SPECTRE is mailing list for media art and culture in Europe.
SPECTRE Digest, Vol 22, Issue 3 (3.12.04)
spectre-request@mikrolisten.de
Today's Topics:
1. swiss 56k bastard web channel censors project (geert)
2. Re: swiss 56k bastard web channel censors project (Perry Bard)
3. Re: swiss 56k bastard web channel censors project
(Andreas Broeckmann)
6. shu lea's response: Re: [spectre] swiss 56k bastard web
(Andreas Broeckmann)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 12:22:42 +0000
From: geert <geert@xs4all.nl>
Subject: [spectre] swiss 56k bastard web channel censors project
To: "spectre@mikrolisten.de" <spectre@mikrolisten.de>
Message-ID: <1101990162.2081.64.camel@koffertje>
Content-Type: text/plain
the artist shulea chang asked me to fwd. this message. shulea made a project for the new swiss 56k-bastard web
channel that was censored. the 'milk project' was deemed too hardcore.
56k organizer reinhard storz got afraid and pushed shulea chang to
produce a 'snow (soft) version' in order not to upset his funder, pro
helvetia.
the direct address to milk-soft is
www.56k-bastard.tv/b_milk2
and to milk-real
www.xcult.org/milk
http://www.56k-bastard.tv/b_milk2/warn.html
the news is already out. see for instance:
http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=256973
http://www.fluctuat.net/blog/article.php3?id_article=1232
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 07:32:41 -0500
From: Perry Bard <minx@bway.net>
Subject: Re: [spectre] swiss 56k bastard web channel censors project
To: spectre@mikrolisten.de
Message-ID: <4255340C-445E-11D9-9971-0003939104D8@bway.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
This brings up an interesting question regarding art in the public
realm. Is the internet a museum/gallery in which case anything goes or
is it public space in which case there are generally controls for art
projects.Even as cyberspace similar distinctions seem to apply.
Perry Bard >>
>>
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
>> Info, archive and help:
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>>
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 14:13:53 +0100
From: Andreas Broeckmann <abroeck@transmediale.de>
Subject: Re: [spectre] swiss 56k bastard web channel censors project
To: spectre@mikrolisten.de, geert <geert@xs4all.nl>
Cc: shu lea cheang <shulea@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <a05200f53bdd4c0dbf49f@[192.168.3.24]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
imho, the censored version of the piece is artistically as
unconvincing as the uncensored one; i think that the correlation of
internet porn images and AIDS victims in africa is spurious - it
would maybe make sense to relate it to cases of HIV infection (and
AIDS deaths) among sex workers in europe, for instance, but i guess
that the speed of the counter would be less spectacular - which seems
to be the main (or only) point of the piece? how does the
voyeurism/consumption of internet porn affect AIDS deaths in malawi?
and does the project then not suggest that if there was less internet
porn, there would be fewer AIDS victims? can somebody explain, how?
(i know that there is a whole regime of images around the sexualised
female body which feeds all sorts of social regimes affecting the
submission of women, etc. - you can be brief if you mean _that_
structure is adequately referenced in the Milk piece.)
i don't know whether pro helvetia actually protested; if they did,
might it be that they would have accepted the same sort of imagery if
it had been used in the context of a stronger artistic concept?
greetings,
-a
ps: call a spade a spade.
>>______________________________________________
>>SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
>>Info, archive and help:
>>http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
Message: 6
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 19:02:15 +0100
From: Andreas Broeckmann <abroeck@transmediale.de>
Subject: shu lea's response: Re: [spectre] swiss 56k bastard web
To: spectre@mikrolisten.de
Cc: shulea@earthlink.net
Message-ID: <a05200f01bdd508cb0767@[192.168.3.23]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
(300K attachment removed, -a)
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 15:20:35 +0000
To: Andreas Broeckmann <abroeck@transmediale.de>
From: shu lea cheang <shulea@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [spectre] swiss 56k bastard web channel censors project
Cc: spectre@mikrolisten.de, geert <geert@xs4all.nl>,
reinhard storz <rstorz@xcult.org>
dear andrea
thanks for the comment
and thanks for geert's posting.
please let me correct one thing about geert's posting..
the curator reinhard storz was not afraid or forced into
censoring my work. i did not call the case a censored case.
i volunteered to make a snow version so that it can be
presented on pro-helvetica website (soft version) while xcult.org
can still represent the hardcore version.
pro-helvetica is the state funding afterall. Mostly i am more
amused with the idea of hard and softcore version of milk.
