Michael Benson: The Artist is Present: To witness the exhibition “Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present” at the Museum of Modern Art – the institution’s first major performance art retrospective – is to experience both the ultimate victory and the last gasp of Titoism. A 40-year retrospective look at Abramovic’s work, it couldn’t be anything other than the zenith of her career, a kind of ultimate, brilliantly-lit endorsement by the US art world’s inner-circle nomenklatura. And as a gilded platform for her work, in which videos and stills of her original events have here been interlarded with “reperformances” by younger collaborators, the show is a weird compound creation—a retrospective centering on a live event (the artist is in fact present); a look back staffed by naked young bodies; and all in all, a remarkable sight for those accustomed to MOMA’s usually more decorous halls.
It’s also, unmistakably, an Event. Because whatever you think about Abramovic’s gestures, which are as suffused with self-absorption (some would call it egotism) as Rembrandt’s canvases are with dark tones, they’re undeniably worthy of attention. Equally undeniably, there’s something undeniable about them, if I can put it that way.
How does this represent a victory for Titoism? Let’s set aside that Abramovic continues to identify herself as a Yugoslav, making her almost as rare a bird as the Dodo. Let’s set aside, also, the hagiolatry lurking behind the scale of the gigantic black and white photo of the artist which stands at least 8 meters high at the entrance of the show, looking astonishingly like a latter-day manifestation of communist-era personality cults. (Is it possible that Abramovic doesn’t recognize this?)
As this retrospective eventually makes clear, the Yugoslav regime reacted to the unrestful events of Europe in 1968 in a way diametrically opposite that of kindred regimes elsewhere in Eastern Europe. It’s difficult to imagine the authorities of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary or Romania reacting to the arrival of what could only be described as radical ideas among their young people (even if “only” within the context of art) with anything other than consternation, surveillance, intimidation, and sometimes, arrest and prison time. To take one of many examples, the rock band Plastic People of the Universe formed in Prague within months of the Soviet Invasion in 1968. But it didn’t take long for them to be forced into the underground and forbidden to perform, with some of their members sentenced to prison terms.
At first, and directly proximate to that gigantic portrait of a serenely self-suffused Abramovic, MOMA’s curators attempt with words on the wall to position her as belonging to a quasi-dissident tradition. After reading that she is a pioneer of performance art, which is indubitable, viewers are informed “In the 1970’s she introduced her body as the object, subject, and medium of her work, starting with a series of performances antithetical to the political climate of socialist Yugoslavia.”
While this is true as far as it goes, you could say the same thing about the radical art experiments taking place at more or less the same time in the United States, the UK, France, and other western countries, sometimes with more dire consequences than Abramovic ever had to contend with. In fact if you take even a cursory look at the history of New York City’s Living Theater, a radically experimental theater group founded in 1947 by actor Judith Malina and painter-poet Julian Beck, you will discover a history of arrests and harassment by the authorities, particularly in the 1960s and 1970’s, either on trumped-up charges of tax evasion or equally ludicrous accusations of “indecent exposure” – as though they were producing pornography, not art.
Contrast this with Abramovic’s work, which was also frequently conducted unclothed. By the time visitors to the show pass the text quoted above and enter the first gallery room, there’s no hiding that many of her most radical gestures took place unmolested and in full public view in Belgrade. Some, in fact, unfolded in a student cultural center converted for that purpose by the Titoist regime from a secret police barracks – talk about symbolism! – after student protests in 1968. Fast forward, then, to 2010 and New York City. What we have, for the next two and a half months, is an implicit continuity between that evaporated Yugoslavia and MOMA, in which a first stage provided and subsidized by a vanished regime extends – voila! – trans-Atlantic more than four decades later, having dissolved long since in its home country, now becoming part and parcel of MOMA’s polished floors. From nomenklatura to nomenklatura. Call it metempsychosis.
In Abramovic’s 1974 performance “Rhythm 5,” which unfolded on the ground of the courtyard behind the Student Cultural Center, the artist drenched a large wooden five-pointed star shape with 100 liters of auto gas. Here’s what followed, in her words:
"I set fire to the star. I walk around it. I cut my hair and throw the clumps into each point of the star. I cut my toe-nails and throw the clippings into each point of the star. I walk into the star and lie down on the empty surface. Lying down, I fail to notice that the flames have used up all the oxygen. I lose consciousness. The viewers do not notice, because I am supine. When a flame touches my leg and I still show no reaction, two viewers come into the star and carry me out of it. I am confronted with my physical limitations, the performance is cut short."
A number of her performances end this way – they are “cut short” for one reason or another, either due to “physical limitations” or to avoid violence. When I see a DVD of “Rhythm 5” at MOMA, I picture the Marshall chuckling to himself somewhere else in Belgrade; Dedinje, for example. Seated in a chair rife with gold braid, he has a Cuban cigar in one hand and snifter of cognac in the other. Perhaps he is informed, days later or even on that very evening, that this event by the daughter of two Partisan heroes centered on a five pointed star, the very symbol of Communism. His chuckle turns into open laughter. It isn’t malicious in the least, this laughter; rather it’s suffused with enjoyment at the skill with which he’s playing his own game.
Because in providing a sand-box for the kids to play in, in effect, he has achieved so much at one stroke. He’s exposed neighboring Socialist regimes as fraudulent and tremulous. He’s simultaneously co-opted and channeled a stream of energy on the part of “his” young people that, if overtly opposed by the state, could in fact have proven dangerous. And not least, he’s proven worthy of both Western open-society admiration (look, he doesn’t throw them in jail – he gives them a student cultural center!) and that of his own citizens (for the same reason). It’s brilliant, and five decades later, we have a “Yugoslav” artist endorsed and enshrined for all to see in the central crown jewel of all contemporary art museums.
