Democracy: An Epistemological Trap
    Our episteme, the knowledge that serves as the foundation for all of our knowledge, ultimately extends from the larger, socially constructed basis.  Prejudice, religion, values and even science: all ultimately extend from perceived truths that have become part of the larger concept of “truth”.  I state this point to lead to the question I want to ask today: does the democratic political process serve to limit our own knowledge?  The answer, simply, is yes.
    A Democratic process of any sort relies on the foundation of simple sets of decisions.  These decisions serve to categorize and ultimately reflect the established episteme and are constructed to produce specific outcomes and likelyhoods.  By making these specific decisions (deciding on a ballot measure or choosing a candidate) we are expecting a specific outcome (like lowering taxes or continuing social security).  These outcomes, though, are merely an epistemological trap.  The electorate (the democratic decision makers in any society), ultimately make specific decisions for specific results.  By choosing candidate (a) an electorate expects an outcome different from choosing candidate (b).  What voting individuals ultimately fail to grasp is that neither candidate has sure outcomes and an ability to verify the truth behind “rhetoric”.
    This notion of “rhetoric” is where the trap truly occurs. Ultimately, any policy (or set of policies, i.e. a candidate) is founded on the “rhetoric” that must be produced to insure the expected decision must be made.  The words and images that are associated with policies and candidates are ultimately developed to produce an ideal decision for those voting.  Someone in the electorate makes decision a.) to hopefully receive outcome b.). Because the “rhetoric” much match and conform established episteme, policy is limited to the words used to gain the necessary decision from the electorate.  The words limit the understanding of an actual outcome. By doing this, the ability to make decisions outside of established episteme is impossible.  With this said the participants in a Democracy find themselves in an epistemological trap, since they have to rely on established epistemes to make and form any decision.

 -Mark Brinton

The Ideology of Google’s Art Project-

Image: Daniel Johnston’s mural in Austin, TX.  Courtesy of Google Maps Street View.
 

