Coco Fusco Stirring Up Debates Among Locative Artists

Coco Fusco caused a flurry of locative artists to attention recently with her article Questioning the Frame: Thoughts about maps and spatial logic in the global present . Initially, Fusco's remarks were taken as a complaining negative regarding sentimental longing for the past, prompting one writer to paraphrase her with, "Why isn't [the past] the present anymore?"

I would encourage psychogeographers inundated with technology projects, artists intertwined with politically charged work and contemporary theorists regarding artistic interventionist work to consider Fusco's article. I agree with Fusco that contemporary art is pitifully amnesiatic in terms of considering historical context of contemporary projects. Fusco offers a breath of fresh consideration for artists and other critical minds in her closing statements with, "Socially conscious artists and activists, rather than embracing tactics that rely on dreams of omniscience, would do well to examine the history of globalism, networks, dissent and collective actions in order to understand that they are rooted in the geopolitical and cultural margins."

As one Locative responded to the article, "Forget WiFi and GPS. Ask for directions." The conversation with backed by technology, a conversation with history rooted in the military-techno-geek algorithm, has not been unheard of in Glowlab's history of Conflux events. Knowing of other artists involved with the technological-yet-conversation-driven works (Lee Walton, Marc Horowitz and PIPS, I am optimistic that artists are on the right playing field. I do believe we are still guilty of not being historically conscious enough, remaining in contemporary social critique without really having a specific nuance to critique. Therefore, Fusco's words tell us to pursue the rules of the playing field before we start playing a game of unfocused banter.