Monday, August 08, 2005

Detour this Concept

It seems I am not alone in spending my summer considering the idea of the Situationist International. I just found this great comment/short essay on the excellent Rhizome site (I hope you don't have to be a paid up member to see it).
Detour this Concept by Curt Cloninger, to my mind brings into the focus the spirit of dissent that one should approach such detoured works as the gnn video collective. I have been a fan of the Guerrilla News Network since I saw a hard techno sound track to Ronald Reagan B films as cut ups. However I do agree with;

"Don't fall into the easy dis Bush trap. Draw your horns on the
head of Warhol soup cans; paint your pitchfork into the hands of
Ozzie Nelson. Bush is the quintessential iconic bogey, luring
millions of potentially disruptive heads into an almost involuntary,
hypnotic, knee-jerk vilification of himself. He is the polarizing
agent that coaxes "radical artists" into the spectacle. We become
that upon which we gaze. To oppose Bush above all else is not to
oppose the spectacle. It is to participate in the spectacle at a
most ramped-up, self-deluded level. (If even now you feel disdain
rising up in you and an irresistible desire to write a scathingly
indignant response to this post, it's probably too late for you.) He
who has ears, let him hear."

Having witnessed the street theater that the squatting movement became in Holland in the late 1990's I believe that both sides of the left-right debate depend totally on each other. The anarchists in the television eye making another G8 summit difficult are those that bring about harsher restrictions on freedom of expression and right of assembly. Of course this does not mean that people should not be politically active. Just that they should be proactive in their activity, not reactive in their anger and dissatisfaction. Reactive people are never self directing, just echoing.

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