    A lot of attention has been given to the Google Art Project since its launch this February, with the majority of responses in the positive.  Most supporters are dazzled by the amount of art the project presents, claiming it “makes visual knowledge more accessible, which benefits us all,”(1)  while the focus of critics is “can a digitized masterpiece possibly match being face to face with the original?”(2)  To the former it should be pointed out that with the entire history of art in all the world (most of which is already at our disposal online), the amount of art showcased by the GAP is actually extremely small, and the decision of what this privileged selection should consist of is very significant. To the latter it should be pointed out that this question stems from an understanding of art that is only epitomized by the digitization of the museum, and this understanding is what we should really be concerned with.
    The first feature of the project is the ability to walk through 17 of the world’s top museums via Google’s Street View technology.  The process is tedious, the movements disorienting, and most of the images low quality.  On top of this, one of the most laughable drawbacks of the project is the blurring out of certain paintings due to copyright issues.  Fortunately for us, every one of these paintings – along with many, many others – can be found elsewhere on the web, for instance through a simple image search.  So why put so much effort into reproducing the hindrance of walking, the nuisance of clicking and loading each step, when the images are already instantly available?
    My guess is that it is an attempt to recapture the mysticism associated with the museum experience and make it accessible to the web.  The irony here is that for all the hype over modern technology (which Google did not invent), the project espouses a very antiquated conception of art.  This is done not only through the choice of setting and the choice of works, but also through the limitations of the technology it employs. 
    The first thing that’s noticeably missing from the virtual museum is time, which consequently excludes any artwork where time or movement is a factor.  Of course most kinetic sculptures, process pieces, and performances could be accommodated with videos or webcams, but none of the works on display require this.  Instead we have a static archive of paintings forever as they are and as they will be:  to be seen once by the camera is enough, to capture one instant is to capture the work in its entirety.  This is perfectly contrived to reinforce the notion of art as something eternal, ahistorical, and immune to the forces of time, whether they be physical or social. 
   Next we have the restrictions imposed through using a camera as a surrogate for a body.  Anything involving physical interaction – whether it be the “theatricality” of minimalist sculptures,(3) or happenings predicated upon audience participation – is out of the picture.  Art is constrained to the purely visual, and the only possible mode of interaction is observation by a passive spectator.(4)  Furthermore, this disembodiment prevents interventions not sanctioned by the artist: you can’t steal, vandalize, or destroy the works (some talented hackers may prove me wrong here), and you can’t steal from the gift shop (a feature I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Google added).  The interface of the project thereby enforces a criteria of acceptable behavior, a code of conduct that tells us what we can do in a museum and what we can do with art.
    Another distinguishable characteristic of the museums is that they’re all eerily devoid of  visitors.  Most reviewers have expressed a little excitement at being able to walk through the galleries and see the paintings unobstructed by crowds of other viewers.  However, this small pleasure comes at the price of omitting the lifeblood of art altogether: dialogue.  Again, this could have easily been allowed with the addition of chat rooms, message boards, virtual curators, etc.  But as it stands, we the visitors are left in isolation and in silence.
    The second feature of the GAP is the extremely high-resolution images of a select few paintings.  You can magnify every millimeter of the canvas, zooming into its materiality to view details imperceptible to the unaided eye, “at a level at which not even the artist himself could have experienced his own work.”(5) Yet this shouldn’t strike us as particularly shocking or distressing.  Think of how playing Beethoven on the stereo can be simultaneously louder than the composition intended, louder than would be possible in acoustic performance, and experienced differently from the composer himself, assuming the listener doesn’t share his hearing loss.  In fact, the factors that influence the experience of a work are so numerous it is difficult to even speak of “the real thing.”
   The problem is not that the works are being viewed in ways that the artist never intended, nor that the digital representations are surpassing their tangible counterparts and obviating the need for firsthand encounters.  The real issue here is our absurd, obscene, almost pathological desire to be closer to the objects we seek to understand or adore, which lies behind both the firsthand experience and the digital replication.  The appeal of Google’s hyper-zoom comes solely from pandering to this lust, and in doing so brings us within such proximity that it obliterates the cultural significance of the works.  If only we could realize: ‘the best way to see a picture is to shut your eyes!’ 
   Given that the GAP is only in its nascent stages, most of these issues may be resolved through expansion and design changes.  Nonetheless, the initial choices say everything about the intentions of the project and the assumptions about art that it supports.  For all the rhetoric about increased accessibility and the democratization of art, the project is really sending a contradictory message:  What counts as art?  That which can be found in famed museums, timeless works from the traditional canon of Western high culture (almost entirely composed of white males); not the opposite.  Where does art belong?  Neatly gathered inside the palace of the white cube, in the ownership of royalty and wealthy intellectuals; not left exposed in the city streets, in the supermarket among commodities, dispersed throughout countless websites, in the hands of the public.  What is the function of a museum?(6)  To house works of art in isolation from the rest of the world, to provide a ritualistic space where context does not interfere with perception; not to foster and serve communities through collaborative projects, to provide a space of playful creativity for both adults and children.  What is art for?  Mystical communion, passive contemplation of aesthetics by a silent, disembodied viewer; not for questioning and broadening our cultural expectations, offering a catalyst for change, an opportunity for social and political debate, for touching, changing, helping create and complete.
    Ultimately the endeavor is less about the artworks it showcases and more about Google showing off its own capabilities: the multi-billion-pixel camera is the real artwork, the painting just something that happens to be standing in front of its lens.  This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if it wasn’t for the pretensions of the traditional art world that it enforces, and all the possibilities it forbids, discredits, and excludes.  The virtual domain should not be used to concentrate and replicated the constraints of our world, but to offer an open space for the free exploration of alternatives, and there are other projects that have made admirable attempts at this.(7)  As for the GAP, it is one small step forward for technology, one giant leap back for art.
 