A few years ago another major New York museum, this time the Guggenheim, got this dynamic precisely wrong at their Abramovic retrospective; you could say they bought the wrong party line. Under a photo of “Rhythm 5” on their website, we read to this day Nancy Spector discussing an artist who, as she may not have been entirely aware, came and went as she pleased, commuting from Belgrade to Paris, performing with equal ease in Yugoslavia or the rest of the world. “Though personal in origin,” writes Spector, “the explosive force of Abramovic’s art spoke to a generation in Yugoslavia undergoing the tightening control of Communist rule.”
If this is tightening, one is entitled to ask, bring on the straight jacket! None of which is to diminish the magnitude of Abramovic’s achievements. To walk through the many halls at MOMA representing her life’s work is to encounter a creative force both prolific and consistently provocative, even if the State felt no need to rise to the occasion. It can also be an experience of nostalgia, not of the Yugonostalgic kind – after all, most of her work was conducted abroad, despite the observations above – but rather for a vanished era of 1960’s and 1970’s experimentation. It was a highly fertile period long since buried under waves of subsequently defunct “-isms,” with even post-Modernism expiring on top of the heap well before the turn of the century.
There’s an eerie quality to the recreations of some of her work, which are staffed by a committed group of 36 people trained by Abramovic in what NY performance artist Laurie Anderson recently called “Marina boot camp” in the countryside north of New York City. While these restagings can’t recapture the social moment the original works were made within, they do possess their own power. Visitors seeking to move from the first gallery room to the second can chose to pass between a pair of closely positioned naked bodies, for example – a restaging of one of many pieces represented at MOMA that are taken from the decade-plus collaboration between Abramovic and the German artist Frank Uwe Laysiepen, or Ulay. Their 1977 piece “Imponderabilia,” staged in the Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna in Bologna, is also best described in Abramovic’s words:
"Naked we stand opposite each other in the museum entrance. The public entering the museum has to turn sideways to move through the limited space between us. Everyone wanting to get past has to choose one of us."
And there they are, at MOMA, not Abramovic and Ulay at the narrow doorway but two naked women (though at other times it’s a man and a woman, as in the original; shifts rotate throughout the day). Passing between them provides a frisson of reality—a radically opposite sensation from the cybernetic virtuality of so much contemporary art. Elsewhere in the show, a naked man lies under a human skeleton, with the (artificial, we’re told) skeleton “respirating” along with its still-living partner (originally in a 1995 video called “Cleaning the Mirror II,” it was restaged in 2005 as “Nude with Skeleton.” Both times Abramovic provided the living component of the macabre pair).
Another gallery presents a startling sight: a young woman, entirely naked, arms outstretched in a cruciform shape, essentially mounted on the wall like an enlarged butterfly specimen. On closer look, it’s apparent that she’s seated on an almost invisible bicycle seat, but because her legs descend on either side of it she seems suspended in mid-air, staring straight forward, her arms unsupported in what clearly must take an enormous effort. (When I described her as being in a “crucifix position” to MOMA press representative Daniela Stigh, who I had called to find out the title of the piece, I was told that “she didn’t mean it to be explicitly a crucifix, though of course many interpretations exist.” Well, ok! Glad we sorted that out. Called “Luminosity,” the piece was first staged in 1997, with Abramovic, of course, in the starring role.)
As one may expect, not just from the name of the show and the gigantic personality-cult photo at the entrance (titled “Portrait with Flowers,” 2009), the centerpiece of “The Artist is Present” is in fact the Artist, indubitably Present. Clad in a bright red gown, at least on the day I went, illuminated by four vast film lights shining through diffusion gels, Abramovic is seated at a table across from a chair in which any visitor is invited to sit for as long as he or she wishes—during which time the Artist will gaze serenely into their eyes. And she will be so seated for every day of the show’s 10-week run; seated, in fact, for what we are told will be 700 hours, in what’s being billed the longest-running performance piece ever staged. (See it, live, at http://moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2010/marinaabramovic/)
Despite featuring the Artist in present tense, this center-piece is also a restaging or reinterpretation of a collaborative work first performed with Ulay in 22 cities between 1981-1987, under the title “Night Sea Crossing.” In the original, which was performed about 90 times, it was Ulay and his lover Abramovic who gazed into each other’s eyes, for hour after hour—until pain or exhaustion forced them to stop. In 1988, evidently for much the same reason, the couple broke up after twelve years of intense collaboration. Their final performance involved walking towards each other from opposite end of the Great Wall of China, he starting from the Gobi Desert and she from the Yellow Sea. Three months after starting this bipolar journey, they met for the last time and parted ways. Since then, her career has prospered, while he has largely vanished from the scene – though he did, of course, have a recent retrospective at SKUC, in Ljubljana, curated by Tevz Logar.
When I arrived for the preview of “The Artist is Present” in March, Abramovic had already been sitting at her table for several hours, and a line had formed of people intent on pulling up a chair across from her. But three hours previously the crowd had been much sparser. As New York-based Bosnian-American artist Soba Seric described it, around that time a tall man with a frazzled beard and dark clothing entered the vast atrium space in which Abramovic will sit for the next two and a half months. Striding over on long legs, he eased himself down in the chair opposite the Artist. It was Frank Uwe Laysiepen, a.k.a. Ulay. After a moment of recognition, Abramovic began to weep. Reaching across the table, she grasped his hands. He soon rose and vanished into the growing crowd. Her 700 hours of sitting had begun.

