The File Room, a web-based interactive archive of censorship cases,

From: "Svetlana Mintcheva" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: <nettime> submission
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 15:10:56 -0500
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Reply-To: "Svetlana Mintcheva" <[email protected]>
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www.thefileroom.org [1]http://www.thefileroom.org
www.thefileroom.org


Aristophanes' plays were banned in the 5^th century B.C. because of
obscenity and anti-war themes; Confucius' writings were incinerated
around 250 BC after a change of dynasty made them politically
incorrect; in 1933, a New York court declared a set of pictures of
Michelangelo's Last Judgment fresco in the Sistine Chapel obscene;
in 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against the life of
Salman Rushdie for the publication of the novel Satanic Verses; in
1999, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani threatened to cut off
funding to the Brooklyn Museum of Art and evict it from the
building because the Museum refused to remove one work from an art
show; in 2001, books from the popular Harry Potter series were
banned from schools and burned in churchyards in the United States.
Manifestations of the control of expression are historically and
culturally specific. Nevertheless, close investigation reveals
recurring themes and issues.


The File Room - an Open Forum



The File Room, a web-based interactive archive of censorship cases,
is open to submissions by organizations and individuals locally,
nationally, and internationally. The project was initiated by
artist Antoni Muntadas and originally produced by the Randolph
Street Gallery in Chicago in 1994. It then went on the Internet as
an open submissions archive. In 2002, the National Coalition
Against Censorship[2]* re-programmed and updated the archive and is
currently maintaining it. The File Room already contains
information on hundreds of incidents dating from the 5^th century
BC to the present. More cases from around the world are added every
day.



Our Goals: Documentation and Resistance



The File Room locates acts of censorship in relation to social
settings, political movements, religious beliefs, and economic
conditions. The wider understanding of censorship adopted by The
File Room allows it to record instances of censorship through
market mechanisms, the censorship of private galleries or that of
schools and colleges, institutional self-censorship, as well as
suppression of work by limiting its distribution or refusing it
publicity.


The File Room is not only a database or a tool for facilitating
critical discourse on the subject of censorship; it is also a tool
of resistance, i.e. a tactical medium. It makes public those
actions of governmental and private institutions (as well as
individuals), which are usually intended to remain out of sight. To
resist the suppression of symbolic speech, we have to acknowledge
how pervasive and interconnected censorship incidents are by
recording the many cases of deletion, exclusion, or suppression of
speech.


To submit a case or search the archive, go to www.thefileroom.org



For more information contact Svetlana Mintcheva at 212-807-6222 ext.
23/ [3][email protected]
_______________________

[4]* The National Coalition Against Censorship (www.ncac.org), founded
in 1974, is an alliance of 50 U.S. non-profit organizations, including
literary, artistic, religious, educational, professional, labor, and
civil liberties groups. United by a conviction that freedom of
thought, inquiry, and expression must be defended, NCAC works to
educate our own members and the public at large about the dangers of
censorship and how to oppose them.

References

1. http://www.thefileroom.org/
2. mhtml:mid://00000199/#_edn1
3. mailto:[email protected]
4. mhtml:mid://00000199/#_ednref1


















censoring humans. this page + the opposite