-Ryan Shullaw



1http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/arts/design/07google.html?_r=3&pagewanted=2&ref=todayspaper
2http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/feb/06/google-art-project-virtual-masterpieces 
3 Michael Fried, “Art and Objecthood.”  Fried argues that with minimalism there is a shift from being absorbed by the autonomous, self-contained meaning of an artwork, to the meaning being produced through the presence and interaction of the viewer with the work.  One paradox of the GAP, particularly the zoomable images, which I will say more about later, is that in the attempt to dive deeper into the works, they unwittingly becomes props at the whimsy of the viewer.  Contrary to Fried, I don’t believe this is anything to be feared.
4 Interestingly, even the experience of observation can be disrupted by the camera-surrogate, for instance, considering how eloquently a mirror refuses translation. 
5http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/36950/hype-and-hyperreality-zooming-in-on-google-art-project/?page=1
6 Cf. Brian O’Doherty, “Inside the White Cube.”
7 For example, Second Life contains replicas of famous museums (the most famous one being “Second Louvre”) as well as many original, user-created galleries.  Users can take part in creating the virtual world, inhabit it using an avatar, socialize with other residents, etc.

True Responsibility through negation-

    There is a notion that exists of negative responsibility, where I am responsible for actions I could have logically prevented, but is this a real concept? I do not think that someone can have negative responsibility because they have a relationship to both action and intent. If my intent is not a part of my actions then it only exists as something abstract, something that exists only in my mind. Intent therefore, is non-existent beyond the will and mind of the actor. We can observe this by the relationship the intent of our actions plays within the roles that we do. Our intent, therefore, lies as something that we merely think about, not something that is shown in our actions. It is passive not active and, in the process, becomes abstract.  This plays a large role in what I am trying to establish here: that our actions may be responsible for what does not happen to us.
    So, we exist as actors in a larger world. We go about performing our role within society, but does this impact our actions? If my typical behavior keeps me from doing something that could have led to something else, am I to blame? If my adherence to interaction with strangers cost me a job opportunity, am I to blame for that?  A feeling of absence emerges, one is absent from being an actor in the world and is therefore free of the negative and positive side effects of it. This feeling of absence causes the relationship that the individual has to the society around them and to themselves to become problematic, because, they exist as a causal actor as opposed to a truly autonomous being. This feeling of absence in action may cause the individual to regard themselves as existing outside of autonomy because they are only a part of a relationship to their own normalized actions. Meaning the individual is only responsible for the things they do not do or become an actor in as opposed to the things they do and become an actor in. Continuing on with this we can examine the role of responsibility in performance and action.
    I am responsible for the actions I do not make in society. As an actor my responsibility lies with how my actions affect me and me alone. So to say that an individual is responsible for being an alcoholic is not the case, because the individual is affected by the outside actions of others as well as the socialized factors that they must deal with. But the person, who does not become an alcoholic, has been able to construct behavior in such a way as to avoid this terrible problem. With my feeling of absence in action I develop a new concept of being responsible, I stop dealing with consequence from my behavior and live with consequences that do not occur. Consequences such as these are developed further when discussing my personal relationship to this concept.
    Before I go into my personal relationship to this issue that inspired this article, I would like to make a brief aside on personal relationships when discussing philosophical issues. Personal relationships can enhance philosophy and even make it a better enterprise, but there is a negative corollary to this. For, individuals have many times replaced philosophical thought, reasoning and argument, with personal experience that only serves to make the argument. The best example of this is an individual who has not read a piece but yet seeks to make an argument after a brief discussion of the piece (such as in a classroom or a conference of some sort). Understanding of the piece is substituted by personal experience, which lacks the necessary ability to make a whole argument; it only has enough to situate the argument at that moment and even then can lack the pedigree to situate that. With this relationship I have to this concept I want to use it as an example and a telling example of what real responsibility is, I think it allows me to develop the argument best and create an appropriate explanation regarding this philosophical concept
    My actions created this new found examination of personal responsibility. They helped to shape it and make me wonder about the consequences that occurred from it. My experience is as follows: Two weeks ago I left a friend’s apartment and walked by my apartment. I did not socialize too much with my roommates, so I decided against going in as I had other priorities elsewhere. Fifteen minutes after leaving my apartment, three gunmen entered and preceded to hold everyone there hostage and rob the place (one of my roommates was a drug dealer and they preceded to take his supply). This leads to my examination of this concept: Am I responsible for not being involved in this incident? The answer is yes, my own behavior is what created the circumstance that led to my avoiding this unfortunate incident. I do not socialize with my roommates and put my studies first, this personality and personal actions are what led me not going into my apartment and avoiding the incident. I create the responsibility for the things I do not do as opposed to the things I do, which depend on other factors. If I was more accepting to the activities of my roommates, I would have been directly involved. Because my behavior is such that did not socialize with them, I am responsible for avoiding this incident.
    Could I be responsible for things that do not occur to me? The answer is yes, my actions and what I choose not to do affect me differently then what I choose to do. I do not even realize this all of the time. There has to be an almost infinite number of extensions that exist from this. What my personal behavior produces allows me to operate in such a way as to avoid almost everything. I become responsible for things I do not even realize occur, these are the things I am responsible for the most. Responsible in such a way that all things that do not occur to me are a part of who I am. My behavior and personality that creates the series of actions that bring about specific actualities are not our reality. What is not done from this behavior and personality exists as who we truly are: a being that exists through what is not done. What we choose not to do is who we truly are. From this we can explore the logical extension our negative actions produce.
    Any action has a logical limit to what the actor can do, the actors limitation of options as well as the limitation of what actually can occur. So within my concept the logic of what can occur is extended. The actor becomes responsible for what does not happen and therefore extends the logical options for them in the future. I would have been limited in what could occur for me in the incident mentioned above, but because of my actions the logical limit to this is extended. Because I exist without limits on my responsibility as a being the logic behind it is limitless. This and the other sections do raise one important question.
    Can I ever be entirely responsible? With a question such as this we come back to examine what occurs from our decisions. Because I am responsible for the things that do not occur to me, then I can have difficulty figuring out what exact responsibility I have. I do not know (as mentioned above) everything that I avoid doing and the reciprocity that occurs from this, so it is hard to measure responsibility. But what can be measured is the extent of the level of avoidance and therefore, what actions have not been taken. So while it may be hard to determine full responsibility, the level of avoidance can be determined and measured as a form of responsibility.
    I would like to conclude with my call for a re-examination of responsibility. We must strive to accept new truths that occur from our actions. That is why I argue, we are only responsible for the actions we do not have. Everything else is something that occurs to us not from us. It is more appropriate to examine our lives as enclosed in a prism, this prism is broken every time we choose to do something and remains closed we do not. What remains on the other side of this prism is not our doing, but the reflections of others and our environment. But our decisions exist as ours and ours alone.

