|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The Art of Campaigning and New Communication Tools Curators of the section - Ivan Zassursky, Eric Kluitenberg. Artists and activists can form extremely productive alliances as a critical force in contemporary society. In the context of the info- and media-saturated societies, the issue of the media has become the central focal point of political struggle. It is not enough anymore to reveal the media-enactments as fraud, to disentangle the simulations, to deconstruct the symbols of institutionalized power. Revealing the corruption of the contemporary media landscape will not stop their control over the flow of events in every day life. The deconstruction of the mediated image is only the first step to break open the media-scape for alternative positions, views and experiences. Critical artistic practice can offer tools to go beyond the gap between critical discourse and everyday life (and the power projected on to it). The corporate and state control-media can only be tamed by projecting an equally powerful image back on to it. Artistic intervention in the media-scape is a way of opening the space of contemporary media, both mainstream as well as sub cultural, to give voice to the speechless. Artist are used to dealing with symbolical structures, both in terms of deconstructing existing symbolical realities, as well as creating alternative symbolical realities. In the space of media these symbolic constructions become the essence of the communicative process. What activism contributes to this is the urgency of the issues the activist wishes to address, the in extractable connection to the earthly needs that inform her or his actions. The fusion between artistic sensibility, activist urgency, and the symbolical realm of media produces a powerful countervailing power to the expansions of corporate and monolithic static media structures and their devastating influence on contemporary culture, society and life. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
