{"id":10,"date":"2003-02-24T12:46:45","date_gmt":"2003-02-24T18:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/?p=10"},"modified":"2005-02-04T11:25:32","modified_gmt":"2005-02-04T09:25:32","slug":"life-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2003\/02\/24\/life-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"life learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s really amazing what teaching can teach you. I just got back from giving a
\nlecture at The South
\nAfrican School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance (AFDA)<\/a> about
\n"postmodern narratives." This is not an easy topic, and it was to third
\nyear, undergraduate artists (not theorists), to many of whom English is a second
\n(third or fourth) language. They very quickly grasped the basics of signs \/ semiotic
\ntheory and the contrast of modernism as "the crisis of representation"
\nvs. postmodernism as "the crisis of the real." Effortless, was the transition
\ninto "why is this important?" (they shrewdly asked me this; it’s the
\nmain critique of those who might undermine postmodernism as an interventionist
\nspace of thinking). Once we got going, the students were excited by that which
\nmy fears said they would find boring. They started answering their own questions!
\nThey loved Laugh it Off<\/a> as a South
\nAfrican example of intertextuality, and themselves brought up religion and The
\nApartheid State as potential "grand narratives" that should be questioned,
\nby looking at the construction of history. Not only did they see all of the presented relationships
\nbetween modernism and postmodernism (one being how representation can actually effect our “reality”),
\nbut internalized them in important ways, that I could never have thought of in prepping
\nthe lecture. In fact, I’ve added their examples to my notes for future reference.
\nThis is why I teach and make art… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s really amazing what teaching can teach you. I just got back from giving a lecture at The South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance (AFDA) about "postmodern narratives." This is not an easy topic, and it was to third year, undergraduate artists (not theorists), to many of whom English is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-south-african-art","category-uncategorical"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9blZT-a","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":25,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2003\/03\/21\/akin-for-a-poetry-night\/","url_meta":{"origin":10,"position":0},"title":"akin for a poetry night","author":"nathaniel","date":"21 March 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Just got back from a great vibing poetry reading over in Melville with Tisch buddy, Akin, and his friend whose name I should probably not try to spell (Mutoto?). Really great poetry, and it's soooo nice to have a fellow (progressive) American here during the current crisis. It hurts to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "poetry"","block_context":{"text":"poetry","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/old-categories\/poetry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":406,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2004\/08\/18\/new-media-in-the-new-south-africa\/","url_meta":{"origin":10,"position":1},"title":"new media in the new south africa","author":"nathaniel","date":"18 August 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, I know I said it'd be a few days until my next post, but it actually calms me to blog. (Dunn Hirschowitz is still a big fat incompetent poopyhead, who is aggressive in all the ways you don't want anyone's lawyer to be - yours, or your \"opponent's\". I'm\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"christo.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/images\/christo.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":558,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/02\/25\/sekoto-to-sihlali-nine-black-pioneers-of-south-african-art\/","url_meta":{"origin":10,"position":2},"title":"sekoto to sihlali: nine black pioneers of south african art","author":"nathaniel","date":"25 February 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"ephraim ngatane's snow on location Sjoe. Between these, Dumile Feni at JAG, and the current show at Siebrits (titled and pictured), Joburgers and South Africans at large are being inundated with amazing, contemporary work by South Africans of color, as of late. It's great. Perhaps it's a way to (finally)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":402,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2004\/08\/15\/south-african-arts-hangout-johannesburg\/","url_meta":{"origin":10,"position":3},"title":"south african arts hangout, johannesburg","author":"nathaniel","date":"15 August 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Going in reverse order from right to left, we've got Franci Cronje (media artist), Zingi Mkefa (choreographer, and journalist for THISDAY), Kathryn Smith (Standard Bank young artist of the year, who has agreed to help me hang my upcoming solo show at the Johannesburg Art Gallery!), Monna Mokoena (gallerist \/\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"monna_mokoena.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/images\/monna_mokoena.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":473,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2004\/10\/06\/another-sad-day-for-johannesburgbrrip-andrew-meintjes\/","url_meta":{"origin":10,"position":4},"title":"another sad day for johannesburg…RIP Andrew Meintjies","author":"nathaniel","date":"06 October 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night, Andrew Meintjes was added to the list of great South African artists - who not only produce work, but support the arts, and are giving within the community at large - that have been killed for next to nothing. Like Gito Baloi, who was only a few months\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":35,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2003\/03\/11\/phenomenomadic\/","url_meta":{"origin":10,"position":5},"title":"phenomenomadic","author":"nathaniel","date":"11 March 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"phenomenomadic, which opened at the Dance Umbrella last night, was a surprise hit! Since the audience was comprised of people familiar with the dance community here, they really got into its quirky humor, which parodies famous South African choreographers. In other news, the edu site, which I have been working\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art and tech"","block_context":{"text":"art and tech","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art-and-tech\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}