As for artistic value of the piece, maybe it has none.
if all art has to be taken so literally and accouted for its
obvious correlation of numbers.
Maybe the piece is after all a play on your liberal consciousness??
Why would showing the numbers of HIV infection among sex workers
in Europe would make you feel better about the piece? compared
to the dealth toll in Africa?? There is nothing spectacular
in the number count, is there? it is after all numbing feeling
of the overflood of porn icons and numbers combined that makes
the piece... There is also the play on 56K web-tv concept as commissioned.
if you did allow yourself 30 minutes of boring web TV experience,
Milk does give you a punchline and a screenshot. (attached).
referring to your comment-
>>(i know that there is a whole regime of images around the sexualised
>>female body which feeds all sorts of social regimes affecting the
>>submission of women, etc. - you can be brief if you mean _that_
>>structure is adequately referenced in the Milk piece.)
I do not wish to get into the recent controversy surrounding showing
submission (of TheoVG). i have no qualm with sexualized female bodies,
i love them. it is the self-rightuous sense of salvation from the liberals
that kills me.... Milk is the white fluid for the 21st century what the
white powder for the 20th century high. This is my propaganda.
Get high, sniff it or suck it ... in public, in vogue.
I do have a very supportive curator for the piece, quoting reinhard storz,
"But the real content of the piece, I think, is the handling of
pictures (in two different degrees of nakedness), and the handling of
overwhelming quantities (dead + greediness / but also the 30 minutes)
overwhelming and boring at the same time."
yeah, the state of 56K download as art...
can it be accepted as a genre of its own?
spurious and fabulous...
yours
sl
________________________________
Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 12:52:16 +0100
From: reinhard storz <rstorz@xcult.org>
Subject: [spectre] MILK
To: spectre@mikrolisten.de
Message-ID: <41B05370.2010800@xcult.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
in response to
message: 6
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 15:20:35 +0000
To: Andreas Broeckmann <abroeck@transmediale.de>
From: shu lea cheang <shulea@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [spectre] swiss 56k bastard web channel censors project
Cc: spectre@mikrolisten.de, geert <geert@xs4all.nl>,
reinhard storz <rstorz@xcult.org>
Please note that I didn't push Shu Lea Cheang to do a censored version
of her MILK piece. (I show the original version on my art platform
xcult.org)
Fact is: I had to go through many hard discussions with our main funder.
Our 56kTV project (with a lot of other contributing artists) nearly
crashed. Shu Lea saved the situation by realising the 'snow (soft) version'.
In opposition to Andreas Broekmann I appreciate MILK as an interesting
art work. Of course the short circuit between porn and HIV death is
problematic. But as I see it, MILK proposes this short circuit only on a
first (vocative) level, shouting: porn+dead, western culture + Africa,
committer+victim. This is the intention to be shrill at first sight.
But on a second level of thinking about MILK there are only 'victims'
and the looking for perpetrators is somehow senseless. MILK is a
inexorable body counting machine, numbering deads (abstract, only in
numbers and words, no pictures, as a cost per time counter on porn
sites) and counting/showing porn pictures (speaking both of commercial
sex and of love pleasure?). The slowly loading image in the background
you can estimate as a porn picture (a woman's breast full of liquid out
of a sperm tube, as they use it in the porn movie industry) and you can
see it as a woman's breast full of milk - that's the title of the piece.
Milk on breasts is prolific, fertile and opposes the idea and fact of
death but, as Shu Lea points out, babies in Africa often contract AIDS
through sucking milk from the HIV virus infected mothers... thus the
wide spread among babies.
I know: there is the danger of over-interpretation. But the intention of
my arguments is to accent the nonlinear meaning of MILK. It's
provocative potential lies not only in the porn+death stuff, but also in
the fact that it doesn't offer an expected politico-moralistic comment.
