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roachboy · 12-15-2004, 09:26 AM

i dunno---sometimes it seems like the logical correlate of bushworld would be a kind of socialist realism with the middle class as its object: a highly conventionalized art that would avoid controversy and instead devote itself to portraying the heroic middle class at work and at play. if that is what you want, then fine, you can have it.

that said, i do not accept the reverse, that controversy in itself legitimates a piece.

but i wonder, sometimes, if the notion of "responsible free expression" is anything more than a code for effectively telling anyone who understands what they do as working in political opposition to simply shut up, whether it does anything more than take a particular situation, framed by particular political committments, and hold it up as a model for all cultural production. if you cant determine that, then the term "responsible" becomes a problem. responsible to whom? to whom to you hand the ability to determine what is and is not "responsible"? why would you hand the ability to judge what is and is not responsible about your work to someone else? what sense would it make if you assume that markets are not rational, but only reflect existing relations of force?

it would seem to me that if you are involved with this type of work that you have to be responsible to yourself first of all, because it is *your* work, *your* process, *your* life. what others choose to assimilate of that is necessarily only the surface of that process, that way of life...you have to live with it every day, find ways to motivate yourself to keep going day in day out.....why would you give anything of that away? why you would allow anyone else to define what is and is not "responsable"? how is this not handing to people you do not know, whose only real qualification of passing judgement is the holding of capital, the core of what motors your engagement with material in the first place?

no-one derives from this position the illusion that everything they produce should be shown. no-one derives from this position that they are owed anything by the world around them...but...

12-15-2004, 09:26 AM	#40 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i dunno---sometimes it seems like the logical correlate of bushworld would be a kind of socialist realism with the middle class as its object: a highly conventionalized art that would avoid controversy and instead devote itself to portraying the heroic middle class at work and at play. if that is what you want, then fine, you can have it. that said, i do not accept the reverse, that controversy in itself legitimates a piece. but i wonder, sometimes, if the notion of "responsible free expression" is anything more than a code for effectively telling anyone who understands what they do as working in political opposition to simply shut up, whether it does anything more than take a particular situation, framed by particular political committments, and hold it up as a model for all cultural production. if you cant determine that, then the term "responsible" becomes a problem. responsible to whom? to whom to you hand the ability to determine what is and is not "responsible"? why would you hand the ability to judge what is and is not responsible about your work to someone else? what sense would it make if you assume that markets are not rational, but only reflect existing relations of force? it would seem to me that if you are involved with this type of work that you have to be responsible to yourself first of all, because it is your work, your process, your life. what others choose to assimilate of that is necessarily only the surface of that process, that way of life...you have to live with it every day, find ways to motivate yourself to keep going day in day out.....why would you give anything of that away? why you would allow anyone else to define what is and is not "responsable"? how is this not handing to people you do not know, whose only real qualification of passing judgement is the holding of capital, the core of what motors your engagement with material in the first place? no-one derives from this position the illusion that everything they produce should be shown. no-one derives from this position that they are owed anything by the world around them...but... __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 12-15-2004 at 09:29 AM..