Radiohead and Waiting

Just lying in a bar with my drip feed on Talking to my girlfriend, waiting for something to happen And I wish it was the sixties, I wish I could be happy I wish, I wish, I wish that something would happen 

(the bends, 1995) 

I cannot think of any lyric that better sums up my experience of growing up in the 1990s than the one above, from Radiohead’s the Bends. I had a niggling feeling that nothing was happening. My parents had seen men land on the moon, but the Apollo programme has ended before I was even born. My parents had also see the invention of Concorde, whereas I only saw supersonic passenger flight decommissioned, as it was too expensive. You might argue that I have lived through a communications revolution, witnessing the birth of the internet and mobile phone technology, but this seems a somehow inferior experience to me. My parents could catch a flight out of Heathrow and land in New York before they had even taken off, while I can access Facebook on my phone. Indeed, these technologies, although they were born in the 1990s, didn’t really come into their own until the new millennium.  

I am not really interested in a debate about whether advancements in travel or communications is more exciting. This is only a metaphor for a lingering feeling of disquiet – that nothing was happening in the 1990s. It was not long after the ‘90s ended that things did start to happen though. It started when a man living in a cave orchestrated the largest ever coordinated attack against the USA on its own soil. Using World War Two Kamikaze-style tactics he destroyed icons of American imperial capitalism, military might, but failed to reach his last target in Washington. That a man in a cave in Afghanistan (or a house in Pakistan) could do this seemed unbelievable. What’s more unbelievable is that the most powerful country in the world, with the largest military budget was unable to catch him (or execute and dump him in the sea) for a decade. It was as it we had entered a Bond film.  

The Bond film continued when a computer programmer with white hair founded a global organisation to gather and release the world’s secrets. He even defied the world’s most powerful country at a time when it was run by a cowboy out to avenge the attacks by the man in the cave (house in Pakistan). Kim Jong Un is the most recent Bond baddie threatening to turn the world order upside down.  

Scotland’s near secession from the United Kingdom, Brexit, the election of Donald J. Trump, Catalonia’s vote for independence... things have started to happen and maybe there’s a bit too much happening, as if making up for the lack of activity in the 1990s. 

Thomas Bresolin: Сучьи войны (Bitch war)

Following on from our post about Chris Burden, Martin Lang makes a connection between Burden and a contemporary artist who inflicts violence on himself, on others and encourages others to inflict violence on him. For 'Bitch War' Bresolin carried out an eight-day hunger strike culminating with a performance in which he was force-fed (see the video below).

 

Read Martin's full review on a-n online here (or see below) to find out how he links Bresolinand Burden and how he thinks Bresolin's eight-day hunger strike was not out of solidarity for prisoners, but for starving artists.

Top 10 Contemporary Political Artists: 2, Mark Wallinger

I have a recurring, niggling thought, when making this list, that somehow really political artists shouldn't make saleable works (commodities), that the gallery space is inadequate for really political work and that artists shouldn't really work alone: the collective being a political statement in itself.  We have seen examples of collective practice (Casagrande, Chapman Brothers) and artists engaging their public outside the gallery space (Deller, Starling) but these areas remain, perhaps, underrepresented in my list and my number 2 spot goes to the 2007 Turner Prize winning British Artist Mark Wallinger (coincidentally 1997 was the same year Nathan Coley [my number 3] was nominated).

State Britain, 2007

Gene Ray, in his paper for the book The Sublime Now (ed. White & Pajaczkowska, 1999) concludes that the "cultural avant garde" can still make a political difference, but Ray sees the Internet as a more likely forum for political action and interaction than the gallery space.  I think the gallery space can still be used in the manner that Ray calls for.  “State Britain” (2007), where Mark Wallinger recreated Brian Haw’s Parliament Square protest is one example.

“On 23 May 2006, following the passing by Parliament of the ‘Serious Organised Crime and Police Act’ prohibiting unauthorised demonstrations within a one kilometre radius of Parliament Square, the majority of Haw’s protest was removed” (http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/wallinger/). 

 Considering Wallinger’s work in a sublime context we can begin to appreciate its genius.  Not only did Wallinger use pubic money (taken from the state coffers) to re-make something the state had banned, he also managed to place the protest within the government exclusion zone –

“…the edge of this exclusion zone bisects Tate Britain. Wallinger has marked a line on the floor of the galleries throughout the building, positioning “State Britain” half inside and half outside the border” (http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/wallinger/).  

