cross-currents in culture volume 2 number 8 summer 1999 free PAGE 2 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 Contents http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant/ Pierre Bourdieu’s Sociological Theory of Culture 3 Brigit Fowler Artschool Jungle 6 Lorna Miller Tales from the Great Unwashed 7 Ian Brotherhood 20th Century Prison Blues 9 An essay informed by four novels Jim Ferguson History of the LMC 12 Clive Bell ‘tun yuh and meck fashion’ 17 — The Container Project Mervin Jarman and Matthew Fuller Comic & Zine Reviews 18 Mark Pawson Byzantine Politics Supplement The Abudction and Trial of Abdullah Ocalan William Clark The Wilson plots 20 Robin Ramsay Variant volume 2 Number 8, Summer 1999 ISSN 0954-8815 Variant is a magazine of cross-currents in cul- Dragsters and Drag Queens, ture: critical thinking, imaginative ideas, inde- pendent media and artistic interventions. Variant is a Society based organisation and Beatification and Beating Off 23 functions with the assistance of subscriptions Simon Herbert and advertising. We welcome contributions in the form of news, reviews, articles, interviews, polemical A Cut and Paste Conversation 24 pieces and artists’ pages. Guidelines for writers are available on request. Renée Turner and Jason E. Bowman Opinions expressed in Variant are those of the writers and not necessarily those of the editors or Variant. All material is copyright Art Activism and Oppositionality 28 (unless stated otherwise) the authors or Essays from AfterImage Variant. Editorial & Advertising Address Ann Vance 1a Shamrock Street, Glasgow G4 9JZ Editors: William Clark & Leigh French Advertising & Distribution: Paula Larkin The First European Seminar Design: Kevin Hobbs Editorial Assistant: Ian Brotherhood on Artist Run Spaces 30 Cover: Lorna Miller t/f +44 (0)141 333 9522 Micz Flor email [email protected] Variant acknowledges SAC support towards the payment of contributors to the magazine. Return to the Far Pavilions 32 Printers: Scottish County Press Daniel Jewesbury Subscriptions Individuals can receive a three issue (one year) subscription to Variant for: UK £5.00, EC £7.00, Elsewhere £10.00 When you care enough Institutions: UK & EC £10.00, Elsewhere £15.00 to be the very best 32 Leigh French VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 • PAGE 3 Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological theory of culture Brigit Fowler

Pierre Bourdieu is currently the Professor of of ageing” and two economic logics functioning, Sociology at the Collège de France, Paris. He is one based on a long-run time perspective with someone who has experienced in his own life a risky undertakings, organised around objects that double transition from a pre-capitalist world to a have a long life (“art”), and the other, with the aid capitalist one: initially, in his move from Denguin, of multiple reproduction, organised around low- in the peasant Béarn area of the Pyrenees, to met- risk undertakings with a short-run life (the “com- ropolitan Paris, and once again, after his return mercial” portrait or Boots landscape) (1996:142-6). from the rural South of Algeria, where after being Bourdieu’s relentlessly empirical investigations drafted with the Army he became a self-taught into the taste for modernist works as symbolic anthropologist. goods show that its public are not just drawn from Thus Bourdieu is well-placed to argue that the other artists, but principally from those patrician fundamental element of modernity is the histori- families who have “old money”, often bankers, lib- cal shift towards the greater significance of the eral professionals and higher education teachers economy within the whole society. From being a (1984). Thus, once aesthetically certified by a lead- “thing in itself” the economy becomes a “thing for ing critic and authenticated by the artists’ signa- itself”. In particular, the gift exchange of goods ture, the works of the contemporary avant-garde and labour, which had once been totally organised have moved into the arms of power. “Legitimate around reciprocity, is largely replaced. What is taste” (“good” taste) is far from randomly scat- substituted for it, of course, is the production and tered: it is the possession of an “aristocracy of cul- circulation of commodities, but also the enclosure ture”. Moreover, artistic reputations no longer of a sacred island of Art, where an inversion of have to wait for posthumous recognition (as with commodity values emerge, in such a way that high Manet) or middle age (as with Degas, Monet and sales no longer count as an acceptable measure of other members of the impressionist Batignolles aesthetic value: Group). Certainly, the reverse world of bohemia, The denial of economic interest …finds its favourite established by the first “heroic modernists”, was refuge in the domain of art and culture, the site of [a] premised on the ascetic disavowal of the market pure [form of] consumption, of money, of course, but and a self-denying pursuit of artistic values alone state-certified education by means of the mecha- also of time convertible into money.The world of art, a (1996). Thus Flaubert, for example, could be nisms of critical discrimination (via representa- sacred island systematically and ostentatiously opposed recognised as truly epoch-making in his refusal to tion in the National Gallery, Oxford anthologies, to the profane world of production, a sanctuary for make a “pyramid structure” —to present a cumu- etc.). Yet the secret of such disproportionate suc- gratuitous, disinterested activity in a universe given over lative narrative order —and in his insistence on a cess in school for the sons and daughters of the to money and self-interest, offers, like theology in a past perspectivist treatment in his novels (e.g. Madame dominant class was that they alone possessed, via epoch, an imaginary anthropology obtained by the Bovary). Equally, Manet and Redon refused to use family visits to museums and libraries, a domestic denial of all the negations really brought about by the a painting to “say something” and aimed to “liber- culture that trained them to penetrate the acade- economy (1977). ate themselves from the writer”, that is, from any mic mysteries of the school curriculum. Thus Bourdieu himself is particularly concerned “gloss or exegesis” (1996:136-7). Bourdieu’s The State Nobility showed that only 32 with the fate of art in late capitalist society, argu- Such ascetic withdrawal is now no longer an % students of the great grandes écoles (the topmost ing that the sociological study of culture is the adequate description of contemporary artists. rung of French higher education) came from the sociology of religion of our time. Adorno and the Instead, the longer-term investment of their exper- subordinate classes, while earlier research on the theorists of the Frankfurt School saw painters imental effort is increasingly a guarantee of the universities revealed that in 1964 only 6% of the such as Kandinsky as adopting a language of form art-market’s eventual recognition, a recognition children of workers (or peasants) were enrolled. which was out of reach of the commercial “culture which often now comes to the young and which industry”, not least because of the epiphanies ensures rewards considerably greater than those Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice offered within their works and their two-dimen- the commercial market hands out to the mass of Bourdieu is becoming synonymous with a “holy sional grasp of social realities. But Bourdieu force- illustrators and designers “selling their souls” in trinity” of concepts: habitus, capital and field. fully proposes a disturbing, new, demystifying standardised activities1. The self-presentation of There are dangers in stripping these from their stance. He asks whether the avant-garde might the artist as devoid of monetary interests is mean- conceptual moorings in his other, wider, theories, not have become set in an entirely different con- while preserved by the convenient alchemy of the but I will risk these to show how these “trade- text once the structures of the modern art market art-dealer. For the gallery-owner (or dealer), by mark” ideas operate. I will then apply them espe- had been established. Thus when the leading concerning him/herself uniquely with the vulgar cially to the art-world, and show how a exponents of the various modernisms became world of money, frees the creative figure from its Bourdieusian perspective refuses a charismatic highly-valued in the art market and their works grips and thus arranges the transmutation of the theory of the isolated artist and resists the inter- came to be used to prove that their owners had “a artistic philosopher’s stone into gold. In this pretation of pure disinterestedness on the part of spiritual soul”, a fundamental “misrecognition” respect, the artist is aided by the School, in the both public and artists. I shall suggest that occurred. role of the critic. The critic provides explanations Bourdieu represents a powerful analysis of the Increasingly, a hagiographic approach to “the of the nature of his/her art to a whole professional high culture of modernism but that his social the- artist as saint” has emerged. With it, any attempt field which thus consecrates and authorises her ory also contains certain problematic omissions. to introduce a scientific study of art and its social (1996:169). Bourdieu aims to avoid the oppositions based relations are denounced as reductionist. But such There is also another reason for the changed on privilege and prejudice that resonate through an approach, taken seriously, means looking once role of the arts in contemporary society. This con- the linked dualism of the “individual genius” and again at the evolution of artistic autonomy within cerns their emergence within the field of educa- the “masses”, noting how the deskilling of the capitalist modernity and especially at the split tion, both as the mechanisms for selecting the subordinate classes has been accompanied by the phenomena of “the appearance of cultural pro- “best brains” and more indirectly as the means by “hyperskilling” of the genius, how the subordinate duction specially designed for the market and, which the dominant social classes arranges their classes’ incomprehension of high culture has been partly in reaction against that, a production of social inheritance. Bourdieu (1968, with Passeron) similar to that of colonised natives awed by colo- pure works destined for symbolic appropriation” saw the post-war bourgeoisie as distinguished nial power, and how the dominant classes’ racist (1996:140). The underlying principle of difference from other classes by its acquisition of state cre- fears of the masses has echoed the irrationality between the two has become the opposition of dentials in the form of educational success (“meri- and childishness which was once attributed to “pure art” to popular taste, where the popular has tocracy”). The notion of meritocracy was and is “primitives” by the colonising Western powers. become negatively associated with the “commer- one of the most brilliant rationales of good for- In contrast, for Bourdieu, all action, including cial”. In fact “pure art” is less other-worldly, that tune for the successful few, just as the kharma artistic work, is modelled on craft action. To put it is, disinterested and non-market-oriented than it doctrine served to create a perfect theological jus- another way: practice is strategic action. Within appears, and the routine organisation of art oper- tification for the hierarchical pre-eminence of the this strategic action or agency, everyone is capable ates to ensure that there are actually two “modes Brahmin few. Moreover, the canon of great artists of improvisation, just as the clarinettist’s jazz solo and writers could be incorporated into such a both obeys certain rules but also —as the fruition PAGE 4 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999

of long experience —may go beyond even the vir- strongly integrated. They are united not just tuoso performances of other great improvisers. through the effects of the habitus, but also by the Such rules, which guide improvisation, are implicit solidarity of their interests. They are united at in your habitus —or loosely, your “world-view” — once by capital and for capital: economic capital that is your way of perceiving, emotionally certainly, symbolic capital (the name) and above responding to and evaluating the world. Your class all, perhaps, social capital (which one knows is habitus (sometimes referred to as “habitus” as both the condition for and the consequence of the such) is the product of your family’s experience successful direction of capital on the part of the over generations. For example, a gradually-declin- members of this domestic unit). ing aristocracy is on a social journey or trajectory Bourdieu calls “doxa” the taken-for-granted over decades that produces a certain kind of habi- assumptions or orthodoxies of an epoch which are tus, made up by a strange mixture of pessimism deeper in the level of consciousness than mere and condescension. Bourdieu writes of the resent- ideologies, but are also productive of conscious ments endemic in many habituses, as in the struggles and new forms. “Heresiarchs”, as scrimping and saving of the upwardly socially- Bourdieu calls them, include painters like Courbet mobile, petit-bourgeois parents who have literally and Manet, as well as political figures and philoso- “made themselves small” and “done everything” phers like Pascal and Spinoza. They rupture the for their children (1984). doxa (or break with conventions). Bourdieu writes The mistake in reading Bourdieu is to assume particularly powerfully of Flaubert and of his deci- that he is concerned with habitus as a product of sion to write well and flout mediocrity while class experience alone. Certainly, for him, each choosing, as his subject for tragic love, characters agent’s habitus is formed by their class, but also coming from the middle class provincial obscurity by their gender and their own occupational field. of Yvetot. Heterodoxy distills in its most conse- We can reasonably talk of a working-class habitus crated forms the lived experience of groups who but also of a farming habitus, a military, scientific are not of the subordinate classes, but nor are or an artistic habitus. they of the dominant fraction of the dominant The habitus itself has to be thought of as like class. Instead they derive from that part of the rul- an old house —its own order or logic has an aes- ing class which has cultural capital but not much thetic resemblance to a well lived-in, much-adapt- economic capital. ed interior. In the case of both class and gender, Bourdieu has himself let loose some debunking the marks that these create are the consequence arguments which have deeply upset art historians of centuries, or even millennia, of naturalising and philosophers of aesthetics. First, he claims Geographically, it has been virtually impossible social differentiation. The differences feed into that art critics have a model of a “fresh eye” for provincial artists or even those who have come each other, so that the working-class feed off their which is opposed to the academic “eye”, but is from the country to the city to make their mark. sense of being the last bastion of masculinity still itself thought of as a naturalised essence (that Provincial artists have been doomed instead to against the effeminate bourgeoisie, and the bour- is, they presume that those competencies in abandon their projects, and to become merely geoisie pride themselves on abandoning a dehu- colour, line etc which are actually the result of regional painters or writers. Moreover, only those manising patriarchy. What is more the early upbringing or training are instead an innate painters or writers who had families ready to give “structuring structures” of the habitus discipline gift of nature) (1996: 284-312). Critics suffer from them allowances in the difficult periods before both mind and body: for Bourdieu, there is no what we might call a poverty of ahistoricism: in getting established were likely to be successful. cause for a split. So the military body grows ram- particular, they are unprepared to understand the Here Bourdieu is at his most challenging. He is rod stiff, the painter learns an “automatic” way of artist in terms of his/her positions and position- arguing in effect that the whole history of mod- handling his paint and the sound of the gears tell takings within the art field. What is more, when ernism has been one in which only those avant- the driver “without thinking about it” when to the rhetoric of art-criticism is analysed closely, the garde artists who were centrally located and who change. The artistic habitus, in other word, is bred terms chosen are all those that loosely link in to had the time to spend on their experiments were into the bone. aristocratic discourse —the paintings are noble, the ones who won out. distinctive, refined, subtle, etc. Such terms are The Rules of Art (1996) bring out the tragic con- convenient. They are at once sufficiently tradictions of art in our period. For Bourdieu autonomous to continue to have some currency in shows us that the only effective field of struggle is creating an ethos of rarity but sufficiently loose to within the “restricted” field of art, cut off from be compatible with any aesthetics (see 1984, con- the “expanded” field where specialised knowl- clusion). edge is not required to decode the relevant Secondly, Bourdieu argues —like Foucault on imagery. Within the restricted field, collective the invention of the homosexual —that the West movements help to consecrate the reputation of saw the invention of the artist in the mid-nine- individual artists, whose positions, in turn, are teenth century. This figure was characteristically that much more defensible the better-secured are bohemian, emphasising with a Christ-like devotion their own artistic habitus. Bourdieu suggests that the sacrifices necessary for art. The artist pro- Manet, for example, had an extensive knowledge voked a sense of awe and respect for disinterest- of art history on which his own works fed; edness, initially within the progressive Duchamp had a superb feel for the game, partly intelligentsia of the Left bank, and then more gen- because several generations of his family were erally among the bourgeoisie. Bourdieu’s work painters. And, lest he be seen to be simplistically undercuts this, although his latest work does con- anti-artist, he notes that the symbolic revolutions cede that certain artists —like Manet —can be established by Baudelaire or Manet are in some regarded as “heroic” in their inauguration of a respects as fundamental as a political revolution. new world of art based on “symbolic revolution”. They change permanently the way that we see and He insists, on the other hand, that, unlike the aca- classify the world. demic world where the artist is a civil servant of Yet the dangers inherent in historical revolu- art, the world of the bohemian artist is a world of tions also apply to such symbolic revolutions. The Capital and doxa anomic (unregulated) competing cults. The artist, achievement of mass recognition by an artist is a For Bourdieu, artists and other agents possess cer- however is not entirely given up to the other- double-sided victory for it sets in motion a process tain capitals, of which there are four basic types: worldliness of the artistic life. In fact artists who of routine co-optation —by means of cheap repro- first, economic capital —stocks and shares but also are productive are those whose hours and ethic of ductions, profitable “bio-pics”, personality cults the surplus present in very high salaries —second, work resembles that of other professionals. and hyperbolic “criticism”. The most transgressive social capital —the network or influential patrons Artists, thus argues Bourdieu, are usually dis- figures can thus be tailored ultimately to the that you can use to support your actions; third, tant from the models of disinterested devotion needs of the museum, gallery/ market system and cultural capital —including the knowledge of the that the bohemian ideal suggests: “One soon the curriculum. Here the lowest common denomi- artistic field and its history, which in turn serves to learns in conversation with [gallery-owners] that nator that draw them together is the artists’ mutu- distinguish the naïve painter from the profession- with a few illustrious exceptions ..., painters …are al concern for aesthetic form, whatever al, and including also scholarly capital of a formal deeply self-interested, calculating, obsessed with differences exist in terms of meaning or the politi- type (a postgraduate degree, the award of a Rome money and ready to do anything to succeed” cal ends their works serve. Through a form of visiting scholarship etc.); finally, symbolic capital: (1980:266). In terms of their action in their own reception that forces them to submit to the aes- your reputation or honour, as an artist who is loyal field, the saint-like hero of bohemia possesses thetic attitude —the supremacy of style —they to fellow-artists and so on. unexpected reserves of anger and even physical inadvertently come to underline the dominant These capitals can be (and often are) distrib- 2 violence in defending their stake in the game. His class’s hold on power . Bourdieu’s writings in fact uted around a kin-group, their specific structure example is of the French surrealists’ circle where disclose a skeletal theory of art which does not and volume distinguishing the “great family” of force —even broken arms —was the outcome of always need to serve the purposes of such hege- the dominants from the others: One of the proper- struggles over competing issues. monic domination, allowing us to go beyond a vul- ties of the dominants is to have families particu- Second, Bourdieu argues that becoming “recog- gar critique of pure art. His theory is an attempt larly extended (the great have great families) and nised” requires a certain artistic career. to create a sociological aesthetic which might give VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 • PAGE 5 back to art its concern with ethical and political But Bourdieu’s theory does have certain prob- al” (or “informational”) “capital” are necessarily interests, which wishes to flee the museum and lematic elements, following on the poor predictive either zero-sum or hierarchical in all societies. restructure the role of the art-world within every- quality of his research on photography. Let me iso- These could, without internal contradiction, be day life. late these briefly. First the concepts of “doxa” or more democratised. Equally, artists’ symbolic We begin to see, too, why there is no such thing “illusio” tend to suggest that there are no possibil- “capital” in the form of reputations does not nec- as popular art in Bourdieu’s theory. First because ities of moving outside the “game” and beyond essarily have to be exploitative of others, although the modern artist, bereft of the orthodoxy of the the forms of knowledge that prevail within it, it may be competitively-based. Academic artist, needs the defence of his/her crit- knowledge which depends crucially on your loca- It is often said that Bourdieu might be accurate ic, not to speak of a reputable dealer. Second, tion in relation to power. However, unlike in writing of the centrality of high culture or the because the institution of permanent revolution Foucault, Bourdieu does suggest that there is a aesthetic in France, but in France alone. However requires the crucial ingredient of the right place possibility of lived experience which may clash with I disagree with this view: many of the same phe- (especially presence in the great metropolises of ideology: moreover, in the case of (social) science, nomena appear in Scotland. I cannot agree with modernity) and also the time when young to this takes the form of procedures for testing reali- Halle’s criticism (taken to be implied by his experiment. The conditions for these are self- ty which are non discourse-dependent. It is true American study) that Bourdieu has overstressed assurance and the financial support that histori- that despite this there are still certain types of the significance of the drive for symbolic power in cally has been available only to the sons and doxa or taken-for granted assumptions which are such areas as the possession of abstract art. Nor is daughters of the dominant class (not least the ineradicable in a given period because they are it sufficient to show, against Bourdieu, that popu- minor aristocracy) by means of an allowance. opaque, even to social scientists. However, every lar artistic works exist (Shusterman cites the case We also note that for Bourdieu some arts might historian would agree that this is the case to some of rap, 1992), for there have to be sponsors to be legitimisable (eg cinema or photography or degree. champion new genres/ groups/ independent cultur- jazz). However, compared with other more secure- Secondly, Bourdieu writes very disparagingly of al producers, and, as Raymond Williams has ly-consecrated forms they don’t bring their poten- the “fragile” nature of the alliance between artists argued, such sponsors are often unprepared to tial haute bourgeois public enough returns (in and workers, and expects it to dissolve when the defend works that the general public likes because terms of “cultural capital”) to reward them for artists themselves gain recognition. But in some they have themselves developed “mandarin” their investment of time and effort. Such art-forms circumstances, this “fragile” alliance does hold, at tastes. Yet the modern period has also had a small are doomed to be taken seriously only by a tiny least temporarily (eg the Russian and Cuban minority of critics who have sometimes canonised “deviant” minority like the junior executives or Revolutions). Artists do suffer exile or even die for popularly-successful producers, as did Williams technicians who make up the members of camera their beliefs —I think of Neruda confronted by himself with Dickens, Mrs. Gaskell, Thomas Hardy clubs. Photography, therefore, is consigned for the Chilean junta, of Lorca in the Spanish Civil and Tressell. In some contexts, works have been ever to the outer circle of hell in the form of the War, or Mandelstam, Solzhenitsyn, and others who unshackled or recycled from a purely formalist mere middlebrow. could have sometimes taken easier ways out. The optic and the artist has become the visionary of I think that Bourdieu overlooked the potential question here, it seems to me, is to deepen and his/ her time, expressing ethical/ political issues in for “consecration” within photography —it might make more precise our historical sociology of such the form of images —as Blake managed to criti- be said that the popular character of photography testing-points. Under what conditions do groups of cise slavery, and even in the era of modernism, did delay its legitimation but that it has now artists —like Quakers and some early trade-union Manet achieved in his lithographs of dead acquired its own canon of great photographers, its groups —offer resistance or seriously undertake Communards or Grosz pulled off in his satirical own critics and historians and its own educational the risks of “martyrdom” ? (Fowler, 1997) cartoons of post World War I inequality. base in art-schools. However, there is considerable Further, I should refer to Bourdieu’s disturbing Distinction and The Rules of Art sum up the backing to many of Bourdieu’s theories, not least views about artists’ “interest in disinterested- deliberate disenchantment of art by Bourdieu. By in the various British reports of the Arts Council. ness”, which has led one critic to accuse him of this more scientific exploration of the art-world For example, Moulin’s empirical work on the con- having a narrow and unacceptably determinist and its links with the school and the field of temporary French art-market (1967), in the Centre position, which lacks any room for altruism power, we can all become more aware of the ways de Sociologie Européene, has shown very acutely, (Alexander, 1995). My inclination is to follow in which educational outcomes are linked to class by means of interviews with painters, collectors Bourdieu here: he points even to medieval monks experience and of the complex nature of the inter- and curators, the precise ways in which critics’ having occasionally come to blows, such was the ests which drive agents. But there is nothing bio- aesthetic values are used to bolster exchange val- intensity of their belief in their religion (1998c: logical, akin to genes, that leads to such interests ues and the paradoxes for the painters of having 78). Yet he is also aware that monastic communi- invariably being preserved and passed on, despite clients buy their works who are out of sympathy ties could reveal considerable levels of disinterest- the impressive dignity of the dominants which is with their views. She indicates the widespread edness. The brothers scourged themselves with imparted by their knowledge of poetry and art. A painters’ concern for alternative ways of putting consciences more subtle and vigilant than most. reflexive sociology shows also the possibility for their work in the public domain. Gamboni (1989) The same should be noted of artists, who, after all, resistance and transformation. Bourdieu in fact has shown how being taken up by a wealthy and deliberately avoid economic capital at the outset has high standards for artists, as emerges unam- aristocratic group of clients, as Odilon Redon was, of their adult careers. They might quite reasonably biguously in his work with the installation artist, can coincide with a fundamental change of style. want the degree of material comforts which are Hans Haacke3. This included, in his case, a total change from necessary for work, without being held to pursue At the end of The Rules of Art Bourdieu argues monochrome symbolist or metaphysical etchings economic interests single-mindedly. The problem for an Internationale of Artists and Intellectuals to oil-paintings, suffused with light, and from som- here is not Bourdieu’s theory but rather an “inven- (344-5), who will aim to advance the project of the bre greys to intense, bright colours. Sapiro’s study tion” of “the artist” which projects on them ide- Enlightenment and who will need to own their (1996) of French writing in the period of the Nazi alised human qualities, transforming them into means of cultural production to do so. Recently, he occupation has revealed that many of the organi- figures devoid of practical needs (Bourdieu 1998 c: has restated this: sations of the so-called autonomous literary field, 85-8). I would like writers, artists, philosophers and scientists to such as the Académie Francaise , the Nouvelle My view would also be that Bourdieu does be able to make their voices heard directly in all the Revue Francaise, the Prix Renaudot and the Prix incur some costs in broadening out the idea of areas of public life in which they are competent. I think Goncourt, pandered unheroically to the Vichy “capital” to include social and cultural capital. that everyone would have a lot to gain if the logic of regime or its German masters, thus displaying in Economic capital is necessarily zero sum —the intellectual life, that of argument and refutation, were the event the weakness of their humanist rhetoric. more surplus value the employer has, the less the extended to public life. worker has. But it is not clear to me that “cultur- PAGE 6 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999