Joss Winn: Tiqqun: The Cybernetic Hypothesis: I haven't read this yet, but I see that Tiqqun's The Cybernetic Hypothesis has been translated into English recently. It might be of interest to people on this list.
http://cybernet.jottit.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiqqun
Joss

Alan Sondheim: sondheimogram [x11: plato, sound, kids, rwanda, homeless, 2L, new vid, iii, baghdad: [digested @ nettime --mod(tb)]
Alan Sondheim <sondheim at panix.com>
plato's cave of reflections and mirrors, maybe medusa, the real My sound files are in a new archive - please check it out! Growing up here and having children here: for Rwanda [...]

Rob Dyke: An oil slick the size of Puerto Rico....: On units of measurement.
SoWs (size of Wales) SoBs (size of Belgium) OSPs (Olympic swimming pools) DDBs (Double-decker buses) and so on....
Thus the Kruger national park in South Africa measures 1 SoW, as do Lesotho and Israel, whereas Lake Nzerakera in Tanzania is 2 SoBs. [...]

Alan Sondheim: America (video produced in Second Life):
America
http://www.alansondheim.org/america.mp4
Second of the completed films in Second Life; this is part of the online residency I have through HUMlab, Umea University (thanks in particular to Sachiko and Jim). This is the first time that language is really dominant [...]

UBERMORGEN.COM: Oil Painting: The supreme disciple of art. The oil slick, the size of Puerto Rico, is beginning to paint coastlines:
May 6, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OIL PAINTING: THE SUPREME DISCIPLINE OF ART. THE OIL SLICK, THE SIZE OF PUERTO RICO, IS BEGINNING TO PAINT COASTLINES
Digital Oil Paintings: http://UBERMORGEN.COM/DEEPHORIZON
The supreme discipline of art - oil painting - is back. [...]

