Journal of Aesthetics and Protest
bioproposalhttp://www.journalofaestheticsandprotest.org/New Issue #4
The
Journal of Aesthetics and Protest is a Los Angeles based artists’
collective. Our magazine sits at the discursive juncture of fine art, media
theory and anti-authoritarian activism. We sculpt projects that challenge
hegemonic representations (of knowledge, art, activism) or that spark situations
for community-based social change or creation. We work collaboratively with
individuals and collectives on several continents.
The Journal of Aesthetics and Protests may be a rare critical machine in that while it publishes critical theory, it has no ties to any academic or cultural institution. In spirit and practice, it has as much in common with Indymedia.org as it does with October. One of the first questions we ask when confronted by a proposal for a project or article is “what does this proposal mean to what we know about our lives here in the bohemian left of southern California and elswhere.” Nonetheless, ours is not a vanity press, we see our project and projects like it filling up the vaccume left by the defunding of small er institutions, the increasing accademicization of art education and the ensuing commodifacation and spectacularization of discourse.
Participating Journal Member's Bios:
Cara Baldwin was born on a military base at the end of the Vietnam War and has since returned to the sound of helicopter blades rattling her crib. She received her MFA at CalArts in 2000 and has since organized several projects that deal with public space. She's an independent curator, editor, artist and writer living in Los Angeles.
Marc Herbst is currently completing a site-specific photo
collage project involving neighborhood demographic statistics aimed at communicating
cold economic realities to distinct homes. He has worked with pirate
radio, diy and grassroot media for a while. He currently is beginning
a group of abstract biomorphic monuments to extinct or endangered community
institutions such as historical memory, telephone trees, and shared values. He
teaches web design, performance art and sculpture at UC San Diego and American
Intercontinental University LA. He can be reached at
sparkle@c-level.cc
Robby Herbst is interested in the networks of visual media
that foster the development of intersubjective power. His new-genres practice
explores, initiates, and enacts democratic negotiations with culture. Since
1996 Robby has been around the creation of several autonomously
run media collectives (Radio Dumbo, Indymedia Seattle and Los Angeles, Journal
of Aesthetics and Protest). Currently he is excited by the conception of the
Journal of Aesthetics and Protest’s slide library. The library attempts to
address the many problems of LA’s gallery and academic art systems by unveiling
“dark matter”, accomplished through the creation of a publicly accessable
archive:
Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Slide Library
Dark Matter: Activist Art and the Counter-Public Sphere
He can be reached at rherbst@journalofaestheticsandprotest.org
Christina Ulke lives and works as an artist in Los Angeles. Her site-specific and often collaborative public art practice revolves around questions of globalization’s aftermath, the deconstruction of normalized racist technological hegemonies and the articulation of a radically local iconography. In an attempt to create locally meaningful discursive sites, Ulke co-founded c-level (now beta-level) in LA’s Chinatown and is also a co-editor of the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest. Ulke currently teaches at UCSD's Visual Arts Department.