BIO
Curt Cloninger is an artist, writer, and Associate Professor of New Media at the University of North Carolina Asheville. His art undermines language as a system of meaning in order to reveal it as an embodied force in the world. His art work has been featured in the New York Times and at festivals and galleries from Korea to Brazil. Exhibition venues include Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Granoff Center for The Creative Arts (Brown University), Digital Art Museum [DAM] (Berlin), Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art (Chicago), Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, and the internet. He is the recipient of several grants and awards, including commissions for the creation of new artwork from the National Endowment for the Arts (via Turbulence.org) and Austin Peay State University's Terminal Award.
Cloninger has written on a wide range of topics, including new media and internet art, installation and performance art, experimental graphic design, popular music, network culture, and continental philosophy. His articles have appeared in Intelligent Agent, Mute, Paste, Tekka, Rhizome Digest, A List Apart, and on ABC World News. He is also the author of eight books, most recently One Per Year (Link Editions). He maintains lab404.com, playdamage.org , and deepyoung.org in hopes of facilitating a more lively remote dialogue with the Sundry Contagions of Wonder.
Cloninger has written on a wide range of topics, including new media and internet art, installation and performance art, experimental graphic design, popular music, network culture, and continental philosophy. His articles have appeared in Intelligent Agent, Mute, Paste, Tekka, Rhizome Digest, A List Apart, and on ABC World News. He is also the author of eight books, most recently One Per Year (Link Editions). He maintains lab404.com, playdamage.org , and deepyoung.org in hopes of facilitating a more lively remote dialogue with the Sundry Contagions of Wonder.
Re: Re: Cold Calling For Democracy
c:
> > I propose that if you met them in another context and spent some time
> > listening to their needs, or even meeting their needs, if you
> > developed a relationship with them, they would probably respond to
> you differently and you would understand them better.
e:
>Yes, that's what has to be done- that's the point of my post. But the
>question of "how" can't be answered that way, I don't think. I don't believe
>it is a partisan issue, I am complicit- I can't make "friends" with someone
>who holds those beliefs ("I don't care about gay rights and all that shit").
>I am much more conditioned to consider them an enemy, or, realistically, I
>am more conditioned to just dismiss them as another case of ignorant white
>trash. Yes, it's fine and good to say "Love Thy Neighbor" but that addresses
>nothing of the actual issue of how; and to make it worse, I am implicit,
>since I would not, in a million years, honestly pay attention to anything
>that guy said, on any subject.
c:
i appreciate your honesty. The solution is to love, serve, honor,
and value that guy. If he is indeed an idiot living a fearful and
largely unconsidered life, how can we reasonably expect the change to
start with him? In my experience, it takes a supernatural miracle to
cause me to love people I hate. I literally pray, "Jesus, give me
your heart of love for _" until it happens. The most powerful
sociological change agent is the power to love and serve unlovable
people, and I simply can't do this in my own strength.
"It starts with greed and then goes all wrong /
And that's why we can't all just get along."
- beastie boys
Most liberals think they have everybody's best interest at heart.
They know what we all need, and if we would just wise up and agree
with their particular understanding of what we need, the world would
be a better place. This is just selfishness cloaked as benevolence.
Regardless of how "the problem" manifests itself (partisanism, fear,
war, terror), the root of the problem is my inability to love and
serve the people I hate.
[By way of concession, I do agree that politics have some use and
that there are measurable sociological trends.]
peace,
curt
> > I propose that if you met them in another context and spent some time
> > listening to their needs, or even meeting their needs, if you
> > developed a relationship with them, they would probably respond to
> you differently and you would understand them better.
e:
>Yes, that's what has to be done- that's the point of my post. But the
>question of "how" can't be answered that way, I don't think. I don't believe
>it is a partisan issue, I am complicit- I can't make "friends" with someone
>who holds those beliefs ("I don't care about gay rights and all that shit").
>I am much more conditioned to consider them an enemy, or, realistically, I
>am more conditioned to just dismiss them as another case of ignorant white
>trash. Yes, it's fine and good to say "Love Thy Neighbor" but that addresses
>nothing of the actual issue of how; and to make it worse, I am implicit,
>since I would not, in a million years, honestly pay attention to anything
>that guy said, on any subject.
c:
i appreciate your honesty. The solution is to love, serve, honor,
and value that guy. If he is indeed an idiot living a fearful and
largely unconsidered life, how can we reasonably expect the change to
start with him? In my experience, it takes a supernatural miracle to
cause me to love people I hate. I literally pray, "Jesus, give me
your heart of love for _" until it happens. The most powerful
sociological change agent is the power to love and serve unlovable
people, and I simply can't do this in my own strength.
"It starts with greed and then goes all wrong /
And that's why we can't all just get along."
- beastie boys
Most liberals think they have everybody's best interest at heart.
They know what we all need, and if we would just wise up and agree
with their particular understanding of what we need, the world would
be a better place. This is just selfishness cloaked as benevolence.
Regardless of how "the problem" manifests itself (partisanism, fear,
war, terror), the root of the problem is my inability to love and
serve the people I hate.