And, in his acceptance speech for the Bloch Prize, he argues for a “reasoned utopia” and against the “bankers’ fatalism” which is the ideol- ogy of our time. Rational utopianism is defined as being both against “pure wishful thinking (which) has always brought discredit on utopia” and against “philistine platitudes concerned essential- ly with facts …intellectuals and all others who really care about the good of humanity, should re- establish a utopian thought with scientific backing ...” (Bourdieu,1998b: 128). Notes 1 Bourdieu’s theories neglect the crossovers between the fine and applied arts. Subsequent to the period of his research, these have certainly become more frequent with artists plundering the “expanded field” of comics, cartoons, graffiti etc. and vice versa. Some recuperation of the popular was always an element of the restricted field (see Varnedoe and Gopnick, 1990). 2 Acts of Resistance notes in its critique of the Bundesbank’s President, Mr. Tietmayer, that while he is anxious to bury the expensive welfare state and remove labour movement “rigidities”, he, like M. Trichet, the Governor of the Banque de France, no doubt reads poetry and sponsors the arts (Bourdieu 1998b: 46). 3 Free Exchange, Polity, 1995. Haacke has also revealed the anomalies in the changed location of the most celebrated modernists’ works, both through showing the changing ownership of their paintings as they come into possession of the more conservative professions and corporate heads and through revealing the discrepancies between the directors’ view of how art museums should be run and those of the general public. References Selected Works by Pierre Bourdieu: Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge University Press, 1977. The Production of Belief, Media, Culture and Society, 1980, 2, 261-93 Distinction, Routledge, 1984. The Rules of Art, Polity, 1996. The State Nobility, Polity, 1997. Acts of Resistance, Polity, 1998a. A Reasoned Utopia and Economic Fatalism New Left Review, 227, Jan – Feb,1998b, 125-130 Practical Reason, 1998c. Works by other writers: Jeffrey Alexander: Fin de Siècle Social Theory, Verso, 1995. Bridget Fowler, Pierre Bourdieu and Cultural Theory, Sage, 1997. Raymonde Moulin, La Marché de la Peinture en France, Minuit, 1967. G isèle Sapiro, La Raison Littéraire: Le Champs Littéraire dans l’Occupation (1940-4), Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, nos. 111-2, Mars 1996, Seuil. Richard Shusterman, Pragmatist Aesthetics, Blackwell, 1992. K.Varnedoe and A. Gopnik, High and Low, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1990. Raymond Williams, The Politics of Modernism, Verso, 1989 VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 • PAGE 7 Ian Brotherhood Tales from the Great Unwashed

Had a wee flurry just after lunchtime there with a shivers with this, and the girls all sort of scream at toys, a baby’s arm sticking out of the sand, and crowd of folk over for a christening up the road, the same time as this thing appears on the screen, gloves everywhere —ladies’ pink gloves, a navvy’s but I don’t think they’ll be back. I heard one of and Mary jiggles at he keyboard and makes her heavy-duty crimson rubber like an udder, and them moaning about the dust on the top shelves man pick up this baseball bat type of thing. This wellie boots and wheelie bins and all manner of of the gantry, and another on about there being no creature gets closer, and you can see now it’s a ter- shite in great long lines along the sea-wall as far soap in the ladies. Makes you wonder what sort of rible thing altogether, with the body of a big baldy as I can make-out. crowd the baby’s let hisself in for. dog hopping about on its back legs, and the face But I walk along anyway, and glad of the binoc- This morning, about half-eleven I suppose, the on it is like Lester Piggot, only if you imagine your ulars too. A sailing-boat far away is getting tossed doors wasn’t long open and I’m standing here man with a great long jaw like a donkey and the about grand-style by the waves, and even the seag- looking at the sun on the pavement and wonder- teeth on him is like the shards of glass along the ulls manage to find out what hovering’s like, stut- ing if I should get Diane in early and head off wall-top, and the whole thing is the colour of dead tering up and down in the wind. I reach the dunes down the coast for a few hours, a walk along the skin and covered with these big wet warts about where we used to meet when we were over on the beach, a wee bit fresh air for the brainbox. I’m an inch broad and high, and the music goes men- holidays. We even managed to build a sort of hut just standing there staring at the pavement, at the tal and the thing hops right up to the screen, cov- for when the rain was on. I poke around a bit shadow of the lamp post across the road, the ering about the same distance that I go lepping beside a couple of the sandy banks, checking close exhaust fumes blue in the light, and I’m sort of back over the carpet. Mary jerks back in the seat to see if there might be any trace of the door half-dreaming about whether or not to take the and makes the fella bring down the baseball bat frame and timbers we used, but of course there’s binoculars and the wellies and that when a move- and she catches old Lester-face right on the side nothing. The dunes I remember have probably ment sort of snaps me awake and this wee dog, of the head, behind his ear it is, and you hear this long since joined the sea. some kind of mongrel terrier I suppose, this wee crack like a melon hitting the pavement, and the There’s a sunset happening over behind the black and white patched fella goes walking back- creature lets out a howl and staggers back, but not islands, but heavy black clouds from the sea wards across the doorway.Very strange that, so I fast enough ’cos Mary belts it another one with obscure it, and grey bands connecting to the sea pour a coffee from the pot and stand there and this bat, and this time the whole side of it’s head on the horizon tell me that I’ve walked enough drink that and try to remember if Da ever men- caves in and this like snake of blood and brains and should return before the rain hits land. tioned anything about dogs doing such a thing, but comes leaping out its skull and lands on the deck Back down past the dunes, then the great slope I don’t recall it ever being a hot topic. Cats, black, like a shot jellyfish, and all the noises is like of the sea-wall where there’s still the barbed wire aye, crossing paths and all that. Dogs, no. Cats things popping and farting liquids. Are you wanti- and the bunkers for the guns, and right battered it walking backwards? No. And then I get this pic- ng a shot? asks that Shona one then, but I’m all is too, with slabs of concrete as big as the pub ture of a dog and a cat walking side by side back- halfways out of the room already and not feeling shifted and cracked by the winter waves. I have to wards under a stepladder, so I stop drinking the too good either. sit down. My legs are tired, and that’s maybe only coffee and call Diane. She can make it a couple of I wash the face and give myself a wee talking six, seven miles at most. I don’t want to go home hours early, so I’ll be off right enough, and with to in the bog and work it out before I go back in. with Mary and me not talking. I can’t handle it. luck there might be a decent sunset. I’m not good at this type of thing, and thank God And that game still has to go back. It’s in the car, Mary’s been as good as she has ’cos I couldn’t have back in its box. The picture on the front is of a big See what it is? It’s over having words with Mary been doing with it all the time. veiny red blob, and the only thing that tells you again. That’s about a dozen times since her six- it’s a head is these two mad red eyes like glass. I teenth I’ve had to talk to her about them so-called You girls better get yourselfs downstairs. Your car wonder what Mary has inside her head, what she friends. Last night she’s got them in again up the should be here by now. And take that game with dreams about when she’s not well, or when she’s stairs, that Shona one with her sister Jools. That you and make sure you never bring anything like scared. The worst I ever got was a witch under the Shona’s too old for a start. Eighteen. That’s too old that into my house again. Do you understand? I bed. I shiver and have to check behind me, along for my Mary. And there’s something about that say, and it’s like I must be putting on my sternest the cracked ridge of the wall, feeling that some- wee Jools one I don’t like. She looks at me a bit voice ’cos they’re looking well wary and hurt, but thing is watching me. But there’s nothing there. weird, them big eyes staring at you, but you would- they both look up at Mary, and Mary looks at me The furthest of the islands is now behind the wall n’t trust her at the baby-sitting I can tell you. So like I’m daft and says, it’s mine Dad, this is the of grey rain, and it’ll be here before long. I’m too anyway, I go up there, tell them that’s their car, one I got with the birthday money you gave me. I weary to start walking again, so I make a smoke ’cos their Da owns Starnight Cars, and he always told you about it, remember? before heading off, and sure enough I’ve the gets one of his lads to drop by if they’re here late. So that was that. They got packed off home and smoke only half-done when the wind turns right So it’s half-nine and the car’s there. And when I we had an argument. In the end, I lost, and I know powerful and the rain comes in sidey-ways like knock the door I hear Mary shouting come-in, so she knows it. If I would have been more interested pebbles, and it’s maybe thinking about the likes of in I go, and they’re about the computer, shoulder I would have known, but she’s still got the receipt that animal in the game, and that thing staring at to shoulder the three of them, and it’s some game so I’ll be taking it back to the shop and having a me out of the box in the back seat, but it’s like they’re at. wee word with Peter, ’cos he’s the fella with his eyes are all round me, all watching, all chasing me Have a look Da, says Mary, and she sort of name on the slip. Makes me wonder if Peter’s got along the beach, and the cloud is over and above leans back so I can see the screen, and it’s like any my Mary’s age. Better for him if he doesn’t. and low, blanketing the whole sky, and I don’t some video effects thing they’re about, and Mary’s remember being so scared for a very long time. working the controls there, and she’s a young man, The drive down is slow and frustrating, and a right maybe about ages with herself, and he’s stuck in shouting match I end up having with a fella I want to get straight upstairs and dry off, and the some sort of a dungeon, pure blackness all about behind me who won’t make his mind up to over- shivers haven’t stopped, even with the heating up him. Watch now, says Mary, and the music’s right take or sit halfway up me pipe. The coastline is full in the car, but Diane calls me across as soon as creepy too, not the likes of your old black-and- dirty. The secret bay as we called it isn’t as secret I’m in the door and says there’s a man been wait- whites with the church organs and that, but these as it used to be, and it’s not with folk being there, ing to see me since an hour after I left. He looks mad screams and laughs and scrapes and cutting but the stuff along the tide-lines. Old johnnies, angry about something, and he’s quite drunk, but sounds all mixed in, and I’m getting a bit of the womens’ towels and weathered parts of children’s he hasn’t caused any bother so she hasn’t warned PAGE 8 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999

him yet, but she doesn’t want to serve him any for an answer, and there was no aggression in the there’s as much spit as there is beer. I smooth on more. I follow her backward nod to where this tall, voice. He deserves an explanation. I put the pint more soap, and wonder where she is, my Mary. She thin-faced fella is leaning against the bar, hand before him, and he slides two coins across. I leave should be back any minute. cupped about his pint, and craning up he is to them be. She’ll be with her friends, doing whatever they look at the screen of the telly above him. I don’t I’m sorry, I say, and he doesn’t look up from do when their Da’s aren’t about. There’s anger recognise him at all. Not a regular. It’s possible examining the head on the pint. deep in my belly, just the same as you get before a I’ve seen him passing or in another pub, but So am I, he says then, and raises the glass and fight, and I close my eyes and I can remember it there’s nothing clear, and that’s with a good study drinks, and continues the slow swallow until half all like switching on a light, me and her Mum on at him in his reflection behind the gantry. of the liquid has been drained. the shore that night, and it’s a warm, clear memo- I get upstairs and change. I don’t even shower, I know that Frank and Joe and Bobby will be ry, how sweet and soft and young she was, the just have a quick rub with the towel and on with a halfway along the bar behind me, pretending to lights of the town in the distance and the coolness fresh shirt and breeks. I look smart enough, but I watch the telly —there’s no sense that the man of the sand below, and I open my eyes and the know I’m in no fit state to be scrapping. The shiv- will do anything, but that’s as dangerous a time as anger’s away and Christ I wish she was with me, ers have got worse, and a bit of temple pain there, any. right now. and that’s always unusual for me, means I might He sniffs again and wipes some froth from his be in for a wee bout. I summon Frank from the lips. end of the bar, careful not to open it too far in It’s a hard job right enough, looking after them, case your man should see. Frank is only just in, so he says, but we can look after each other’s a bit, he’s sober enough. I tell him what’s what and he you know, keep an eye out and that. Know what I goes back to his seat. mean? The guy gives a wee bit of a start when I say He extends his hand again as he stands up. my name. He’s been watching the cricket on the He’s really very tall indeed. I take his hand, and telly, and looks like he was enjoying it too until I it’s the same shake as before, short and firm, but turns up. this time I notice a lump and see the wart on his So you’re Mary’s father, says he, and I nod and middle finger as his hand goes to zip up his jacket. extend my hand. He takes it slowly, and his hand Nice pint you serve in here by the way, he says, is big, but the shake isn’t a showy, dramatic one. and off he goes. Frank and Joe and Bobby come It’s solid and brief. He’s got a good drink in him, buzzing over with questions, but I don’t hear them. that’s clear by his eyes, but he keeps his voice I go to the toilet. clear enough, and straight to the point he is. My daughters were here last night, he says, So it’s ten minutes I’m at it there with the nail they like Mary a lot, and so do I. She’s been in our brush and the green pan scourer, and the flesh is house now three, four times, and every time not a raw but I keep scraping and pour another dash of bit of bother.Your Mary’s a good lass Mr disinfectant into the basin. Doohihan. She’s bright and well-liked. I’m glad she Better safe, that’s what Dad always said, ’cos gets on with mine. She’s a good influence on them. you never knew what some of them have at and But this stuff they’re getting into. You’ll forgive me about their gobs over a day. Glass carries the fin- speaking my mind, but it’s not right. gerprints and a lot more you can’t see. People with So that’s it then. Their Dad. Jamie Kelly. scabs and ulcers on their lips. People who let their Starnight Cars. A lot of stories about this man. A nose run all over their mouth when they’ve had lot. I point at the pint, he looks and nods, hands it too much. Stag night? You wouldn’t believe it. over and I top it up from the tap in between us. People who swill their drink rather than drink it, He sniffs, looks down at the bar. He’s not pushing so that by they’ve got to the bottom of a pint VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 • PAGE 9 20th Century Prison Blues An essay informed by four Novels Jim Ferguson

Writers and thinkers in this culture and beyond, other piece of literature actually (or supposedly) have long been fascinated with ideas of crime and is. However, they illuminate much of the ideologi- punishment, freedom and social control. Religion cal landscape of the twentieth century as well as is much concerned with such ideas as are politics, the detail of individual experiences in the process philosophy, and the majority of present day social and circumstances of imprisonment. At the same sciences. These areas of interest form a core of time, almost by necessity of the subject matter, social thought which, in a pure sense, is rivalled they are in opposition to both the literary tradi- only in recent times by the great rise of rational- tion they come from and the institutionalisation ism and empirical science with its concomitant they describe. technological advances. In the words of Herbert The main characters in these books believe Marcuse, “A good deal of the history of bourgeois that, on some level, their treatment embodies society is reflected in the bourgeois theory of injustice; that the injustice has its roots in larger authority.” 1 political questions and/or social arrangements but In Plato’s Republic (c.375 B.C.) and Thomas is manifest in the institutions of the prison and More’s Utopia (1516) there is lengthy discussion of justice systems. Each author presents state Jack London (1876-1916) wrote The Star Rover to justice and how criminals ought to be treated. The authority as the perpetrator of unjust punishment highlight, among other things, the inhuman treat- punishments advocated generally involve some and indicts these state institutions simply by ment of prisoners in the USA. Darrel Standing, loss of liberty and More has much to say about detailed description of an individual life, by the first person narrator, is stubborn to the point slavery being a suitable punishment for most exposing what happens on the inside. In making of daring the authorities to kill him by their use of crime. these detailed descriptions of prison life the writ- straight-jacketing as punishment for his part in a “...they likewise make chains and fetters for ers are appealing to a higher sense of moral jus- fictitious conspiracy to blow up the gaol. What their slaves, to some of which, as a badge of tice in the consciousness of the reader: that is part Standing recognises is the absolute necessity of infamy, they hang an earring of gold...” 2 of the way the novels work. Another way in which adopting an anti-authoritarian stance in order to Doubtless More was influenced by his reading they work is by making concrete the details of an retain his dignity. of Plato; both are at pains to describe highly experience which is to the majority of people London, thought to be the first millionaire mechanistic and prescriptive social arrangements, extremely unfamiliar. The more extreme and author, born into a poor family in San Francisco, showing them to be for the overall good of the removed from everyday life the actions described, was brought up in Oakland and on surrounding community wherein the individual is subsumed. the more the minute details render them as true. farms. He was a tough, rugged, kind of frontier It is not my intention here to dwell on the his- “The mind projects into the concrete its spiritual American who believed in living life to the full. torical development of such ideas but accept that tragedy.” 3 “A sailor labourer, oyster pirate, fish and game the history exists (and can be argued over) whilst warden, tramp, gold prospector, soap-box orator, looking at some aspects of prison and punishment During the 1970s Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One war correspondent, rancher, bohemian —all these in relation to 4 twentieth century texts: Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was on the syl- hats he wore and more —yet still he wrote a thou- The Star Rover, Jack London, Novel 1915 labus in Scottish secondary schools. This does sand words a day for sixteen years, his entire pro- credit to our internationalist outlook and was my fessional life.” 4 London achieved all this in spite Men In Prison, Victor Serge, Novel 1930 first encounter with a “fictional” work about of alcohol and drug problems, as well as the diffi- Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler Novel, 1940 incarceration. I didn’t much like the book and culties caused by several bad business deals in have never gone back to read it afresh with adult Borstal Boy, Brendan Behan, Autobiographical which he lost large sums of money. eyes. What strikes me now though is the fact that Novel 1957 He claimed to be prone to boredom and when there was no other text in the syllabus about something bored him he felt a great sense of dis- These Western/North European texts are, in a prison experience. None of the four books above gust with it, due to this disgust he was driven for- sense, part of that literary tradition. A tradition were ever mentioned, nor were any of many possi- ward. He did not revise any of his work after which encapsulates a specific set of values and ble alternatives. Why not Oscar Wilde’s Ballad of publication. When asked to do so for later editions social assumptions about how people live, what Reading Gaol, Tolstoy’s The Resurrection, Kafka’s he categorically refused. Yet he thought this feel- governments are and, indeed, what a novel or any somewhat more abstract, In the Penal Settlement; ing of disgust which welled up within was a char- or even in the Scottish context, Jimmy Boyle’s A acter defect that he would have liked put right sense of Freedom? Not one of these books, as far as but somehow couldn’t. Still, for sixteen years he I know, got anywhere near the syllabus and the did not tire of writing and produced around fifty school library wasn’t much use either. books. It is difficult not to say that, as part of its con- Victor Serge (1890-1947), journalist, anarchist tribution to the Cold War, the Scottish education and political activist, states in his dedication at system was happy enough to throw copies of the beginning of Men in Prison, “Everything in this Solzhenitsyin at children in the hope they assimi- book is fictional and everything is true. I have lated something about the evil Soviets who impris- attempted, through literary creation, to bring out oned dissenters in barbaric conditions. It was the general meaning and human content of a per- sufficient to get across that message with little in sonal experience.” 5 Like Jack London, his con- the way of contextual comparisons. Koestler’s cern was to communicate through a novel novel might have given too confused a message something of the experience of imprisonment and about the Soviet Union with its implication that to connect to as wide a readership as possible. “It the Revolution of 1917 had degenerated and is not about ‘me,’ about a few men, but about men, transformed itself in ways that were not intended all men crushed in that dark corner of society. It by those Commissars unlucky enough to find seems to me that the time has finally come for lit- themselves at “divergence” with Stalin or “No.1.” erature to discover the masses.” 6 PAGE 10 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999

