So we no longer talk in terms of looking at a work of art’s “ideology,” nor of asking what the artwork’s actual political “efficacy” might be? Is that right. It's a break away from the Marxist stuff of the 1970s that was strong in Adelaide, courtesy of Medlin's Politics and Art course at Flinders University.

Pam,
That looks the right call. The Politics and Art group that you mention understood aesthetics, in the sense of the philosophical reflection on art, and this was mainly portrayed as the traditional legitimization of art's distinctive status in terms of universal and intrinsic qualities such as beauty. That made a Marxist aesthetics look contradictory.

The ways of seeing/perception are historically formed, and so we have different kinds of seeing in the cultural history of nation state.

Gary,
what is the "way of seeing/perception" exemplified in the photo of a garage in a rural town of Victoria. I don't quite get it. The closest I get is something like the aesthetic gaze of the art criitc, the clinical/scientific gaze that goes behind appearances and the pornographic gaze of the peepshow. But none of these gazes really works in terms of what Ranciere is saying about the aesthetic as a mode of seeing/configuration of experience.

Pam,
that is hard. I'm stuggling to understand this.

1. ways of seeing as historical configurations of experience has to do with the institution of common sense as a shared modality of sensing.

2. The common sense of the rural region is given by John Howard's regime which valorized the regional way of life; study yeoman, Anzac, community, One Nation, opposition to the snobby inner city liberal elites etc

3.I was trying to look at the regional towns differently to this way of seeing within the Howard regime as I drove through Victoria on my way back to Adelaide from Wilsons Promontory.

4.part of looking differently was 'viewing the landscape from a car window' and seeing the community in terms of wealthier ones with a future (Hamilton or Port Fairy) from the poorer areas barely hanging on (no water) eg., Coleraine.

5. The towns had a heritage and a history. In this case one coming to an end with global warming. Global warming disrupts the shared sensible world of the Howard regime.

Gary
Howard allowed the regional populist or One Nation voices to be heard. A space was provided for this social conservatism and an evangelical Protestant Christianity as it reacted to the negative impacts of a global economy on regional Australia. It was gutted. The solution was export export export.

Prior to that their voices were deemed inarticulate, seen as a buzzing noise, and dismissed as irrational (racist). So the irruption or disruption is the political.

Pam, yes you are essentially right in your last statement.
The Howardians were not doing this to progress free speech they were doing this to make themselves appear smarter/right. It is becoming far more prevalent in world politics now to let people speak and prove that they are stupid racists than shoot them. Shooting them always makes you look the aggressor.
The same sort of tactics are employed in blog commenting. Say you say something moderately intelligent. Now if I agree with your point of view I could say yes I agree. But if I say something outlandishly false that opposes your view it makes your point seem even more credible and in the absence of any opinion that is obviously smarter than yours you would seem very intelligent when you have really only uttered something moderately intelligent.
In the end the opinion that we both shared is enforced.
Many political blogs use this tactic.

The car reflected in the window (can't tell what model it is) is probably full of computers a small family servo couldn't hope to service. Parts aren't what they used to be and even lube is something best left to an expert in new cars.

Critical theory has lost its edge when your new car comes with GPS which can guide you to the nearest suitable service centre.

Howardism was always in conflict with the global climate (in several senses) we live in. He rejected the sustainability messages that might have preserved his rural havens of wholesomeness.

The fate of such service stations depends more on the technology running the cars reflected in its windows than on the cultural preferences of prime ministers.

There's something to be said about a convergence of technology and desire, but I don't know what it is.