Nmherman on 31 Mar 2001 23:11:02 -0000


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[Nettime-bold] Fwd: [Genius2000Conference2000] This Fella has Withdrawn his Support from My ... 






> I just watched the video.  I hate to say this, but I really, really liked
> it.  
> 
> But not for the reasons Max wants us to.
> 
> If we look at it for what he's trying to say, it flops miserably.
> 
I always thought this was a pretty interesting review, because I think the guy got a lot right about the video, but also a lot wrong. For instance, if he was able to appreciate all those "ethnographic" aspects of the video, then I don't quite understand how he can say that Max fails miserably at what he is trying to say. I actually think that Max does do a good job of articulating what he means by saying "crucifiction is an act of protest demanding access." But the larger idea of Genius 2000 is pretty clearly, from my point of view, that all people contain within themselves possibilities for genius, and these possibilities are only achievable through a kind of collaborative communication project--or, dropping the annoying sounding jargon--through a conversation. And a meandering, generous, give-and-take conversation. 

But it is common for people to say that Max fails at making this point, because the actual theory does not come, fully worded, out of Max's mouth. This is actually an absurd criticism. It's like criticizing Moby Fucking Dick because Ishmael doesn't clearly articulate all of the implications of Ahab's blinding obsession. Sure, he gets some of them, but others are implied by the action of the novel. Sure, Max the messiah articulates some of the important ideas of Genius 2000, but other aspects of the idea are left to be expressed by other characters in the video, or by one or more character having a conversation. Or they are dramitized by the action of the video. A lot of what gets criticized as technical ineptness on Max's--jarring cuts, wandering camera, fading audio--seems to me to be a pretty good dramitization of the difficulty inherent in conversing in a world that is so resistant to allowing true genius to blossom. There are enough "smart" edits in the movie--for instance!
!
!
, when Max is eating nachos in the weird light of his parked car, listening to the guy talk about how he was saved for God--that I would think anybody would be able to realize that roughness is much more of a deliberate aesthetic choice in the video than the result of Max not knowing what he is doing. Even if some of it is the result of Max not knowing what he's doing--hey, it was one of his first videos, and besides, a great artist can use his or her weaknesses with just as much skill as his or her strengths.  

I'm always baffled by people who criticize Max's work for not being "clear" enough. First of all, what could be clearer than radical utopian ideas--they have been the intellectual backbone of all Western thought, from Plato in Athens, through Christ, the Aureolis and the Romans, through Thomas More, Johnathan Swift, etecetera--it goes on and on. Max's ideas are only radical within a corrupt and decaying system of art and literay academic patronage. They aren't radical to the real hopes and needs of most people living on the earth right now. I have actually made a conscious decision to always frame my political beliefs rhetorically as if they were the sort of common sense ideas that almost all right thinking people share. Laws should protect the earth and the environment, not the ability of corporations to rake in ever growing profits, while simultaneously spreading misery across the globe. That's not a radical idea. The media should exist for the enjoyment and use of all peopl!
!
!
e living on the earth, not for the purpose of manufacturing consent for the ruling class. That's not a radical idea, either. Nobody I talk to and explain things to ever thinks I am a radical. And I don't think most people who come into contact with Max's work will ultimately think he is a radical, either. He only seems radical, or crazy, within the narrow, self-interested world of the academics. 

Of course, one of the greatests positives of the Genius2000 network is that it forces a lot of people to reveal themselves as nakedly self-interested. The sort of criticisms Max receives for not having a unified voice in his video are pretty clearly reactionary and ungrounded--how can academicly trained, late 20th century, early 21st century artists and writers make those kind of critiques? I thought Bahktin was fashionable.  
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