:: future of the image ::
Whereas Pycon was a boost, I'm still anxious about sluggards in academe needing it handed to 'em on a golden plate, whereas the art colonies have already come through, reproducing the Fuller Syllabus almost verbatim as both museum quality and shovel ready.
So where's the buzz, outside our little OCN / CSN "meme machine" I wonder?
Last night I got an inkling: a recognized art critique played off some French intellectual's futuristic counterpoint, invoking the animist themes familiar in these writings, plus claiming a priority for the graphical over the lexical, while meanwhile cleverly obscuring their distinction.
He knew this was Obama country, so we experienced some shared mirth at the expense of certain neocon bloggists who've only just begun to discover how Shepard Fairey's work plays off of Sino-Soviet socialist realism, by going one better.
Those of us tracking the Obey Giant campaign all these years have no trouble understanding why such art would come in handy, come time to focus on something as real as the USA's presidential contest. Speaking of which, I should have said "gaggle of geese" not "gander of geese" (thx to Haim, erstwhile spar partner, on Math Forum).
Dr. W.J.T Mitchell started as he ended, by invoking popular culture, Jurassic Park and The Matrix in particular (the latter presages the image "going away" leaving nothing but transparent data -- one of two ends in a spectrum, so then we steered in between).
For those from the philosophy department (moi included), there was plenty of thinly veiled Platonism, tinged with Nietszsche's aphorisms (more a "tuning fork" than a "hammer" in this new twilight zone).
I'm grateful to Glenn for getting me out of my cave and onto the Max down through Old Town. We stumbled upon Phyllis Cole, my co-worker at CUE, friend and neighbor in Brooklyn (pre Richmond, where Dawn and I first started this business together). Phyllis is with Metro now. Cool.
We went out to Low Brow Lounge after the talk for a gear shift, noticed other art students doing the same. Glenn and I both have art talks that'd fly with this crowd (Portland's young intelligentsia). I could do one tomorrow if called upon, have a couple others already scheduled through spring.