                -Mark Brinton

Critique of Dumpster Diving-

    Lately our local media (the Charlotte Observer and The University Times on two occasions) have printed articles on the phenomenon of dumpster diving.  Let me preface this critique with a note; the following arguments are not against the people who practice dumpster diving, but against the act and its supposed and actual consequences.  I will also say there are some benefits of dumpster diving, but I think they are very limited and not as radical as some may think.
    In the articles, some people are interviewed as to why they practice diving into dumpsters, primarily for food.  I think the main reason given, points to how diving can be a form of recycling.  Or at least it saves food, and other items such as clothes, from going to the dump where it will be forever wasted.  Initially this seems like a good point, and I think it is, but overall, it may be detrimental.
    The ridiculous ills of consumer society left aside, we do have power as consumers.  Corporations pay attention to what consumers are buying.  For example, if more people buy organic food, the corporation will sell more organic food and less of the other stuff (we see this even in Wal-mart), until, theoretically, all the food is organic.  When one dumpster dives, they essentially drop out of the system, they say no to power.(1) 
    From what I gleaned from the articles, the people interviewed would take any food that is still edible from the dumpster.  It can be factory farmed beef or processed cake.  By giving up consumer power you give up the power to tell the corporation what you want.(2)  So the corporation keeps buying disgusting meat and never realizes the customer may not want it.  What I am getting at is we should not give up power.  If one wants to improve the environment, it has been shown that veganism reduces one’s carbon footprint dramatically.  The point is factory farming and non-organic farming practices are much more damaging than the amount of food we throw away.  When one dumpster dives, it is pointless to be vegan (besides health reasons) because you are not using your consumer power.
    If one wants to drop out of the system, rather than eating the waste of capitalism, it would be much more productive to shop at farmer’s markets or to grow as much food as you can on your own.
    One last point I’ll offer is how dumpster diving could not exist without capitalist waste.  It is hardly a critique of capitalism for it could not exist without capitalism.  By dumpster diving one effectively becomes a victim of capitalism.  Victimization is not critique nor is it positive. 
    It is clear proponents of dumpster diving want to critique capitalism and its wasteful over-production and unjust distribution.  But these things are inherent in capitalism.  So, benefitting from these things, (dumpster diving is basically benefitting from the waste of capitalism), is not the best way to critique capitalism. Instead, we need to develop ways to live which are sustainable and ecologically safe, and could exist when capitalism eventually evolves into something else. For what we are seeing, and I think people are intuitively feeling, is the logical end of capitalism and corporations.  They can offer us no more.

