John Jordan's Page

John Jordan,

How absolutely wonderful and full of hope I feel after spending the morning looking at your websites and ideas. I had to wait until I could print out your paper (Library Angels) to read the tiny footnotes, which are indeed a marvelous “bibliography for socially engaged practice” and a goldmine for future teaching and inspiration. Thank you so much. I would love it if you could share here your essay on “The Art of Necessity” re “the body that most touches and effects society is the one that is placed between the cogs of the machine” (p. 5) as my current project on touch explores issues and tissues of the body. Feeding this project will be your brilliant observation that “In a time when capitalism has hijacked our desires and wants, we must make rebellion more beautiful than anything capitalism can ever dream of” – and that “No one is going to want to change the world unless it is the most joyful and desirable activity around” (p. 7). I see the erotic as a colonized place in myself and others and the space between us that has this kind of potential for creative play, heartfelt resistance, juicy joy. I will send you a picture of a rock (one of my “Touchstones”) to speak back to the rock on your website at The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination. I loved your quote by unknown writer: “Don’t ask me what to do to change the world. Ask yourself what makes you feel alive, because the world needs more people who feel alive.”

From your words on The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination: “We believe that playful forms of cultural intervention in everyday life and the development of convivial spaces that enable participants to cultivate full confidence in their own creative capacity are fundamental tools for social change.” Yes! Perhaps because I am living in an isolated small rural community, but also perhaps because of my inborn inclination to living a very solitary life, I have been inclined to explore the Web as a place to play with creating such convivial spaces – I see this network as potentially becoming a space like this. Web 2.0 interactive technologies can help us create a radically democratic online environment with permeable boundaries and a web of hyperlinked projects and ideas that begin to co-create solutions with a collective intelligence. Easier to imagine than to accomplish, of course, as everyone is so busy and it’s hard to make time for interactions online – yet one more job to do. I look forward to the project you have in mind for April Fool’s day, and would love to hear any other ideas you may have for how to explore possibilities for the development of convivial spaces in online environments. Because I am on online educator, I think of how wonderful it would be to see your project C.R.A.S.H - A Postcapitalist A to Z developed as an online course/community/project.

By the way, some things that Library Angels have brought me – at the Recycling Free Store one day, a copy of Christopher Alexander et. al.’s book A Pattern Language, which became the starting point and inspiration for my work on Mapping Queer Meanings, as well as later approaches to online education. Alexander Wilson’s The Culture of Nature which continues after almost 20 years to feed my environmental work.

Regarding your comments on not getting caught up in proving whether what we do is art, yes I agree. I wrote an article many years ago on the notion that it is the very uselessness of art that gives it its status as art – a status that emerges in the 19th Century in opposition to the new ubiquity of images and image-making. I think this historically observable and unavoidable for people who situate themselves as artists. (Art and Life)

So thank you again and again. So many intersections and inspirations. I look forward to reading more and having this time of your residency to focus on your wonderful work.