Rob Myers: The Return of DRM: On Tue, 18 May 2010 17:12:09 -0700 (PDT), Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi at yahoo.com> wrote:
[...]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y
- Rob.

Rebecca Zorach: "Critical strategies in art and media" gets it wrong: Not that I was around then, but: Casey Hayden and Mary King wrote "Feminism and the Civil Rights Movement" in 1965. NOW was founded in 1966. And (forgive the parochialism but I love this example): in May 1967 this poster appeared at the University of Chicago: a man [...]

Calin Dan: "Critical strategies in art and media" gets it wrong: Currently I have no means to assess Michael's judgment with respect to the publication itself (as its actual content eluded my quick web search).
But I am going to save the final comment as an accurate, up to date, schematic description of what visual arts aspired (and largely [...]

Michael H Goldhaber: "Critical strategies in art and media" gets it wrong: Martha,
I perhaps incorrectly left out feminism because it seemed to me it flowered after '68, more than before. But that might have been more especially in the organized "movement."( The first noted feminist march was in '70. The Stonewall riots were in '69. [...]

martha rosler: "Critical strategies in art and media" gets it wrong: wrong? well, it depends on what you are referring to. I begin in sympathy & agreement with what you are writing for the most part. The civil rights movement began in the 50s and was quite powerful in our minds, and then the other events you mention followed along. Yet I would quibble a bit. [...]

eyescratch: Announcing: _feralC_ - A Socumentary: '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''++++++++'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''+''''''''''' '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;''''''''''''''''''''''';;;;;::;''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;'''''''''''''''''''''''''';'';;;'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;'''''''''''''''''':;';;;;;';;'';:''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;'''''''''''''''''+`;'';;;::;':';;:'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;'''''''''''''''+':`;;;';;;;`:'.'';'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;;'''''''''''''''',`';:;;;;;;:;,;;';''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;;''''''''''''''';;`;;:::;;;;;;+:'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;;;'''''''''''''','`;:::::;;;;;+;;''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;;;''''''''''''''.' :::::,:;;;''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;;'''''''''''''''`+ :::::,:;';';;;'+''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;;'''''''''''''''`+`:;::::,,:;';'';'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;''''''''''''''''.'`;;:;:::::'':;';'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;''''''''''''''';,+.;;';:::::'::;'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;;''''''''''''''::';:;;;::::'':;;''+''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;;;;;;''''''''''.;'#;;;''::'+;;;;;''+'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;;;;''''''''''''.:'#';;'';''':;';'''+'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;;;;''''''''''''`,'+++';'+++';';;'''+'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;;;;;;'''''''''' :'##+#+++++''';;'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;;;;;;'''''''''+ .;++#++++++''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;;;;;;'''''''''' ,'++++++++''''''''''+''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;;;;;;'''''''''' ,++++++++++'''''''+'+''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;;;;;;'''''''''' ,++++++++++'''''''+++''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''; 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Facebook yes, but twitter no? Banished to -ann list? Nettime passing on group therapy / going suicidal instead? There. Added ascii art. Now post it please!
+++ NEW LOs BAnditOs in HIDEF: http://vimeo.com/11829083
On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 6:14 AM, mez breeze <netwurker at gmail.com> wrote to nettime-l <nettime-l at kein.org>: . Announcing: _feralC_ - A Socumentary
At: http://netwurker.net Commissioned by: Arnolfini http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/ Hosted by: Alias Frequencies http://aliasfrequencies.org/
_feralC_ is a socumentary* which is textually driven by the interactions of five Twitter chars [primary characters or entities] and their Pupa Mistress [PM. The PM initially functions as a Twitter based information hub for the interactions between the chars and other contributing entities [such as yourself]. These additional contributing entities, or secondary chars, may or may not be biological-based: please note that Synthetic individuals may contribute to the project’s tweet flow. Please play nice with the Synths.
As the five primary chars [PCs] are unveiled, “audience” members are encouraged to participate in the project’s flow by following and responding to each individual char via Twitter. If you are tweet-responding, please make sure to tag your tweets with the #feralC hashtag. And be warned: if you choose to actively participate you’ll be drawn into the narrative flow – including episodic summaries posted at netwurker.net. If you don’t want your input to be incorporated in this fashion, please message the PM directly or via her email.
If engagement isn’t high on your list, feel free to absorb the feralC Tweet list and/or blog entries and contribute via comments instead. For more comprehensive information on how to participate, please visit the Instructions Page at: http://netwurker.net/instructions/
"_feralC_ uses Twitter as its principle story-telling medium. The _feralC_ story develops as the 5 primary chars [characters] chat and interact through their tweet dialogues: @Gossama @Hud Ballardrina @Shadow McClone @Miss Stressa @Quentin Reader
The story unfolds via live Sessions where both primary chars and secondary chars [see below] engage with each other. These Sessions normally last between 1 – 2 hours. Check the Welcome Page http://netwurker.net/ for regular updates regarding Session times. Each Session is monitored and recorded by the Pupa Mistress – a “Behavioural Augmentologist” who oversees the chars through her Twitter stream...Pupa also analyses and summarises char [inter]actions via various blog posts featured on the Welcome Page: these are categorised by Series, Episode and Session numbers.
As _feralC_ is dynamically designed to incorporate audience responses, the developing story will also be shaped by you and others who choose to participate [you're "secondary chars" or SCs].  Primary chars may also respond sporadically to you – the secondary chars – outside scheduled Session times, so don’t be shy in responding through replies at any time. In order to become part of the dialogue and contribute to the storyline, please make sure to tag your tweets with the #feralC hashtag if contributing via Twitter. If you’re not a Twitter user you can still participate via comments on this blog [please still include the text "#feralC" in your comment if you're directly addressing or responding to a char] or email the PM with questions or contributions.
An easy way to passively follow all 5 chars and their collective dialogue is to regularly check in with the _feralC_ Twitter list: http://twitter.com/pupa_mistress/feralc . You can also search for updates on the project via Twitter by typing in “#feralC” into the Search bar. There are various clues peppered throughout the project that are designed be pieced together to develop the story. Please actively question the chars and openly speculate regarding how these elements fit and shape the storyline. There’ll also be elements that you’ll encounter during _feralC_ that incorporate Augmented Reality and QR Code technology.
Please be patient while the story unfolds: the project is designed to progress over the long term. Most of all, be curious, search for clues and enjoy delving into the _feralC_ world: the chars [well at least *most* of them] don’t bite..."
—————————————————————————————————————————–
* “A “socumentary” is an entertainment form that merges Choose Your Own Adventure /Alternate Reality Drama/Social Game and Social Networking conventions. The result is a type of synthetic mockumentary that exists entirely within social media formats.
-- Reality Engineer> Synthetic Environment Strategist> Game[r + ] Theorist. ::http://unhub.com/netwurker :: _______________________________________________ nettime-ann mailing list nettime-ann at nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-ann

