I'm rereading Tony Godfrey's excellent Conceptual Art, which is a great overview of conceptual art in the 20th Century from Duchamp to the post-modernists of the 1990's. There is a considerable amount of information on the Situationists and the Lettristes, mostly about how they used their art as agit-prop and questioned the basic ideas of our society. They made brilliant work that dug deeply into the meaning of culture, media and society. Their work nimbly agitated the status quo and even acted as a catalyst for the May '68 riots in Paris.
All of this left me wondering, where are the Situationists' equivalent today? I've been wondering about this alot lately, where are the voices of dissent in today's culture? We live in one of the most divided societies in recent history, polarized by the most agressive right-wing authoritarian power since Franco. Yet, even in the most distant corners of the cultural landscape, barely anyone is making any intersting comments on our hijacked society. We have no punk rock movement, no May riots, no derive. We've just got millions of severely lethargic humans that are tapped into the same spoon fed ideas about life, media and society. How can the situation be amended? Are people ever going to wake up to the consequences of their inaction? The incentive is there and yet the work is not being produced.
So a few questions:
Q: Why is most media so boring? Why aren't people creating interesting work that challenges our notions of civic society or society in general?
A: We must create new art that changes and challenges society. Situationists envisioned the possibility of a new society and the end of traditional art in favor of a unitary urbanism in which life and art coexist. We can achieve this through technology. Cheaply assembled civic society computers running off of open source OS and freely distributed software. Imagine totally free, open P2P networks, pirate utopias, and enclaves of free trade.
And I'm not talking about message boards full of player-haters and nonsense-makers. People that are sick of themselves and blind to the inability of our culture to sustain our minds, nay our basic human needs. I'm talking about real exchanges between vibrant, excited individuals brimming with ideas.
Q: What were the failures and successes of all anti-establishment art movements in the 20th century? Dada, Surrealism, neo-Dada, Lettrisme, Situationists, Punk, Hip-Hop. What needs to be rephrased, what needs to be struck down? What do we need to do to reanimate these lineages of inquiry and civil disobedience, especially if the prevailing powers somehow manage to hold on to power here.
I don't know how to answer this. It's an essential question that needs answering though. I'm going to continue my research until I feel I've reached a reasonable understanding. It's been far too long since I've thought about these things. Maybe that's part of the problem as well.
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