Open Journal Montreal

Sometimes I think I can see the monopolies of knowledge around me, moving in and out of our language and choices. In Possession, a novel that’s all about language and choices, A.S.Byatt’s characters talk about how bemusing their modern state of analytical knowingness is. (While flirting!)

“I was thinking last night– about what you said about our generation and sex. We see it everywhere. As you say. We are very knowing. We know all sorts of other things, too — about how there isn’t a unitary ego — how we’re made up of conflicting, interacting systems of things — and I suppose we believe that? We know we are driven by desire , but we can’t see it as they did, can we?”

It’s true. That is how people in English lit flirt. But what’s more interesting is that idea about how we’re made up of different conflicting interacting systems. We’re made up of them and we’re also surrounded by them and they all interact, and our awareness of them adds concept systems to the mix. The quote suggests this blurs our vision. We are in the midst of a perpetual equation, and maybe we can know more about that equation as time goes by (hence the deep interest in open source). Of course we know our knowledge can also get bent over time; biased, weighted. Get turned into equations that are missing chapters, that are distorted or that contain outright lies. These, at their worst, Innis (my thesis theorist of choice) calls monopolies of knowledge. And sometimes I think I can feel them like ghosts brushing by. A whole way of looking at the world smoothly shifting away from liquid and responsive, and settling into glue and then gritty cement.

In some places you kick up against residue of old thought structures that are compelling for how detached they are from what seems like common sense outside- some banks, government offices, television stations, corporate office buildings, etc have people walking their halls spewing old rascisms, antiquated gender bias, wierd ideas about hierarchy and how one should spend one’s time.. Maybe this is caused by a kind of feedback effect where we get buzzy and distracted by too much hearing ourselves speak? I don’t know, but it is reassuring to know that some people make a whole artistic practice out of public performance and intervention. If you’re in Toronto today, check out this event (below) and let me know how it goes.

Thursday, September 21, between 4-6pm walk the mapped route.

****panel discussion to follow at XPACE (630pm)*****

Artists working with the mediums of public performance, intervention and installation will be exploring ideas of location, site, traversing and mapping.

the route begins at OCAD (110 McCaul), north on McCaul Street, West on D’arcy Street, north on Spadina, West on St.Andrew, north on Kensington, west on Baldwin, north on Augusta to XPACE(303 Augusta)

(maps available at OCAD in advance)

artists include

Randall Gagne, Margaret Saliba, Karen Kraven, Sarah Cullen, Mike Parsons, Tomas Delbaso, Trevor Homeniuk, Jocelyn Tremblay, Claire Despaire, Andrew Katsikas, Ryan Ringer

N.B.

additional artists who work in these mediums are invited to spontaneously or casually participate….just show up and do your thing.

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[ originally posted on Thursday, September 21st, 2006 at 11:30 am and is filed under Everything. ]