Costelloe-KuehnMemo22

"My name is Kim Laughlin; I am over the age of 21 years; of sound mind, and make this statement of my own free will and state that is is based on personal knowledge" (Kim Fortun, Advocacy After Bhopal, 31).

"There are no individual statements, only statement-producing machinic assemblages" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1000 Plateaus, 36).

"We are criticizing psychoanalysis for having used Oedipal enunciation to make patients believe they would produce individual, personal statements, and would finally speak in their own name... [the wolf man] could have spoken in his own name only if the machinic assemblage that was producing particular statements in him had been brought to light" (ibid.38).

"And surprisingly, the West, as we shall see, is marked by a demonstrable paucity of ways to think community, although this paucity is perhaps less surprising when one considers the Western tradition's tendency to derive its disciplines and concepts from the presupposition of a self-generating subject" (Georges Van Den Abbeele's introduction to Community at Loose Ends, ix).

"autopoiesis" - self-making

"Individuals must then, free of these structures, reflexively construct their own biographies" (Beck, risk society, 3).

"...that which seems to operate as a subject may be part of an immense discontinuous network ('text' in the general sense) of strands that may be termed politics, ideology, economics, history, sexuality, language, and so on. (Each of these strands, if they are isolated, can also be seen as woven of many strands.) Different knottings and configurations of these strands, determined by heterogeneous determinations which are themselves dependent upon myriad circumstances, produce the effect of an operating subject" (Spivak, intro to subaltern studies, 13).

"...our own transactional reading of them is enhanced if we see them as STRATEGICALLY adhering to the essentialist notion of consciousness, that would fall prey to an anti-humanist critique, within a historiographic practice that draws many of its strengths from that very critique" (ibid.)

"That is the greatest gift of deconstruction: to question the authority of the investigating subject without paralysing him, persistently transforming conditions of impossibility into possibility" (ibid, 9).

Catalysts are what drives subjects to say what they say. Corrosions are forces that keep statements from legitimacy and material realization.

should the "speaking subject" be an individual? a subject position (i.e. "STS Student" or "Indymedia journalist")? should the statements be direct quotes? general positions? is this an exercise in "discourse analysis?"

speaking subject: JATAN Public Charitable Trust struggle: Day's preliminary definition of hegemony: “a process through which various factions struggle for meaning, identity and political power” (6). create: post-hegemonic strategies? || "the twin theme of Sangarsh aur Nirman (to struggle and to create) has been the inspiration behind many lasting activities" ||  ||
 * catalysts || statements || corrosions ||
 * belief/ideology in underrated and underutilized "local" knowledge, expertise, histories. || "an endeavor to affirm histories and knowledge of rural indian communities" || "local" perspectives are often subordinated to "national" goals of "development." discourse of "common good" justifies prices paid at "local" levels by the poorest populations (see A. Roy on the "common good" and Foucault on "population" as object of power). ||
 * hope that "local" knowledge (especially agricultural) and materials (seeds, plants, water) can be "mobilized" against GMOs, state seizure of property, etc. || "the region is rich in biodiversity." || biodiversity may carry much less value in dominant discourses that privilege quantity of food produced, the "green revolution," etc. critiques of local, organic, etc. may be somewhat legit. (see X's thesis in this dept.?) ||
 * "man," "state," and "the environment" are seen as distinct players in the game? or this typography is used performatively and strategically? || "...this has nurtured strong bonds between nature and those communities who share its bounty. And forms a backdrop to an ongoing tussle between man, state and the environment." || what is meant here by "man?" how can "the environment" struggle? perhaps imaginations are limited when state is seen only as an object to be tussled with. thinking with double binds may be useful. also breaking up "man" "state" and "nature" into multiplicities may help to see points of connection that were rendered invisible. ||
 * rights discourse. much value placed on "natural" resources. || "...After independence, these movements re-emerged in many areas focusing on local communities’ rights over three critical natural resources, viz., water, forests and land (jal, jungle aur zameen)." || "rights" discourse has many limits. see k. fortun on law re-constituting inequalities. see chomsky/foucault debate. yet rights discourse can also be used strategically and powerfully to reach certain ends. ||
 * what is the genealogy of "sangarsh aur nirman?"
 * || "The widespread 'corrupt' version of the old Hindi //Yatna//, the word JATAN means an effort; an endeavour; an enterprise; or to work with dedication." ||  ||