Serge was born into a political family of impov- Without the anti-Stalinism Koestler’ s project mind of the reader producing the same closeness erished Russian emigres in Brussels. One of his in Darkness at Noon is rendered meaningless in as is evoked by straight use of the first person.11 brothers died of hunger. He was highly motivated strict historical terms; this is perhaps a truism, Also, Koestler uses extracts from the diary of politically and much taken with the work of Marx, though as a “novel” the work still succeeds on lit- Comrade Rubashov to move directly into the first Nietzsche and Stirner. The last seven years of his erary terms: it becomes however, more like Kafka person. During the interrogation sequences we life were spent in exile in Mexico, where like than Koestler. That is, more universally metaphysi- hear Rubashov clearly, the logic of his thinking is Trotsky he was subject to harassment by the cal and less driven by ideology. expressed in his own words. One hears the absurd NKVD. However, he continued to write regardless Born in Hungary and highly motivated politi- arguments of the interrogation, where those with of the fact that he found it all but impossible to cally, Koestler was both fascinated and haunted by power are in complete control. get his work published. the Russian revolution. The others (London, Behan, Serge) Rubashov is modelled partly use a first person narrative which In Darkness at Noon Arthur Koestler (1905-1983), on Nikolai Bhukarin. Koestler functions to emphasise the truth of describes the incarceration, interrogation and exe- was imprisoned during the the experience described; the bear- cution of Comrade N. S. Rubashov, taking what Spanish Civil War and drew on ing of individual testimony to acts can be described in today’s terms as a classical this experience to write systematically designed to under- anti-Stalinist line. Nevertheless, the novel is not Darkness at Noon among other mine the human spirit. greatly diminished by the ideological axe-grind- things. Singularity of viewpoint enhances ing. For Koestler the anti-Stalinism was central yet the sense of enforced aloneness in today (January 1999) the form of the political sys- Brendan Behan (1923-1964), a prison as well as the triumph of com- tem which devours Rubashov is not central; it is self-styled IRA man, was munication. Prisoners find ways of the mechanics of interrogation, humiliation and arrested shortly after his communicating with each other. Jack punishment that come into the foreground arrival at Liverpool in 1939. London calls tapped messages through the swamp of ideological information and He was aged only sixteen between cells “knuckle-rap”. There argument. The arguments are put brilliantly, with years but such was his back- are whispered messages in the exer- lucid cold logic, but essentially it is the delin- ground that he had a thorough cise yard or at work. Each system of eation of systematic oppression (of Rubahsov and knowledge of the history of imprisonment is different yet there others by the prison and justice systems) that now British oppression in Ireland. are huge similarities between what gives the novel its strength. Another reason for the After initial incarceration in the characters experience in France, diminution of ideological impact is because from Walton Prison he was sen- the Soviet Union, the USA and an official, inter-governmental view the Cold War tenced at Liverpool Assizes to England. Behan possibly has a better is over. three years at a Borstal in time of it than the others, being Suffolk. Borstal Boy is based mostly in a borstal rather than an on these experiences. prison for adults. The first person narration brings the Behan, however, was not so reader closer to the situation of the concerned with the facts prisoner; it offers a technical solu- where the embroidering of them made for a bet- tion to the problems of both voyeurism and autho- ter story. Immediately after his arrest Behan was rial distance. Koestler uses different technical taken to CID headquarters in Lime Street. When solutions to achieve the same effect. This is inter- asked for a statement he declared: “My name is esting given the concern with ends and means Brendan Behan. I came over here to fight for the underpinning, to a greater or lesser extent, all Irish Workers’ and Small Farmers’ Republic, for a four narratives. full and free life, for my countrymen, North and South, and for the removal of the baneful influ- The prisoners in three of the books (not London’s) ence of British Imperialism from Irish affairs. God are “Political Prisoners”. Only in that one particu- save Ireland.” 7 lar are they extraordinary.Yet all prisoners are He also writes: “In accordance with instruc- political as in political with a small p. All societies tions, I refused to answer questions.” 8 make decisions as to what activities are taboo or Yet exactly what instructions he arrived in unacceptable and therefore made criminal, thus Liverpool with is open to question. Certainly, the necessity for systems to deal with individuals Ulick O’Connor has raised this issue and cites sev- or groups who indulge in such proscribed activi- eral examples where the version of events given in ties. In accepting imprisonment as a suitable way Borstal Boy is at odds with other witnesses. 9 This for dealing with offenders it then follows that is why I consider Borstal Boy an autobiographical within such institutions there must be rules of novel. behaviour and regulation of the activities of On his return to Ireland, Behan was gaoled a offenders. We logically arrive at what is sometimes second time for his part in the shooting of a termed the institutional regime. policeman. The details of this are described by The prison regimes in the so-called “developed Behan in Confessions of an Irish Rebel. His under- world” have much to thank the city of Glasgow for standing of prison and the life there was born of and more specifically one William Brebner (1783- hard experience. l845) who hailed originally from Huntly in “Two warders grabbed him [Behan] and took Aberdeenshire. Brebner put into practice a system him out kicking and screaming, leaving the priest at the Bridewell, on Glasgow’s Duke Street, which purple with rage. They dragged him up some iron was to spread quickly through Europe and North steps outside, pulling him so that he fell and split America. The Bridewell, governed by Brebner his head. In his cell they gave him a beating on from 1808 until his death, was regarded as a the chest and kidneys and hit him with keys in the model institution, indeed a House of Commons face. He was to keep the mark of the steel stairs Select Committee on Scottish Prisons reported in on his forehead for the rest of his life.” 10 1826 that “The prisoners are kept silent, and at Victor Serge had similar harsh experiences. constant work from six o’clock morning till eight Behan, like Jack London, developed an alcohol at night.” 12 Thus in the early 19th century, the addiction which eventually would kill him. governance of prisons was not left to chance but organised along somewhat industrialised lines. Of the four books only Koestler does not use a “Much has been written about the respective consistent first person narrative voice. Rubashov merits of the so-called separate and silent systems and the omniscient narrator are so similar in tone of imprisonment which were introduced into pris- and thought process as to somehow gel in the ons in the first half of the nineteenth century” 13 VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 • PAGE 11

These types of prison regime, carried on the winds whether or not they supported the Soviet Union vengeance then justice. As with most things, pre- of imperialism and industrial efficiency, spread and its policies. vention is better than cure, but what do we do if around the globe. The main mode of punishment, Prisons can usefully be thought of as punishment the remedy appears worse than the disease —if whether intentional or not, was the enforced factories, how long is such an industry to flourish? prisons are teaming with petty offenders, non pay- aloneness prisoners had to endure. It has been There is a commonsensical notion that crimi- ers of fines and other such people who have no argued that such systems were likely to have nals must be punished but how are we properly to business being in prison at all? health and character building benefits and that ascribe guilt? The secretive and conservative nature of pris- while prisoners were isolated they had contact How can all be equal before the law when ons, the attempted depoliticisation of language with the prison chaplain and governor at regular there is inequality everywhere else? and process cannot keep these questions off the intervals. It is hard to imagine that those incarcer- One certain sane aspiration is to happiness agenda for ever. Eventually everyone will know ated had much in common with such officials and with dignity but how in the vast horror of human someone who is or has been in prison for some- seems absurd to suggest that such meetings would imperfection and frailty of judgement? thing trivial and changes will have to be made. mitigate the punishment of being removed from Democracy, however, may not be so responsive. one’s normal state of sociability. This amount of Whether we are or are not in a post-industrial age, The mechanisms for controlling public thought time spent alone is part of what gives rise to a the relentless growth of capitalist consumption might not allow such free reform. Still, it feels bet- heightened awareness of the thoughts and voice and the underlying “free-market” politics contin- ter to live in a country where the death penalty is within one’s own mind. ues at pace. Whilst many influential thinkers, not dealt out in a courtroom. Yet, even at that, one “Introspection opens up the endless vistas of politicians and media persons thought the threat does not feel one is living altogether freely; some- the inner life, shines a penetrating light into the to freedom came from Communism it would make how the competitive clouds of smoke and scorch- most secret recesses of our being. ...But the invisi- more sense to suggest that the threat comes from ing flames of control that rise out from within the ble companion remains.” 14 the free-market system itself. (Its judicial system anonymous free-market envelop and imprison, dri- What Serge calls the “invisible companion,” is designed to protect and strengthen free-market ving one back from that real freedom to which Koestler calls the “silent partner” and London principles and practices.) This system is encom- civilisation and dignity would direct our aspira- calls the “little death” are all aspects of that same passing the globe. From Moscow to Sydney to tions. introspection and result from enforced aloneness Glasgow the signs are everywhere. The same and the attempt to survive it. multi-national chains are operating. The attacks on Notes Jack London takes this introspection furthest; indigenous, local cultures continue almost as foot- 1 Herbert Marcuse, From Luther to Popper, when Darrel Standing is in the straight jacket he notes to the success of global capital: local popula- Verso, London, 1983, Pg. 144. projects himself through time and space by psy- tions who inconveniently get in the way of this chological effort. The other three writers do not development suffer terribly. The oil exploitation in 2 Thomas More, Utopia, Cassell & Co., get so close to the mystical. Standing has some dif- Nigeria or the Persian Gulf are illustrative of this, London, 1890, Pg. 103. ficulty in reaching this state of mind but from the as are the practices of tobacco companies, ship- 3 Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, Penguin, very start he has an inner-psychology. Koestler ping companies and clothing manufacturers. This London, 1975, Pg. 113. tries to deny Rubashov this inner voice but it is where the question of applying justice to these 4 In Introduction, The Collected Jack London, comes through almost in spite of the author. people comes into play. They wouldn’t want the Ed. Steven J Kasdin, Dorset Press, New York, 1991. standards applied to a shoplifter in Scotland What Comrade Rubashov discovers as the 5 Victor Serge, Men In Prison, Writers & Readers, applied to them. For theirs is barefaced robbery “grammatical fiction” or “silent partner” (that London, 1977. which has been previously buried by logic of polit- legally sanctioned by world trade and global free- 6 Ibid., Greeman’s introduction, Pg. xxv. ical expediency in his ordinary life) is immediate- market practices. To apply such standards to even ly present in the characters in the other books. one multi-national would call for the indictment of 7 Brendan Behan, Borstal Boy, Arrow Books, London, Serge and Behan do not deny the inner the whole system. In the same way Serge, Koestler London, 1990, Pg. 4. voice and the workings of the conscience. In fact, and others indicted systems which undermined 8 Ibid. the dignity and happiness of human beings, so the this inner voice is to a large extent no different 9 See Ulick O’Connor, Brendan Behan, Abacus, from the narrative voice throughout. There is for present people in power would have to be once London, 1993. more indicted (and not just in works of fiction.) them no possibility of the inner voice differentiat- 10 Ibid. ing between the individual and the great flow of In these books about prison there is a meeting historical events. Ironically, at their most isolated of social and private anguish. They are very con- 11 The narrative technique employed by Koestler in Darkness at Noon might usefully be compared with physically the characters appear to become less cerned with the experience of one person, in one situation, yet they have an allegorical power which that of James Kelman in How late it was, how late, reified and more fully human psychologically. Secker & Warburg, London, 1994. Behan does not hold all the population of is transcendent. These are super-allegorical texts, Britain responsible for oppression in Ireland. Yet there is much to be learned from them and more 12 In Andrew Coyle, Inside: Rethinking Scotland’s Prisons, Scottish Child, Edinburgh, 1991, Pg.31. Koestler’s attempt to foist the denial of the indi- to be argued over. They touch on major political vidual inner voice onto Rubashov results in what questions, from the role of the state to the mean- 13 Ibid. seems a very deliberate statement of social and ing of freedom, to the right of nations to self- 14 Victor Serge, Men In Prison, Writers & Readers, political psychosis. However the dichotomy for determination; major moral questions from London, 1977, Pg. 36. political ethics and ends and means to individual Koestler is that the humanity of the inner voice 15 Arthur Koestler, The Invisible Writing, responsibility for one’ s actions; as well as ques- asserts itself, no matter how psychotic or corrupt London, 1954, Pg. 479. the political life Rubashov led. tions of psychological and physical endurance. Above all, they are contributions to human knowl- 16 Albert Camus, Bulletin of the Algerian Cultural Koestler holds almost everyone who supported Centre, Algiers, May 1937 the 1917 revolution responsible for Stalinism. This edge concerning how to create a culture and civili- is the logic of this position. Koestler says “having sation in which we attain our natural dignity. placed the interests of mankind above the inter- “Culture cannot live where dignity is killed ...A ests of man, having sacrificed morality to expedi- civilisation cannot prosper under laws which crush ency ...Now they must die, because death is it.” 16 expedient to the Cause, by the hands of men who The irony is that the greatest dignity appears subscribe to the same principles.” 15 It is the his- to lie in the resistance to all and any oppression. torical determinism which says that all revolution- Perhaps it is in the process of the struggle for free- ary change must end in a blood bath. He is in dom we find both dignity and civilisation —and so effect meeting one death penalty with another. to happiness where and whatever it might be. Yet paradoxically, what remains interesting is the The language of the judicial system is designed concrete detail in the novel: the size of the cells, to depoliticise its function. In fact much of the rit- the window, the grey light. ualised processing of offenders is designed to One has to assume Koestler read Serge, appre- dehumanise and depoliticise what is actually hap- ciated the detail but disagreed with the outlook. It pening to people. Yet there is a need for some- seems crazy now to think that almost everything thing, one wouldn’t like to have a member of the about an individual could be determined by family killed and nothing to happen to the killer. Human nature cries out for vengeance and if not PAGE 12 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999

History of the LMC Clive Bell “It’s funny, we do all these interviews with Melody of musicians, usually referred to as the ‘first gener- musicians was John Stevens’ work in concerts and Maker and NME and the fanzines, and we try to talk ation’‚ of improvisers. These included Evan Parker, workshops. Maggie Nicols was another improviser about this real underground of London, improvisers like Derek Bailey, Paul Lytton, John Stevens, Tony who excelled at leading workshops. Within one Evan and Derek, Lol, Moholo, the whole African Oxley, Howard Riley, Paul Rutherford, Barry Guy hour, a roomful of assorted and embarrassed indi- contingent —and of course none of them have ever and Trevor Watts” (Quote from Resonance Vol 2, No viduals could be led to build a communal musical heard this music. It’s kind of a bummer. It’s such an 2). This was around 1971, and concerts were held experience of enormous power. Suddenly the mys- underground music. It’s very serious but it’s also very at the Little Theatre Club in Garrick Yard and the teries of group improvisation and experimental humorous. It’s very alive.” Unity Theatre in Camden Town. music were opened up—veils fell from eyes, and Then, in April 1975, came Musics magazine, the sheer joy of music-making seemed accessible Above left: The Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth in The Wire 108, Feb which Martin Davidson remembers as resulting to all. I recall one musician warning me that after Club Room 1993. from a phone conversation between himself, his a John Stevens workshop he had observed that with Martin At the end of the 90s, the free music world can Klapper and wife Mandy and Evan Parker. The editorial board most of the male participants had erections. I still seem a wonderfully well-kept secret, a gen- Richard in summer 1975 was Bailey, Parker, Steve couldn’t really see what was so wrong with this— Sanderson 1998 uinely underground art activity. For 25 or 30 years Beresford, Max Boucher, Paul Burwell, Jack Cooke, maybe this music wasn’t so cerebral and abstract Above right: there’s been a scene there, all those club concerts Peter Cusack, Hugh Davies, Mandy and Martin as some people made out? Feminist listed monthly on the London Musician’s Davidson, Richard Leigh, John Russell, David In 1975/76 the London Musicians Collective improvising Collective (LMC) Calendar, the LMC Annual Toop, Philipp Wachsmann and Colin Wood. I emerged from a series of meetings, and mailed group, late 70s Festivals —but is it a musical genre? Sometimes it remember Colin Wood remarking that Musics was out its first newsletter in August 1976. The Below: Derek feels like you can pin it down. At Derek Bailey’s the first thing this crowd had found that they Collective was separate from Musics magazine, but Bailey, Maggie annual Company series, even though the musicians Nicols, Lol could all agree about. And I’m sorry about these involved many of the same people. It was hoped ranged from classical French horn player to thrash lists, but if you want to make enemies with a histo- that an organisation would carry more weight in Coxhill 98, guitarist, you could see a simple listen-and-get-on- Otomo & Eye ry like this, all you have to do is leave out some- dealings with other organisations, institutions and with-it approach. But even here the low key pre- 94 one’s name. the press. And these musicians had a lot in com- sentation, the strange theatre of encounters “STOP PRESS REVIEW SECTION:Three years ago ten mon: nowhere to play, and no wider recognition of between musicians who had never met, and the their music. outbursts of completely unplanned musical bril- music students from Cologne sat in horseshoe, one end of fine Wren church in Smith Square, sang ninth chord A major difference from the Musicians’ Co-op liance all combined to bewilder and undercut neat was the LMC’s openness to anyone who wanted to theory. The qualities of Company were often down all evening, sound mixed and rarefied by man in nave. Last Saturday ten religious men from Tibet sat in join. Richard Leigh again: “It was always seen as a to Bailey’s personality and style. As in the world of network drawing more and more people from var- jazz, strong individuals stamped their character on horseshoe on same spot, sang tenth chord all evening, no sound mixer.” ied backgrounds into the scene”. Improvisers were musical encounters. And the LMC was born dipping their fingers into the many pies of mixed because individuals wanted to band together for Colin Wood in Musics No 4, October 1975. media, dance, film and performance art. And in everyone’s benefit. Musics came out six times a year and ran for 23 fact at this time, just before punk and its DIY “The group of people that were working around the issues. In its coverage of improvised and non-west- ethic erupted, there was a remarkable burst of SME (Spontaneous Music Ensemble) at that time —John ern music alongside performance art, it reflected energy in the underground arts scene. Dancers Stevens, Derek Bailey,Trevor Watts, Paul Rutherford — the broad interests of a so-called ‘second genera- founded the X6 Dance Collective and New Dance were working on a method that I could call ‘atomistic’‚ tion’ of improvisers, and provided a convivial focus magazine at Butlers Wharf, while film makers breaking the music down into small component parts point. Interested outsiders were welcome to share started the London Film Makers Co-op. These too and piecing them together again in a collective way, so in the work of pasting the magazine together. In have survived and are with us today, in the form of as to de-emphasize the soloistic nature of improvisation those pre-wordprocessing days pasting meant the Chisenhale Dance Space and the Lux Cinema and replace it by a collective process. But at the same paste, as well as glue, scalpel and unwashed mugs. in Hoxton Square. For musicians, the venue crisis time AMM had what I would call a “laminar” way of These days the unwashed mugs are the only sur- was becoming acute. The Little Theatre Club had working, where although the solo had been lost and the vivors of the era. folded and the Unity Theatre burned down. The emphasis was on a collective sound, an orchestral sound “The LMC was formed by the slightly newer lot of usual expedient of hiring a room in a pub, college if you like, it was not done by breaking the music into musicians simply because everyone was fed up with or community hall was dependent on the whim of small components but by contributing layers which playing in bad rooms above pubs or nowhere at all. the landlord, and would not allow performances to would fit together and make a new whole.” Whereas Musicians’ Co-op members had briefly enjoyed be run on the musicians’ terms. A space with max- Evan Parker, talk at Actual Music Festival, ICA, August (?) the hospitality of Ronnie Scott and his club, due to Mr imum flexibility was needed if the work was to 1980. Scott’s justifiably high regard for Evan Parker,Tony Oxley, develop freely. “An obstinate clot of innovation”, was how the Howard Riley, Barry Guy et al, musicians such as Nigel “We had been looking for premises (I remember surreal Wire magazine described the LMC in 1997. The Coombes,Tony Wren, Paul Burwell or Colin Wood might dealings with the Diocesan Committee for Redundant LMC has shown remarkable powers of survival, just as well have come from Mars (or stayed there). Churches)..Actually a lot of the connections between the but it was not the first grouping of its kind. There was nothing happening, other than the music.” LMC and LFMC happened through informal contacts, for Richard Leigh: “The Musicians‚ Cooperative was David Toop, Resonance Vol 2, No 1, winter 1993. instance I had fallen in love with Annabel Nicolson when set up as a pressure group for a clearly defined set A source of continuing inspiration to the younger she and the Film Co-op were still in the Dairy in Prince of VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 • PAGE 13