1 It is impossible to say no to power, in other words, it is actually impossible to escape power.

2 These remarks are based on the current system of corporate capitalism.  I realize this system is fucked up.

             Eric Virzi

Succeeding as a pickpocket to continue the egalitarian arm

    For many years groups of individuals (moneyed interests) whom profit from the work of the singular individual (anyone whom is not a part of moneyed interests) have built up an almost infallible system.   I say almost because such a system has not yet reached the lengths to control and take over every facet of our lives, but instead control our worth as an individual. This worth the groups of individuals have placed on the singular individual as the marginal existence of personhood. The singular individual has no idea of personhood and worth as a corporal being, their nature of individualism has eroded. This eroded nature posits that no state of being is a true state of being. Instead these singular individuals exist as something less than human in the regard that their being becomes a conditional. A conditional for the groups of individuals to profit off of everything and erode their worth as a singular individual. That would be why being a pickpocket is a way to express the corporal condition. When the groups of individuals whom profit exist in their individual state, what defines them is their access to capital.
    This is exhibited by the wallet, where the representation of worth is made at that moment. If it is stripped and taken, the singular person from the group of individuals loses their value. They become removed from their perceived advantage and instead retreat. Their retrieval is from the profited existence and instead to the same place as the singular individual. They are alone in their excess and gone is their advantage. The group that they depend on is not there, it has disappeared with sleight of hand. In some sense the nature of profit has failed, inspiring the individual without personhood to commit these acts. They have to in order to survive. If the groups of individuals who profit off their exploitation have the means to be exploited themselves, than the singular individual has to take control. Taking the wallet is the refuge of the exploited.
    The refuge that the exploited manufacture is as an equality of means. The singular individual uses this to build personhood, to express their desire for place in society. They are stripped of their ability to exist as a singular individual. Therefore taking the wallet allows them to perform their role as personhood. It is not crude revenge, but an expression of corporal personhood. The act is an expression, like performing a play or developing a art routine. It expresses to the group of individuals their role as actors and the singular individual’s role as an actor also. Equality is achieved in the nature or roles. The singular individual lacks their role as personhood until the wallet is taken, than they switch this role with the groups of individuals. Eventually the roles will be completely reversed.

                                                                 -Mark Brinton

La Tinta Grita

"A work of art can be called revolutionary if, by virtue of the aesthetic transformation, it represents, in the exemplary fate of individuals, the prevailing unfreedom and the rebelling forces, thus breaking through the mystified (and petrified) social reality, and opening the horizon of change (liberation)." 
-Herbert Marcuse, The Aesthetic Dimension

