ART PAPERS/Stephen Colbert Green Screen Challenge
From the first Green Screen Challenge on the Colbert Report. Photo courtesy ComedyCentral.com
Dear Nation,
When Trevor Paglen delivers the ART PAPERS Live! public lecture at Emory University this Wednesday, pay careful attention to your audience feedback form. Who’s Trevor Paglen, you might ask? An artist, writer, and experimental geographer, Paglen’s work has crossed a number of genres and topics, but his recent books have centered on the shadow empires of the American military-industrial complex. His latest book, Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon’s Secret World
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Trevor Paglen | ||||
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Throughout the course of his late-night Comedy Central show, Colbert’s various Challenges have aimed to empower audiences over the programming they receive. I’ve filled out the ART PAPERS Live! feedback survey so many times, I’ve nearly committed it to memory. But I always get the eerie sensation that, despite my loyalty, no one’s really listening. After somewhat jokingly writing Laurie Anderson’s name into the “suggested guest speakers” blank four times in a row, followed by the names of working critics and philosophers I admire, I’ve since realized the futility of my lone endeavors. (I’m currently stuck between Mothra and Mechagodzilla as my next suggested speaker.)
But no more! Nation, it’s up to you. If we coordinate our feedback as a group, perhaps we could manage the leverage needed to actually get what we want? Please leave your suggestions below, whether you decide to attend the lecture or not: What artists or creative personalities would you like to see visit Atlanta in the future, at ART PAPERS Live! or at other public events?
Trevor Paglen will speak at Emory University’s White Hall on Wednesday, November 11, starting at 7PM.
I would love to attend a talk by Marc and Sara Schiller of Wooster Collective. For the last 7 or 8 years, Wooster Collective has provided daily posts on street arts throughout the world. The Schiller’s interests and passion has lead to a huge internet following of a powerful, yet often ignore art form. A few years back they took over a building slated for demolition and curated a huge international street art show. I would love to know more about how they receive their information and who really inspired them. I think Wooster Collective has done a great job perpetuating street art by allowing this art form to be documented as well as allowing people from all over access to those artists who are pushing boundaries.
Good to meet you at this event. The next morning I woke up and thought, what if all off those patches were created by him, and that that was the crux of Paglen’s art – a kind of Andy Kaufman hoaxster. But then nah… I need to recollect my thoughts as it made me think of Robert Smithson and Rem Koolhaus (especially the satellite photos, the topographies of the real and the imagined). -Casey
is that criticism I detect in your evaluation of paglen’s artpapers lecture at emory this week?
although he’s got celebrity, status at UC Berkeley and is fairly handsome, too, I found his lecture to be . . .a little boring and self indulgent. (I left early, so maybe it didn’t give him a fair chance. . .)
I was disappointed, for I really like the idea that an artist might also be an experimental geographer, that an artist might also be a crusader who ferets out cloaked military budgets & agendas. . . but, I bet there are people out there who have endeavored down similiar paths, that might. . .frankly. . . give a more artistic lecture. his artwork seems rather secondary to his pr.
maybe they should read more into those feedback survey’s.
To Casey:
Most def!! I’d love to continue the conversation sometime.
To Karen:
I wasn’t being critical as merely curious about what other people thought. So, not really, but I definitely appreciate your two cents. Did you go to the artist lunch workshop the next day? I heard that was a little more in depth ….
I find that people misinterpreted my intentions with this article. (Please note that it was written before the lecture.) It wasn’t just a stunt. The intent was heuristic — I honestly wanted to *increase* participation in the lecture.
I enjoyed Paglen’s talk a great deal. He’s a great storyteller and can communicate his ideas clearly without dumbing things down. I liked the subject matter, even though things seemed a little heavy on the journalistic side and not so much on the art side. Plus I was happy to see an artist engage a mainstream discussion about warfare and constitutional rights.
(I’m reminded of Edward Said’s essay in The Anti-aesthetic. He basically asks: Why do writers write? Why do artists create? And for what audience, and for what purpose? Does our specialization in the arts sacrifice our ability to comment outside of our specialty? Or preclude our relevance as observers of the important issues of the day?)
For the curious, here’s a related discussion w/ Jerry Cullum:
http://counterforces.blogspot.com/2009/11/multitudes-and-common-wealth-or-common.html