9.05.2006
The New Media Backpedal
posted Aug 07, 2006 by Nato Thompson
The fact that radical actions flourished under Clinton but not under Bush is highly bizarre (if not somewhat amazing at the same time). Surely, one must consider the radical political landscape in the United States at this time and attempt to gain a handle on how best to organize radical political action.
Political action is an open-ended concept that for the sake of this discussion, we will break down into two particular modes. There are the classically produced leftist grassroots political actions that work in terms of lobbying, social organizing, banners, street protest, and muckraking journalisms. On the other hand, there are the more, how do you say, theoretical politics. That is to say, the politics of meaning that encompass our everyday experience, often informed by postmodern books, that don't particularly make it onto the front page of the New York Times nor Democracy Now for that matter. Public space, the politics of work, the disciplinary society, the commodification of counter culture, the spectacle, Agamben's camp, ambiguity as a form of meaning production and on and on. These are subjects often written about in lefty art magazines (such as Rhizome) but magically dropped in the left magazines like the Nation, Z Magazine, even Clamor.
There is clearly a divide in these two worlds. It is probably not a new one for many of us as it haunts new media in particular. To clarify the gap a little more: there is a form of political resistance that approach politics in what appears to be a straightforward didactic manner. The framework of analysis runs in conjunction with the tradition of street protest in the United States, Democracy Now is often playing on the radio, there is a mystical tally on the newest heinous action in Congress, lobby groups, the prison industry, and utility is often the guide post for political action. And then there are those that are at times somewhat more aloof. They can discuss the character of resistance available in taking a short cut home, they can discuss the Panopticon and the level of systemic biopower available in the military welfare state, they can critique the manner in which contemporary radical politics buy into the spectacle of counter culture, and utility is often considered a complicated riddle not easily solved. Now, you might chuckle or be angered by such a flagrant forced dichotomy and I realize there is movement between these two approaches. But surely the reader understands this divide. Yet, the ability to bridge the gap vacillates dramatically depending on the political temperature of the times.
I would go out on a limb and say that during the second Clinton administration, art and politics were allowed to be a bit more theoretic. Questions of the commodification of counter culture, movements toward extending public space and the like were embraced and merged into a growing political movement that used the anti-globalization movement as its spine. Theoretical analysis and pragmatic political gestures merged haphazardly into an evolving platform of political process.
Life under Bush is quite different. The disappearance of a coordinated political movement has produced a painful lacuna in the political art scene. The theoretically minded politics of public space, ambiguity and visual culture have in large part retreated toward the academic sub sphere in lieu of a political movement to connect with. Would it be erroneous to place art and technology directly along this path? The radical action leftist magazines have moved back toward embracing a pragmatic politics that utilize typical forms of political resistance (eg. Move.On.org).
Without a pragmatic grassroots political movement to connect the dots of political action, aesthetic micro-resistances (such as most art and technology gambits) ultimately add up to gestures of aesthetic and identity posturing interpretable primarily through the lens of new media social capital. This is not to say the need for this form of politics has dried up, but that it lacks a necessary cohesive political community that brings the utilitarian, the ambiguous and the desirous into a unified sphere.
In the face of this, what is to be done? New movements emerge (such as the growth of the immigration movement) and an infrastructure of meaning (magazines, spaces, organizations, collectives, radio shows) needs to be produced to close the gap. An infrastructure must be produced that manages the tensions between the theoretical needs of ambiguity and skepticism with the pragmatics of didacticism and action. Without considering the manner in which our efforts work toward this end, new media efficacy runs parallel with the naivetÇ and convenient posturing that is the current landscape of identity under spectacle. These are perilous times and the most risky and beneficial thing we can do, is to build bridges. We must reconnect the dots and apply questions of spectacle, ambiguous new media interventions, and theory driven actions on the same platform as the pragmatic politics of grassroots politics. We must work toward getting back on the streets and challenging power head on. Without an accompanying pragmatic approach, new media drifts backward toward gadgetry, conventions, listservs, and geeky obscurity.
posted Aug 07, 2006 by Nato Thompson
The fact that radical actions flourished under Clinton but not under Bush is highly bizarre (if not somewhat amazing at the same time). Surely, one must consider the radical political landscape in the United States at this time and attempt to gain a handle on how best to organize radical political action.
