I would be glad to hear that. That defense would reify the symbolic privileges according to art even if art is a kind of a highly stratified you know kind of class based privilege right?

Steven: I got into trouble with some friends a few year ago because I had been very much involved in a Palestinian solidarity group and at one point I was asked to sign what appeared to everybody else to be a self evident petition which demanded that Palestinian film makers be allowed free access to the occupied territories to make films because they were obviously being e3xtremely harassed and inhibited, every kind of imaginable obstacle was thrown in their path. And they made this plea that basically saying that they were the consciousness of the nation and that therefore Israel should allow them free access to make their movies. And of course I think that’s true but I thought that it was obscene to make the argument to frame it in those terms because in fact  millions of Palestinians are not even allowed ever into their homeland and no mention was made of that in the letter.

The mention was made that it’s scandalous that film makers—well if you are a Palestinian film maker it’s because you have already had some greater degree of privileged and access to education and so on than the great majority of your compatriots. And so it wasn’t that I wanted to like take the side of the Israelis but I just didn’t—I couldn’t bear the idea of signing something which in fact would shore up the privileges of a group which was relatively speaking already [1:00:08] [inaudible] despite the fact that they were being oppressed.

[1:00:12]

So that got me excluded from that list but never the less I don’t totally give up because I think that this really has to do with the very possibility of a post autonomous and political art practice which is why I think this is really about the politics of art. Or to put the border argument just slightly the other way in think the boarder which we are really talking about is the border between the art world and the life world.

Adam: Well I’ll agree that art seems ludicrous often in the way that it’s used; I will also agree that it could be very useful and if it is then let’s use it. Then again part of what we do when we work as artists or what we can do, ultimately what we are doing whenever we are conscious of, or not, of working with—now what am I trying to say? In participating in culture production or culture meaning and any other sector not just the art field is you know we are entering the symbolic realm you know. And artists do that as part of their job description, this is what makes the field of practice and study called art not exactly unique but well yes, unique I guess among other fields. It’s something that we are—it’s not always framed that way but on some level that’s what we are supposed to be doing.

Now we are supposed to be doing all sorts of other things as artists but you know part of what we, at least many people think that we are supposed to be doing colloquially speaking, I mean not even from theories but even just if you ask anyone what the role of the artist is you will hear all kinds of clichés and all kinds of cultural baggage and all kinds of stereotypes from popular films and stories and you know whatever. Just how we learn about what the world is we learn about through clichés and we learn about through, you know, stories I guess. And part of the story that you will almost always hear if we listen is that what artists are supposed to do is, I mean it sounds like a lot of different stuff you know but what artists are supposed to do is imaginative. Not just with some particular object you are making, whether the person is talking about a painting or a sculpture whatever they understand art  to be but they are also supposed to be imaginative with the way they live you know and the way  potentially that we all live.

However it’s said you know I hear it so often by people who claim to know nothing about art. and ultimately I think they are right, people that claim to know a lot about art also talk about that, you know they talk about it differently but they talk about our role or part of our role as re-imagining at least on the more like I guess, like the stronger arguments, re-imagining every aspect of how we live and work together. And I think that that’s what artists often do I mean often really playfully, often you know self consciously, often not self consciously sometimes it’s hard to tell. And most of the time artists probably don’t do much of that or you know at least not with much ferocity. But sometimes they do and I think, and sometimes artists that do that do it in a very uninteresting way and other times they do it in a very, at least what I feel is a very interesting way.

I mean you never know I guess that’s why we talk about examples of artist practices and we have been looking at art worlds in particular because when artists turn their creative energies or their attentions to not just their world around them but in particular their world. And decide instead of playing by a game that someone else has set the rules for to modify those rules, sometimes to sort of open up the hood and mess up the wiring and other times literally make another kind of game. Then you know what they are doing is they are imagining even their small microcosm, their art world or whatever it is or you know plausible or implausible that maybe, they are somehow playing within the symbolic realm of the social and of something that could…Whether we think it’s actually scalable or whether we can just imagine that’s scaling up or out to some other existing system, they are playing or re-thinking culture you know.

[1:05:05]

Re-thinking the ways that we are together you know, how we understand ourselves and all that and not only re-imagining how you apply specific kind of material to another kind of material or something like that. So I think when Steven is talking about the possibility of a post autonomous art practice, I don’t want to put words in your mouth but that’s what comes to mind for me. And I guess the question of whether or not art should be used in the service of politics of whether the word art should be used as a shield for other kinds of activity, I think often it is but it’s not all of the question. I think part of the value is self or knowingly playing in that symbolic realm but realizing that by playing in that you are also changing the playing field.