speaking subject: SS "We occupy the same space on the screen, whether rich or poor, of whatever origin, it doesn’t matter. Our words are being heard by everyone equally. The stallholder has the same amount of “media hype” on the main street of town as the mayor of the city. “It is using a lot of skills that are already exiting in a town and putting them together in a combination you wouldn’t otherwise see. It is a kind of representing the audience to itself.” || in "material realization," how democratic are these gatherings, really? what groups are still excluded or have a less powerful voice? ||  || Yes, local colleges, local artists, maybe specialists from outside… just rope in as many people as possible. A satellite map eliminates detail to give the broad picture, and we tend to think that that broader picture is what approximation of the world is. The Ring of blue project is a way to use the same technologies to fill in the detail that you miss out in the broad picture…the same technologies can give you the detail that otherwise you think has been lost. So it’s reversing the whole process of zooming out to see the global one thing, it’s zooming in, but the technologies used in the zooming is the same as the zooming out. Because you’re zooming in, the inputs, the information sources are very different.” || does close-up attention to "detail" and "locality" make it harder to also see the broad picture? is "scaling up" of these kinds of projects a big challenge? ||  ||   ||   ||   ||
 * catalysts || statements || corrosions ||
 * some version of "democracy" is probably a central driving force and desire behind these projects. || "By representing the audience to themselves, the Caravan fosters deliberation over and better articulation of local knowledge." ||  ||
 * the style of "repetition with a difference" described here (using the ubiquitous form of the TV, but in unexpected ways and contexts) is reminiscent of the Society of the Spectacle approach and theory. Is this a direct influence? How is it repeated, with a difference? || 400 million people watch TV everyday in India and “everyone is getting more and more used to seeing images in a certain way. Our visual imagination is being straightjacketed… but when we step out of seeing television, we still see certain kinds of visual codes around us… We use the form of the TV, which people know about, but we do these “talk shows” in the middle of town, on the main street.” They bring together live video with local musicians, singers, etc. Ask people in audience what they think about their representations. Sparks discussion. Turns the camera and a microphone, live, on the person represented in the movie and asks if they want to add anything. ||  ||   ||
 * equality of voice as motivating factor, moral force. should be useful to read "can the subaltern speak?" as a theoretical lens/sensitivity. || “The democracy of the electronic image”
 * seems to be experimenting with "appropriate technologies" of the museum... || “the environments in which it will be set up are environments in which people are used to touch, feel, crowd around, interact in a more direct manner than a trained gallery audience would. I want to use that instinct people have to feel, touch, smell and deliver another level of meaning.” ||  ||   ||
 * locality is a recurring theme. || By following the journey of a drop of water, “location will have a completely different meaning, because you’ve seen that location with connection to something which has a meaning you may not be aware of at all.” || how do these "maps" work out? what are their limits? ||  ||
 * is making new connections an explicit goal or is it a happy side effect? || " As the performances brought together artists of different types, from the same or neighboring town, it brought new working relationships. 6 months later I would hear that people who got together ended up making a feature film, a band… all kinds of different things happened. Once you build a working relationship, being an imaginative person, you’ll find a new way of doing it.” || are some groups seen as likely to be "unimaginative" in advance and excluded from participation? ||  ||
 * || The Caravan format has become… in these big festivals now, like Diwali… projectors are being used, a lot more, in combinations that they wouldn’t have thought of earlier, on big street-side presentations. India, anyway, has a lot of color, light, image, visual culture is very rich [and] this is adding another completely different element to the visual culture. || as a very "visual" culture, are other senses played down? could this make audio projects harder to pull off? ||  ||
 * rather than imposing ideas and "solutions" from outside local communities... || You're just showcasing things that are already there... ||  ||   ||
 * || One cannot forsee the direction intervention will take, but if it is imaginative... || could ideas about unpredictable futures and valorization of spontaneity constrain efforts to organize, plan, coordinate, etc? especially with individuals and groups that are more familiar with a certain kind of teleological planning? ||  ||
 * it seems like heterogeneity is valued and diverse expertise is drawn on in developing these projects. || Not only are you doing this exhibit, you’re also continuously doing GPS mapping of water levels and beds for two years in a row in a small region... so you will collaborate with specialists...
 * it seems like heterogeneity is valued and diverse expertise is drawn on in developing these projects. || Not only are you doing this exhibit, you’re also continuously doing GPS mapping of water levels and beds for two years in a row in a small region... so you will collaborate with specialists...
 * it seems like heterogeneity is valued and diverse expertise is drawn on in developing these projects. || Not only are you doing this exhibit, you’re also continuously doing GPS mapping of water levels and beds for two years in a row in a small region... so you will collaborate with specialists...
 * it seems like heterogeneity is valued and diverse expertise is drawn on in developing these projects. || Not only are you doing this exhibit, you’re also continuously doing GPS mapping of water levels and beds for two years in a row in a small region... so you will collaborate with specialists...

reflection: in the above table i find that i have a tendency when thinking of "corrosion" to hypothesize about possible "exclusions." i did the same thing in my ethnography at the Sanctuary for Independent Media. what other roles might the "cultural critic" (if that's what i'm becoming...) play? i like the idea of soaking up lots of articulations and then drawing on insights from my studies to re-articulate them in new, hopefully "helpful" (for who?) ways. but the desire to "critique" (find out what my subjects are doing "wrong") is a force that needs to be negotiated with.

speaking subject:
 * catalysts || statements || corrosions ||