Political action is an open-ended concept that for the sake of this discussion, we will break down into two particular modes. There are the classically produced leftist grassroots political actions that work in terms of lobbying, social organizing, banners, street protest, and muckraking journalisms. On the other hand, there are the more, how do you say, theoretical politics. That is to say, the politics of meaning that encompass our everyday experience, often informed by postmodern books, that don't particularly make it onto the front page of the New York Times nor Democracy Now for that matter. Public space, the politics of work, the disciplinary society, the commodification of counter culture, the spectacle, Agamben's camp, ambiguity as a form of meaning production and on and on. These are subjects often written about in lefty art magazines (such as Rhizome) but magically dropped in the left magazines like the Nation, Z Magazine, even Clamor.
There is clearly a divide in these two worlds. It is probably not a new one for many of us as it haunts new media in particular. To clarify the gap a little more: there is a form of political resistance that approach politics in what appears to be a straightforward didactic manner. The framework of analysis runs in conjunction with the tradition of street protest in the United States, Democracy Now is often playing on the radio, there is a mystical tally on the newest heinous action in Congress, lobby groups, the prison industry, and utility is often the guide post for political action. And then there are those that are at times somewhat more aloof. They can discuss the character of resistance available in taking a short cut home, they can discuss the Panopticon and the level of systemic biopower available in the military welfare state, they can critique the manner in which contemporary radical politics buy into the spectacle of counter culture, and utility is often considered a complicated riddle not easily solved. Now, you might chuckle or be angered by such a flagrant forced dichotomy and I realize there is movement between these two approaches. But surely the reader understands this divide. Yet, the ability to bridge the gap vacillates dramatically depending on the political temperature of the times.
I would go out on a limb and say that during the second Clinton administration, art and politics were allowed to be a bit more theoretic. Questions of the commodification of counter culture, movements toward extending public space and the like were embraced and merged into a growing political movement that used the anti-globalization movement as its spine. Theoretical analysis and pragmatic political gestures merged haphazardly into an evolving platform of political process.
Life under Bush is quite different. The disappearance of a coordinated political movement has produced a painful lacuna in the political art scene. The theoretically minded politics of public space, ambiguity and visual culture have in large part retreated toward the academic sub sphere in lieu of a political movement to connect with. Would it be erroneous to place art and technology directly along this path? The radical action leftist magazines have moved back toward embracing a pragmatic politics that utilize typical forms of political resistance (eg. Move.On.org).
Without a pragmatic grassroots political movement to connect the dots of political action, aesthetic micro-resistances (such as most art and technology gambits) ultimately add up to gestures of aesthetic and identity posturing interpretable primarily through the lens of new media social capital. This is not to say the need for this form of politics has dried up, but that it lacks a necessary cohesive political community that brings the utilitarian, the ambiguous and the desirous into a unified sphere.
In the face of this, what is to be done? New movements emerge (such as the growth of the immigration movement) and an infrastructure of meaning (magazines, spaces, organizations, collectives, radio shows) needs to be produced to close the gap. An infrastructure must be produced that manages the tensions between the theoretical needs of ambiguity and skepticism with the pragmatics of didacticism and action. Without considering the manner in which our efforts work toward this end, new media efficacy runs parallel with the naivetÇ and convenient posturing that is the current landscape of identity under spectacle. These are perilous times and the most risky and beneficial thing we can do, is to build bridges. We must reconnect the dots and apply questions of spectacle, ambiguous new media interventions, and theory driven actions on the same platform as the pragmatic politics of grassroots politics. We must work toward getting back on the streets and challenging power head on. Without an accompanying pragmatic approach, new media drifts backward toward gadgetry, conventions, listservs, and geeky obscurity.