Greg: I don’t mean to be overly sarcastic or anything but although, I mean how would you date the period in which art was autonomous, when was that?

Adam: Yes like the post art [1:06:14] [inaudible].

Steven: No but autonomy is the regime of 20th century art, in fact autonomy was something which was ten was a sort of conquest of an autonomous space which took place in  the second  half of the 19th century and of course there was no,  you know we are talking about what Al Jazeera called relative autonomy. Of course art was never anything like autonomous but you know perfect autonomy—autonoma means auto is the self and Nomos is the laws. So it means giving yourself your own laws and to the extent that anything was ever autonomous, modernist art was autonomous because it gave itself its own laws. Laws were not dictated by the prince, they were not dictated by the cardinal or the bishop, they were something which emerged and it was sort of theorized by people like Adorno and Greenburg as something which emerged from an imminent logic of art itself.

Well we remain within that paradigm if when push comes to shove we say you can’t touch this because you are not respecting its autonomy because you don’t understand what it is. You think that it’s an  illegal activity but in fact it’s an artistic practice and therefore it doesn’t fall under the prevue of your law because only half of the project falls under the prevue of your law, the real part, the other part  is perfectly, socially acceptable. So I think that if we want to—because the down side of that or the up side of course is that artist do get away with stuff that nobody else can get away with that’s true. And therefore it’s fantastic because in a relatively oppressive society and it’s only as relatively oppressive as art is relatively autonomous.

But relatively oppressive autonomy is really useful to have this thing called art which doesn’t have to obey cost benefit analysis and it can do all sorts of things otherwise you can’t get away with.  But at the same time it really boils down to the most enfeebling thing that modernist art suffering from that it’s just art. Because it’s autonomous and it doesn’t really have an effect because its own little world, of course it has an effect on consciousness but it doesn’t have an effect in the real. And I think what opposed to autonomous practice would be is not a practice that seizes to be autonomous in any way but in fact one which goes beyond that prison hose of the modernist autonomous regime.

Adam: Yes I mean if I could just follow up on that slightly, we are borrowing the term post autonomy from a theorist Michael Lingner who is writing through—not really, well these part of his writings weren’t really that widely used until another artist David Goldenberg started, well and some others using this term and exploiting the hell out of it and we just like it, you know because it seems to sum up a lot of things. But I for one I am not that interested in using that term as an era based kind of term. You know an imposed in terms of after, more like a beyond or a moving outside of or questioning of, you know what I mean?

Steven: Yes like you know post Marxists usually are not people who have broken with the political project that’s associated with Marxism, they are people who have Marxism. They have simply said well we don’t remain within the 19th century paradigm of Marxism we want to push it forward and I think that’s the ideas of post autonomy. It’s not like saying oh well what a bad idea lets seize to be autonomous and lets go back to the pre-autonomous, let’s make post autonomy look like pre-autonomy, no, It’s like lets apply autonomy.

[1:10:20]

Greg: Yes thanks for clearing that up I mean I completely understand, I understand that argument and that’s fair enough and I am sure the theorist in question made several very compelling arguments to that effect. But I mean I don’t think it’s that difficult to argue something but I think quite different maybe to kind of recast the situation in terms of maybe not autonomy versus pre-autonomy or post autonomy but maybe what it really might be described as. it might really described as like different regimes of  dependence right because even this era or the style of art making in which we might want to think of it as autonomous because a certain amount our personal freedom has been curved out.

I mean even in n that era or epoch I mean artists are still of course extremely dependent on others in different ways or I guess I had cheaply in mind their benefactors or the people who fund them, their patrons. But also I mean let’s not forget as the autonomous artist as you guys might call him comes to the fore I mean also the power of critics,   the power of kind of, you know. The real brokers of power when it comes to artistic meaning and artistic significance. I mean one could argue that sure maybe the artist gains a certain amount of autonomy but he is still really beholding to—right. I mean like he is still very beholding to the different kinds of it. But the reason that I would remind us of just this little point is. because I think it does go back to the conversation we are having and the specific case that we are talking about with his particular professor who is  doing subversive political work under the heading or art because - I mean if we want to talk about ourselves as being in a post autonomous art epoch then one of the most important things I think to kind of put on center stage are the different kinds of institutional funding that dominate the possibility of doing art today and then of course the universities.

