SM 401
Idealistic Hyperbole
Browsing through the Journal Visible Language recently I came across part of a script for the performance 'Wink', described as '10 steps for a live demonstration of MTAA’s artwork in relation to Fluxus….'
Step 8.
After you assign materials and time slots, please read the following instructions to the performers:
'I don't remember the 60’s. I don't remember Fluxus. I know that America was at war then. America is still at war.'
'Let's get up. Let's toss some shit together and call it art. Shout. Scream. Drag your fucking body across the floor. We know it's dumb. We know it's all empty gestures. Fluxus was naive and now we're jaded. Let's do this with winks in our eyes and tongues in our cheeks.'
'But, for a moment, let's say Fluxus was right - let's say Fluxus is still right. Let's say random acts have meaning. Let's pretend, for one second, that a poetic stance can mean anything at all. Let's just pretend. Let's begin now.' [i]
Yes, let’s do it. But don’t pretend. Don’t worry about the wink or seeming dumb. Do it because you must.
Never mind the political; the cynicism and awareness of one's own ineffectual stupidity. Express the frustration. The need. Externalise yourself, and be recognised. Articulate what you think in some form or other for the sake of your own sanity. For the sake of being heard, of having a voice. Of communicating to those of like mind, as well as those who don't care. To acknowledge that we have been bought up with old-fashioned enlightenment values and we believe in them. We are constructed out of them. And we expect society to behave accordingly and when it doesn't and our expectations are disappointed, we know how stupidly idealistic we are but can't and won't accept this. We want it made right, as we were led to expect. And we want others to see what we want and acknowledge that they see it.
We need art. We need to reconcile our inner conflict. Levi Strauss wrote of the role of the myths of Greek tragedy, reconciling cognitive conflicts through art. The opposition of the autochthonic ideal with the heterosexual reality of birth; birth from one (the soil) with birth from two. [ii] We must reconcile our belief in justice and fairness with the reality that it does not and will not exist. We will express this for our own sakes, and for the sakes of others to whom we communicate; and for the sakes of those for whom we (paternalistically or not) feel action must be taken on their behalf.
And while we do this - for the sake of our own sanity; our expression, in non verbal or verbal form as one prefers; comprehensively or obscurely, for our own release; and while we allow and encourage others to do the same; whilst we become increasingly expert - we may find a ground swell of others doing the same. A great number of communications in the world, comprehensible and obscure. ‘Present’ in the world as objects, multiplying, that can't be ignored, that sit there before our eyes to be seen, handled and held, walked around and moved out of the way; to be read, and watched, criticised and intentionally ignored. As numerous as autumn leaves falling in ever increasing numbers until you can't walk your well worn tracks without shuffling through them, and the world is visibly transformed by their ever renewed golden presence, even as those from the past rot into obscurity and their humus transforms that which subsequently grows, nourishing the very grass roots from which all changes eventually emerge… and the ‘signifying order’ is renewed…
No, don’t worry about politics, about naivety. Worry only about one’s own ecological need. The politics will be there by themselves.