ARKive post 7 — Johnny Golding

Transcript:

On Mon, 24 Feb 2025 at 13:29, Laura Dzelzytė

<10049264@network.rca.ac.uk> wrote:

Dear Johnny,

I would like to explore whether there is an opportunity to begin organizing the first event for the “Philosophy Society”, which might also prompt us to reconsider its title. The central idea is to acknowledge and examine the contemporary contexts in which artists, who engage in post-structuralist or postmodernist theories and practice, are operating today.

As politics shift radically to the right – seemingly to counteract “cultural left”, can “thinking artists” who challenge the notion of an objective, universal truth and help amplify excluded voices, still offer a meaningful and effective alternative?

Laura

On Mon, 24 Feb 2025 at 17:07, Johnny Golding
<johnny.golding@rca.ac.uk> wrote:

Well, post-modern is 100% better than post-structuralism (the latter of which brings in a very unfortunate dialectical framework), so in that sense, it is not so much that post-structuralism is contentious – it is just that in a world that is linked with new forms of agency and powers brought on by the quantum/digital/AI world (with human-interspecies-machine co-evolution etc) – we need to focus more on discursive and entangled epistemology. (By entangled I do not mean “mixed up” – I mean that which creates an encounter, a “sticky cohesion” etc.)

I also think it is not all that helpful to suggest that we have to “get away from the theoretical” – theory, when it is done robustly and sensuously, is experimental and practice-led. When one talks of “theory” as stale or as a “model” – yes, getting away from this kind of version of theory is important as it cannot not help create environments for agency and, for that matter, for the creative collective rise of democratic imaginaries, storytelling etc.

When you ask can “thinking artists” counteract the shift to the radical right (or should we even try) – the short answer is: yes. The longer answer is also “yes”.

The real question is not whether artists (thinking or otherwise) can counteract the shift to the right, but how. The answer to the “how question” includes understanding how power operates, how myths circulate and become “material” or grist for the mill of making new ideas, how fascist and right-wing political movements erupt, get stronger, and circulate. This is precisely what the practice-led philosophy asks. It is precisely what Deleuze and Guattari in their 1000 Plateaus were teasing out; it is exactly what is the basis of our work in Tasting Philosophy and also that of the philosophy-poet-artists that are a critical part of research work going on at the RCA and worldwide.

I think it is quite wonderful that Antony Micallef sent Flowers painting to Art Basel Hong Kong. He may (or may not) have meant this as a political act – but it certainly can be a very political act (even if one is dealing with countries that are trying to suppress the political). It can be a form of “radical self care” (see Audre Lorde on this – where it is an act of self-preservation and political warfare) or it can be a send-up (see Piss Flowers by Helen Chadwick). Of course, flowers were the political sign of the peace movement (very political) etc.

Glad we’re talking!
Best
Johnny

Prof Johnny Golding
Professor Philosophy & Fine Art
Head, proto-centre for Radical Matter: Art, Philosophy, Wild Science

Email exchange with philosopher Johnny Golding – Ark Parrhesia magazine spread