Some times - in this case - that's a genuine quality of art.
best
reinhard
------------------------------
___________________________________________
>>>>SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
>>>>Info, archive and help:
>>>>http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 19:45:49 +0000
From: shu lea cheang <shulea@earthlink.net>
Subject: [spectre] public and private revisted
To: Andreas Broeckmann <abroeck@transmediale.de>,
spectre@mikrolisten.de
Cc: reinhard storz <rstorz@xcult.org>, geert@xs4all.nl
Message-ID: <p05200f18bdd51f2fb5fb@[82.120.202.220]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
my message to reihhard was meant to be personal.
but it is all out in the open, oh, might as well.
attack, critique, sorry to use such strong word.
maybe spectre can use some argument.
a revisit to the domain of private and public?
just one note, in response to reinhard's comment
i would like to add to the list.
milk as milk-
The study in africa did find that babies contracted
AIDS through sucking milk from the HIV virus infected
mothers... thus the wide spread among babies.
(maybe this explain why the AIDS number in africa)
(senseless art sensible reading)
(over-interpretation justify and salvage)
(critical reading is desired )
Political incorrect is a forbidden zone for the others.
allow me to indulge.
thanks for all the input.
regards
sl
>>dear shu lea, dear reinhard,
>>
>>my message was meant as a critique of the piece, not as an attack; i
>>would go along with the critical points that reinhard also makes and
>>would just say that the alternative to an intellectually flawed
>>comparison is not necessarily already 'politico-moralistic'; i think
>>that in other works shulea has shown that her provocations can be
>>both sharp and non-pc and artistically interesting. in my eyes, this
>>one isn't. that's all.
>>
>>best regards,
>>-a
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 10:53:01 +0100
From: Andreas Broeckmann <abroeck@transmediale.de>
Subject: [spectre] Re: MILK, public
To: reinhard storz <rstorz@xcult.org>, shulea@earthlink.net
Cc: spectre@mikrolisten.de
Message-ID: <a05200f03bdd5e3769e1e@[192.168.3.23]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
dear reinhard, dear shu lea,
i was not aware that this was a private conversation, since reinhard
quoted your message to me in a message titled 'spectre' ... i have no
intention to drag things into the public unnecessarily, but since the
piece is online and thus public already, i see no reason why its
critical discussion should not also be? given the theme and the
nature of the work, i'm surprised that you would introduce 'private'
as a category here.
reinhard said:
>>Andreas didn't react on my arguments,
not exactly true; i did say in my message: 'i would go along with the
critical points that reinhard also makes and would just say that the
alternative to an intellectually flawed comparison is not necessarily
already 'politico-moralistic'; i think that in other works shulea has
shown that her provocations can be both sharp and non-pc and
artistically interesting. in my eyes, this one isn't. that's all.'
if you want it in detail, here we go:
>>>>>>Dear Shu Lea
>>>>>>Don't worry about my reaction. I know you don't tell anybody that
>>>>>>I opted for censoring MILK. But for critics it's an easy shortcut
>>>>>>to summarize curator + sponsorer/co-producer.
>>>>>>So thank you for your correcting reply to Andreas and for your
>>>>>>good and sovereign arguments in reaction on the quality attack.
>>>>>>Of course the quality discourse is open and necessery, and I also
>>>>>>think that the short circuit between porn and HIV death is
>>>>>>problematic.
i agree.
>>>>>>But as I see it, MILK proposes this short circuit only on a first
>>>>>>(vocative) level, shouting: porn+dead, western culture + Africa,
>>>>>>committer+victim. This intention to be shrill on a first level is
>>>>>>handled in a very masterly way (in my dictionary I also find the
>>>>>>word 'virtuoso').
i don't agree.
>>>>>>But on a second level of thinking about MILK there are only
>>>>>>'victims' and the looking for committers is somehow senseless.
>>>>>>There is a strong reference to bodies in MILK, it's a inexorable
>>>>>>body counting machine, numbering deads (abstract, only in numbers
>>>>>>and words, no pictures, as a cost per time counter on porn sites)
>>>>>>and counting/showing porn pictures (speaking both of commercial
>>>>>>sex and of love pleasure! This ambiguity, if that word exists in
>>>>>>english, is confusing and exciting/irritating).
i think it is irritating, in the english sense of the word; i think
it is what i have called 'intellectually flawed'.