You know the major charitable trusts and things of this nature that the many endowments for the arts and things of this nature. I mean these are the major power brokers who make most contemporary art possible at least in most of the main stream ways in which art is being carried out. An so the question  becomes developing strategies for using the resources and the power that these power brokers provide to artist but without paying back into them, you know. How should one phrase it? I guess what I’m trying to say is what we need  to try to figure out I think is how we can use those resources to the  maximum  but without you know reifying if you will or kind of re-contributing to the, you know the reproduction of all the, you, know whatever. Here one could say all different kinds of clichés about like power structures and stuff like that, it’s basically what we are getting at. And so I mean this case that we are talking about now represents a kind of interesting case study I think in that sense and I will be very interested to see how you know he gets away with x or doesn’t get away with, you know, this project in which he is really putting his own cultural capital, his political academic capital on the line for trying to achieve something outside of you know what maybe he is supposed to be achieving with the institutional [1:14:14] [inaudible]  that he is given as a tenure professor, yes I don’t know.

Adam: Hello, hopefully we are not commandeering conversation if anyone else wants to chime in do so at any point, pregnant pause.

Female speaker:  I am just thinking about those times  when I have seen  people on TV or in movies or in  the music or some cartoon or something where people don’t think  it’s actually very political but they sneak in a message that, you know—

[1:15:00]

Adam: Yes I mean the politics is always there and I guess what you mentioned about the sort of, excuse me, historic autonomy of the artist, this is ultimately and you are right it never was that way and it’s not that way now and the relative dependence of the artist I mean isn’t completely that way either. I mean it’s…

Steven;        [1:15:29] [inaudible] 1870s you know fine arts to you know the stuff that was going on prior to the French revolution. In that respect autonomy really has a very substantive meaning.

Adam: I mean absolutely the idea of what it means to be an individual changed, yes agreed. Yes but the artist is having a special, quote unquote the artist having some sort of special place in that is largely symbolic. Artists, you know I mean people that enjoy a certain—that are granted a certain degree of freedom don’t necessarily have more autonomy and artists  don’t necessarily haven’t necessarily have more autonomy. What they have provided is a very visible and compelling story that the autonomy of the artist is like is considered a myth for that reason. Not just because people don’t have autonomy they do its relative autonomy and we fight for autonomy as citizens sometimes and also recognize our dependence sometimes. But we are always dependent too, I don’t think artist enjoy a special place in that except for their role as fulfilling a symbolic or a very visible I guess marcher for this you know? And often have  been pointed to in popular culture and otherwise for that, you know not by—again and I only emphasize this because not by people who claim to be art experts but just you know  by culture at large.

So it’s something I think we need to recognize as artist is that like you said, I mean I don’t want to put words in your mouth but like you said that that main, even in an era that celebrated our autonomy artists may not necessarily have curved out an autonomous path. And I think now it, I mean it’s as important as ever for people regardless of what field you are into to work toward—well to consider what it means to chat an independent course. It’s very difficult I mean in a field of collectivity which we are always part of. You know ultimately artists working in groups I think that part of the power of focusing on that isn’t to say no we don’t want autonomy on any level; we don’t want to be autonomous citizens’ yes.

Steven: We want autonomy we have had enough of the pseudo autonomy, of this regime of autonomy that in fact gives art some sort of special symbolic privileged but at the cost of there being no real autonomy, enough of the pseudo autonomy. I think that’s the whole point of pluralizing art worlds in the plausible art worlds, is that as long as there is only one there is no authentic autonomy because it’s the type of autonomy which is permissible within that rate, that’s particular regime.

Adam: Something like sanctioned protest zones?

Steven: Yes [1:19:14] [inaudible].

Adam: Yes well, there is kung fu.

Female speaker: It’s not really working [1:19:29] [inaudible] it’s not like registering a…

Male speaker: You are either on mute though.

Female speaker: The [1:19:36] [inaudible] is on mute?

Male speaker: No I don’t think so.

[1:19:45 - 1:19:53] [Background voices]

Greg: I mean what can we really say I mean just good questions to be asked.

[1:20:02]

Male speaker: Do you have a question?

Male speaker: Yes.

Steven: Yes here is a question that there is no answer to and we could ask Ricardo and certainly it would be really interesting but it’s kind of a question which even goes beyond the specificity of this project. Is if you wanted to consider the boarder disturbance project and device as an exhibit, what would you exhibit?