Wales Crescent, and I hung about while she was free improvisers, one of its most distinctive fea- Left: Tilbury programming films there, doing odd jobs like selling tea tures as an organisation was its openness and Below: Paul and biscuits, sweeping the floor, and designing a inclusiveness. Other musical pressure groups were Burwell on the beach in the membership card that was also a Thaumatrope... The more closely tied to one genre or style of music making, while the LMC forever had a hankering seventies LFMC wanted to take the space at 42 Gloucester Avenue Bottom: Derek for the genuine experiment, whatever the idiom. (Camden Town), but it was too large for them, and I Bailey and think Guy Sherwin approached the LMC with a view to This has contributed to its resilience, and also gen- dancer subletting. I think Annabel might have had something erated a constant debate about what on earth the to do with the idea, as the LMC ‘office’‚ and meetings LMC stands for. were located in her one room flat.” For many years the LMC was a large collective Paul Burwell, Performance magazine. (200 members), supposedly running itself in an authentically collective manner. Open monthly Even before finding a venue, “LMC events” had meetings enabled the entire membership to par- been happening all over London, ever since the ticipate in a lively criticism of any member who organisation was founded. Now many of these improv. Dislocation Dance (Manchester) and Reptile Ranch (Cardiff) linked up with local alt- had actually done any work. The problems of col- moved into the Camden building, and a calendar lectivity are well known. These days we shake our and newsletter were started up (1977/78). The punk duo The Door & The Window. Andrew Brenner’s 49 Americans had explored left-field heads and think we know better, but the LMC’s level of activity, and its breadth, were both factional struggles were a simple result of a large remarkable, and for the next ten years an average pop “in a relaxed atmosphere of concerned patrio- tism”, sharing their Tuesday night slot with The number of musicians all being passionately of 200 public performances a year were organised, involved and trying to get a hand on the steering almost entirely by unpaid administration. Nearly Majorca Orchestra (“original marches, waltzes, descriptive fantasies, Edwardian disco and wheel. In this piece I am deliberately giving my every day of the year the space was in use for personal view of what the LMC was all about—in rehearsal. This was a musicians’ initiative, run on Scottish reggae”). The LMC was bursting at the seams. the early days there were many different agendas. musicians’ terms, so the chaos was often high, but Many British improvisers were, and still are, high- there was plenty going on. The National Jazz “BARRY LEIGH’S REPORT: ly politicised, in all the different Marxist and anar- Centre in the 1980s, by contrast, spent half a 1. The wall blocking the railway bridge at the rear of the chist hues. For many others, the collective spirit decade and untold sums of money not organising building has been demolished. still expresses important truths about the co-oper- a single gig. 2. Jumble leftovers are to be cleared from the loft. ative and non-hierarchical nature of improvised By anyone’s standards the LMC building was a music, and the importance of musicians taking 3. Health inspector and surveyors will be contacted flexible performance space, little more than a creative control of their own music. A glance at about the toilet (to be installed). It was noted that shell packed with potential. Members spent hours life inside an orchestra, with its composer-driven relations with the Film Co-op are deteriorating. clambering all over it, trying to render it habit- hierarchy, is usually enough to remind us of the able. Sylvia Hallett installed electricity and TOILET:The Gulbenkian Foundation say nothing doing‚ alternative. wiring, and Annabel Nicolson contributed a wood- about our application for financial assistance. en floor from her flat to build a wall. The floor was “The dynamics of the current magazine meetings DOORS: Stuart Boardman will put handles on the doors depend more on pointed silences, emotional blackmail, as hard as you like: you could flood it, light a bon- to the performing space.” fire on it, bounce rocks off it. And after the show mumbled asides and semi-sneers than on direct no staff would grumble, because there were no LMC Newsletter, December 1979. statements. The Musics collective is frightened of staff, and you would be cleaning it up yourself. But behind all the glamour and the razzmatazz, growth, frightened of taking and using power.There is Many saw the space as not especially to do with what was the LMC really like? Personally I always no sense of history, of where the music is from and why improvised music, but simply “astonishing...a found it a rich source of friendly and healthily people play it. The collective is a morass of impersonality. place where you can do things you can’t do else- eccentric people. Joining was like running away to We trivialise each other’s contributions.” where”. (David Cunningham, quoted in Time Out, join the circus. The place was a model of self-help Steve Beresford, letter to Musics collective meeting, 1980) and an opportunity to experiment in ways impos- titled “Why we need a new publication”, October 1980. sible elsewhere. As an organisation, it was most “Was the real Britain very different from how you had In 1980 factional struggle and good old-fashioned riven by factional strife when the membership was imagined it? personal rowing resulted in several resignations most active, of course. And as a building it was a from the LMC and the demise of Musics maga- On my second day here I went to an Environmental bottomless pit into which you could pour your Music Festival, where I met some musicians who played unpaid time. There was always some administra- on canal boats, and others who played the piano with tive headache to do with the ghastly business of their feet, and I thought: what a different attitude running a London experimental venue in a bare towards art, so playful and free. loft. Noise: the laundry downstairs and the Kings What inspired you to set up the Frank Chickens? Cross main line out back ensured there was noise I became involved with the London Musicians Collective coming in. As for noise going out, there were flats after the festival I mentioned, and started performing across the road, our soundproofing consisted of straight away. I had had this idea that I was an artist closing the windows, and some of the concerts since childhood.” were a little, er, exuberant. I remember watching the Dead Kennedies building an immense PA one Kazuko Hohki interviewed in Japan Embassy sunny afternoon, in preparation for an unpubli- newsletter, March 1998. cised gig which had people queuing around the David Toop’s 1978 Festival of Environmental block. I cycled away before the mayhem was Music & Performance was a nine day event, in unleashed. Then there were fire regulations (“You some ways a massive celebration of the LMC’s new can’t do that in here”), charitable status (“We found home, and a major influence on subsequent can’t give you subsidy to do that”), and a lack of work. Warming up with a talk from Trevor Wishart toilets. There were toilets in the Film Co-op next and an instrument building workshop, Toop, door, there was a British Rail toilet under the Burwell, Parker, Paul Lytton and several others building, there was a toilet in the pub opposite... flung themselves into a continuous 24 hour con- OK, let’s admit there were no toilets. This became cert called Circadian Rhythms. Visiting perform- a conundrum, a problematic fortress against which ers included Alvin Curran (USA), Luc Houtkamp successive waves of voluntary admin would charge (Holland), Carlos Trinidade (Portugal), and uphill, only to reel back down in stunned defeat. Christian d’Aiwée (France). F.I.G. (the eight piece Benefit concerts, grant applications, sympathetic Feminist Improvising Group, whose performances builders—nothing seemed to work. Let’s just hope were renowned for their hilarity) alternated with it added to our beatnik loft-dwelling cred. seminars (“Music/Eventstructure/Context”). Stuart Marshall, Annabel Nicolson and Whirled “When we joined the LMC two years ago we did so in Music played on nearby Primrose Hill, and guer- the belief that it was a collective—built on the political rilla activities by Lol Coxhill and Michael Parsons tenet of collectivism.We find in actuality a club set up to could be encountered along the towpath of the celebrate individualism.We feel that the newsletter Regents Canal. must call for collective involvement from its ‘collective’ The festival came at the end of a month (July membership, yet in doing so we are accused of being 1978) which had already witnessed 13 perfor- sectarian. However, under the constant cringing mances, several open workshop sessions, and two criticism that we receive, we shall continue to co- meetings: one devoted to the LMC Records label, ordinate the newsletter and until removed by the LMC the other the usual monthly meeting open to all shall continue to attempt to build toward ‘Collectivity.’’” Collective members. Improvisers Mike Hames, Dick Beard and Tim Dennis, LMC Newsletter, August Roger Turner, Hugh Metcalfe, Sinan Savaskan and 1980. Roger Smith had played. The Alterations quartet If we accept the liberal idea of art as an (Toop, Beresford, Peter Cusack and Terry Day) had autonomous space, where other values can be con- brought over Fred Frith and Peter Brotzmann to sidered and explored, then the LMC building was perform alongside their own brand of dub’n’din like a concrete expression of this. Established by PAGE 14 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999

Left: Eugene zine. The December 1980 newsletter contains the exit. quit. By March 24th 1988.” Chadbourne 99 scary outpourings of vitriol and the squealing of “Memories... the Musicians Du Nil changing the LMC Press Release, September 1987. Centre: Cusack bruised egos. Frustration is clearly audible. group Collective into an Eastern Bazaar after their concert, Almost completely unrecognised by the outside The Film Co-op, also given notice to quit, hung on Right: Clive when they attempted to sell the audience their for many years before decamping to Hoxton Bell 99 world, these musicians were consistently ignored instruments, trinkets, and, I think, items of their or sneered at by the music press, and regarded as Square. But a rumour went round that the LMC Bottom: clothing... Annabel Nicolson flooding the place in a had already closed up shop, so members stopped Tristran suspicious charlatans by the contemporary music representation of the Mississippi river (actually quite hiring the space, income dried up, and moving out Honsinger 99 establishment. Arts Council support was indeed convincing, but I’d drunk a whole bottle of Southern came to seem a positive option. The words “alba- forthcoming for larger scale events and it paid the Comfort and thought I was Huckleberry Finn).” rent, but long hours of unpaid admin and building tross” and “neck” were used in discussions about work were leading to burnout at a tender age. Paul Burwell reminiscing in Performance magazine. the dear old building. Both brake cables on my Meanwhile our richer and better equipped neigh- New, younger members arrived to gaze with bicycle were severed one evening during an LMC bour, the Film Co-op, was trying to evict us. respectful awe at a room where Evan Parker had concert, something I noticed only after tumbling played a trio with Kazuko Hohki and a seven foot off at the bottom of a hill in Chalk Farm. This “There is a clear polarisation between ‘collectivists’ and inflatable Godzilla. Or to dismiss the past as “a stoked my paranoia, but it had no bearing on the ‘musicians’. Many of the Cs are interested in music, and bunch of saxophonists tooting away for hours to an LMC’s decision to leave. In spring 1999, 42 many of the Ms are concerned to maintain collectivism, average audience of six or seven” (The Door & Gloucester Avenue still stands, derelict and empty, but it looks as though the basic differences are The Window, quoted in Time Out). Not everyone sadly gazing at railway and canal. insuperable. The Cs resent any suggestion that there are was happy with the LMC’s name; I recall someone In spite of the end-of-an-era gloom, the final useful musical criteria which give certain examples of suggesting that the building be renamed “Risks”, Gloucester Road newsletter in June 1988 publi- music greater value than others. In my view if you can’t, and neon letters should be fixed to the roof. For a cised some dozen events happening there, includ- or won’t, distinguish between a ‘good’‚ piece of while we affectionately subtitled it The Palace Of ing a Musicians Against Nuclear Arms benefit improvisation and one which isn’t, there’s nothing to Living Culture, as we struggled to mend smashed involving 40 players. The LMC’s longest surviving aim for and you might as well watch the telly.” windows and doors. inhabitant, Member Number 1 Paul Burwell, hav- Tony Wren, open letter to LMC, in December 1980 By 1987 it was clear that professional adminis- ing played the premises‚ first ever concert, also Newsletter. tration was required, whether we could afford it or performed at the last. Administrator Dave After patching up the spat with the Film Co-op, not. A hiring out for a private party had resulted Matzdorf was now followed by Simon Woodhead the LMC kept up a high level of activity during in equipment being stolen from our neighbours, and Philippa Gibson. The organisation camped out the 1980s. Some of the founders had resigned, and the Film Co-op. Recriminations flew. After ten in Simon’s office in the Diorama, Regents Park, political strife seemed a thing of the past. years of concerts, we were informed we had no and contemplated its venue-less future. Events Members came forward to do the dirty work, license for “music and dancing”, so were liable to were organised at the Diorama, Red Rose, Air whether it was taking glasses back to the pub or be closed any day by Camden Council. And the Gallery and Tom Allen Centre in Stratford, but a phoning the Goethe Institute. Peter Cusack, Paul condition of the building was not compatible with proper home proved hard to find. Burwell, Sylvia Hallett, Susanna Ferrar, Tom our status as pioneering arts animateurs, let alone From September 1989 Richard Scott, a big Sheehan and Dean Brodrick all showed astonish- its original function as a British Rail social club Ornette Coleman fan, brought a certain jazzy flair ing reluctance to pack it in and get a proper job. canteen. to the admin. His “Three Cities” festival in March Those who sat in the little office space overlook- 1990 featured the first performance by “A last minute ironic twist to LMC development plans: Manchester’s Stock, Hausen & Walkman, “the ing the railway tracks were sometimes accused of Today is the launch of the LMC’s ‘Home Additions’ being power-crazed careerists, but the truth was industrial cartoon soundtrack tape manipulation appeal, our plans to carry out major improvements to ensemble”. SH&W went on to became one of the that your own music would probably suffer if you these premises, starting with the foyer area you are spent too much time there. On the other hand, if internationally most successful young improv standing in! In total part one will cost £9,000... As long groups of the 90s. you leaned on a broom in a corner of the space for ago as last September we discussed the possibility of a long enough, you would see an extraordinary car- However, the period 1989 to 1991 feels with long lease with British Rail. There doesn’t seem to be a hindsight like the LMC’s darkest hour. A series of nival pass through. For example, Dean Brodrick’s problem, they replied. Last week they sent us a notice to “Great Little Inuit Eskimo Show” in February woefully underpaid workers wrestled with a dozen 1985: an Inuit drum battle, shadow puppets, igloo types of administrative chaos. In February 1990 building for beginners, a contest where pairs of the AGM heard they had been struck off the regis- singers chanted into each other’s mouths, the film ter at Companies House (not Richard Scott’s fault, Nanook Of The North accompanied by improvis- I hasten to add). Elder members wrung their ing string quartet, and a discussion led by anthro- hands. Susanna Ferrar and Eddie Prevost adminis- pologist and film maker Hugh Brody. For several tered the kiss of life to the accounts. Nick Couldry months Max Eastley’s Aeolian harps were fixed to performed legal emergency surgery. But even Paul the roof above the entrance, singing eerily to the Burwell’s new computer seemed powerless to street whenever the wind got up. Inside, one of arrest the slide. the many “floor percussionists” might be setting “In the past year or so, organisations have sprung up (for up: Barry Leigh with his revolving glass coffeeta- instance in Manchester and Colchester) which have bles, played with chunks of polystyrene, or Roger shown that wider audiences can be achieved with Turner’s junk kits, heavyweight detritus of the positive presentation which makes no apologies for Industrial Revolution. what improvisation is, but equally does not assume that In 1982 Alan McGee, later to be mogul of everyone out there somehow knows about it. I believe Creation Records, was running the weekly Beet- that with a lot of hard work and clear thinking the LMC Bop Club in the LMC. Possibly the most spectacu- could do the same, in fact the LMC should aim to lead lar and downright life-threatening event was the the field, not drag behind it. The LMC’s ambition should debut performance by the Bow Gamelan be to be the principal organisation representing Ensemble, climax of Sylvia Hallett’s 1983 improvised music in Britain. If however the LMC does “Evening Of Self-Made Instruments”. This was not have such ambitions, those involved should also a prime example of how the Collective regu- seriously ask themselves whether it deserves the larly gave birth to highly original and influential funding it is claiming.” work, which barely fitted within any definition of Nick Couldry, document titled “Does The LMC Have A new music. The place was packed for this riot of Future?”, September 1991. pyrotechnics and barely controlled arc-welding equipment abuse, but it was noticeable that “Ambition” is the key word here. The LMC had Burwell’s friends were hovering nervously around been lively, angry, wild at heart and wonderfully VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 • PAGE 15 deaf to common sense, but maybe it had never out of the hall. Suddenly journalists and promot- actually strengthening and professionalising the been ambitious enough. The first sign that this ers from Europe and the States were hanging out. organisation, as directors bring in a wide range of might be about to change was a small glossy Older improvisers were fiercely condemning the skill and experience from the outside world. At leaflet splashed in orange and white, advertising antics of younger ones, and anyone concerned recent meetings directors have virtually been the LMC “Autumn Collection”, a series of ten con- about the LMC’s health could heave sighs of relief. queuing up to make professional-style presenta- certs from September to December 1991. “Cardew was wise to stake out and defend his ground tions involving laminated boards and highlighter Someone had invented word processing and by spelling out the social dimension to his music. His pens. No laptop animations or corporate sweeten- graphic design, and the LMC had noticed. Then purpose was not, of course, to defend “his” property ers yet, but it can only be a matter of time. came the December 1991 newsletter—in place of rights, but to fight a corner and to express something Discussion has been tightly focused, pragmatic the one-sheet catalogue of despair, castigating the human, faced with what Phil Ochs called the ‘terrible and good humoured—as a veteran of Collective membership for its lethargy, this was a 16 page heartless men’ who still run our lives. Cardew’s music is meetings it all feels odd, but strangely sane. magazine bulging with record reviews, advertising not concerned with entertainment or self-gratification, Backed up by a team of gluttons for punish- and a substantial interview with Alabama gui- and I suppose in the wake of the collapse of ment and hard work (Rob Storey, Dave Ross, Mick tarist Davey Williams. There was even a trailer for communism and the triumph of capital (don’t you just Ritchie, Steve Noble, Caroline Kraabel et al), an interview with 84 year old calypso singer The hate it when that happens?) few will take an interest in England and Baxter have been administering and Roaring Lion, to be published in Variant maga- these recordings. Listening to them now, I am steering the LMC since 1992, which is consider- zine. Phil England and Ed Baxter had arrived. overwhelmed, rendered inarticulate and revitalised. ably longer than any comparable team. Having “The venue was unconventional—a swimming pool, Great stuff. The newspaper is full of details of how long observed them at work in the office, I have noth- complete with water and hot, chlorinated atmosphere. ‘Starlight Express’ has been running. It’s all quite clear. ing but praise for their ability to combine mind- The number of acts was uncommon—nine, and to There is only one lie, there is only one truth.Whey hey numbing paperwork with the seizing of initiatives. describe their repertoire as diverse would be a highly hey!” These are ferociously creative people who would misleading understatement. Judged in brutally logistic have a major impact on whichever organisation Ed Baxter reviewing Cornelius Cardew’s Piano Music in they found themselves in, and the LMC is lucky to terms, the event was a resounding success. The the pilot issue of Resonance, September 1992. auditorium was packed; the concert started almost on have felt their boots on its backside. Of course this Later that year (September 1992) the burgeoning time; the proceedings managed to accommodate the tiresomely positive view is my own—feathers have newsletter finally exploded, supernova-like, into activities of a BBC TV crew without serious disruption. I been ruffled and resignations have been handed the pilot edition of Resonance magazine, under the for one enjoyed the evening, although the overall in from time to time, but the LMC in 1999 has no editorship of Keith Cross and Mick Ritchie. impression was more reminiscent of a night at the shortage of vision or ambition. Picking up the threads 12 years after the demise music hall than a concert of leading-edge state of the “Running throughout Resonance 107.3 FM was Peter of Musics, Resonance has proved more durable. art experimentation. But that’s no bad thing in my Cusack’s London Soundscape. Listeners were asked to Seven years later its thought-provoking mix of opinion.” send in or tell of their favourite London sounds. interviews, reviews and theoretical articles now Surprisingly some of these included arcade machines Forestry Commission employee Robert Matthews comes with the tempting bonus of a cover CD. and even traffic. From the vast response Big Ben was the reviewing “Fiume” in LMC Newsletter, March 1992. Unlike the promotional fluff of most cover CDs, favourite, but it was often the case that a collection of LMC funding had been devolved from the Arts however, Resonance features recordings unavail- sounds was chosen.Who ever hears a sound on its own Council to the London Arts Board. By 1991 I sus- able elsewhere, usually culled from LMC live anyway? The recording of Deptford Creek was pect that LAB saw an opportunity to offload a events. The magazine has been creatively steered particularly memorable with the power station hum flaky client, and more or less threatened to with- through the hands of a series of guest editors by and the Thames brought together.” draw funding unless the LMC proved itself to be Phil England. By keeping the editorial team small more than an ageing crew of indignant but impo- it has avoided the factional gang warfare that crip- Tom Wallace writing about Resonance 107.3 FM radio, in tent improvisers. Nick Couldry assembled a new pled Musics. And the sightlines have always been Resonance magazine Vol 7, No 1, autumn 1998. board of directors, including newcomer Ed Baxter, aimed wider than the confines of experimental In spring 1999 it feels like the LMC is pausing to who had been looking into Camberwell Bus music, trying rather to locate that music within a catch its breath after a year of extraordinary activ- Garage or Butlers Wharf as new LMC bases. wider debate about culture. ity. It was hard to believe there was not a secret Baxter picked up the LAB gauntlet and set about Phil England became part time administrator back room packed with full time workers some- promoting events much more ambitious in scale. in the summer of 1992, as the LMC stopped squat- where, rather than the slender part time employ- “Fiume” was intended to create a splash, as it ting in members‚ flats and took office space in ment of two people. The Annual Festival, were, about the potential still within the LMC. Kings Cross. The office moved to Community increasing steadily in international stature every United in the swimming pool were new arrivals Music in Farringdon for several years, and has now year since 1992, finally moved out of Conway Hall like Sianed Jones and John Grieve alongside old settled, south of the Thames for the first time, in to the South Bank Centre. Charlemagne Palestine favourites Charles Hayward, David Toop and Max the Leathermarket complex near London Bridge. and Pauline Oliveros visited from the States to Eastley, and Frank Chickens. For many the eerie Ed Baxter tried to give up his programming post great acclaim—their first appearances here in 25 beauty of Lol Coxhill’s bald and bespectacled fig- in autumn 1992, and has been trying unsuccessful- and 17 years respectively.Vainio, Fennesz and ure playing an almost submerged soprano saxo- ly to give it up ever since, as the LMC’s activities Rehberg divided the audience with their fierce phone remains an abiding memory. This was the have grown ever larger in ambition. brand of Powerbook-driven electronica. Canny kind of crazy avant garde extravaganza the media Meetings open to the whole membership were fundraising ensured that for the first time the loves, and the coverage was enormous. finally abandoned as hopelessly inefficient—if Festival actually came in on budget. The next step was the First Annual Festival Of project coordinators failed to turn up the meeting Resonance 107.3 FM was the Collective’s very Experimental Music, five days in the Conway Hall, could be effortlessly hijacked by anyone who fan- own radio station, broadcasting for four weeks in Holborn, in May 1992. Fresh-faced youths shared cied a debate on the purpose of the organisation, June 1998 as part of John Peel’s Meltdown the stage with names from the Jurassic early sev- while practical work would be shelved. A team of Festival. This colossal and unique project, instigat- enties. Visitors from abroad notably included Ikue directors with particular responsibilities was tried ed by Phil England, was London’s first station ded- Mori (New York drum machinist, formerly of Arto instead. Any member could still put themselves icated to Radio Art. Over 300 people took part in Lindsay’s DNA) and Sainkho Namtchalak forward as a possible director. Slightly modified, creating 600 hours of material, including live (Mongolian throat singer wearing vinyl LP head- this system continues today, with about eight broadcasts, children’s shows, drama and historical dress). Baxter had the vision to see that if the directors having skills in marketing, law, website works of radio art from station archives around event was big enough it would not only be visible management and so on. The AGM remains a the world. Described by New York’s Village Voice Left: Filament: on an international scale, but also more attractive chance for all members to kick up a fuss. as “the best radio station in the world”, Otomo & to funding bodies. A hectic plethora of offstage There are only four or so musicians currently Resonance FM was nominated for the Sony Sachiko 98 performances, discussions, workshops and video among the directors, and this is a direct result of Station Of The Year Award. Provocative and often Middle: The Ex, screenings complemented the main concerts. At the Charities Commission ruling that they cannot wild, this was the LMC at its most reckless and Tom Cora and times the heated debates in the bar seemed as be remunerated for LMC activities; in other visionary. friends compelling as the music simultaneously bursting words, no paid gigs for directors. I suspect this is Fifty programmes were specially made for Right: Sachiko M 99 PAGE 16 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999

Above Left: Keith Rowe 94 Resonance FM at LMC Sound, the LMC’s new stu- then ignored by Arts Council panels. This music, Above Right: Alan Tomlinson and Sainkho dio in Brixton, which opened formally in so distinctively British in some ways, is supported Nemchylak 92 November 1998. A carefully nurtured Lottery by a fraction of the funding offered to contempo- Left: Paul Burwell & Steve Noble 93, Elliot funding application has resulted in a fully rary composition or electronic music. Is it because Sharp & Zeena Parkins 93, Maggie Nicols equipped digital studio, which now bids in the it’s a little more working class? Because it doesn’t & Pete Noble 93 market for commercial work and enables use as much sexy technology? Or simply that it Collective members to devise recording projects deals too much in the provocative, the unexpect- there, or simply master their CDs. A small team of ed, the damn weird? enthusiastic engineers is kept under control by At a grassroots level the music carries on all project manager Mick Ritchie. As I write, the stu- year round in a gaggle of club spaces run by per- dio is in the midst of recording 30 hour-long shows sistent promoters. A new LMC initiative aims to dealing with London’s alternative music scene, to help out with publicity or PA equipment for these be broadcast weekly in the New York area by small but established clubs. Established, but not WFMU station. A sharp learning curve for all necessarily cosy—the last time I played one was at involved, hopefully these shows will be taken up Hugh Metcalfe’s long running Klinker, in an elsewhere. Also launched in November 1998 was Islington pub. After some initial confusion (Hugh the website . This is not only a was convinced his van and PA had been stolen, source of information about concerts and current having forgotten where he had parked it), the activities, but also a potential arena for creative evening’s mix of performance, poetry and music work. The first live webcast by LMC musicians ran smoothly enough. I played a delicately took place in February 1999, and the appointment coloured duet with violinist Susanna Ferrar, enjoy- of a website Artist In Residence is imminent. able chamber music if I say so myself. Then the “But again you see, John Edwards has a repertoire of final act was so ear-bleedingly loud I had to flee sounds—a language which tries to subvert the the room, and immediately a fight broke out: bro- instrument (double bass) in a way in which most ken glass, a wet floor, a half-strangled promoter. As classical players don’t ever engage. If I am working with I stepped out into the cool night air half a dozen improvisers I don’t want them to sound as if they police rushed past me into the performing space. improvising. This is the frustration about being a control At least no one accuses the Klinker of opting for freak. For instance, when John produces these fantastic the easy life. sounds, I would rather place them exactly where I want Thanks to Peter Cusack, Richard Sanderson, Sylvia them as opposed to where John might place them at Hallett, Paul Burwell, Ed Baxter, Phil England. the time. This is in no way a criticism of John’s playing, his playing is wonderful. But it is the idea of placing a particular phrase and perhaps repeating it or putting it in a different area.” Sampling composer John Wall interviewed in Resonance Vol 6, No 2, July 1998.

