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just as a couple of asides -- the new iranian film, IRON ISLAND, in many ways allegorizes these very subjects, heterotopia, cultural identity in a t.a.z. and east vs. west perspective: http://fest06.sffs.org/films/film_details.php?id=51 this discussion also reminds me a great deal of the stakes in the work of photographer alan sekula -- his photos of ports are posed directly against the supposed placelessness of of "cyber" interactions. sean On 4/17/06 12:21 PM, "Sally Jane Norman" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > yes, this is fascinating. I can't help being struck by the immense difference > between Foucault's western view of the boat - "closed in on itself" - and the > double-hulled waka or ocean-going canoes of the Polynesian Maori, that in > contrast very closely espouse te Moana, the ocean they traverse. Strange > memories of visiting Stockholm's Vasa museum, dedicated to the seventeenth > century floating palace that sank on her maiden voyage, so mightily and > heavily did her ballasted multiply-gunned splendour loom over the sea. The > imbalance of hubris. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Such an > earnest museum that pays hommage to the so earnest blindness of another bunch > of my ancestors. A reminder that the same unconscious blindness we're > experiencing today will one day make future generations want to laugh and cry > at the same time. Port to port and brothel to brothel? Some very large parts > of the seafaring world where this didn't/ doesn't seem to apply are worth > looking at precisely for their navigational prowess. > > No desire to undermine the Foucaultian perspective - after all, it was because > her crew couldn't wait for their binoculars that the Titanic went down. Just a > need to nuance boat stories with references from another culture. Pharoah's > barque included? Navigation is of sanskrit origin. To be aligned with Greek > cybernauts? How not to forget the Maori seafarers and their mythology that > served as a vessel for the imagination? Will we be able to reflect on the > Pacific Rim at ISEA this summer without falling into the trap of art tourism? > Sun tanned neurons. > > From tack to tack indeed. Apologies, there was a little gust that roused my > sail and I couldn't help moving with it. > > Kia ora > > sjn > > > > ________________________________ > > From: Curating digital art - www.crumbweb.org on behalf of Skawennati Tricia > Fragnito > Sent: Mon 17/04/2006 19:31 > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] blue ships turning > > > > Dear Robin, > Thank you for the quote and the definition. I really appreciate them. It's > like you found the source inspiration for this thread (that we seem to like so > much we don't want to let go of it!) > > A blue ship is also invisible. > > Sincerely, > skawennati > > > --- Murphy <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> The quote is from Irit Rogoff : http://kein.org/node/64 >> The text doesn't include the footnotes for the source: >> >> Michel Foucault famously declared "...the boat is a floating piece of >> space, a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed >> in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the >> sea and that from port to port, from tack to tack, from brothel to >> brothel, it goes as far as the colonies in search of the most precious >> treasures they conceal in their gardens, you will understand why the >> boat has not only been for our civilisation.. the greatest instrument >> of economic development...but has been simultaneously the greatest >> reserve of the imagination. The ship is the heterotopia par excellence" >> >> Since I didn't know what heterotopia meant I looked it up on wikipedia: >> >> In his essay, "Different Spaces" (reprinted in Aesthetics, Method, and >> Epistemology), Michel Foucault observed that people in advanced >> technological societies would increasingly move into indeterminate >> spaces called "heterotopias," which literally means "other places." >> These spaces are both real and imagined, such as the space where a >> phone call takes place, or within the informational sphere that has >> also been labeled "cyberspace." >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterotopia >> >> >> Robbin Murphy >> THE THING, Inc. > > > Skawennati Tricia Fragnito > http://www.ThanksgivingAddress.net --new! > http://www.skawennati.net > http://www.CyberPowWow.net > http://www.ImaginingIndians.net > >