Morlock Elloi: The Return of DRM: I got few private cheers, but you are correct - any real discourse is gone from nettime. Few polite proclamations, news items from newager/treehugger/antiglobalist/neocommunist arenas, and that's it. Everything is so polite and acceptable.
ARGUE WITH ME, FUCKERS!
Now that I got that off my chest .. [...]

Patrice Riemens: Middlesex: :The occupation is over, the campaign continues]: Some more context on the previous post
bwo Sarai Reader List/ Jeebesh
The occupation is over, the campaign continuesPosted on 15 May 2010 by phallward http://savemdxphil.com/ At 8pm on Friday 14 May 2010, Middlesex University management served a High Court injunction to end a twelve-day student occupation of the Mansion building at Trent Park. The occupation began on Tuesday 4 May, when Philosophy students gathered to protest the management’s abrupt decision to close their unique and successful programmes. The occupation quickly succeeded in focusing remarkable levels of national and international attention on the scandalous situation at Middlesex.
The injunction came into effect at 8am on Saturday 15 May. The students finally decided to end their occupation on Saturday afternoon so as to join a rally, outside the Mansion, in support of the campaign to save philosophy at Middlesex. During the rally, Tariq Ali and members of the campaign spoke out forcefully against the management’s decision to close the programmes, the way this decision was taken, and the way its consequences and implications have been handled.
Today the University management had a clear choice. They could have continued a process of negotiation with the students that management initiated, belatedly and reluctantly, after immense international pressure, on Thursday 13 May. They could have discussed concrete steps for the renewal of MA and PhD recruitment. They could have considered, with their enthusiastic students and staff, options for redesigning and relaunching the BA programme in Philosophy.
Or else: they could have made an appeal to the High Court in order to gain the legal power to drive their students out.
True to form, the management has made its decision. Faced with students who were determined to protect their subject and the future of humanities teaching at Middlesex, management decided to treat them like criminals. Rather than talk to them face to face about the renewal of their programmes, management decided to bully them off the campus.
Middlesex management has been bullying its staff and students for many years now. As everyone knows, the power of a bully ends when the people he intimidates band together and confront him. Middlesex philosophy students have taken a first step towards such confrontation: we appeal to other students and staff, at Middlesex and elsewhere, to join us in this struggle.
This occupation is over; the campaign continues.
To protest the management’s decision to expel the students, please send a message to the board of governors and members of the University executive, to the email addresses below; if you are willing for us to post your letter on our website along with other letters of support, please BCC it to savemdxphil at gmail.com.
Please check this website(www.savemdxphil.com) for future events and regular updates.
The Campaign to Save Philosophy at Middlesex Saturday 15 May 2010 www.savemdxphil.com savemdxphil at gmail.com

