View source for SM Thesis outline v3

'''THESIS OUTLINE''' <br>


'''INTRODUCTION''' <br>
'''Proposition''' <br>
-Proposition for art as propaganda (defined as a tool of worldmaking) within a world of competing realties <br>
-Propaganda as taking place in a political arena of competing ideas. A competition that has erupted and is characterized by citizen-led forms of propaganda (memes, cypherpunks, artists, hacktivists, activists etc). bolstered by online media as well as a large base of civil societies.  <br>
-This paper analyzes the artist’s role in participating in popular propaganda. <br>

'''Using the term Propaganda''' <br>
-The term propaganda often elicits a knee-jerk negative response.  <br>
-Staal’s paper outlines the origin and coherence of propaganda within democracy in his thesis. <br> 
-Sinclair said all art is propaganda.  <br>
-My concern is with politically-instrumentalized art. I prefer the term propaganda art as I understand propaganda to be political art aimed at generating a worldview for the public. In other words, propaganda art is politically motivated artwork that can be used by political agents.  <br>
-The term propaganda invites careful reflection as well. <br>


'''ART AS POLITICS''' <br>
'''-art is political by nature''' <br>
-The existence of art in a neoliberal and class-based sphere sets up art to have political stake. <br>
-the historical co-optation and historical alignment of art with politics <br>

-'''that means art is currently serving a politics.''' What ideology does contemporary propaganda serve today?  <br>
-That politics is neoliberal <br>
-reference to 9.5 thesis that defines art world as operated by neoliberal elites as a class <br>

'''-artists for a new politics: creating popular art propaganda''' <br>
-Definition of art propaganda: propaganda as performance of power  <br>
-Staal defines three forms: Assemblism, Embedded practice, Organizational Art <br>
-Performance suggests both the exercise of power as well as the staging/aesthetic representation of power.  <br>

'''-the difference between political art and propaganda:'''  <br>
-How is propagandic art different from any political art which has an embedded ideology? I would argue it is in its usability by political agents, with an audience outside the sphere of the art world.  <br>

'''-nothing new: propaganda art’s historical basis''' <br>
-A very brief historical summary: Constructivism to Socialist Realism, Futurism to Nazi Germany, Abstract Impressionism to Contemporary Hollywood and gaming <br>


'''NOW IS THE TIME''' <br>
'''Theoretical basis for the political power of images''' <br>
-The primacy of images and the following theoretical interpretations <br>
-its ambiguous position as low-meaning/devalued (as per Groys; Going Public or Steyerl; Poor Image; or Benjamin; Mechanical Reproduction) coupled (paradoxically?) to its cultural primacy and authority. <br>
-Levi Strauss – semblance of evidence (image documentation) <br>
-Badiou – passion for the real as a staged event (image documentation) <br>
-Groys – image as icon (a revolution) (image documentation) <br>
-Flusser (and Steyerl)– images as causes of events (image documentation) <br>

'''-Art as a Site of Creativity: why artists can make a difference beyond the art sphere''' <br>
-As artists we are trained in visualities, subtleties of message, careful handling of issues, wide range of media, and resourcefulness. <br>
-art as an effective tool for intervening in media. Propaganda through all channels: all mediums of print, radio , digital, art, non-art, etc. <br>
-Creative force of artists as a source of new tactics: given that old tactics become blunted in the evolution of politics  <br>

'''-Now is the Time: The de-monopolization of ‘manufacturing consent’''' <br>
the monopolization of mass media that has underpinned historical models of propaganda no longer holds true.  <br>
-Social media’s success in organizing the Arab Spring, the Occupy Movement, and many other public protests.  <br>

'''-sites of struggle: no longer the museum''' <br>
-Artists should focus energy on the political sphere of action, currently taking the form of overt propaganda online, rather than in museums, galleries etc.  <br>
-Precarity has been identified by Judith Butler and Guy Standing as the new site of political struggle; and the defining condition that can bring about a ‘class’ solidarity organized to overcome it.  <br>
-Both Butler and Staal argue for a form of public mass movements termed “assembly”.  <br>

'''-high stakes''' <br>
-Propaganda has been first and foremost dominated by the propaganda for The War on Terror.  <br>
-left can’t meme and other political failurs– what the art world can offer to the left  <br>

'''-the instrumentalization of art''' <br>
-should we worry about art’s instrumentalization? <br>
-I will argue that it does not threaten art institution’s independence. <br>
-Aesthetic languages as per verbal language theories (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis ). In other words, can an aesthetic language operate upon a weltanschauung along the lines that a verbal languages operates <br>


'''LANGUAGES OF POWER: DEVELOPING AN IMAGE-BASED LANGUAGE OF AESTHETICS'''  <br>
'''-aesthetic languages of power'''  <br>
-Currently a repetition of historical mix of counterculture art as in extreme right futurists and extreme left dadists (Cramer, lecture DNL Infliltration).  <br>

'''-Revolutionary left imagery and its relevance''' <br>
-The aesthetics of popular propaganda are not created by artists ex nihilo  <br>
-Staal takes Butler’s reference of the visual collage of tents, signs and banners as an aesthetic vocabulary (Staal, p.310  <br>
-Not an Alternative takes up cordon tape and cement blocks and appropriates them as visual signifiers  (Staal, p.323).  <br>

'''-Fascist imagery and its (possible) co-optation by left.'''  <br>
-Not unlike the right’s co-optation of transgressivity. Note Beyonce and her performance in stark contrast with Ai Weiwei’s staging. <br>
-Fascism showed that the use of art could be used to provide a visible surface to complex or theoretical ideologies difficult to unravel or swallow.  <br>
-Groys analysis of the image as icon is not far from the function of fascist art: it places the world of image and symbol within the same realm as the everyday reality, where one prefigures the other and are not separate.  <br>

'''-other languages of power?''' <br>
-look into ‘third way’ political models of Latin America <br>


'''LENS-BASED CASE STUDIES''' <br>
'''-Example 1:''' Yael Bartana’s “and Europe will be Stunned” and “What if Women Ruled the World?” (Fascist imagery) <br>
'''-Example 2:'''  Jordi Colomer (populist, revolutionary language)  <br>
'''-Example 3:''' my own work, alas! <br>


'''CONCLUSION''' <br>
-what is at stake for political art as politically useable art? <br>
-new demands for solidarity across political and economic spectrum including development of the ‘precarait’ (Zizek, Davis, Chukrov) <br>
-the jeapordizing of art’s autonomy in exchange for power  <br>
-why propaganda and instrumentalization doesn’t jeapordize art’s autonomy, and how the art object will continue to exist in a neoliberal model (so breathe easy) <br>


REFERENCES <br>
All carefully organized in Mendeley but off the top of my head: <br>
Theoretical: Alain Badiou, Boris Groys, Vilem Flusser, Pierre Bourdieau, Jonas Staal, Judith Butler, Maria Hlavajova, Tania Bruguera, Stephen Wright, Slavoj Zizek, Ben Davis <br>