While writing this piece I arranged to meet LMC administrator Phil England to find out what was currently on his mind. Not so much an interview, more a rumination over bowls of yogurt soup in a 24 hour Turkish café. England stressed the strate- gic thinking behind much LMC activity in the last seven years. Fighting against any tendency to parochialism, the strategy has been to raise the profile of the music to the highest visibility possi- ble, as a way of benefiting the alternative musical community and its individual constituents. Rather than talking always to its own audience, the emphasis is on reaching out and placing LMC activities in a wider context of cultural debate. The way that improvisers work and collaborate locks in to many other cultural subgenres and tiny currents in society, and music must be part of that wider picture. This strategy becomes all the more crucial given the chronic undervaluing and underfunding of this musical area. Inviting saxophonist Evan Parker onto a TV arts programme to react to a Jackson Pollock painting? It makes perfect sense to me, but it’s unthinkable because Parker’s entire musical genre is virtually invisible. Phil England points out how the Arts Council’s own reports rec- ommend exactly the type of musical activity pro- moted by the LMC, and how these reports are VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 • PAGE 17 ‘tun yuh hand and meck fashion’ The Container Project Mervin Jarman is co-ordinator of the Container project, My hope is to get more ghetto people to devel- tion. op an appetite for using computers productively an operation to take a mobile media centre to the MF:What kind of kit do you need? streets of Jamaica. The Container is represented at: and if I can pass on the little that I have come to http://www.container.access-it.org.uk. know to at least one person then I would be grate- MJ: Along with the kit for use in the actual con- ful. tainer we are asking people, companies, organisa- Jarman is also part of the London based Mongrel tions etc. to donate material. A basic unit should collective. He was interviewed by Matthew Fuller. MF:Why is it important for you personally to do this? be a PC with 166 Mhz Pentium processor, 32 MB MJ: This is as significant to me now as football was memory and 15” monitor capable of 800 x 600 pix- Matthew Fuller: Can you let us know what the in my early development. As a socially recreation- els —16 bit colour. Or a Performa Mac/ Power Mac Container project is? In simple, straightforward terms — al activity football kept me out of many mischief with similar capabilities with a baseline modem what is the actual physical make-up of the project? The and strife. It also expanded my social group taking speed of 28.8kbps connectability. These computers technology? me into places that would otherwise be inaccessi- along with peripherals like printers and scanners ble to the likes of me. The same is true for com- will be given to community groups that have par- Mervin Jarman: The Container is an effort to take puter technology —especially interactive media ticipated in the Container project on its tours. creative computer technology to ghetto people where now I am celebrating in circles that’s usual- These will provide connection to the Container and deep rural communities in the Caribbean. The ly the domain of the reserved. Whilst there most project team and the World Wide Web and allow physical thing is made up of a shipping container people see me as unique, exotic, all kind of shit. the community to continue to push things after on wheels converted into a mobile Not to say I don’t appreciate all the attention, but the Container has left a site. If anyone has any- workstation/access unit. Transportable by truck, there is something inside that keeps reminding thing like this, or access to resources we’d love to it’ll be equipped with some 14 workstations and a me that this is only happening because I got a hear from them! server networked with local area network access chance and this chance was the privilege to work We are also advocating for sponsored connec- and remote Internet connection. The Container with some brilliant computer artists and techni- tion for public access and are focussing on both will make its maiden voyage into the Caribbean cians at a time when I had no knowledge or expe- local and international telecommunications com- where its first port of entry will be Jamaica. We rience with computers. This also came about panies to assist us in this quest. Satellite time, or are then hoping to move into Trinidad, St. Lucia, because, before that, Artec’s programme at the other ways of connecting to the net, is going to be Monserrat, St. Vincent and a number of other time allowed me to investigate my own resolves important. Islands over a 5-year period. This of course is sub- based around topics that mattered to me. MF:What should people do if they can support the ject to negotiations... So in a sense this is what I would like to Container with resources? As far as the people goes... We are aiming to achieve through the Container project: a lot more engage people effected by various divides —be “socially acceptable” outcasts or outsiders. People MJ: Get in contact with me immediately that political or social. It is true to say that a vast who have a hell of a lot more to contribute to soci- or any one you know that majority of the Island’s underprivileged won’t ety than the misery that gets strapped to us. is affiliated with the project. deliberately stay in that scenario if given a choice, MF:What is the situation with regard to the net in and this is absolutely what this is about. It’s about MF: So, what kind of effect do you see the project having Jamaica? Any good initiatives worth checking out? Are giving people incentives to feel good about them- for other people? there any organisations or groups of people that you selves without being patronised. MJ: Hopefully, in terms of the non-computer-edu- will specifically be collaborating with? Most of the people that will gain access to the cated participants, it will stimulate them into Container are no different to you and I except using computers as a tool to enhance their craft. MJ: In Jamaica there is a number of interesting that they have no significant reasons to interact For the learned digital artists and others that will developments taking place around the media how- with computers, as it is not presented to them in a participate in the project that this experience ever many of these take a kind of corporate meaningful way. This is to say in a way that it helps to rejuvenate their creative genes and influ- approach to their initiative and that is primarily becomes relevant to their every day activities as ence them in a more communal outreaching because these users/ developers are from uptown determined by them. approach to their work if this is not already the so that’s what is accepted by their peers. But by all Our main target group is therefore going to be case. means —type Jamaica into any search engine and some hardcore bad boys/girls. People from a non- you will be bombarded with a catalyst of interest- MF: How is the Container being put together in terms of digital low-educational background who have not ing sites. sourcing finances, material, computers, satellite time been working with other types of artforms. Thus and all the many other things that you need to get the MF:This is a very informal model of going about getting never had the time or incentive to investigate thing done? it done. It’s a different way of going about things than what computer technology can or can’t do for most people would try in say, the UK and the rest of MJ: This again is another milestone in the them in a constructive and creative manner. Europe where you’d get jumped on by x-amount of dynamism of the media that I now have the privi- bureaucracy before things could get moving. On first MF:What is going to happen in the Container? What lege to work in and the kind of people that I get to hearing, the idea of just getting on and doing some- might be going on on a typical day? What is its relation- work with or meet as a result of my work. It is thing this major, sounds almost unfeasible. Is Jamaica ship to say the different music scenes in Jamaica? At the largely based on their good sense and generosity, any different? same time you’re going to be pulling in digital art stuff where people have given time to help to adminis- from all over? It sounds like a crazy mix. trate, donate equipment, and just to share ideas or MJ: When we start talking bureaucracy, in MJ: Crazy and mix-up it will be indeed —thing is contact details of people who they think might be Jamaica it’s no different from anywhere in the as a youth growing up in Jamaica we had a kind of able to help out. world. The thing is what would seem normal time figure head in folklorist Mrs. Louise Bennet- So most of the efforts so far have been from span for as huge a land as Europe or even the US Cobally affectionately Miss Lou —now Miss Lou donations of some sort or another. However, we seems like eternity to the average man in the always say fe her Auntie Rochi used to say ‘tun are still hopeful that we will be able to attract street and we are not known for our patience. My yuh hand and meck fashion’ which is the mentali- some kind of sponsorship from business or anyone old lady used to say ‘always take the bull by the ty responsible for Jamaica’s creativity and dynam- else. The container and the shipping costs have horn’ —so when you see the need to do certain ic energies. So yes indeed the Container shall see been donated by JP Fruit Distributors, and vari- things you just have to go out and do it. a very interesting explosion of creative flair, I can’t ous amount of time and effort by a group of peo- give you any specifics but I can guarantee a ple already too numerous to mention in this dynamo of exciting activities. interview. The technology will emphasise interactive digi- For all the other things, we are still seeking tal media plus some basic life skills thus the tech- sponsorship commitments from companies or nology is about resourcing humans with other kinds of organisation that will be offered communicative skills and tools. advertising profile as a result of their participa- PAGE 18 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 Comic and Zine reviews Mark Pawson

Pick of the bunch this time with police confiscating compact moral panic, leading directly to about every other manifestation around is the long awaited new discs and mobile phones!—now the introduction of an over cen- of kitschy, cheesy pop culture issue of Detroit’s Motorbooty all 5,000 people who claim to sorious Comics Code in the forgotten by the rest of society. modestly subtitled ‘The Better have attended seminal gigs that USA. Undaunted, EC sprang Taking this over-sugared array of Magazine’. Imagine a cross took place in 200-capacity rock- back with a whole library of source material M O’C luscious- between Weirdo Comic and ’n’roll toilets can be there! ‘New Direction’ titles; Aces ly redraws it into a multi-layered Grand Royal magazine with arti- Somehow Motorbooty and its High, Valor, Piracy and Tales fruit-cocktail, trifle-like designs . cles like a ‘What to do when hometown of Detroit have designed to carry an Impact crammed full of bright rich good guys join bad bands’ escaped the grip of Spice Girl Particularly worth looking out goodies, and best served up in Fever, which on the evidence of for currently are Psychoanalysis small portions, its all just so and (Medical Drama)—two darn pretty to look at! Self pub- Spice Capades seems to have M.D. affected the rest of America! In totally inspired original series lished, I can’t help thinking that this totally unauthorised 48- which, surprisingly, only sur- this exhausting to look at visual pager, a plethora of comic artists vived for a few months. feast could just as well have and zinesters explore their Nowadays the EC formula of been published by Dover Books hideous fascinations with the obligatory surprise twists and as one of their clipart collec- all-conquering Fab Four (or shock endings feels dated and tions. gets predictable after a couple Five) and provide their own In James Kochalka’s Quit Your of issues, but I’m sure I would reinterpretations of the Girl Job, Magic Boy, his goofy elf- tacled dutch-husband supplying Power message. The rather obvi- have been a total EC fan if I’d slacker alter-ego character trips business and there’s some tradi- ous monster/sci-fi stories are as ever seen these comics as a kid. up in the snow and misses his tional manga-style sex and vio- unnecessary as Spice World—the Maybe I should buy extra copies bus to work. Whilst fretting that lence thrown in as well, plus a Movie. With such strong material to hand out to schoolkids. he’ll be in trouble for missing cookery page. Japanize issues 1-4 to start with, the best comics are work he finds a magic ring in seemed to come out at weekly the true-life ones, grown men the snow. His head reeling with intervals, but Toko’s visa has run desperately trailing round thoughts of what he can use the out and she’ll have to return to advice column and the some- branches of Toys’R’Us trying in ring for, Magic Boy enjoys a day Japan, so passport-sized thing to offend everyone ‘100 vain to find a Scary Spice to of unexpected freedom from Japanize #4 may be the last. Worst Albums of the 20th complete their sets of Spice work and fun in the snow, never Century Chart’. The Beastie Girls Dolls, and New York Punk actually getting round to using Boys were, shall we say, very scene vet Peter Bagge taking his the ring’s powers. This whimsical heavily influenced by daughter and a car-load of story is drawn in Kochalka’s Motorbooty when assembling screaming prepubescant spice-a- loose relaxed style, using large their own magazine… Highlight likes to a Spice Girls stadium panels mostly taken up with of Motorbooty #9—the Graphic concert, and thoroughly enjoy- giant snowflakes. Everything’s Violence Issue is editor Mark ing every minute of it! back to normal by teatime, Dancey’s comic strip about the For a glimpse of Comics’ History Magic Boy realises he’s happy Insane Clown Posse (a band). enough without needing a magic These fellow Detroit residents check out a few EC Comics titles. The complete reprint series of ring, and returns home to find revealed themselves to be even an answerphone message from stupider than their name seminal 1950’s EC (Entertaining Pwease Wuv Me—More ‘Art’ of his boss telling him to take the Dishwasher …one guy…fifty implies when they took excep- Comics) Comics have been com- states…lots of dishes…plenty of ing out steadily over the last few Mitch O’Connell, is the second col- day off work anyway! tion to a mildly satirical Dancey lection of Mitch O’Connell’s Also currently available from time… comic strip about them that years, and are still as fresh and Dishwasher Pete’s chosen job exciting as they must have been hyper-kitsch Paintings, the prolific J Kochalka are appeared in SPIN magazine, and Illustrations, Comics and Tattoo Monica’s Story (yes that Monica) allows him the freedom to roam instigated a hate campaign when they were originally pub- around the USA in the knowl- lished. I would have loved to designs. M O’C is quite obvious- and various issues of James against him, and the publisher, ly an Image Junkie in the Kochalka Superstar Comics. edge that wherever he fancies thus generously providing have my mind warped by these staying for a couple of weeks he when I was a kid! Full of time- advanced stages of addiction Dancey with material for a with an insatiable appetite for can easily find a job. In much more critical follow-up machines, spaceships and gooey Dishwasher issues 14 & 15 Pete’s slime-oozing tentacled alien images of Betty Page, Tiki God comic. Both are reproduced Statues, Big-eyed Waif Kid paint- long term quest to wash dishes here, and you’ll learn much invaders, Weird Science seems to in each of the 50 American contain the plot-line of every ings, Cheesecake Pin-ups, 60s more than anyone, anywhere and 70s Baby Boomer toys, Mad States takes him to Louisiana needs or wants to know about Sci-Fi film ever made. The mag- and New York City together nificently grisly EC horror titles, Magazine, Wacky Packages bub- the Insane Clown Posse… blegum cards, Hippie memora- with a detour working on an Tales From the Crypt and The Vault Other Dancey highlights this bilia, Beatnik Poodles and just Oilrig. We also get his account of issue are a merciless set of of Horror were cited as inducing ‘appearing’ on the Late Show ‘Unoriginal Gangsta Trading with David Letterman, ‘appear- Cards’—efficiently demolishing ing’ because media-shy Pete every White Rapper you’ve ever wasn’t in the slightest bit inter- heard of and a few more ested in being on television so besides. The story of the Japanize is a good old fashioned he obligingly let a friend go ‘Louvin Brothers’—genuine A5 photocopied comic, put out along instead, as a Warhol-style mandolin-smashing hellraisers, by Toko whilst she’s been living stand-in! Dishwasher also has in the ‘Illustrated History of in the UK, containing her plenty of dishwasher related Pants’ centrespread is an impressions in a distinctive kid- press clippings, cartoons, book inspired mix of ridiculous die-manga style of such quaint extracts and movie reviews, with trousers and social history, British activities as chanting a particular focus on dishwash- which deserves to be printed as along whilst watching the Jerry ing in literature and Labour a full-size poster. Almost-believ- Springer show, taking worthless Activism among Dishwashers, able is the piece on the pieces of junk along to the past and present. punkrock gig re-enactment Antiques Roadshow and eating Can’t find a decent cravat any- scene, organised along the lines bread and (baked) beans! ‘The where these days? Want to catch of Civil War re-enactment Hayashi Corporation’ is a loopy up on all the latest styles in Societies, authenticly complete meandering tale of a multi-ten- cable-knit sleeveless pullovers VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 • PAGE 19 Contacts Motorbooty , £4.50 Available from Tower Records /Disinfotainment www.motorbooty.com Spice Capades , Fantagraphics, £3.75 Available from Comic shops www.fantagraphics.com EC Comics , various titles Available from Comic shops www.gemstonepub.com Pwease Wuv Me , £12.95 Available from Disinfotainment www.mitchoconnell.com Quit Your Job , $6.95 and keep abreast of what’s what Alternative Press in the world of nose hair trim- www.indyworld.com/altpress mers? Then my dear fellow you , £1.50 need to equip yourself with a Japanize Probably available from GOSH copy of The Chap, a sophisticated comics, Gt Russell St, London, pamphlet designed to fit per- WC1 fectly in your smoking-jacket or c/o 37 Stephendale Rd, pocket. With forthright advice Fulham, London SW6 2LT on hairstyles, golfing attire and modern etiquette tips, The Chap Dishwasher is an essential requisite for Available from Disinfotainment today’s Gentleman of Leisure or $2.50 inc p/p from feeling slightly out of place in a P.O. Box 8213 world full of blue-jean trousers Portland and garishly-coloured plimsols. OR 97207 U.S.A. The Chap , £2.00 inc p/p p.o. Box 21135, London N16 0WW