While perhaps the literal meaning of the work is to challenge notions of free speech and to highlight erosion of civil liberties, it also raises questions about authenticity.  Does a replica demonstration do the same job as the “real” demonstration?  Can the real demonstration be considered an original, even though it was comprised of mass produced media imagery?  Can a replica be Art?  The last question certainly requires us to reconsider Benjamin’s definition of Art, where a photograph cannot be considered Art, as the power of Art lies in its “un-reproducibility”, its uniqueness: the power is in its “aura” (Benjamin, W 1943).  State Britain could also be seen as an act of collaboration (with Haw) but not in the sense that niggles me for Wallinger still claims sole credit for the artwork, the ego is still there.  Something else niggles me about this work - it was put up for sale by Wallinger's gallery Anthony Reynolds - a strange decision.  It should come as no surprise that after the Tate Commissioned the work they also selected Wallinger for the Turner Prize short-list (a different kind of politics is emerging here).

Ecce Homo, 1999

Wallinger is well know for State Britain, Ecce Homo (his commission for the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square) and for winning the so-called "Angel of the South" Ebsfleet commission in Kent (his giant White Horse).

Half Brother, 1995

Those who have known him longer will remember his photo-real paintings of race horses ("Race, Class, Sex and "Half Brother") which featured in his first nomination for the Turner Prize in 1995.   These early works addressed issues of race and breading as well as immigration (Race, Class, Sex) are depictions of four horses, all offspring of an Arab stallion brought to the UK.  They also tackle part of British Identity.  I saw Mark Wallinger's show No Man's Land at the Whitechapel Gallery in 2001.  According to the gallery:

No Man's Land marks an increasing interest in metaphysics and in systems of belief.

In No Man's Land Wallinger returns to explore religion or rather critique the particular belief system of Christianity.  Is Wallinger reminding us that we are on borrowed time, not on Man's land but God's?  Previous works Ecce Homo and Threshold can be read as exploring Christianity with sensitivity.  Ecce Homo was made in 1999 in the build up to "the millennium" an event that Wallinger felt was extremely secular, like watching the noughts go round on your speedo.  2000 years since what? asks Wallinger.  Ecce Homo is a life sized statue of Christ wearing his crown of thorns, awaiting judgement by a lynch mob.  When placed on the fourth plinth however, the life-sized scale becomes instantly small, vulnerable, human and the sculpture communicates to us as one of us (it could be me up there on the edge of that plinth, on my own).  Threshold to the Kingdom is a video of people coming through arrivals at London City Airport.  Slowed down and accompanied by Allegri’s Miserere Mei, Deus (written to be sung in the Sistine Chapel) the moment when people come through the double doors reminds us of the arrival at the gates of heaven.  People meeting and greeting their loved ones who have been away for too long remind us of Christianity's promise that we will be reunited in the afterlife.

Prometheus (Installation), 2001

In Prometheus Wallinger refers to a bygone belief system through both the title and the endless loop of the video.  In the Greek myth Prometheus gave life to clay (creating mankind) but was punished for doing so by Zeus who had him tied to a rock and an eagle eat his liver everyday, only for it to grow back at night.

Prometheus, 1999

Prometheus is also a comment on the phrase "playing god", both in the Greek myth and in Wallinger's content.  Prometheus is, after all, a video of an execution by electric chair.  The two minute video plays on an endless loop which rewinds and begins again and again, reminding us of the myth but also of the perpetual stays of execution that US prisoners have to endure (Dead Man Walking for example).  As the video rewinds, the unpleasant noise and the sped-up twitching of Wallinger's fingers and toes remind us of an electric shock.  In fact the victim is not exactly Wallinger but Wallinger's alter ego "Blind Faith" - the blind man character who appeared in the 1997 video Angel.  In the No Man's Land exhibition Prometheus was displayed as an installation, made all the more harrowing as the viewer, upon entering the room, is given a god's eye view of the electric chair which is mounted on the wall.  Close-ups of the victim's hands are displayed on walls to the left ad right revealing the words LOVE and HATE tattooed onto his fingers.
Is Wallinger religious and reminding us that we are not to play god?  Or is he critiquing a belief system through the title of the character "Blind Faith".  No matter.  He is making us look at ourselves and our values.