Female speaker: I fell like just given the political nature of the whole project, project yes, you would really probably have to exhibit all of I would think like the news coverage that has been coming up from it and all of the culture that has been, I don’t know kind of responding to it and the political—I mean this guy getting fired you know. I feel like it’s almost that’s what’s really important rather than the device or the tool or even how many people have used it. It’s more important that the coverage is getting out there people to actually be aware of it. And I feel like that’s kind of why he is acting in this realm  of art rather than as an engineer if you  would call it you know, because its more about just making things aware.

Steven: Yes that’s –I don’t know If that that argument actually has been explicitly made but I think it would be a very powerful whirlwind to make it. Because it would also you know sit very nicely with the fact that the object which is being, you know, sort of queered is actually a communications device you know and a mass communication device. Although a communications device which only works on a one to one basis and it replaced potential technology which was never allowed to go any further. one of the spin of actually from the Vietnam war which was CB radio which had that very short moment of glory in the 1970s until the government realized that actually it was really not—well not the so much.

I think it was probably largely the private sector, realized  that this was no way to make a lot of money because in  fact you were having group communications with--. It was neither the one way system of like radio nor the one to one communication that was developed subsequently with cell phones. That’s kind of a bit of an aside but it’s true that if that’s what it is about, if zits about raising these issues and in fact all of these, some of the other stuff is almost a pretext for getting on the front page or on the cultural pages and the political pages potentially yes then we are talking about real use value. But I think that has to be named too and I wouldn’t have any like problem with you know, as an art historian making up all sorts of arguments about how that sits within an art historical paradigm as we ll. Because that’s a good point that you also raised and has been re-raised is would it help if it could be like absolutely demonstrated by major art historians that this guy was really a great artist, I mean probably the University of California would not dare to you know, give him too much grief.

You know if Roslyn Krause and Benjamin Boklou and you know, I don’t know Terry Dudoff all write you know major books on this, I mean I think that the you know, the president of the University would be like shamed into you know having that dossier just basically disappear  one day. But that argument actually hasn’t as far as I know, actually been made you know.

Adam;        Yes you mean in a wide experiment [1:24:16] [inaudible], yes I mean in a way it is being made sort of by the b.a.n.g lab’s website if you know what I mean. If you know you scroll through their posts and there aren’t installation shots most of the time you know what I mean, they are videos of these activities.

Steven: That’s true and in fact there is very few references on their site anyway, I don’t know about the secondary material but on their site to the visualized tradition. In fact they are very much within the theater traditional and theater you know not in the realist sense or the naturalist sense of lifting the fourth wall I the room but of taking all the walls down and a sort of deployment of theatre skill and lack thereof in the real.

Greg: I mean this is kind of somewhat fantastic and slightly whimsical but I mean  there is at least theoretically a down side risk and conceptualizing art as a  kind of a political foil to protect and make possible certain practices like we are kind of thinking about  it now. And that is, I mean I don’t see this on the immediate horizon in any way but one could, I mean the powers that be if you will could just as well kind of say like the boarder wall is like performative art right. Or like the minute men, the vigilante justice group, yes you need another vigilante justice people guard the boarder to prevent people from coming in, they could certainly claim to be making art, they could claim to be--. Well I mean they could certainly become artist if they wanted t right? I mean…

[1:26:05]

Male speaker: [1:26:05] [inaudible].

Adam: Well but at the point we would be skeptical of them making such a claim then we are like the snooty powerful art people who are not letting, you know, a certain self organized autonomous cell claim to be artists I mean right? All I am saying is that you know by claiming an area of free activity outside of legality for the sake of art one cannot so safely assume that the forces of radical progressive politics are always going to  be occupying that location and it could just as  well be used to justify practices we don’t find so [1:27:00] [inaudible].

Steven: I see you point but I think it’s a purely speculative point and I think sociologically you would be hard pressed to find any example of groups like the minute man acquiring an art world that was prepared the validity of their claim to, you know, chasing people down as a conceptual art practice. I mean I don’t think that they are self understanding whatever get to that and I don’t think that they would even if you  got one or two guys who though it might be a joke to try that they would ever find anything  like an art world  that would be prepared to recognize that. Because you can’t just do art by yourself and have it work out. But let me give—Scott asks us to give a different example which we were talking about earlier today is that I 1960’s Argentina there was a very rapid, radical, a political radicalization within art.