Disinfotainment mailorder cata- logue available from; P.O.Box 664, London, E3 4QR website www.mpawson.demon.co.uk PAGE 20 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 The Wilson plots Robin Ramsay The ‘Wilson plots’ is a portmanteau term for a col- get summarised as ‘MI5 plots against Wilson’ is Courtiour (who became mockingly titled lection of fragments of knowledge about intelli- due to the way the information about these areas ‘Pencourt’) gave them the little he had and hoped gence operations against the Labour governments emerged in 1986-88, through former Army for the best. But without any decent leads into the of Harold Wilson and a great many other people Information Officer, Colin Wallace, and the former MI5 material, Pencourt stumbled —or were led: it and organisations. ‘The Wilson plots’ are about a MI5 officer, Peter Wright. They both talked about isn’t clear which —into the story being run by good deal more than Harold Wilson and his gov- MI5 as the source of plotting against Wilson BOSS of Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe and his ernments. (though Wallace’s allegations were much wider brief affair with Norman Scott —not the story of The British state —and the secret state —had than that) and for much of the left-liberal media MI5’s campaign against Wilson. There was a brief never trusted the British left and had always and politicians in this country this fitted straight flurry of interest by the media, notably by the worked to undermine it. The Attlee government into their vague understanding of the intelligence Observer which had paid a lot of money for the came out of the war-time coalition and was consid- services and British domestic history which told serialisation rights to the Pencourt book, but noth- ered mostly safe and reliable by the state: and by them that the bad guys were MI5. By the time we ing happened and the story disappeared. Wilson safe and reliable I mean it did not seek to chal- had educated ourselves sufficiently to understand tried to get his successor James Callaghan to do lenge either the power of the state nor the what Wallace and Wright were saying, the percep- something but Callaghan declined. assumptions about the importance of finance capi- tion —the false perception —that the story was The story disappeared for two reasons. The only tal, the British empire and Britain’s role as world just MI5 plotting against the Labour government journalists or politicians in the late 1970s who power which underpinned it. had been established. knew anything about the secret state were cur- Harold Wilson, a most conservative man, made rently or formerly employed by the secret state or one large mistake while a young man as far as the The Pencourt Investigation were mouthpieces for it. There was no investiga- state was concerned: he was not sufficiently anti- tive journalism in 1978 in the UK worth mention- It is largely now forgotten that the first attempt to Soviet. During the 1940s and 50s, while many of ing; there were no former British intelligence get ‘the Wilson plots’ story going was made by his Labour colleagues were accepting freebies officers to show journalists the way; there were no Wilson himself. from the Americans and going to the United whistle-blowers, no renegades. There were no Wilson was aware of the various attempts to States for nice holidays, Wilson was travelling east courses being taught in universities. There were get the media to run smear stories about him and fixing trade deals with the Soviet Union. He was almost no books to read. In 1978 the British secret his circle, and aware of the stream of burglaries perceived by the secret state —by some sections state was, really was, still secret. afflicting himself, his personal staff and other of the secret state, notably but not exclusively, sec- After the failure of the Pencourt investigation Labour Party figures in the 1974-76 period. But he tions of MI5 —to be someone who, in the words of nothing happened for five years. Harold Wilson chose to do nothing in public while he was in the General Sir Walter Walker, ‘digs with the became a Lord, presided over a long inquiry into office. In private he tried to get the Cabinet wrong foot’. the City of London which was consigned to the Secretary, Sir John Hunt, to do something, though In short,Wilson was perceived by some to be a recycle bin as soon as it was published, and duly quite what Hunt did is still unknown. dangerous lefty and his arrival as leader of the developed Alzheimers’ as he suspected he would. It seems clear now that Wilson did nothing Labour Party was thought by some of the profes- His personal assistant for 30 years, Marcia publicly for four reasons. The first was that he did- sionally paranoid Cold Warriors in the British and Williams, became Lady Faulkender and has said n’t have anything substantial to goon —merely American secret states to be deeply suspicious. nothing of consequence since. Barry Penrose and suspicions and a lot of little whispy bits and pieces Wilson had been to the Soviet Union many times: Roger Courtiour made a lot of money. Penrose was of rumours and tip-offs. The second reason for his was he a KGB agent, they wondered? Had he been last seen working for the Express, telling lies for inaction was his distrust of MI5. Had Wilson entrapped and blackmailed? the British state about Northern Ireland. instructed Whitehall to do an inquiry, it would Asking that question was enough for MI5 to Courtiour is in the BBC somewhere. have turned to MI5; and it was MI5 that Wilson begin obsessively investigating Wilson and his col- and his personal secretary, Marcia Williams, sus- leagues and friends. Nothing was found. But to the pected of being at the root of their troubles. The Colin Wallace & Peter Wright professional paranoids, nothing found simply sug- third reason Wilson did nothing while in office By 1979 the extraordinary events of the 1974-76 gested it was better hidden than they first was his knowledge in 1974 when he won the elec- period —events which included The Times serious- thought. And so they carried on. Meanwhile, the tion, that he would only serve two more years and ly discussing the right conditions for a military left in Britain was on the rise: trade unions got quit. Wilson, we now know, was afraid of coup in the UK, and a considerable chunk of the more powerful. The professional paranoids, noting Alzheimers’ disease: it had afflicted his father and British establishment wondering if the Prime the influence of the Communist Party of Great he told his inner circle in 1974 that he was going Minister was a KGB agent —had just slipped by, Britain in some trade unions, began to see the to resign in 1976 when he was 60. In 1975/6 ensur- unexamined. In came Mrs Thatcher with her shift left-wards in the UK in the sixties and early ing a smooth hand-over of power to his successor GCSE understanding of economics and proceeded 1970s as somehow under Soviet control. In 1974 —and Labour was a minority government, don’t to wreck the British economy, creating 2 million Conservative Prime Minister Heath had his fateful forget —was a much greater priority than finding unemployed in 18 months, and the entire story — show-down with the miners union —and lost — out who was behind the burglaries of his offices or group of stories we know as the Wilson plots — and the Tory right and their friends in the secret and the rumours about him. Wilson was a loyal simply ceased to be of interest to all but a handful state began a series of operations to prevent what member of the Labour Party to whom he owed of people. they believed —or pretended to believe —was an everything. He didn’t want to make bad publicity One of that handful was Colin Wallace, who in imminent left revolution in Britain. Some of these for the party —and his successor. And the fourth 1980 began a ten year sentence for a manslaugh- operations were done by the secret state; some by reason Wilson did nothing was his memory of the ter he didn’t commit. Wallace was interested in people close to but not in the secret state. Bits of previous time he had tried. In his first term in the Wilson plots story because he had not only the CIA also shared this view and got involved. office, encouraged by George Wigg MP, he had been a minor participant in the plots, and had The South African intelligence service (BOSS) was tried taking on the Whitehall security establish- knowledge of other areas of secret activities, he running parallel operations against Labour and ment in the so-called D-notice Affair —and had Liberal politicians it perceived as South Africa’s got his fingers badly burned. enemies, notably the Liberal leader Jeremy As far as we know Wilson had very little real, Thorpe and the then leader of the Young Liberals, concrete information about what was going on in now the Labour MP, Peter Hain. It is worth noting 1976 when he retired. He knew that he and his cir- here that similar operations were being run in this cle were being repeatedly burgled. He had period against mild, reformist, leftish parties in watched the campaign being run against Jeremy New Zealand, Australia, Germany, in Canada Thorpe, the leader of the Liberal Party, by BOSS, against the Quebec separatists, and, most famous- and that is why he made his first public remarks ly, in Chile. not about MI5, the objects of his real suspicions, This extraordinarily complex period of British but about BOSS. But those comments produced all history saw covert operations of one sort or anoth- the negative reactions he feared —not surprising- er involving serving or former personnel from ly, since he had almost no evidence —and he let it MI5, MI6, the CIA, Ministry of Defence and the drop until he resigned. Information Research Department, plus assets in He then waited a couple of months and con- the media and the trade unions, plus allies in the tacted two journalists, Barry Penrose and Roger Conservative Party and the City. That it tends to VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 • PAGE 21

knew he was in prison to stop him talking about and ask about his record. Finding nothing, them. The other interested party was the former because his file had been removed, such a journal- MI5 officer, Peter Wright. He had also been a par- ist would consider the allegation that he was a ticipant in the plots and had also been maltreated fantasist proven and would thus dismiss him as by his erstwhile employers in the secret state. Not the ‘Walter Mitty’ figure described at his trial. This framed and imprisoned like Wallace, but denied a operation was certainly run at Channel Four News decent pension on a technicality after a lifetime’s and John Ware, then working for the BBC. In service to the state. effect, the MOD tried to convert Wallace into the Here is one of the outstanding lessons of this ‘Walter Mitty’ they said he was. Unfortunately for episode. The British secret state is an astonishing- the MOD, Paul Foot was a better journalist than ly inept employer of people. None of those who that and found the duplicate set. Without Foot we became well known whistle blowers in the 1980s would have been struggling to rebut the Wallace- and 90s, Wright and Wallace, John Stalker, is-a fantasist line. Another disinformation project Captain Fred Holroyd, Cathy Massiter, David about Wallace was fed through Professor Paul Shayler and Richard Tomlinson wanted to be whis- Wallace had the job he said he did in Northern Wilkinson, then at Aberdeen University. A former tle-blowers. They were converted into whistle- Ireland. Wallace claimed to have had access to RAF officer, Wilkinson was ITN’s official consul- blowers by the stupidity of their employers in the secret intelligence material in his capacity as a tant on terrorism. Somebody in the MOD or MI5 state. Wallace, Holroyd and Wright, for example, psy-ops officer for the British Army. Since the psy- fed him some material about Wallace which Colin Wallace in were loyal Queen and Country men to a fault, ops/ war unit was officially deniable, i.e. officially accused him of trying to get a man in Northern didn’t exist, the MOD line was that Wallace was Northern Ireland: right-wingers through and through. Unfortunately, Ireland killed so he —Wallace —could have the image from Paul simply a press officer —his official, public role — our secret state has only one response to internal man’s wife. This smear story had been created just Foot’s book. dissent or the possibility of public revelation of its and the rest was fantasies. We were trying to before Wallace left Northern own errors: smash, crush, smear, destroy, frame, establish the veracity not only of his claims about Ireland —presumably in case cover-up and lie. The secret state perceives itself events but also his claims about his own CV. they ever needed to get at to be defending the national interest and in the Wallace. Wilkinson wrote a let- national interest anything is permitted. The jumping log book ter, passing this derogatory In prison in the 1980s Colin Wallace began Wallace was a sky-diving enthusiast and eventual- material on to ITN. Fortunately, writing letters about his wrongful conviction and ly the Army in Northern Ireland began including by this point,Channel Four accounts of his experiences working for the sky-diving in its psychological operations. Wallace News’ management were pretty British Army’s psychological warfare operation in formed a free-fall team which did displays all over sure Wallace was telling the Northern Ireland. In that capacity he had wit- Northern Ireland and was used to try to create truth and showed us journalists nessed some of MI5’s attempts to smear Wilson positive feelings about the Army —basic hearts Wilkinson’s letter. The allega- and other politicians as communists, drug-takers, and minds stuff. Wallace’s speciality was descend- tions it contained were homosexuals etc. The major media took no notice. ing dressed as Santa Claus and giving out presents refutable, and Wallace wrote to Duncan Campbell at the New Statesman, did take to kids. Sky-diving in this country is very tightly the University authorities. notice but had an enormous amount on his agen- controlled: every jump is recorded by the British Wilkinson was reprimanded and da and did nothing. So Wallace ended up working Parachuting Association. As you do more jumps apologised and lost his job as with me instead. you get differing kinds of licenses: beginners, ITN’s consultant on terrorism. Despite Wallace’s allegations made while in intermediate, advanced. Wallace had an advanced, The point here is this: prison and published by me in Lobster and dis- ‘D’ license —or so he said. Wallace had already been tributed all over the British media in the months In the summer of 1987 rumours began spread- framed for manslaughter and preceding his release from prison, the media took ing through this little group of journalists that convicted in a rigged trial. almost no notice. They only sat up and paid atten- Wallace’s claims to have been a sky-diver were a Having failed to shut Wallace up tion when the first rumours about a book being fake. He was a fantasist, a Walter Mitty. These with six years of imprisonment, published in Australia by a former MI5 officer rumours arrived at Channel Four News via an old the secret state then set about called Peter Wright began circulating in the UK. colleague of Wallace’s who knew an ITN journal- discrediting him. If you could One nut-case talking about the Wilson plots could ist. The rumours seemed inexplicable at first: we get to the people on the be ignored; two, apparently, could not. had lots of pictures of Wallace sky-diving with and MOD/MI5 committee which We now know, from a senior civil servant called without his Santa Claus outfit. But when I finally planned this and asked them Clive Ponting —another whistle-blower in the rang the British Parachuting Association to check why they were doing it, they 1980s —that in the months before Wallace’s their file on Wallace I found they had no record of would simply say, it was in the release from prison, the Ministry of Defence set him. Eventually Paul Foot, also working on the national interest to prevent up a committee, with MI5, to deal with him. It is story, discovered that a duplicate set of records Wallace talking. In the minds of worth noting here that this committee did not sim- were held by the international parachuting body the secret state the national ply order his murder. Outside Northern Ireland and Wallace’s records were there, confirming that interest —as defined by them — our secret state seems to kill people very rarely. he was what he said he was —as far as sky-diving overrides the competing claims But it is also worth noting that the committee was went, anyway. Undaunted by this, a journalist now of justice and democracy. was set up to pervert the course of justice. with the BBC called John Ware, still ran the Precisely what this committee did is not known, ‘Wallace-is-a-fake’ parachuting story some months Politicians and the but its general remit was to discredit Wallace and later in a double page spread in the Independent Secret State so discredit his allegations. Two of its operations smearing Wallace and Fred Holroyd. were detected and they show what can be done The point here is, we can now work out some of I offer these anecdotes by way with unaccountable power. what this MOD-MI5 operation against Wallace of introduction to some com- By mid 1987 despite the huge amount of space consisted of. First, they picked one area of ments on the relationship devoted to the allegations filtered back from Wallace’s CV, his parachuting, and set out to dis- between the media, politicians Australia from the Peter Wright book, Spycatcher, credit him with it. If they could show he was lying and what we might call histori- there were only three groups of journalists actual- here, they believed, journalists would not believe cal truth. Many people vaguely ly trying to research the complex tales Wallace his other claims. They burgled his house and stole assume, as I did at the beginning told: Channel Four News, where I was briefly; his jumping log book; they burgled the British of the Wallace affair, that politi- David Leigh and Paul Lashmar at the Parachuting Association and removed his file, sub- cians and journalists are con- Observer;and, a bit later, Paul Foot at the Mirror. stituting a fake file for the one with his number on cerned with ‘the truth’. This Other journalists dropped in and out, did odd sto- it. Then they began spreading the word through simply isn’t the case. ries, but only those three groups were seriously at their press contacts that Wallace was a fraud, Most journalists —at least it. We all had the same basic problem: Wallace knowing that Wallace didn’t have his jumping log 99% of those I have met —are had been described as a ‘Walter Mitty’ by Ministry and knowing that —eventually —some journalist interested first in their careers, of Defence briefings during his trial in 1980 and would ring the British Parachuting Association and aims subsidiary to that, such the Ministry of Defence was simply denying that as getting a story or doing better PAGE 22 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999

Above: MI5 HQ Below: MI6 HQ

than their rivals, or having a good time or padding major print and broadcast media and parliament their expenses. Journalist are just people doing a that their view of the British political universe was job. They have mortgages and families to support; false. I was writing articles which implied: you — and theirs is now a very insecure business. All the the media, the politicians —do not know what you unions in the media were smashed in the past 15 are talking about: the world isn’t the way you say years. Contracts are short. You can be fired on the it is. At the beginning, before the major media spot. took any real interest in the Wallace story, this was Politicians, most of them, are simply interested a peculiarly difficult message to sell. Who was I to in power or aims subsidiary to that, such as get- tell experienced journalists they didn’t know what ting reselected, getting re-elected; pleasing the was what? I was on the dole, living in the sticks, in whips to get promotion; or simply getting press Hull, producing a magazine with a tiny circulation. coverage. The pursuit of the truth is not on the In the weeks before Wallace came out of prison I agenda of most politicians; the pursuit of the had circulated a great deal of material to the truth, when it means going against prevailing major media about Wallace, his case and his media opinion, or the wishes of their party’s lead- explosive allegations. I got only one response, ers, or the wishes of the state, is on the agenda of from a journalist at Newsnight. As big-time jour- a handful. This is particularly true of stories in the nalists are prone to do, he said, don’t tell me over field of intelligence and security policy. Nothing the phone, come down to London. So down I went makes MPs more nervous than security and intel- to Newsnight’s office. It was my first exposure to ligence issues. the major media. I delivered the spiel and the In the first place, if they’ve got half a brain, journalist was interested and said he would take a it was then. Investigative journalism is expensive, MPs simply won’t go near subjects about which camera crew down to the prison to interview offers no guarantee of publishable articles, or they are ignorant —which is sensible enough. And Wallace when he got out. broadcastable TV programmes, and there is less of to my knowledge other than those who have I had been told by Wallace that among the visi- it now than there was then. There has been a visi- worked for, or have been close to, the security and tors to his secret psy-ops unit, Information Policy, ble dumbing-down of the few TV documentary intelligence services, there are in Northern Ireland, had been Alan Protheroe, series, such as World inAction, into consumerism no MPs who have a decent who at the time of my Newsnight visit, was programmes. Not counting the journalists who are knowledge of this field. Not even Assistant Director General of the BBC. Nicknamed simply mouthpieces for state, who go under the Tam Dalyell. In the second ‘the Colonel’ in the BBC, Protheroe was, and may titles of diplomatic or defence correspondents, place, MPs all have a healthy still be, a part-time soldier-cum-intelligence offi- there is currently only one journalist in the whole respect for the damage to cer, specialising in military-media relations. of Britain who is seriously interested in the intelli- careers tangling with the spooks But unlike the journalists I had been talking to gence and security field, and that’s Paul Lashmar can inflict. You might think that up to that point, Protheroe knew who Wallace was at the Independent. MPs then have a massive vested and what the Information Policy unit had been In 1990, I think it was, a resolution of mine, interested in bringing the securi- doing in Northern Ireland. To Newsnight I there- became the North Hull Labour Party’s conference ty and intelligence services fore said something like this: ‘Protheroe’s a spook; resolution. It called for a full-scale public inquiry under their control. But this has- you’ll have to watch him. He’ll try and block any- into Northern Ireland, the dirty war there, the n’t happened yet and, in my thing you do with Wallace in it.’ ‘Really, old boy,’ Wallace affair and the Wilson plots; it called for view, short of some said the BBC people I was talking to, ‘it isn’t like the introduction of a system of real parliamentary massive,earth-shaking scandal, that in the BBC’. accountability for the secret state. The resolution never will. Their response was comical, really. It was then went to the Labour Party conference where it was In the House of Commons in only just over a year since there had been several passed without opposition. As such, according to 1987 we got some help from Ken weeks of intense media interest in the revelation the rules of the Party, it became party policy. Of Livingstone, Tam Dalyell and that the BBC actually had its own in-house MI5 course nothing happened, the whole thing has Dale Campbell-Savours. These office vetting BBC employees (still there, as far as been forgotten and we are where we were in 1986 days Dalyell is still at it, as is I know) —prima facie evidence that, au contraire, before the Wilson plots story got going. Short of a Norman Baker a Lib-Dem MP, a the BBC was exactly ‘like that’. bug being found in Tony and Cherie Blair’s bed- new member of the so-called The Newsnight journalist, Julian O’Hallorhan, room with ‘please return to MI5’ stamped on it, awkward squad. Livingstone has interviewed Wallace the day he came out of prison New Labour is not likely to challenge the secret moved onto other areas and and then had his piece yanked out of a pro- state —and maybe not even then. Campbell-Savours has become a gramme at the very last minute. I was actually Although Britain is a democracy in some sens- Blair loyalist. watching Newsnight at the time and saw the con- es, the ‘will of the people’ has never been extend- The British political and media fusion in the studio as the running order was ed to cover the key areas of interest to a state systems are not equipped to rejigged while they were on air. We subsequently which was developed to run and service an deal with major issues concern- heard that Protheroe had indeed blocked the empire. Defence, foreign policy, security and intel- ing the behaviour of the secret Wallace interview, and when asked, the BBC ligence policy —in none of these areas can MPs or state. denied that they had ever interviewed Wallace. their constituents have access to official informa- In the political arena the (Paul Foot has seen a bootleg of the film-which- tion or have any input into policy. During both Intelligence and Security didn’t-exist.) Protheroe’s action in blocking the World Wars the state co-opted the mass media of Committee setup under the Wallace interview was reported four months later the day for its propaganda; and this continued to Tories is a joke, without inves- in the Sunday Times and has been confirmed some extent after the war in the Cold War with tigative powers. But it is a joke since by a senior Newsnight staffer who has now the Soviet bloc when large chunks of the media useful to the secret state. When left the BBC. were co-opted again to run anti-Soviet propaganda the House of Commons Foreign Thirteen years later, have things improved? Yes —this is what is described in the new Paul Affairs Committee was conduct- and no. The media is potentially more difficult to Lashmar book about the Information Research ing hearings into the Sierra manage for the state than it used to be. The Department; and is presumably the reason it has Leone affair last year it asked Ministry of Defence employs 150 press officers to been so widely ignored. for an interview with the head spin-doctor the media and even MI6 has a media At the end of the day, as the cliche has it, its of MI6. Foreign Secretary Robin department whose job it is to wine and dine jour- down to the politicians. As long as the politicians Cook denied them access on the nalists and editors to get the departmental line remain content not to have any influence over for- grounds that that the security across. The days when a quiet word in the ear of a eign and defence affairs —and the intelligence and Intelligence Committee was handful of editors would ensure a media black-out agencies which service them —the media will the appropriate forum for such are gone. And there is a good deal more informa- remain relatively impotent and the subject will questions. MPs are still unable tion available than there was in 1986 —if journal- remain off the agenda. And, unfortunately, this to ask questions about the ists could be bothered to read it —which, mostly, present intake of Labour MPs shows every sign of Security and Intelligence ser- they can’t. But the fundamental attitudes of the being at least as supine before the state as those vices: the House of Commons media towards the state and secret state remain who came before it. Clerks simply will not accept the same as far as I am aware. British journalists them. The secret state is still, —and, more importantly —British editors, do not officially, not accountable to see themselves in an adversarial relationship with Parliament. the state and secret state. If the secret state says At its heart, the Wilson plots ‘national security’ to them, most journalists and story was the attempt by a hand- virtually all editors will still back away. And in ful of people to persuade the some ways the situation today is even worse than VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 • PAGE 23 Dragster and drag queens, beatification and beating off Simon Herbert There was a brief period at the beginning of the sums up the magazine’s mission assist in the self-determination Nineties in the United States, partially fuelled by statement as follows: of others. In effect, what consti- a presidential election contest desperately looking “Throughout its twenty year tutes radical practice now, and for defining issues, when the matter of whether history High Performance maga- how has this been effected by taxpayers monies should be used to support public zine has been a journalistic what was previously considered artworks that offended (some) mainstream sensi- home for new, unrecognized and radical practice? bilities was whipped up into a coast to coast innovative work in the arts. “The Citizen Artist” attempts to media circus by a number of high profile conserva- From its beginnings in perfor- broadly depict the changing def- tives, including Senator Jesse Helms and mance art to its last few years initions of the margins over the Reverend Don Wildmon of the American Family covering community-based art, last twenty years by structuring Association. As George Bush discovered to his cha- the magazine maintained a the anthology in three distinct grin, it was the economy, stupid, that was foremost steady focus on art that was seri- sections: “The Art/Life in voter’s minds, and not whether photographers ous in its personal artistic intent Experiment”, “The Artist as displaying self-portraits of rectally challenged and underappreciated in public Activist”, and “The Artist as whips or performance artists covering themselves perception... We considered our Citizen”. Each section is general- in chocolate and alfalfa constituted a capital editorial approach to be a useful foundation for, ly chronological (although Durland is quick to offense. Nevertheless, for a short period the mar- and precursor to, the development of critical dis- point out that such a linear approach is overly sim- ginal and the mainstream found themselves in a cussion around the art we covered. And when the plistic, and certain motifs recur throughout): “The strange and frantic arm lock, a magnified coales- form such as performance art became validated to Art/Life Experiment” covers the early pioneering cence of all the mutual distrusts and loathings the point of being part of the critical discourse, it work of artists who for the first time attempted to that continue to bubble through the two polarised was time for us to look in new directions.” break down distinctions between Art and Life, camps. Performance artists took to the streets and His conclusion that “Our editorial journey took resulting in projects such as the body art of artists pleaded their case, stigmata arrayed against stig- us down some roads that later became freeways, Linda Montano and Tehching Hsieh (who spent a ma, preaching words of compassion, whilst crazed and some roads that are now overgrown with year tied together by an eight foot length of rope), southern gentlemen strode marbled floors, theatri- weeds”, and that the cover of the first issue fea- the rise of eco-art, and most significantly the ini- cally ripping up ‘obscene’ photographs and casting tured artist Suzanne Lacey sitting on a dragster, tial development of feminist art practice: “The them to the four corners of the senate. It was the sums up the metaphorical tone of this anthology. Artist as Activist”, charts the following phase, Sixties Lite; protestors encamped outside the The majority of artists included demonstrate the when artists began to engage with the develop- gates of power, bloated incumbents sending out kind of hope that lies at the heart of that most ment and maintenance of ideologies specific to the attack dogs, both parties fighting for the spiri- American of myths: the road movie. Most have both a variety of identities —multi-cultural, gen- tual futures and bodily fluids of the people. worked, or are working, in a US context —whether der, sexual —and objectives —empowerment, Steven Durland, then editor of High this be within the diaspora of race or the advocacy protest, education, advocacy, etc: “The Artist as Performance (based on the West Coast of the of health issues —and, although the individual Citizen”, the final and most expansive section, United States), neatly summed up both the pas- contexts may be radically different, they share the contains what one imagines is Frye Burnham’s sion and the farce of the period in his observation commonality of a personal artistic quest. paradigm —an artist or artists located in a specific that “the performance artists had become the The title “The Citizen Artist”, with its sugges- community and working in tandem with its mem- evangelists, and the evangelists had become the tions of responsibility and a causality between bers in a microcosmic sense in which relationships performance artists.” It was a typical observation, personal and communal activity, is both provoca- are finite and local. As such, interviews are fea- characteristic of a consistent editorial style during tive and contentious. After all, much art activity tured with artists working at a grass roots level; in the twenty year run of High Performance (from that has come from the live art and multi-discipli- the contexts of prisons and community centres, or the late Seventies to the late Nineties) that usual- nary arena has not exactly been fuelled by notions organising workshops for doctors and nurses ly cut to the heart of serious issues whilst retain- of benign participation or the democratisation of (“Caring for the Carers”). ing a sly objective distance; an analysis of the creative processes. The destructive urge —or at The arc of the three sections is one which rein- theatre of the absurd with a concomitant sense of the very least a kind of interrogative nihilism — forces the editor’s prejudices in suggesting a grad- absurdity. High Performance was a revolutionary has been referenced in critical analyses of the ual sea change of artistic consciousness over two magazine in a number of ways. It embodied field almost as a matter of course. The controver- decades, from the establishment of artistic com- founder Linda Frye Burnham’s commitment to the sial live works of Chris Burden, which interrogated munities and the process of self-realisation, to the political and philosophical aspects of obligation by the creation of direct risk, use of interventionist practice to either represent underpinnings of the counter- or the grotesque debasements of Paul McCarthy, or involve communities traditionally perceived as culture, a mapping of guerrilla which were both regularly covered at length in the distinct from —or ignored by —historical activity that erupted from, and pages of High Performance, are significantly Eurocentricity, through to surrendering at least then fed back into, the cultural absent from this collection. However, any fears some measure of artistic autonomy in preference fractures of the Sixties onwards. that “The Citizen Artist” is a form of selective cul- to initiating more organic forms of collaborative Each issue covered as wide a tural neutering are allayed by a number of factors. practice. As a scenario it has its attractions, but it range of activities as could fall Firstly, as Durland points out “...we realised that remains a wistful blueprint, full of inherent stress- under the rubric of experimen- there was no one anthology that could both reflect es. Whilst “The Citizen Artist” does not attempt to tal art, mixing review and infor- the history of the magazine and at the same time disguise that a kinder gentler artist is the pre- mation sections with extended exist as a coherent book. So we settled for the fact ferred role model du jour, it also allows individual essays on thematic or social con- that this is an anthology... not the anthology from contradictions or disagreements to become appar- cerns of the time. It was utterly High Performance”. Secondly, there is already a ent (thereby maintaining the flavour of the origi- unique as a magazine; as an profusion of reference books on the viscerally sub- nal High Performance magazine). organ of analysis and advocacy versive aspects of live art (such as the excellent The central irony of the concept of the Citizen for the kind of marginal art that series of Re/Search publications which also as Artist is that even those artists who are commit- was not normally covered, its emanates from the West Coast). ted to leaving their ivory tower often have to con- priorities shifted over the years, Frye Burnham and Durland’s criteria for tend with a certain amount of initial mistrust or both as a matter of editorial reprinting essays seems to have been motivated by hostility in the bigger badder world. The label of imperative and as a nod to the a desire to address questions of artistic production citizen may be adopted autonomously by any old chameleon nature of its core that are far more interesting than retreading the artist, but it only becomes resonant when con- constituency. familiar paths that chart ad nauseum the schism ferred, in part, by the external benediction of non- In the introduction to “The between the provocative art guerrilla and a reac- art communities. What is fascinating is how the Citizen Artist —An Anthology tionary mainstream. The real issue, whether terms and conditions of these negotiations have from High Performance voiced explicitly or hinted at, is how, through one’s changed over the last two decades, and why this Magazine 1978-1998” Durland practice, to self-determine and, by extension, anthology very nearly ends up confirming popular PAGE 24 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999