John Young: "Critical strategies in art and media" gets it wrong: The radical right of radical rights of extreme self-interest could be added to the list of pre-1968 influences.
And the aesthiticization of politics and culture was on the rise, again, then getting a toehold, now a hegemon, primarily through the supremacism of literature over the other arts, succinctly through the vaunting of criticism -- alway text, blind to other types -- then, the hypervaluation of critical theorism now, legal theory the undergirder of privileged discourse.
The mutual admiration of critical theorists and lawyers and their hegemonic declaration of "a nation of laws, not of men," nicely comports the demand that literacy is must have to be a "responsible" citizen, that is a believer in writ. It is not often noted that critical theorists and lawyers are conjoined in the radical rights of extreme self-interest, indolent and duplicitous.
Other hegemons pre-68 are the rise of publishing, including publish or perish employment terrorism which produced agri-businesses of printed matter of much bulk and low nourishment, volumes as well as fattened bibliographies and resumes.
Perhaps most pertinent for this hangout is the rise of academies of great bulk and low nourishment which herded youngsters into forced feeding pens, still going on, under the rubric of necessity of higher education or else marginalization and you bet, terrrifying poverty. Those to whom this was done are compelled to repeat it.
Yes, there were subcultures of this in the arts and sciences, learning from the success model of the BBA and MBA.
1968 was a peak aestheticization of politics without risk. That drug of pretenstiousness is still widely consumed. Ponder May 68 in France: its delirium remains insurpassable, while 68 elsewhere is imginary nostalgia of the deadhead.
Pre-68 sex and rock and roll was mostly prophilactic braggardy, when exposed to the post-68 actuality, STD, AIDS and overdose cleansed the experimenters seduced by marketers, then and now aided and abetted by aged addicts practicing critical theorists peddling apologia for justice system incarceraters.
In 68 youthism became the superdrug, and still is the elitism of choice for marketers of education in bulk via this very medium.

Newmedia at aol.com: "Critical strategies in art and media" gets it wrong: Michael:
I entered UW Madison in '66 and had a moderate role in the events of '68, as well as a front-row seat (since I lived on Gilman Street.) Recall that the radicals in Madtown were often "red-diaper" babies from New York, at that time, and you'll get the flavor. [...]

Richard Barbrook: Imaginary Futures - introduction to the Polish edition: This introduction was written for 'Przysz&#x142;o&#x15B;ci Wyobra&#x17C;one: od my&#x15B;l&#x105;cej maszyny do globalnej wioski' - the Polish translation of 'Imaginary Futures' which was published by Muza SA: http://www.muza.com.pl/?module=okladki&id=41865
======================= [...]

miguel leal: Fwd: End of occupation of Mansion building / Middlesex University: Begin forwarded message:
[...]

jaromil: The Return of DRM: hi Morlock,
I've waited to reply your mail for almost a week now in the vain hope that someone would join us on the fields of this prose: this is becoming now such an inspiring piece of lyricism, so pleasant to read, you truly are a good writer! but unfortunately it seems noone dares. [...]

Michael H. Goldhaber: "Critical strategies in art and media" gets it wrong: In the newly published, brief conference book or booklet , “Critical strategies in art and media:Perspectives on New Cultural Practices” at one point Ted Byfield (on the panel) asks the sensible question: “I’d like to ask a question to some of my elders here. [...]