The Problem With Cult-ifying Mozart

“Once we invest music with supernal qualities, once we maintain (there are learned papers to this effect) that Mozart can ease childbirth pains and stimulate brain cells in laboratory rats, it ceases to be music at all and becomes a part of humdrum mundanity, along with unemployment statistics and the football results. Sooner or later, you will read that Mozart can cure cancer.”

Museums Without Objects – Rethinking The Whole Idea Of “Colonial” Museums

“To actively ignore existing objects and collections ends in a disregard of the complex systems in which they produce meaning. Yet despite fancy and politically driven exhibitions, ethnographic museums still seem to be haunted by the collections and the coloniality that they represent, even if this is not immediately apparent in the exhibition venues.”

How The Communications Revolution Has Changed Culture

“Through the Internet and the new tools of communication we see a tremendous development of young amateurs who make things, create videos, short films, music. Not all this output is brilliant, but this activity tells us that what Nietzsche calls “the will to power” is today’s will to create. This will is something consumer society hasn’t destroyed, nor has it managed to turn people into entities that only want brand names.”