realities of their respective time. Priorities shift be formulated. The essays in this final section tend and rhetoric changes. Cause and effect is a famil- to avoid manifestos in favour of specific detail, iar notion to artists, because they generally have and are far too complex to summarise here (this so many causes and fear in the early hours of the section alone contains 17 case studies). Suffice to morning that they may have so little effect. say that projects such as Marty Pottinger’s multi- “The Artist As Activist” section deals with media record of the lives of the people involved in artists whose moral compass had not significantly making New York’s City Water Tunnel #3 (the shifted —all the same ethical concerns are evi- largest non-defense public-works project in the dent —but was certainly being pulled by a differ- Western hemisphere), intergenerational arts co- ent gravitas. This was the era when the issue of ordination projects such as New York’s Elders identity —who had it, who didn’t have it, who had Share the Arts (ESTA), or Grady Hillman’s “arts- an inalienable right to proclaim it, who had better in-corrections” residency schemes, undertaken in keep his mouth shut —became a key issue for over 50 correctional facilities since 1981 (contain- artistic analysis. Identity could be problematic as ing the best damn hard nosed economic riposte to well as being positive. How did the identity of an those who believe that prisoners shouldn’t benefit artist relate to the identity of a non-art communi- from the arts as school programmes are simultane- ty? Could the former represent the latter? With or ously closed down), are, whilst not quite enough to without that community’s sanction? Lucy convince a congenital loner like myself to enter Lippard’s coverage of the AIDS awareness projects into the dreaded ambiguity of collaboration, cer- of David Nash includes a quote from critic tainly testament to the diversity of committed and Douglas Crimp which pretty much sums up the —in its own terms of reference —clear-sighted feelings of the time: public art methodologies. “Art does have the power to save lives... But if If I have a specific caveat against this antholo- prejudices about crazy artists as much as it demol- we are to do this, we will have to abandon the ide- gy it is that the issues it raises are so huge that it ishes them. The general urge of artists who wish to alistic concept of art. We don’t need a cultural cries out for a little external contextualisation. be ‘contemporary’ has been to hitch their wagons renaissance; we need cultural practices actively The editors have purposefully focused on inter- to the nearest zeitgeist, and as new zeitgeists participating in the struggle against AIDS.” views with artists, often by other artists, or first come along the older ones tend to become a little Artists of colour were also working to achieve a person essays by artists; consequently, as Durland creaky. Inevitably, the passing of time has been level of visibility, creating broader awareness of admits “...sometimes the analysis one expects in less charitable to some artistic pronouncements the politics of ethnicity and colonialism. Artists an anthology is left up to the reader.” This might than others. This is most evident in the first sec- such as Native American James Luna purposefully be a minor point (although I would have liked to tion of the book, the grand Art/Life Experiment, sought to avoid the tag of the “exotic”, a stubborn have seen a few more devil’s advocates prodding in which quotes such as: “Thus we have passed refusal to be co-opted easily by institutional senti- their forks into these angels...), given that this is into a new worldview where we have gone beyond mentality: made clear from the start, but it does impact on our anchor in the solar system to an even more “That’s why I dislike the movie Dances With certain sections that need clearer contextual and integrated connection in the galactic core” in Wolves. It did nothing but glorify all the good. It explanatory text, or even images (maybe not a Barbara T. Smith’s investigation of shamanic prac- didn’t show any Indians mad, or upset... any problem in the original magazine format). Also, tice; or Rachel Rosenthal’s description of her Indians fucking up. We’re still beautiful, stoic and there is a missed opportunity to re-examine the weekend workshops, in which: “For a weekend, pretty.You see the movie and you go out and see a efficacy of artistic methodologies in retrospect, two days and a half, I am a saint. My aim for that fat, overweight, acne-covered, poor uneducated and test the claims of artists. For instance, there is one weekend is to really take the spirit of the peo- person —is that the real Indian you want to see?” mention off the hugely influential cross-country ple who are there and give a bath to the spirit.” — This was a time when the artwork of artists San Diego/ Tijuana artists’ collective Taller de tend to (at least to a thirtysomething like myself) tended to reject the metaphorical optimism of its Arte Fronterizo, but no postscript explaining the reinforce the cliché of the barking mad perfor- predecessors and became more specific, more circumstances behind the group’s break-up and mance artist, complete with West Coast Dawns, pragmatic, more willing to cause offence to some how this impacted on subsequent post-colonial Harmonic Convergences, Beautiful Natives, Earth if the process of alienation made a potent point — strategies. Similarly, I was curious as to how artists Goddesses, Cheesecloth, Group Hugs and Candles. all necessary approaches when faced with the dis- working as activists in the field of AIDS-related It is easy to take these quotes out of context, integration a singular authentic voice or health care will have modified their approach in and paint a picture of desperately earnest artists homogeneous creative creed. As celebrated perfor- the late Nineties, in respect of factors such as struggling in the tar pits of history (damned if this mance artist Karen Finley observes: more efficient medicinal filter blocks, or increased West Coast/American stuff doesn’t come with a “Reality is always more shocking than art. I public apathy towards an epidemic that is now helpful metaphor every other sentence!), but think that shock in art is followed by some kind of over a decade old. whilst it is difficult to avoid observing that other transformation that happens because of the artist. Sadly, such questions would still be raised if similar examples form a wish list of crackpot aspi- I mean, you could say that [experiencing the journalists from High Performance were still dart- rations that would sound cheesy in a Miss World poverty of] Second Street between Avenues A and ing around asking the right questions of the right contest, a steelier picture also begins to emerge as B is an artwork, and that’s not so. It’s not enough practitioners, but the magazine ended its run in a flipside to the epiphets. Earlier in her interview just to have the shocking thing, disassociated from 1998. This is a shame for too many reasons to list Rosenthal paints a vivid and prescient picture of everything. The artist frames it or mirrors it with here, so I will mention just one. Whether one eco-rape that is both concise and articulate, brilliance or timeliness. I don’t know that there’s a agrees with some or all of these artistic voices, describing a world that is at least as crazy as her clear line between what is an atrocity and what’s what is evident is an intention to create relevant own artistic universe. Cheri Gaulke’s history of art. I do know that when Chris Burden shot him- public art that is created from the bottom up. This “The Women’s Building” may put an inordinate self in the arm it was art, but when my father shot anthology is timely given the current UK context amount of faith in the metaphorical power of an himself it wasn’t.” of lottery money for the arts, which is creating def- eight foot papier-maché woman, erected on the The activist urge sometimes necessitated the initions of “socially useful” artists from the top building’s roof as “a beacon of women’s power to identity of the artist to be almost completely sub- down by attaching conditions of audience develop- the community”, but then maybe that was the sumed, as in the work of Mexican artist Fehlipe ment and youth participation. kind of morale-booster that women artists needed Ehrenberg. When the Tepito district of Mexico The Citizen Artist — An Anthology from High when attempting to establish self-sustaining City was devastated by earthquake, Ehrenberg Performance Magazine 1978—1998 women’s groups at a time when there were no undertook a project of reconstruction, organising Edited by Linda Frye Burnham and Steven precedents (let alone state funding). a volunteer brigade (Tepitos) to comfort survivors, Durland Certainly, the editors seem confident enough to distributing food and clothing, opening a bank ISBN: 1883831–10–5 Published by Critical Press surrender their charges and let them take their account administered by the Committee for the Available through Distributed Art Publishers, New own chances with the forces of history, and seem Reconstruction of Tepito. Emily Hicks observes York to think that the reader is big enough and stupid that: Tel (212) 627 1999 Tel (212) 627 9484 enough to draw his or her own informed conclu- “For him, the goal is not to be a pop star, but a sions. responsible citizen/activist.” The cumulative realisation that gradually Such a goal is at the heart of the final section, dawns whilst reading through all these docu- “The Artist as Citizen”. It is not necessarily a pop- ments, testimonials and anecdotes is that what ular one (savaged by critics such as Robert “The Citizen Artist” achieves most effectively is Hughes in his critique “Culture of Complaint”) or the way in which it illustrates just exactly how a desirable one for many artists, not least because much artists position themselves in relation to the it calls for different modes of critical evaluation to VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 • PAGE 25 A Cut and Paste Conversation: Renée Turner, the De Geuzen Foundation, and Jason E. Bowman

De Geuzen is a foundation for multi-visual research the space, and our entry fees tend to be pretty which was established in Amsterdam in 1996 out of the low. For programming and projects, we have to necessity to create a forum in the Netherlands for fund raise for operational costs. critical inquiry, reflection and production with regards to JB: I know that you have recently started to receive fund- visual culture. De Geuzen has three core initiators, Riek ing from the Mondriaan Foundation but that previously Sijbring, Femke Snelting and Renée Turner who operate you were self financing. How has the receipt of state as a collaborative art and design team which creates funding altered the practice.1 context specific projects. Its intention is to promote an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural dialogue that opens RT: In the past we really relied heavily on dona- up new positions and perspectives with regards to tions of time, energy and money from our friends. visual culture. De Geuzen’s practice includes curation, And I have to stress that there was not that much art, design and programming in the form of symposia, money circulating among us. After a while howev- exhibitions and educational workshops. Its goal is to er there were limits to the amount of begging, bor- initiate situations where visual practices are viewed and rowing and stealing that we could do. Plus all of understood as an integrated social process. these negotiations took time and much was left up to chance or luck. Because we had a desire to push Jason Bowman: Now that I’ve seen your mission state- our projects further and find ways of bringing in ment I want to ask a blatant question: I know what that broader audiences, soliciting funding from the means but how does it function on an organisational Mondriaan was one way of preserving a degree of nal check. We have to continually scrutinise our level? continuity in our programming. own work and process with an eye on how our pro- Renée Turner: Our structure is hybrid to say the jects resonate beyond our own interests. JB: Has the receipt of Mondriaan funding changed the least. De Geuzen as an entity has three different way you operate in terms of pace? JB: Can we move on to talk about De Geuzen in practice? capacities. It houses studios and a place for public The first work of yours I saw was ‘The Walk-in Reader’.2 events and we also operate as an agency. RT: Yes, to a degree because when you receive While many of the other works in this exhibition were De Geuzen came about through a mixture of state funding, you’re held accountable to an exter- centred on architecture, your work seemed much more events and interests. There is a thin line between nal body. Before our only accountability was to expansive and escaped the limitations in representing hybridity, flexibility and confusion and when we ourselves and our audiences. There was a sort of urbanism solely via architectural or design vocabularies. began, we were closer to the latter. Riek, Femke an intimate and immediate response in terms of programme planning. Now with subsidies we have RT: Yes, thematically the exhibition looked at the and I studied together and during our post-gradu- processes of urban transformation taking place in ate studies we worked in various configurations, to plan and apply in advance. I would be lying if I said that does not affect our practice. However it the Netherlands. And I think Hou Hanru was curating exhibitions, creating installations and struck by the post-Koolhaas generation and their visual interventions. Although our affiliation with has also opened up other possibilities which were not previously available to us. almost utopian drive to address social problems each other was not formalised, the roots of our through design. For us however, it was crucial to current collaboration began there. Things became JB: Beyond these structural elements, De Geuzen repre- shift or contextualise the debate on buildings and more solidified when I started renovating a space sents itself as a foundation for multi-visual research. Can urban planning in order to look at the social in Amsterdam with two other artists, Marco Cops you expand on how you understand your practice as forces and networks that have and continue to and Cesare Davolio. As I was reaching the end of being researched based? shape the city of Amsterdam. my studies, I thought perhaps different agendas RT: Well, first of all let’s incorporate the term could be combined and accommodated by the JB: So how did you assume this position within the con- ‘multi-visual research’ into the equation. It plays space. So the building’s interior has been con- text of an exhibition? with the very tenuous relation between art and structed with flexible usage in mind. theory, there is a degree of contradiction. But at RT: We set up a kind of temporary resource. It De Geuzen has separate yet interdependent the same time it sets a tone for our activities. The included an archive where books, videos and inter- functions and I guess it would suffice to say that three of us are visually trained. Femke is a design- net URLs were collected around related themes the culmination of all these functions constitutes er and Riek and I are artists. Our individual prac- ranging from the ways in which people make the foundation as a whole. The overall rent of the tices have always included a visual means of themselves feel at home in the city, to how so- complex is covered entirely by renting out four acquiring and disseminating information. called illegal or black economies function within individual studios. Not all occupants share the Admittedly, our definition of what that means is the structure of mainstream economies, to how public face of De Geuzen but we see them as inte- amorphously broad and manifests itself different- people map out their living environments, circum- gral nevertheless. It’s a mix of both public and pri- ly within each of our projects. And from the begin- scribing the communities they belong to. vate. When the agency is hosting a public event, ning we wanted our projects to be investigative, Everything we gathered was made available to the two of the studios are emptied out and a dividing similar to laboratory or field work. public and there was a photocopier where people wall opens to create a larger public space. could copy books for free. Besides the more librar- JB: Do you mean in terms of art experimentation? JB: So what are the immediate benefits offered by the ian ethic, we programmed weekly events based on structure of having a foundation which incorporates an RT: Not really, experimentation seems like a bank- our selected themes. The events took on different agency and a studio complex? rupt term in relation to art now. It is a word that is forms from round table discussions to tours often used and seldom actualised. Basically through the city. We involved a variety of people RT: There are many benefits, but most important through the matrix of research we wanted to allow from diverse backgrounds and specialisations, is the fact that we, as an agency, do not have to for rehearsals. It has been our aim to create a ranging from Joke van Kampen, depend on government funding for the use of our space where the unfinished or speculative could the chief editor of the homeless space therefore we have a guaranteed forum. Our be tested with audiences. Outside of academic newspaper in Amsterdam, to a programming can shrink or expand depending on structures, there are very few venues, if any, where social geographer, Dr. Rob van our financial situation. Although the Netherlands this can happen. And although playing with this Engelsdorp Gastelaars. And with has more funding for the arts than most other notion of research, I think we have always under- every event, more information countries, we felt this flexibility was an indispens- stood our work within the frame of art and there- was amassed and added to the able safety mechanism. fore we don’t necessarily look towards achieving archive. For us, it was an act of JB:The agency practices both at its own location and in the sense of conclusion which other forms of gradual social contamination. other contexts. Is the space also responsible for generat- research may be held accountable to. Despite this, The space soon operated as a ing the necessary income to fund your projects? it is very important to develop methods of analysis point of convergence where peo- RT: No, we don’t generate a profit from renting within our practice, a kind of internal and exter- ple returned or became regulars. PAGE 26 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999