   On March 15th, UNCC held the opening for “La Tinta Grita: The Ink Shouts” in the first floor gallery of Storrs.  The collection was put together by Kevin McCloskey, a professor of communication design from Kutztown University, Pennsylvania.  McCloskey was kind enough to attend the opening and give some background information on the works, share stories, and answer questions from the viewers.  A couple of the artists were invited to attend the exhibit, but unfortunately the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City denied them visas without explanation. The gallery showcases 25 woodblock prints made by the Oaxacan political artist group known as ASARO. A brief history of the events from which the works originated is necessary to fully appreciate their merit.
   Oaxaca is the second poorest state in Mexico, with 8 out of 10 people living in extreme poverty, and lacking basic needs such as running water, sanitation, and paved roads.  For 20 years the Oaxacan teacher’s union had staged an annual strike by occupying the city’s central plaza, usually lasting a week or two and concluding with small wage increases.  But in May 2006, governor Ulises Ruiz Oritz sent in 3,500 police to evict the strikers using rubber bullets and tear gas, causing the hospitalization of over 100 peaceful protestors.  Nonetheless, the teachers managed to fend off the police forces, and barricaded the roads to ensure that they would not return. 
   In response to this situation, the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) was formed, and asserted itself as the city’s new governing body.  The APPO is “a confederation of teachers, concerned citizens, and representatives of indigenous communities,”1 a loose coalition of all those protesting poverty and injustice in Oaxaca.  Their first, and continuing, non-negotiable demand was the resignation of governor Ruiz, who has long been accused of political corruption.  In addition to the excessive force used on the strikers, he has been accused of repression and violence towards indigenous groups and political opponents, damaging historical sites with poorly managed public works projects, and is suspected of rigging his election. 
    As Ruiz refused to step down, the conflict continued to escalate, and erupted in October 2006.  After the death of American journalist Bradley Will in a shootout, the federal government sent 4,500 Federal Preventive Police to restore order, with the help of armored vehicles and helicopters to drop tear gas on the crowds.  The clashes that occurred in the next few months led to countless injuries, arrests, tortures, ‘disappearances’, and at least 18 deaths.  It was around this time that the APPO supporters started to organize according to the sets of skills they had to contribute to the struggle, and this is how the Assembly of Revolutionary Artists of Oaxaca (ASARO) was born.  Their mission was to “take our artistic expression to the streets, to popular spaces, to raise consciousness about the social reality of the modern form of oppression that our people face.”2  They created woodblock prints, stencils, paintings, posters, and various other kinds of works that communicated their political views in a simple, direct, and emotional style.
   The woodblock prints on display in La Tinta Grita cover a wide range of subjects, from portraits of heros like Emiliano Zapata and Benito Juárez, to violence at the frontlines of the protests, to copyright laws regarding corn.  The artists are between the ages of 15-30, with the older ones being master printmakers who teach the trade to the younger members.  The inexperienced artists can be spotted on a couple of prints that have backwards wordings, because the maker didn’t realize the text would be reversed in the printing process.  But these novice prints are no less composed or impassioned than the others.  Each work has a bold, unrefined character that reveals the amount of force involved in the carving process, along with the undeniable skill of the laborer.  The topics addressed are very diverse, but all share a general concern with celebrating indigenous rights and denouncing the actions of governor Ruiz.  A few depict the Virgin of Guadalupe, and a couple contain a hammer and sickle, which McCloskey suggests may serve the same purpose, as a symbol of faith or devotion.  Several feature calavers, skeleton figures reminiscent of the works of Mexican printmaker Jose Guadalupe Posada.  The works draw on a rich history of visual culture that lends them to be compared as easily to ancient folk art as to Posado and Siqueiros, as to modern graffiti artist Banksy. 
