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Information InFiltration. Superimposing art/tactical/media/culture/and/beyond.

[new] position of the institution (Avg. Score: none / Raters: 0) (#1)
by GeertLovink on Mon Oct 20th, 2003 at 04:53:58 AM EURODISCORDIA TIME
(User Info) http:;//www.laudanum.net/geert

Thanks, Stella.

One remark stroke me. "Will it question the position of the institution, or will it affirm it?"

But what if you run an institution yourself or want to start one? What makes it so progressive to question the position of institutions? Why is it so fashionable to be suspious of institutions? For me this indirectly implies that the freewheeling freelance artist or curator is somehow superior. That's false romanticism. The reality is that most people work within institutions and that outsiders (like me and perhaps you) have very little to say. OK. We got the freedom but who cares? More and more people are forced into an empoverished 'freelance' existence. That's what I find suspicious. And what I also see happening is that it is becoming very easy to ignore criticism from outside. The immaterial contract workers may be sovereign, but has very little say, with little or no resources at hand.

There is a perfectly legitimate wish of so many roaming networkers who are fed up with their electronic solitude to start their own (alternative) institution. I don't see why that should be questioned.

Instead I would argue for a mass institutionalization of scattered networks and lonesome existences. Stop hiding in the virtual. Your institutional criticism may be justified and morally PC but it sounds strategically weak to me. What it does, perhaps not intentially, is scare people of boldly taking over existing institutions or starting their own, out of the fear that they may exclude people and perhaps even have 'power' one day.

Critical Curating | 12 comments

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