[By way of concession, I do agree that politics have some use and
that there are measurable sociological trends.]
peace,
curt
Re: Re: Cold Calling For Democracy
At 11:59 AM -0400 9/16/03, Eryk Salvaggio wrote
:
>The thing is, I'm not cold calling to convince anyone. I am cold calling to
>ask them what they think.
I understand that. But later in your email, you asked how you might
convince folks to change or at least get them to dialogue with you.
I was responding to that open question.
>The question I have is, what makes those people- the people who launch a
>tirade and then hang up- so angry?
I propose that if you met them in another context and spent some time
listening to their needs, or even meeting their needs, if you
developed a relationship with them, they would probably respond to
you differently and you would understand them better.
> The answer has to be something in the
>American Socio-Political bloodstream.
That's a convenient marxist analysis, but maybe one of the people you
called has a chronic toothache. Maybe another one has a husband who
doesn't support her. Do you see what I'm saying? You're getting
close to the solution by calling individual human beings one-by-one
rather than merely watching CNN (or the Guerilla News Network, for
that matter). The next step is getting to know people in your
immediate sphere of influence, and beginning to serve them. Maybe
you're already doing this. Your post didn't say.
> I don't know if it is simply fear. And
>whatever the answer, do we really think that showing them a piece of art is
>going to get them to calm down?
The art I value and enjoy tweaks people on a more primal, less
didactic level. Tactical art created specifically to achieve some
measurable political end appeals to me like a wet paper towel. Maybe
my art is just me celebrating existence in public. The sparks fly
upward.
>There is a fast dissolving center here now;
>most Americans are running full speed towards an insulated political life.
>The end of debate is a weakening of ideas, and a democracy with weak ideas
>is a weak democracy.
My hope for mankind is in something other than political debate.
peace,
curt
:
>The thing is, I'm not cold calling to convince anyone. I am cold calling to
>ask them what they think.
I understand that. But later in your email, you asked how you might
convince folks to change or at least get them to dialogue with you.
I was responding to that open question.
>The question I have is, what makes those people- the people who launch a
>tirade and then hang up- so angry?
I propose that if you met them in another context and spent some time
listening to their needs, or even meeting their needs, if you
developed a relationship with them, they would probably respond to
you differently and you would understand them better.
> The answer has to be something in the
>American Socio-Political bloodstream.
That's a convenient marxist analysis, but maybe one of the people you
called has a chronic toothache. Maybe another one has a husband who
doesn't support her. Do you see what I'm saying? You're getting
close to the solution by calling individual human beings one-by-one
rather than merely watching CNN (or the Guerilla News Network, for
that matter). The next step is getting to know people in your
immediate sphere of influence, and beginning to serve them. Maybe
you're already doing this. Your post didn't say.
> I don't know if it is simply fear. And
>whatever the answer, do we really think that showing them a piece of art is
>going to get them to calm down?
The art I value and enjoy tweaks people on a more primal, less
didactic level. Tactical art created specifically to achieve some
measurable political end appeals to me like a wet paper towel. Maybe
my art is just me celebrating existence in public. The sparks fly
upward.
>There is a fast dissolving center here now;
>most Americans are running full speed towards an insulated political life.
>The end of debate is a weakening of ideas, and a democracy with weak ideas
>is a weak democracy.
My hope for mankind is in something other than political debate.
peace,
curt
like trying to film an adam ant video in a telephone booth
Out To Lunch: Today, claims to know something about aesthetics are
an affront to people who claim to know things. Resentment at
institutional bullying of subjectivity has itself become
institutionalised: 'Thou shalt not judge' is written over the door of
the cultural studies department. But such scholarly 'objectivity'
just lip-syncs the golden rule of those involved in the art business:
never mention aesthetics. Making an aesthetic judgment is tantamount
to breaking the contract that undergirds the dialogue. Who farted in
the torture chamber?
Nanatux: How can you say that? Aesthetic judgment is an assertion
of privilege, a hierarchical imposition of values from above! The
very basis of our discussion of cultural value is that we understand
relativism as the matrix we're all enmeshed in, in which the
different, cross-cutting aspects of gender, race, sexual-orientation,
physical ableness, religious-orientation, size, susceptibility to
viruses and so on all play a part!
Hegel [aside]: Thinking is always the negation of what we have
immediately before us.
Out To Lunch: Aesthetics is extra-personal, and that's why I assert
it! It's as material and objective as the stars. It's more critical
than any campaign against size or looks or other discriminations,
because it taps the very roots of attractions, the inevitability of
which Charles Fourier theorised.
+++++++++++++++++
[adapted for the screen from a fantasy dialectic by ben watson, 2003]
http://www.invisiblemadevisible.co.uk/stencils03/girl+pet.jpg
http://www.tinkin.com/zimagess/warehouse/waretoliet3.jpg
_
_
an affront to people who claim to know things. Resentment at
institutional bullying of subjectivity has itself become
institutionalised: 'Thou shalt not judge' is written over the door of
the cultural studies department. But such scholarly 'objectivity'
just lip-syncs the golden rule of those involved in the art business:
never mention aesthetics. Making an aesthetic judgment is tantamount
to breaking the contract that undergirds the dialogue. Who farted in
the torture chamber?