In other words art went from sort of the modernist autonomous paradigm very quickly like therefore form obstruction very quickly towards a radical dematerialization of the art object and from there to a radical politicization and  even beyond that into an abandonment of art all together. And particularly this was around a number of [1:28:31] [inaudible] movements which were mentioned few weeks ago by Judy [1:28:34] [inaudible] but particularly around a movement called [1:28:38] [inaudible]. But the outcome of that was that many of these artists who you know only months before in fact had been abstract artists and then who had dematerialized their practice all of a sudden abandoned art all together to take up the revolutionary struggle, I mean the arm struggle as the sort of logical extension of their art practice.

So they did it within a self understanding as artists and the prove of that is that in 1972 when they organized in Santiago in Chile in the last of the Ashende regime a congress for all the Latin American artists, these guys and women put down their guns and attendee the conference along with you know mural painters and relatively conventional sort of what we think of as political artists. But they did it and that is like for me, I mean  of course many of these people were killed because they weren’t  you know really, you know they were artists actually they weren’t really guerrilla fighters you know? And so they were in kind of a romantic trip in a certain sense but they really put, you know they went the whole nine yard with it. and I think that that’s super interesting not so much that they did because I think politically it was, you know, and maybe artistically it was really the wrong thing to do but what is interesting about it is they did it with a self understanding as artists and therefore with a  certain acknowledgment of an art world. I don’t think that you would find that with extreme right wing vigilante groups you know.

[1:30:18]

Adam: I will say though that it’s a very interesting what if, do you know what I mean? I mean we are relay concerned with, we are really interested in these scenarios, I don’t know how plausible it is. Maybe speculative but like for instance you know terms are often, I mean more and more political groups are very, well groups of people are extremely savvy and not the groups that might be on my side you know, and media savvy.  Yes I seriously doubt that would happen because like not that many people care about art but you know I can certainly imagine circumstances arising where the terminology could be used. And I mean people understand art differently, we may not all share the same histories and if certain  terms are used often enough or with enough  vigor or you know with enough—we wouldn’t agree on the definitions but then they become contested you know and it’s an interesting thing to think about.

Steven: I don’t want to talk about this groups but I mean obviously they are based on an ultra conservative conception of the political community which is totally at odds to – I mean I don’t know how they can possibly integrate any part of the history conceptual art into that kind of an ultra you know reactionary, close minded braces to supremacist kind of a vision of boarders because that is precisely everything at conceptual art even in this less politically you know hard line forum I wanted to break down .

Male Speaker: Can I [1:32:02] [inaudible] for a second because I think that is how this started and I guess what about the futurists? I mean they are fascist ultimately and you know like I mean that’s not in our world now, that’s not in our understanding of possible and I don’t really think there is any reason to be worried that arts are a power enough symbol for storm friends to take up, you know or would mean that much. But I could imagine you know, well I could imagine some right wing radio talk show host seeing some value in that as some point and stirring some people there. I am not saying I am imagining that actually happening, but I can’t imagine that happening, that’s an interesting thing to think about because I agree with what you are saying but there is definitely examples where that hasn’t been the case and we still understand it to [1:32:58] [indiscernible]

        Do you know what I mean? It’s not a good, it’s sort of apples and oranges because we are talking about people that were trained as “artists” and sort of extended that out into politics. But a lot of artists that we are interested in, in fact came out of the other angle too. They came not because they were trained in art academy, not all of them anyway. But because they felt some infinity with created practices and that they could identify with and got into it from another angle. I don’t know how much, I don’t know how much I really want to tease out this idea but it is just an interesting thing to think about because I hadn’t really, it’s an interesting what if I guess.

Female Speaker: I think if we are thinking in the scope of autonomy and as artists wanting autonomy, then I feel like if we were to ever achieve that, wouldn’t everyone kind of? I mean not everyone but I could see a lot of people kind of latching onto the idea of being an artist and being autonomous and not having any repercussions and I could see it then being really appealing for I mean right wing, left wing everyone that didn’t want to have law chasing the tail.

Male Speaker: And in the US usually the language revolves around the first amendment and the so called abuse of that you know like often by explicit racists or bigots and other people who feel that’s a deliberate abuse that puts their own freedom from another political angle at risk because its, it confuses at least in the – I really don’t want to be unfair in balance talking about racists here but…

[1:35:00]

Male Speaker: [1:35:01] [inaudible]

Male Speaker: Right, right

Male Speaker: That has not been, that’s not a successful [1:35:07] [inaudible]

Male Speaker: Right, right, indeed yeah. But anyway this is about a lot of popular discussion revolves around and I think it’s tied to art because art is often tied very closely with, at least in the US, the first amendment.

