Dear AACORN,

        I wanted to thank Hans and Pedro for developing some history of the
relationships involved in Fringe Cafe, AcademyArt and the mighty Academy of
Management.  Steve Taylor and others are bring in the discussion of Art
being prostitute to the projects of power in the Academy. Poulson wants to
just chuck Academy, and find some more hospitable place to do Art.

        So, where do we stand?  As one of the signators to the so-called Art
Experiments, as someone who participated in the plays of Taylor, and even
read a poem by Bertolt Brecht, worked the lights in one theatre, and even
did dress as a clown and look at Academy from these Artistic vantage
points, I have some emotions, some great experiences, and some commitment
to resisting the power-holders and gatekeepers at Academy of Management. I
am an academic activist, and not all Art is about rebellion, questioning
authority, or depicting oppression.

        I know a little about activism and Art, having done some street theatre,
been arrested, handcuffed, and leg shackled by police working at my
university, and did create the most outrageous puppets at local
demonstrations. I am not the professional Artist, and yet I would like to
become more skilled at Art and understand its philosophies.  I know that
Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse, and perhaps Fromm, were concerned about the
culture industry. I believe the Academy of Management to the handmaiden of
the culture industry, the producers and distributors of spectacle in Guy
Debord's Society of the Spectacle. And I seek to resist spectacle with
carnivalistic protest, against Nike, against all sweatshop pimps, against
Diseny for the way they desktop Andersen's fairy tales to make a few bucks,
against Enron for prostituting the theatre Arts to set up that charade on
their sixth floor, and recently McDonald's you prostitutes art to addict
children and their parents to fatty food that leads to heart disease and
cancer, and a life of obesity.  So for me, the issue is that some, maybe
many corporations are prostituting Art, and using it in the Spectalce, and
making big bucks at it; and there is a long line of prostitutes doing their
biding.

        So do we stand?  Art has always been a prostitute to power, and those who
did not suck up to power, do not get much funding, much space at an Academy
to do Art, to develop our skill as aspiring Artists.  I am not against
prostitutes. It is an old and noble profession.  And we might learn a thing
or two from artists who head to Las Vegas, and prostitute their art by
showing a bit more skin than their art demands.  I wrote a piece on
Striptease artists, and some do call me from time to time. They ask about
how to unionize, how to stem the exploitation of their profession, and they
tell me important things.  For example, the strip artists, see the
customers as the spectacle, while they just do their art as best they can.
They look out at the audience as they move to their music, and look at the
slobbering crowd, their wild gesticulations, their strange mannerisms. Many
leave the Strip, and go home to get kids ready for school, and coach at the
Soccer league, or attend PTA; they never take their friends to the Strip.
Others are not so lucky, and dispel any romantic illusion about the
relation between Art and Prostitution.

        I am considering taking a stand.  I think it is tragic to kick Art out of
Science.  At least I hate to surrender to power without a decent
struggle.  I am thinking of never submitting another article to ASQ, AMR,
or AMJ if they kick art of the Academy, and pretend it is not using Art,
prostituting Art in the everyday affairs of corporations.  I am thinking of
becoming body art at the Academy, to use my body in protest against a lack
of deliberation, a lack of asking people committed to AcademyArt and Fringe
Cafe for their voice in these matters.  It would be easier for me to take a
stand if I knew I would not be alone. And if I am the only one to take a
stand against hypocrisy of Academy who is already prostitute, and not in a
noble way, then perhaps I should not take a stand. Perhaps I should just go
to a conference in Paris or to my friend's confernece, the http://scmoi.org
where I can do performance art, read a radical poem, and not have to worry
about the gosh darn Academy.

        So people of A-Acorn, what is it you want to do?

David