Nanatux: How can you say that? Aesthetic judgment is an assertion
of privilege, a hierarchical imposition of values from above! The
very basis of our discussion of cultural value is that we understand
relativism as the matrix we're all enmeshed in, in which the
different, cross-cutting aspects of gender, race, sexual-orientation,
physical ableness, religious-orientation, size, susceptibility to
viruses and so on all play a part!
Hegel [aside]: Thinking is always the negation of what we have
immediately before us.
Out To Lunch: Aesthetics is extra-personal, and that's why I assert
it! It's as material and objective as the stars. It's more critical
than any campaign against size or looks or other discriminations,
because it taps the very roots of attractions, the inevitability of
which Charles Fourier theorised.
+++++++++++++++++
[adapted for the screen from a fantasy dialectic by ben watson, 2003]
http://www.invisiblemadevisible.co.uk/stencils03/girl+pet.jpg
http://www.tinkin.com/zimagess/warehouse/waretoliet3.jpg
_
_
Re: Cold Calling For Democracy
eryk wrote:
But how do we convince the people who hang up in our faces, who can't hear a
word we say? That's what I want to know. The nation's political beliefs are
a behemoth, and the nation is not moved easily; I don't know if art can do a
damn thing in bringing around people who don't give a damn about art. How do
you talk to the people who say, in a genuine statement, that there are no
issues that affect them? Or people who state thier cases into a phone,
hanging up before I can even ask if they want to be taken off the list.
People who are angry at the people who ask them questions about what they
believe. How do we ask them- how do we ask ourselves, really- to listen to
the other side of what we're all thinking?
Hi Eryk,
I think you convince them by getting to know them and loving them and
serving them, whether they ever come to agree with you or not. You
probably don't convince them by cold calling them on the phone. In
Christian evangelical circles, it's the difference between
programatic evangelism (door to door, passing out tracts, treating
everybody as a knotch on your belt) and friendship/servant evangelism
(Jesus taking time out of his last meal to wash the feet of his known
betrayer). A sappy truism from years of teaching middle school kids
-- they won't care how much you know until they know how much you
care.
Either way, you have to have some actual love and joy and peace and
hope in your own life to offer. There has to be a modicum of evident
desirability to your life (not as you posit yourself online or on
stage; but day-to-day, on the job, in your home, etc.). Otherwise,
why will anybody even want to engage you in the dialectic?
I observe the revolution happening one soul at a time, often at great
personal cost to those involved, and almost exclusively off-camera.
Occasionally, it even involves art and politics.
peace,
curt
But how do we convince the people who hang up in our faces, who can't hear a
word we say? That's what I want to know. The nation's political beliefs are
a behemoth, and the nation is not moved easily; I don't know if art can do a
damn thing in bringing around people who don't give a damn about art. How do
you talk to the people who say, in a genuine statement, that there are no
issues that affect them? Or people who state thier cases into a phone,
hanging up before I can even ask if they want to be taken off the list.
People who are angry at the people who ask them questions about what they
believe. How do we ask them- how do we ask ourselves, really- to listen to
the other side of what we're all thinking?
Hi Eryk,
I think you convince them by getting to know them and loving them and
serving them, whether they ever come to agree with you or not. You
probably don't convince them by cold calling them on the phone. In
Christian evangelical circles, it's the difference between
programatic evangelism (door to door, passing out tracts, treating
everybody as a knotch on your belt) and friendship/servant evangelism
(Jesus taking time out of his last meal to wash the feet of his known
betrayer). A sappy truism from years of teaching middle school kids
-- they won't care how much you know until they know how much you
care.
Either way, you have to have some actual love and joy and peace and
hope in your own life to offer. There has to be a modicum of evident
desirability to your life (not as you posit yourself online or on
stage; but day-to-day, on the job, in your home, etc.). Otherwise,
why will anybody even want to engage you in the dialectic?
I observe the revolution happening one soul at a time, often at great
personal cost to those involved, and almost exclusively off-camera.
Occasionally, it even involves art and politics.
peace,
curt
the sound of falling buildings / homeland security
http://beam.tv/beamreels/play_clip.php/Radiohead_Playout+Plus+16_9.mov
?reel_file=mdDgTynTgNZH
http://www.pleix.net/movies/Sometimes.mov
http://www.neubauten.org/i_instruments.php
/
http://www.revolverfilms.com/sigurros/sigur_ros.mov
http://www.idlewords.com/biological.html
http://computerfinearts.com/collection/cloninger/bubblegum/adjective/p
ostmodern/
_
?reel_file=mdDgTynTgNZH
http://www.pleix.net/movies/Sometimes.mov
http://www.neubauten.org/i_instruments.php
/
http://www.revolverfilms.com/sigurros/sigur_ros.mov
http://www.idlewords.com/biological.html
http://computerfinearts.com/collection/cloninger/bubblegum/adjective/p
ostmodern/
_