Male Speaker: I guess my objection was the minute men is kind of, it is a political movement, it’s kind of – I think it’s one that has been hijacked by all sorts of power and so on. But it’s hard to imagine as a movement, it could engender an artistic expressing. But it is true what could be easily imagined – so in that sense it’s not like futurism because futurism really was a movement that was fascinated with technological progress and identified that with an inner logic that art had like many [1:36:04] [indiscernible] movements but except it is fixated on one specific logic but I can’t imagine that sort of thing but I could imagine some lunatic artist, conceptual artist would also be a minute man and who – but I can’t imagine as he never get any other minute man to acknowledge his claim to be an artist because they would say you know, dude that’s not art and if you continue to say that’s art, you can’t even be part of our vigilante band anymore because as we all know is like oil on canvas. Do I have – do you know about this sophisticated [1:36:48] [inaudible]

Female Speaker: No I think something to keep in mind is that art isn’t always art in the moment I guess. I mean a lot of times, you might make something or I mean in the past I guess historically, they wouldn’t accept it as art because their peer won’t accept it as art. This does not necessarily mean that it wasn’t art later in the history books. So I mean you know I guess speculation, let’s say this did happen, you know I don’t think there would be any credit behind any minute man artist, you know in the moment. But later in the history books, I think it would certainly be something at least to add in there, at least maybe if it’s a failure. Not all arts succeed, so I guess that kind of goes back to the idea of like what is art and does it have to be acceptable, do artists have to accept it, is there one artist that can say the list goes on. I don’t know if [1:37:54] [inaudible]

Male Speaker: I don’t know, I just like that it’s a ridiculous argument that I am somehow able to follow and find some like interest in.

Male Speaker: Look yeah, I mean obviously in an absurd hypothetical to be talking about whether or not the minute men might tomorrow style themselves tomorrow as a performance troop. Of course and so the point of bringing it up was not to wonder about this as an immediate political danger that our artistic discourses right now might be flirting with. But oh okay so I mean we probably talked enough about that absurd hypothetical but I think it does point, it at least points to I think a more concrete and fair political danger or risk maybe that we tend to forget about in this kind of well educated, urban milude such as the one we are in now.

And it’s the fact that we have to remind ourselves really still in America only are very very slight minority of people would be able to agree that something like technologically modified old cell phones handed out to Mexican immigrants would qualify as art. It takes a very savvy minority to be able to see that as artistic. Whereas a certain for certain practices, we dislike, we would probably all very much dislike or probably way closer to qualifying as what the median individual in the United States would actually be able to agree is art. So I can imagine like – oh here we go into kind of a ridiculous hypothetical’s but I think this does, it leads to reflect a concrete point that is worth considering when we are trying to think about making Art Worlds Plausible for all different kinds of people across this country or others.

[1:39:59]

I mean if you were to uphold the individuals in America and ask them, which one better qualifies as art and you said something like giving technologically modified old cell phones to immigrants or a very large brilliant architectural structure that divides countries and prevents people from moving. I mean just on the face of it, just already that has actually more kind of crude superficial artistic merit, then something like a GPS project to aid and abet immigrants coming to the United States.

So I think it’s just worth recalling the kind of mainstream or average conception of art that one has to grapple with in trying to sell these things in serious ways.

Female Speaker: We say that ways sounds like they are using the immigrants and they are really not considering them much at all, they are the ends, a means to an end.

Male Speaker: Unfortunately we weren’t able to talk to Ricardo tonight. I definitely don’t think that impression would come across if we were able to but I feel some, this tingling in my spine that happens about 8:00pm Eastern Standard Time every Tuesday night. Unfortunately we need to wrap up for the sake of at least online anyway, for the sake of everyone who is fighting sleep to join us in whatever time zone you are. So actually looks like Jessica is actually earlier than we are and Adam and Mathew I am not sure where you are, nice.

But I think Steven is typing a response he wanted to send and you know why don’t you feel free to continue to do that as you want to but we will say good night for now. All right Mathew, so in any case, just to keep up with our basic program, we will end it but we won’t want to trample over something anyone wanted to say if you had something burning. If you do feel free, also feel free to type, if you don’t, that’s cool and we can always keep up, continue later. But it looks like we missed Ricardo completely now that we are ending. I would hold out a lot longer but we don’t, we haven’t heard back, he might be on the plane. Absolutely Jessica, well good night everybody and we’ll see you, see you next Tuesday.

[1:43:43]        End of Audio