    In addition to the woodcuts, the exhibit also features a few photographs taken by Hank Tusinski while he was visiting Oaxaca in November 2006.  Most of these show groups of strikers quietly reading the newspaper, conversing, and sitting underneath a wall of ASARO murals.  The one that immediately catches the eye is of a small group of artists working on a street tapete, right under the gaze of an intimidating line of fully geared federal police leaning on their riot shields.  Tapetes are memorial ‘carpets’ made of colored sand and flower petals, traditionally made to memorialize lost loved ones on the day of their funeral or the Day of the Dead, or in ASARO’s case to mourn another victim of the protests.  The one being worked on in the photograph condemns Ruiz for his role in the deaths, with the word ASESINO (murderer) painted over his portrait and skulls stenciled in the corners. 
    ASARO is about reclaiming the streets.  At night, artists go out and spray paint stencils and slogans, wheat paste posters, and put up tissue paper prints on public buildings.  If a fellow activist is arrested or killed, they commemorate the event and make it known through a new artwork.  “We believe that public art (in all its diverse artistic disciplines) is a form of communication that allows a dialogue with all sectors of society and which makes possible the visualization of the real conditions of existence—the norms and contradictions of the society which we all inhabit.”3  The government responds by silencing this communication with cleaning crews that tear down the posters and cover the walls with paint.
    ASARO is about reclaiming the calendar.  For nearly every state-sponsored holiday or festival there is a counter-festival held by the community.  For instance, Guelaguetza has become a large tourist attraction in Oaxaca in recent years.  After Ruiz took the opportunity to cash in on the event by charging high ticket prices, and make the money curiously disappear, APPO held its own free “Popular Guelaguetza.”  Another tourist-aimed festival called Night of the Radishes has the alternate “People’s Radish Festival,” where artists use radishes to carve and construct sculptures of barricades, helicopters, police, and other familiar themes.
   The artists refuse to sign their names to any of the artworks they make.  The anonymity is in part due to the priority of the political message over any kind of fetishization of the artist that may serve financial ends, and partly to emphasize the collective nature of the organization, but it also serves the more practical reason of avoiding incarceration.  Many, if not arrested, have suffered beatings at the hands of police or supporters of Ruiz while being caught putting up a new work.  However, during the daytime they are able to sell their prints in the city’s central square, which is how Professor McCloskey first stumbled onto their work during a visit in 2007.  He recalls, “I asked in my intermediate Spanish: How much? 100 pesos. Just under ten U.S. dollars a print. Then I asked how much longer they would be there. Hasta cosas cambian, Until things change.”4
    By December 2006 the barricades were gone and most of the violence had subsided.  But today the struggle has still not completely ended; Ruiz is still in power (his term will come to an end this December), a number of police and federal troops remained in the city to maintain order, protests continue to resurge, and ASARO continues to make art, although in a somewhat tamer manner.  The main change to the group is their new gallery, Espacio Zapata, made possible by the funding of their growing body of collectors.  The gallery is sort of a double-edged sword: it provides the community with a center for gathering and viewing subversive artworks where they won’t be destroyed or erased, but it also effectively confines the art into an easily digestible space hidden from the view of the public.  The presence of street art has been made difficult because of the constant surveillance of “traffic cameras” throughout the city, as well as new strict laws against “visual contamination,” but it has not come to a halt just yet.  Sporadic blog updates (http://asar-oaxaca.blogspot.com/) with collections of photos taken from around the city reassure us that ASARO is still hard at work reclaiming the municipal landscape.
    La Tinta Grita is one of the most exciting exhibits to graze the presence of UNC Charlotte in recent memory.  The name of the exhibit is a reference to the “Grito de Dolores” given by Miguel Hidalgo in 1810, the rallying call that initiated Mexico’s fight for independence.  In the collection of ASARO’s woodblock prints we can hear the ink shouting the same call to action, the same cry of injustice, and the same longing for change.  2010 is a momentous year, marking the bicentennial of Mexico’s independence from Spain, as well as the centennial of the Mexican Revolution of 1910.  One can’t help but hope that this year will bring the next triumphant anniversary to celebrate.
                                -Ryan Shullaw