>>>>>>For the slowly loading image in the background: you can see it
>>>>>>positive or negative, as a porn picture (a woman's breast full of
>>>>>>liquid out of a sperm tube, as they use it in the porn movie
>>>>>>industry) and you can see it as a woman's breast full of milk -
>>>>>>that's the title of the piece. It seems to be a nice woman with
>>>>>>nice breasts and the thought of milk on it is sexy. Milk on
>>>>>>breasts is prolific, fertile and opposes the idea and fact of
>>>>>>death.
>>>>>>I know: there is the danger of over-interpretation. But the
>>>>>>intention of my arguments is to accent the nonlinear meaning of
>>>>>>MILK. It's provocative potential lies not only in the porn stuff,
>>>>>>but also in the fact that it doesn't give me the expected
>>>>>>politico-moralistic comment. That's a genuine quality of art.
>>>>>>(Sorry for my poor not mothertongue english)
while i agree that art has no obligation to be moralistic, it has to
accept a critique that questions symbolic associations that an
artwork implies; while i can follow the porn/sperm/milk/aids
argument, i find the representation of this relation in the piece
unconvincing; the implied moralism of the piece itself, ie by
relating the consumption of internet porn (perpetrators?) to the
dying of AIDS victims in africa, has the opposite of the
transgressive impact that you suggest. for me, it re-introduces a
heavy-handed moralism into a domain of (highly ambiguous) pleasure.
best regards,
-a
------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 16:09:42 +0000
From: shu lea cheang <shulea@earthlink.net>
Subject: [spectre] MILK, public and moralistic
To: Andreas Broeckmann <abroeck@transmediale.de>
Cc: reinhard storz <rstorz@xcult.org>, geert <geert@xs4all.nl>,
spectre@mikrolisten.de
Message-ID: <p05200f05bdd633ffa622@[82.120.195.140]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
dear andreas
i dont mean to prolong this discussion any further
, but okay, maybe spectre can still entertain some
critical dialogue.
It is not for me to argue the value of my work,
as you put it, " this one isn't. that's it." period.
however, i do want to bring up two points that
still bother me.....
(1) The public and private domain refer to the posting
of Perry Bard at Specture on museum/gallery/internet
space being public or private. This all seem to be
daja vu...isn't it? thus, revisited. My work
Bowling Alley (1995) at Walker Art Center encounters
this particular issues. And this year, my exhibition
at Norway's DETOX caused a stir, concerning Norwegian
law's definition on public and private space for a
proposed porn casting session for Fluid.
Yes, i like our dialogue to be open. Although there
did happen some e-mail cc confusion.
(2) concerning your use of the word 'moralistic' on milk,
i am a bit confused about this critique..
>> >>while i agree that art has no obligation to be moralistic, it has
>>to accept >> a critique that questions symbolic associations that an
>>artwork implies;
>> >> while i can follow the porn/sperm/milk/aids argument, i find
>>the >>representation of this relation in the piece unconvincing; the
>>implied
>> >> moralism of the piece itself, ie by relating the consumption of
>>internet >>porn (perpetrators?) to the dying of AIDS victims in
>>africa, has the >>opposite of the transgressive impact that you
>>suggest. for me, it >>re-introduces a heavy-handed moralism into a
>>domain of (highly ambiguous) >>pleasure.
Are you suggesting the toll actually disrupt some kind of pleasure?
and the indication of my being moralistic (by tolling in africa)
actually deprive this pleasure. Thus i fail on transgressive impact
required in an art work?? Do I, do you, really feel a thing, sorry
for the Africans, when you see the number tolling and clock counting
on Milk site??? If anything , it is apathy. As how the flood of thumbnails
porn images reduce you to....where and how to revive this pleasure, however,
ambiguous???
In this case, i am also a bit confused of another comment you made earlier...
>>>> i think that the correlation of internet porn images and AIDS
>>>>victims in >>africa is spurious - it would maybe make sense to
>>>>relate it to cases of HIV >>infection (and AIDS deaths) among sex
>>>>workers in europe, for instance,
Now, would this make me less moralistic???
Would the sex workers's AIDS toll be more corresponding to the porn icons?
more concerned of the deep europe condition of sex trade??
oh, sorry to take up much of your time
and much of spectre posting space.
for clarification sake, i rest my case.
much thanks for sharing the critical dialogue
shulea