The farmers gained independence from the corporations because they no longer needed to sell their berries to them.
What might it mean, then, for a group or community to adopt a corporate framework in order to act as a virus within late capitalism? What does it mean to take on the tools of oppression in order to subvert them?
The course will provide foundational skills (analysis andinterpretation) as well as a general, historical understanding.
Does this annotation work?
n other words, the anti-monument is the one that keeps alive/protects the official monument from oblivion
Yes, very much related to Esme's point above. Worth considering further.
organised by artists, philosophers, sociologists, curators, and civic activists
I find the collective aspect of the anti-monument's creation to be important. Though after this, the author mentions some of the creators of the work, the fact that the impetus for the work was broad-based and not singular is crucial. The idea of a from-below way of memorializing is something I want to hold on to.
public acceptance
See above -- is "public acceptance" a necessary precondition for its "success"? Is it not possible to have a successful monument (or any work of art) that is rejected by some portion of the public?
why a monument becomes unsuccessful or rejected?
Flagging this with a question here. The author may get to this, but I am very curious how one would gauge "success" with respect to a public monument? Successful FOR WHOM? One person's success will be another's failure, and how are we to evaluate this or prioritize one voice over another?
mundane elements of public space:
Just important to flag this I think. The fact that so many of these monuments become objects that we pass by in a state of distraction. How often does one pause to even consider many of them.
public space-in the form of an actual place with bound- aries-is a slowing-down process, an attempt to stop time and go back in history and revert to an earlier age.
How does this relate to how we look at public monuments, which tend to memorialize moments from the past? What is the relationship between time and space in those situations, and how might it be thought differently?
You pay to belong to the community, and the class, that is accustomed to use the place. You pay for the fabrication of a past or of a future, for the idea that this is how the place should be and not merely how it is.
Is Acconci right about this? He's using the metaphor of the bar, where you have to pay a cover fee or for your drink? But are there forms of place-making that are free from such economic exchange?
Going to a "historical" cluster-place is the equivalent of going home, except that this is the home not only of the family but of the tribe;
But home for who? And what if you are not a member of the tribe, but an outsider or a visitor?
where all the people are gathered together as a public, it needs a gathering point
What are some possibilities for this "point" that Acconci mentions? He's talking about a catalyst that brings a public together and helps to give it an identity. How does this happen?
the second is a space that is made public
What are some of the ways that we make spaces public? Acconci mentions it happening "by force," and so this calls to mind protests and other forms of occupation. But are there other ways of turning what was non-public space into a space of publicity? Are there ways that performative bodies in space start to more carefully insinuate themselves into spaces of privacy and change the nature of that space? In short, how might performance function critically here? And is there something potent about the temporary nature of making that place public for just a period of time and then moving on?
the rest of the city isn't public.
We should pause here. What does Acconci mean? How is it that open spaces in the city are not public?