Twitter - Just Like a Phonebox Really

London rioted again last night.  On Thursday the Police shot and killed Mark Duggan in Tottenham.  Riots broke out and shops were burned and looted.  Last night (Sunday) saw a wave of “copycat criminal activity” (Met) across the capital: “Disorder spread to Enfield, Walthamstow and Waltham Forest in north London and to Brixton in the south of the city”. 

Reports from mainstream media (old media) quickly turned to the economic cost, how this could damage the Olympics next year (economics again) and how the trouble is perpetrated by minority groups.  There has been speculation that that some of the people involved were anarchists, and we all know the police don't like anarchists because they asked us to report on any known anarchists just last week (as if having a political belief is criminal).  Kit Malthouse, Deputy Mayor of London and Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority said "Obviously there are people in this city, sadly, who are intent on violence, who are looking for the opportunity to steal and set fire to buildings and create a sense of mayhem, whether they're anarchists or part of organised gangs or just feral youth frankly, who fancy a new pair of trainers."

Once more the role of Twitter is in question as Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Kavanagh told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that there were too few officers in Tottenham on Saturday night, but blamed Twitter for fuelling looting and violence, saying: "Social media and other methods have been used to organise these levels of greed and criminality."

You can read more about how the Daily Mail blamed Twitter for the riots here.  I wonder what rioters of the past used to organise levels of greed and criminality?  I guess they might have spoken to each other or maybe used a telephone to call up their mates but, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't recall newspaper reports or police chiefs blaming payphones for the riots.  Twitter, and all social media, is just a means of communicating.  What sort of person you are and who you choose to communicate with is up to you, it has nothing to do with the service provider - just like payphones.   What we need to recognise is that there are a lot of old people who have no idea how the internet works, fear Twitter and Facebook and so put the blame on them rather than tackle real issues. 

What seems to me to be more important is a) why the police were so ineffective b) why is this happening in the first place and c) what the ramifications will be for free speech and our right to protest. 

On the first question, Mayor Boris Johnson issued a statement referring to a "Michael Duggan" - so incompetence goes right to the top!   BBC London's Paraic O'Brien said of the situation in Brixton:

"They smashed a William Hill, they set bins on fire.  And now what we're seeing as the night progresses is that replicated, sort of flashpoints all along Brixton High Street.  I'm standing outside Halfords on the other side of the road and they've just smashed through the doors of Halfords. They're taking bikes out the front entrance.  I have to say, what really struck me was the small number of police officers that there actually seem to be on Brixton High Street responding to this."

We can only conclude that the police are scared of Brixton "the ghetto", were ill prepared or that the level of unrest was so great that the police had no chance - in which case the press have failed to communicate the level of severity.  

On the second point - the old press (and politicians) seem to have no interest in "why".  Rhetoric such as "outside agitators" and "anarchist groups" upsetting the "hardworking majority" (Tottenham MP David Lammy for example)is not helpful.  Richard Seymour (on Facebook) calls this "Crocodile tears from people who spend a lot of their time screwing over the hard-working majority...The point is to understand that this is an inevitable reaction to police murder, racism, and - more generally - the destruction of working class communities. The point is to get that what's happening can't be reduced to 'yob politics'".

On the third point (the ramifications for free speech and our right to protest): I've already pointed out that Social Media providers cannot be blamed for what users decide to discuss.  Users should also be free to discuss whatever they like, if they disclose criminal activity then they are potentially incriminating themselves but monitoring Twitter to see what people might do...  Can you imagine the police phone-tapping every call made from every telephone and arresting people based on what they insinuated they might do?  I can, sounds a bit Stalinist or reminiscent of the Stasi or Gestapo doesn't it?  Yet when this occurs with Social Media it's OK?  Richard Seymour points out (on Facebook) the police are using rumours (on FB/Twitter) as the basis for a crackdown.  "Cop car parked diagonally on Enfield town pavement while young kid was stopped, searched etc. Vans driving up and down, shops closing in panic."  See photos here.  The danger is not that Twitter can spread rumours of a riot but that rumours of a riot on Twitter reach a far bigger audience when people start seeing arrests, shops closing early and panic setting in in places like Enfield.  I'm sure word will soon spread - through Twitter or by word of mouth, it doesn't matter.