1 Dr. John Pohl, gallery placard.

2 ASARO, gallery placard.

3 http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2008/06/64061.php

4http://commonsense2.com/2008/07/art-culture/hasta-cosas-cambian-until-things-change/

A Letter 
My response to the "Does God Exist?" debate on March 24 2010.
 
Dear Dr. William Craig,
    Your admission during the “Does God Exist?” debate at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, that acquaintances of yours in Haiti vehemently prayed for a large natural disaster shows the disgusting moral character of the Christian religion.  If you have forgotten the letter to which I refer, it was from Christian missionaries currently in Haiti, who wrote about their horrific hopes for a earthquake or tsunami or other great catastrophe, in order for the disaster to serve as a catalyst for great change.  In the letter, they so celebrated the recent earthquake in Haiti, they praised God for the service it provided for Haiti, and the missionaries.  Your opponent, Dr. Tooley, passed over this remark, I hope, with the hope that people would apply his argument against the existence of God defined as an omnipotent, omnipresent, and perfectly good being, using an argument showing the evil which the Christian God has perpetrated and allows to go on is inconsistent with the definition of God, therefore God, as defined, does not exist.  But I will here make explicit the unacceptable immorality of praying for disaster, and, if your god is the cause of the great suffering of Haiti, I will show how God is not worthy of worship (which leaves aside the point that humanity should not worship anything anyhow.)
    First, your point that anything God wills is moral, can be granted, but does not affect human morality.  You say yourself, using the example of a human taking a gun out and killing you on stage, that human will and actions can be immoral.  (You leave out, assuming God can act through a person, that God could act through a human, rendering whatever that human did moral, leaving the question, how can we punish a human on earth without knowing if God had in fact acted through that person?  This obviously has large implications for human morality, for if we acted against a human, whom had been the tool of God’s will, we would be acting against God, rendering us immoral.)  So, given human will and actions can be immoral, then humanity needs to construct a moral system separate from that of God’s morality (because humans cannot do whatever they please, and the morality set forth in the various religious texts are not sufficient for all human conditions, nor do the texts provide justification for each moral statement beyond using God’s will, which we have seen is insufficient.  God has a different moral code from that of humans, therefore we can not base human morality on God’s morality.  Otherwise, this may leave humans acting immorally.)  All of this is to say that even if God caused or willed the earthquake in Haiti, human will and action shan’t be judged by if it corresponds with God’s will.  If it was, our legal systems would have no justification, for someone can easily claim they are in accordance with God’s will, and no one would be able to prove otherwise.  This shows that your friends’ comments and prayers about the Haiti earthquake can have no justification rest on God’s will.  This leaves humanity to judge these people with our own constructed moral system.  This is how I can safely say that I was sickened by the comments you made.  To will the suffering and death of thousands of people is immoral.  That’s not to say anyone is responsible for the earthquake, but it leaves questions about the motives of the Christian missionaries.
    The last question I want to ask is: does a god who wills suffering and large-scale unnecessary massacre deserve to be worshipped?  I find this question of utmost importance and consequence, yet I have never heard it asked, at least in modern theological discourse.  Looking at religious texts and the supposed evidence of God’s actions, it is a difficult case to make to say God is a perfectly moral being.  Thus to make this argument, one must say anything God wills or does is moral (convoluted reasoning is used in regards to whether it is good because God says so, or does Good exist as some form to which God prescribes.)  As shown in my previous argument, even if we grant God morality, we still may not say human morality is of the same nature.  The question becomes; is human morality potentially better than God’s morality?  In other words, can humans be more moral than God?  Given both the history of God and the history of humanity, one could say both have been equally immoral, albeit God has infinite resources of power making it possible for it to stop humans from acting immorally, but that can be ignored here.  The history of humanity has also shown great actions of goodness, great moral actions.  The same cannot be said of God.  God often corrects human behavior using genocide and massacres.  This is no ideal, in fact it is often taught as the complete most evil way to solve problems. At this point, the only good thing God has done is create life, but that in-itself is not a moral action, nor does it entice humanity to worship, for I don’t see many people worshiping their parents, whom are the direct cause of each individual.  Yet Christians still say humans should worship such a being.  I think humanity can certainly ascribe to a higher morality than this, then death and suffering.  I have my own ideas on how morality can be constructed socially, a morality which accounts for individual freedom and collective needs, and doesn’t use fear and Hell as the ultimate reason to ascribe to such a morality.  But, here, let’s leave it at the fact that humans can have a morality higher than “all is permitted.”
    Finally I just want to reiterate the argument Ivan makes in The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky.  He simply makes the point that even if God exists, and all it does is moral, that even if Hell exists, it is not worth worshipping God.  For to worship God is to accept all the evil (“moral”) acts God has willed throughout human history.  It is to accept all the injustice and unnecessary suffering of innocent people, i.e. children.  Ivan thinks the price of admission is too high, he would give back his ticket to heaven, in order not to accept what God has willed or allows to occur.  Ivan makes the ultimate rejection of the Christian God, and the ultimate affirmation of humanity’s potential and makes a point to say humanity can do better than this.  So, if God exists, it is not necessary to worship such a god, and may be more moral to reject the worship of such a god.
    I’d like to go on to say how Christian Morality denies humanity its potential (albeit it is certainly not the only system that doesn’t empower humanity with morality.)  But I will leave it as is.  I will simply say that what the Christian missionaries in Haiti were happy for was mass suffering and death.  They were praising God for killing innocent children.  It was not God who mobilized and organized mass efforts to save the people of Haiti.  Nor was it God who dedicated time and resources to the on-going effort of restoring and rebuilding Haiti.  Humanity came to the rescue, not God.

                        Sincerely,

                            Eric Virzi