JB: One of the things which really struck me was the clearly arranged for discussion and direct way that ‘The Walk-in Reader’ did not attempt to encounter. On other occasions the visuals took on become responsible for accuracy of representation. a performative role, activating audiences. At the RT: It was never our ambition to be accurate, in opening of ‘The Walk-in Reader’ we served a cake fact we tend to do a lot of dancing around issues. with the map of Amsterdam printed on it. The Our approach rarely aims for a direct hit so to result was an almost carnivalesque atmosphere speak. ‘The Walk-in Reader’ was a forum, a with people scrambling to cannibalise their own resource and a podium that not only addressed street. various social networks but became one, a nucleus JB:This role of evocation seemed to change with your of activity within the exhibition. more recent work ‘Our Image is Our Own’? JB:This notion of being or activating a nucleus of critical RT: In the context of ‘Midnight Walkers and City activity seems to punctuate the identity of De Geuzen Sleepers’, an exhibition which commissioned generally… artists to work in the Redlight district in Amsterdam, we were initially invited under very RT: Yes, I think it has always been our aim to create sites specific conditions to be a part of the debates sur- where various social texts intersect or even collide. rounding the show5. However, we were conscious JB: In terms of the exhibition at De Appel, De Geuzen’s that it may be more appropriate to employ and work seemed to be simultaneously servicing the context deploy other strategies and skills within this con- of the exhibition and, for me, also problematising how text. One of the things which is problematic with social contexts were represented by many of the other that area is that most of the time it is defined by works. its tourist industry, the sex industry, which is of RT: It was never our intention to provide a discur- course the most visible. We didn’t want to reiter- sive bridge between the other works and the pub- ate that very clichéd or surface perception of the lic, but there was an element of wanting to area and yet we didn’t want to evade the contextualise the larger debate which Hou Hanru omnipresence of that industry. For this reason we was raising. So in that regard we did occupy the decided to initiate a collaboration with The Red tial to enliven interest. Ultimately there is some- very ambiguous position of facilitation. Thread (De Rode Draad), the prostitute union thing disturbing about using discourse to legit- which occupies a significant position both physi- JB: I wanted to ask you more about your relationship to imise or explain art, and reductive is the right cally and socially in the area. As three women, we facilitation. In Britain facilitation by attaching interpreta- word, in that neither art nor theory benefit from were also intrigued by their operation as a prosti- tive or pedagogical methodologies to art works within such a model. tutes’ rights organisation and what that entails. the extant ideologies of the museum, gallery or theatre JB: But at the same time much of your practice does is developing into a burgeoning service industry.To me, JB.When you’re working in socially engaged practice appear to be looking at the relationship between art many of the British forms of facilitation seem to be many of the invitations to work are placed into the con- and theory and consciously advocating discourse and opaque —in that there is frequently a loss of critique or text of a thematic exhibition for a limited period of time debate. a tendency towards homogenising audiences. You and within the auspices of the curator’s selected themes appear to be traversing this by assuming a position as a RT: The relation is there but not the same as the and sites. This format may appear to also relocate the research based foundation which also practices agency standard institutional use. Here I want to go back artist as tourist. to the idea of multi-visual research and what that and is consequently able to develop and promote a less RT: I completely agree on both accounts. It seems could mean. Between the visual and the verbal we conclusive and less reductivist sensibility… that if you take on social issues there is a percep- try to establish a series of relays, a kind of dynam- tion that there is an easy transferability from issue ic exchange between the two. to issue, one week a critique of the museum the JB: De Geuzen also produce ‘visual objects’ as part of next queer theory. For clarity of argument let’s these internal relays such as the pop corn funnels, made separate, however crudely for the moment, two from the script, which you distributed when you bodies of reception. First there is the commission screened Guy Debord’s ‘Society of the Spectacle’ at De by the curator or curators. Then there is the sec- Geuzen or the series of take home quotes. Are they used ond context which is the concrete social or physi- in some sense to orientate the more conceptual or theo- cal environment about which the commissioner retical elements of your practice? has asked you to work. By second here I don’t RT: In a strange way your question reiterates the mean to distinguish these realms hierarchically. perceived divide between these practices and I And I guess our attention is often directed think that they are more mutually bound through towards that second context, the one that reaches the relays we establish. We use visual elements far beyond the premise of the exhibition. which are playful and others which are instrumen- JB: So, it seems that you’re suggesting a reconceptualisa- tal and on some occasions they also surf beyond tion of how exhibitions are used and received… the rational, therefore traversing between what is RT: Well, I can’t really address this as a general conventionally referred to as theory and practice. modus operandi but through the format of JB: So is there any common aim in your uses of such ‘Midnight Walkers and City Sleepers’ we were ‘visuals’.To me they seemed to be centralising around able to seize the opportunity to work with The notions of distribution. This seemed particularly appar- Red Thread. The exhibition offered a means of ent when you mailed out ‘the inventory’ after ‘The Walk- entry and we were able to reroute both intention 3 RT: I think it’s important to look critically at the in Reader’ closed. and attention. And no doubt, the inevitable ques- trend of using discourse as an interpretative or RT: Distribution is an undeniable aspect and so is tion of longevity arises. Certainly it would be translative device. My suspicion is that institutions accessibility or creating multiple points of entry. ridiculous to hop from theme to theme according to the curator’s choice. If social engagement is a want to become “user friendly”, levelling the pro- JB: Do you mean in a directional sense? ductive tension between art practice and dis- part of an artist’s agenda, it is important to ask: course. Undoubtedly this desire comes out of a RT: In a way yes, but rather than a sign it operates How and should we sustain that connection after very real pressure to attract broader audiences as an evocation. For instance, the modular glossy the exhibition, or temporary highlight, has taken with the hopes of securing funding. However, I am red table at De Appel was designed for multiple place? In terms of this particular collaboration, it not sure if eliminating complexity, or using dis- uses; it gave the space an area of concentration was very clear after our initial meeting with The 4 course as a process of distillation for art is the way and continuity. The design sets the tone, acclima- Red Thread that our involvement would have to to attract broader audiences. In fact, the complexi- tising audiences. Depending on the arrangement be long term in order to come to grips with the ty and controversy raised through the friction of the table in the room, people were enticed to complex social and economic dilemmas these between art and theoretical debate has the poten- either sit and privately read and view, or it was women face. More importantly we would need VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 • PAGE 27

time to examine how those issues reflect upon the was important to acknowledge that dynamic from position of women in general. the beginning. At the same time, although none of us have been prostitutes, there was a connection JB: I frequently view exhibitions or commissions of in terms of being women concerned with the abili- socially engaged practices as ‘host contexts’… ty of women in general to have control over their RT: Host is really the appropriate word, but rather bodies and representation. Most importantly, than being a guest, I consider our relation to be women should have the right to set the perimeters somewhat parasitic. of the use of their own bodies. It is fair to say that JB: So did you find a way of successfully limiting the prostitution is at the edge of female representa- overall objectives for the context of this exhibition tion, but it is nonetheless a condensed or concen- whilst recognising the more long term process orientat- trated formulation of those issues relevant to all ed objectives. Also how did this initial engagement women. Their position raises the very fundamental manifest itself in a particular product? question of where the border of “NO” is drawn. Also, I think it is important to say that the relation RT: After our first discussion with The Red Thread with The Red Thread is not one way. We were a very practical need emerged. On the windows of interviewed in their magazine “Blacklight” which Notes the rooms in which the prostitutes stand there is then recontextualises our own practice and con- usually a sticker reading “No Pictures”. The Red 1. The Mondriaan Foundation is one of the largest nects us with a very different audience from that Thread has become the distributor of these stick- funding agencies in the Netherlands offering both of the exhibition. ers and quite simply they had run out. We dis- structural and project support for Dutch cultural organisations and initiatives. cussed the possibility of a kind of message of JB: I see how this element of detour or rerouting oper- solidarity among women from The Red Thread ates outside of the De Geuzen space, but how does that 2. ‘The Walk-in Reader’ is the title of an installation and De Geuzen. But that is not an easy task element function in relation to events held at your made by De Geuzen for ‘Unlimited.nl-2’ an exhibi- because the union is not actually looked building? tion at De Appel which was curated by Hou Hanru. favourably upon by the proprietors of the brothels. RT: In our own space we set the perimeters of our 3. Following the exhibition, De Geuzen mailed and Our solution was to come up with a sticker with projects so detour is not the word I would use the no pictures icon, a simple image with the cam- distributed a booklet listing the entire contents of because we establish the route. Our building pro- ‘The Walk-in Reader’. era with a red slash through it and the words NO vides the space for things to move or be processed PICTURES. But on the back we had silk-screened at a slower pace, there is more of a laboratory feel- 4. De Geuzen collaborated with Apolonija Sustersic in designing the space of ‘The Walk-in Reader’. in florescent pink the text: OUR IMAGE IS OUR ing where controlled research, or reflection can OWN. The slogan, normally the focus in politically take place. 5. ‘Midnight Walkers and City Sleepers’: on location oriented work, in this case is disposable. In order in the Red Light District, was a multi-site art to use the sticker the slogan must be split apart event in Amsterdam which was curated by Hedwig and pealed off. The slogan becomes a moment in JB: But in some sense the space also advocates a facilita- Fijen, Maria Hlavajova and Theo Tegelaers. use, a temporary comment or thought, a way of tory role. Recently I saw four presentations here on the 6. ‘The Mediated Image: Testing the Surface of the incorporating a degree of fragility into a political theme of ‘the real’ which were all inconclusive and con- Simulated, the Virtual and the Real’, was De situation. There is another element which we stituted presentations of research in progress by artists, Geuzen’s most recent in-house project. haven’t discussed with regards to the exhibition essayists or cultural critics6. How do such events influ- which is the hijacking of funding which went on. ence the direction of De Geuzen? Renée Turner is a Texas born artist, based in Amsterdam We were able to redirect attention and money. RT: Through events held in our space we are able and is one of three core members of De Geuzen. Jason E. to broaden the base from which we work. By this I JB: One of the issues which seems to continue to con- Bowman is an artist who is currently undertaking the mean, we use our events to expand and push our front socio-specific art practice is that it needs to tra- Scottish Arts Council’s Amsterdam Studio Residency and own research plus we extend our collaborative verse a degree of suspicion from certain partners with conducting a series of interviews on organisational capacities. Our space is relatively intimate and whom it wishes to consult or collaborate. How did De frameworks of contemporary arts practices. These our programme format is closer to symposia which Geuzen strategize in relation to this? extracts are from conversations which took place in June allows us to establish an active and interactive dia- 1999. RT: It was made very clear that although we are logue between speakers and audience. The ques- all women, there is an element of exoticism or tion which has now arisen is how to extend that tourism which cannot be eradicated. And I think it research further, beyond the immediacy of an event, and towards extended invitations to partici- pate, confront and inform. JB: I know your organisation like many in the Netherlands at the moment are developing their fund- ing applications for new projects and organisational restructuring. Can you say something about how De Geuzen plans to capitalise on its existing research base and how this will influence its parallel activities? RT: Our aim is to make follow-up publications to our events, not in the sense of a catalogue or docu- mentation, but as a continuing forum, an exten- sion of our enquiry. Through generating printed matter and creating a web space our goal would be to tap into other audiences who might chal- lenge the limits of our thinking. In fact, these forms of distribution and access might well be the accountability check that I spoke of earlier. PAGE 28 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 Art Activism and Oppositionality Ann Vance Essays From Afterimage In Art Activism and Oppositionality, Grant H. tion, that having set up this division it was neces- tion (e.g. Proposition 6 in US, Section 28 in UK) Kester presents an anthology of texts from the sary to challenge it. It would have been more help- and stereotyping of gays, non-white peoples and American magazine AfterImage roughly spanning ful if the essays were tagged with dates and issue the working class. Charles A. Wright’s review of the years between 1980 and 1994. AfterImage is a numbers in which they first appeared. the 1993 Whitney Biennial looks at the controver- product of the Visual Studies Workshop Rochester, In the opening essay Enlightened Self-Interest: The sy caused by the inclusion of new “issue-based” set up in the late ‘60s by Nathan and Joan Lyons Avant-Garde in the 80s, Richard Bolton embarks on work. He is critical of the museum’s curatorial as an “open-ended” space, a challenge to existing a critique of conservatism and the effect the eco- strategy and claims that the exhibition “projects a centres of practice and education. Since its inau- nomic and political environment of the time had mercenary gloss on issues of difference as its the- gural issue in the early ‘70s, AfterImage has aimed on art practice. “Inevitably, those with power in a matic impetus, incorporating ‘others’ in an effort to pose the same challenge to institutional hierar- society will strive to create a culture that reflects to idealize an alleged egalitarianism”. chies, widening the remit of art criticism and theo- their interests and aims.” Power often goes hand The need to celebrate cultural diversity and to retical debate and engaging directly with context, in hand with wealth and Bolton alarmingly bond as minorities was diffused by specific community and issues of accountability. Not much demonstrates how art and the fluctuations of the demands from individual groupings to maintain criticism or theory can (or is even willing to) market confirm this equation. He makes apparent autonomy, self-determination and political account for its stance or reveal its ideological bias, the stark contrasts in sales value between works cogency. The dangers of overlooking the historic preferring to cloak itself with a detached, moralis- produced by artists at different stages of their specificities of oppressions are starkly laid out in tic rhetoric. The “bias” that emerges in the pages career. What emerges is a disturbing system of Ioannis Mookas’ review of the video Gay Rights, of AfterImage is one that works against the grain control where collectors can effect and change the Special Rights. Produced by a christian fundamen- of convention, focusing on structures and discours- status of the work (the value invested by audience talist company principally for use by the es of power and control embedded in the realms and critic) by deliberately manipulating the mar- Traditional Values Coalition, Gay Rights, Special of culture and politics. ket; and artists posing against dominant culture as Rights exploits the African-American fundamen- A key aim of the magazine was to present the new Post-Modernist Avant-Garde come under talist voice in its attack on the gay and lesbian “informed criticism” on the media of photography attack. Bolton reveals how some artists, motivated movement as a “fraudulent trespasser upon the and independent film and video. Providing cover- by self-interest, collude with advertising corpora- hallowed ground of civil rights struggle.” In this age of these media in the ‘70s was one means of tions in a process which impedes the development case, Mookas illustrates how effectively video supporting the work of artists excluded from the of alternative readings and new audiences for art. operates as a propagandist tool for anyone in a apparatus of the mainstream art world. As these Art is detached from daily life and its transgres- position to access it. media expanded, so too did the cultural diversity sive power is harnessed in the play between com- In the mid ‘80s the proliferation of camcorder of artists and groups who employed them and the modity culture and the leisure and lifestyle technologies multiplied the sites of cultural strug- interests of the magazine’s diverse pool of writers industries. He warns that “artists interested in gle and gave rise to a new video activism. Brian converged around these new forms of practice. social critique and change must consider and Goldfarb discusses the censorship of curricular The essays are sectioned under two headings, respond to the entire system that produces them video produced by artists and progressive educa- The Politics of Patronage and Activism and and their work.” tionalists dealing with AIDS and safe-sex issues. Oppositionality. This thematic division serves no A number of texts in this anthology tackle the Patricia Zimmerman explores reproductive rights, more than a formal purpose since there are very discourse of multiculturalism and the conflicting focusing both on alternative and mainstream distinct crossovers and references between the effects it had on cultural/political theory and prac- media; commercials, news stories, pro-choice sections. Indeed, Kester concedes in his introduc- tice. Arising in the early ‘80s in a climate of reac- activist video, right-to-life and experimental video. tionary conservatism and fragmentation of the She praises groups like Paper Tiger TV and Deep Left, “multiculturalism” became an adopted buzz- Dish Satellite for their use of low-tech technologies word of artists, cultural institutions and arts in their struggle to de-centralize broadcast media: organisations. Cross-referencing different perspec- “The amateur camcorder could be retrieved from tives and criticisms, the reader can easily deduce the private confines of the bourgeois nuclear fami- how this discourse functioned to camouflage both ly —the gulag where all amateur media technolo- Left and Right wing reactionary agendas. gies have been deposited to stunt their democratic In White Men Can’t Programme: The potential.” With her assertions concerning the rep- Contradictions of Multiculturalism, Darrell Moore resentation of the female body and the imaging of asks “who benefits from multiculturalism?” and the foetus, she raises important questions, echoed while asserting some of the positive results, con- elsewhere in this anthology, about the formal qual- cludes that it is all too easy for arts funders and ities of an activist art. In this case, she criticizes government organisations to obscure their control political documentary theory and practice for its over minority interests by adopting the liberal redemptive pose against the spectator, character- ethic of multiculturalism. Coco Fusco, in her ized as ignorant and passive. review of two conferences, Celebration of Black In his introduction, Grant H. Kester elaborates Cinema (Boston ‘88) and Sexism, Colonialism, a sound argument for the re-evaluation of the aes- Misrepresentation: A Corrective Film Series (New thetic in the context of an activist art practice. York ‘88), takes a highly critical stance against the Moving away from the rigidity of aesthetic liberal- avant-garde’s fascination and misconception of the ism which confines the authenticity of art within Other. From her own perspective, she attacks the the parameters of social disengagement, he re- hierarchy of Eurocentric thought: psychoanalysis, instates the viewing subject, “not as an anony- feminism, post-colonial doctrine and western aes- mously transcendent subject, but as the product thetics in an attempt to expose the over-simplified of particular social, economic and geographic con- terms of multiculturalism. “Western cultural insti- ditions”, with the power to generate new mean- tutions, such as the avant-garde have a history of ings and definitions for art. Ann Cvetkovich’s rejuvenating themselves through the exploitation Video, AIDS, and Activism highlights the difficul- of disempowered peoples and cultures.” ties audiences confront in deciphering codes of Identity politics has become another marker of aesthetic “quality” and related meaning in works ‘80s cultural practice and political activism. A sim- which fuse different modes of cultural practice plistic bracketing of identities and subjectivities is with political activism. She reviews Video Data disputed by Lorraine O’Grady in Olympia’s Maid: Bank’s compilation package Video Against AIDS, Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity. As an artist, Act Up’s Diva-TV and a number of other works she remains “wary of theory”. produced in the late ‘80s/ early ‘90s, considering “Nature: culture, body: mind, sexuality: intellect, the impact on a diverse range of viewers. What these binaries don’t begin to cover what we sense transpires is how information is mediated by form. about ourselves”. In general, audiences viewed the experimental Some artists and media activists joined forces works as appealing to a more personal, non- around these issues of identity, collaborating with activist sensibility. Recognizing the conventional, community groups and educationalists. They pro- representational codes of documentary, viewers duced works which challenged repressive legisla- conflated these works with the “real” politics of VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 • PAGE 29 direct action. “At it’s inception, arguments in support of the ture of much AfterImage writing. Not merely These dilemmas of spectatorship and represen- Endowment, particularly those designed to per- bemoaning systems of oppression, they advance tation are historically sited in Michael Renov’s suade and cajole skeptical congresspeople, were concrete strategies for change. study of Newsreel and its involvement in the con- founded not on a definition of art as a public good Almost twenty years on, the ideas and con- struction of a political imaginary for the Left. in and of itself, but on it’s potential usefulness tentions manifest in this book are still lingering Newsreel, born in the ‘60s, was a production and within the matrix of state policy and ideology.” beneath the surface of the latest ‘post-isms’. distribution collective whose mostly “un- Focusing on the creative and political stagna- Problems of race, class and sexuality are not authored” output included weekly news shorts, tion of the alternative/ artist-run space, he points resolved because politicians purport to be address- longer political documentary works and informa- to the striking similarities between what came to ing them, if anything, they fester under this tional reels. Any re-conceptualization of standard be known as the Professional Managerial Class deception and erupt to no ones surprise but those film and TV practices was sacrificed to serve radi- and the artist/ administrator of this alternative duped by the language of the state reproduced in cal aims. A blurring “romanticism of the sector. A strategic alignment with the disenfran- the media. (Witness the recent report on the mur- Barricades” prevailed across the spectrum of ‘60s chised (which saw artists posing as victims of the der of Stephen Lawrence and the attacks on the cultural struggle. It fuelled audience solidarity system) led this new hybrid being to adopt the multicultural communities of Brixton and Brick and the revolutionary imagination in the spirit of mantle of the “cultural worker” and the moral Lane and the gay and lesbian community in the times but, in the long run, hindered the pro- rhetoric of the artist as transcendent subject. Soho.) Neither are issues of context, audience or gression towards a broader understanding of the “The experience of an artist whose work is accountability resolved because artist-run-spaces varied languages of oppression and how they rejected by the gallery system is simply not inter- or the ‘alternative sector’ have bigger internation- interweave to form what we often blindly accept changeable with that of the poor or working class, al profiles or bigger budgets to develop pro- as “truth”. whose relationship with the market economy has grammes. Adrian Piper, interviewed in this Audiences unaccustomed to film/ video works far more profound consequences”. anthology bluntly states: “If art isn’t allowed to intent on exposing the stylistic conventions of At this point, the reader may shudder with address and transform the conditions of real life, I Hollywood and the mainstream media have little recognition. The closed cycle of artist – arts admin- don’t see the point of it”. chance of fully digesting that which appears, on istrator/ organiser – arts funder, clouded with The discussion Alternative, Mainstream, first viewing, obscure, self-indulgent or superficial. indistinct and ever-changing definitions of ‘profes- Mainstream Alternatives in Variant 7 (Vol 2) touch- As Patricia Thomson points out in Video and sionalism’ is all too familiar. With this new dis- es on many points covered in this anthology and Electoral Appeal, artists too, in their choice of sub- course fully embedded in the fabric of cultural concern is expressed over the spectre of “histori- ject matter, succumb to the lure of mass media exchange, Kester shows how alternative spaces cal amnesia” and the danger of repeating outdat- iconography. Hardly surprising, she concedes, sited more often in poorly developed areas, flour- ed arguments. To read Art, Activism and given the ever-increasing sophistication of the ished with the onslaught of gentrification and Oppositionality as both a historical document and tools and techniques of new politics. “In the posed a very real threat to the survival of commu- a contemporary analysis may help redress these process of critiquing the media campaign ...(video nities falsely constructed as their ‘public’. The “crises” in understanding, forging a model for the artists) watch politics on television like the rest of needs of this “imaginary public” are renounced development of art practice and critical thought us”. She laments the demise of the artist to while the identity of the alternative artist remains that acknowledges the past as it looks forward to “artist-as-spectator” as opposed to “producer-as- cushioned by privilege and material wealth. new challenges in the future. participant”. This demise can perhaps be linked to Echoing these sentiments, David Trend in Art Activism and Oppositionality: Essays From the general erosion of the counterculture by the Cultural Struggle and Educational Activism calls for Afterimage machinery of the Right throughout this period. a popularizing of the forms of cultural practice Edited by Grant H. Kester One manifestation of the Right’s reactionary and the need for artists to “engage the institutions Duke University Press 1998 powers was the assault on the National that utilize and reproduce state power”. This essay ISBN 0-8223-2095-9 (paperback) Endowment for the Arts. The origins of the NEA and that by Mable Haddock and Chiquita Mullins, are laid out in Kester’s Rhetorical Questions: The examining the Public Broadcasting System in the Alternative Arts Sector and the Imaginary Public. States are good examples of the ‘rallying call’ fea- PAGE 30 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 Micz Flor TheFESARS First European Seminar on Artist Run Spaces The Stockholm based artist-run- restraints which come with the which really do enter the logic of public arts funding. In their gatekeeping. space Konstakuten invited simi- task of running an institution — of bureaucracy. presentation “Strategies for In this situation it seems to lar initiatives from across an artist-run-space. But it would be limiting to Funding Artists in England” be vital that artists have the Europe (and beyond) to gather The artist-run-space in its restrict the effects of artist-run- they pointed out that over the right to participate in the for The First European Seminar minimal form will only be in spaces to the structural prob- past few years an effort has process of policy making. Who on Artist Run Spaces (FESARS). existence for the one and only lems of maintenance and been made by the Arts Councils else should know about where to Over thirty initiatives participat- group of artists who set up the continuity. One of the main and associated agencies to put the money than those ed, in addition various speakers organisation. Their charismatic excitements of artist-run-spaces research the field of artistic involved at the sharp end of were invited to further the dis- leadership and curatorial as well lies on the side of curatorial practice throughout the UK and grass-roots activity? But in the cussion on the history, reality as artistic vision not only deter- practice, assuming that artists develop funding policies accord- framework of FESARS the issue and future of artist-run-spaces. mine the place, but also the dri- will do the art thing yet differ- of funding policies is being Per Hüttner, one of the organis- ving force behind it. At this level ently from the commercially taken much further. Whereas the ers, explained that the initia- things ‘just tend to happen’. In biased gallery or the museology participative models of policy- tives present had come out of managing to establish the space biased institution. At this point, making for artists has gained a the informal artists’ networks in within the local and sometimes the structural reality of the insti- justified currency in funding place across Europe, the old international art scene, however, tution is secondary, and the cul- bodies across Europe with a pro- snow ball principle. The main it tends to fall into a routine. tural, or even charismatic nouncement of dedication to interest of this seminar there- The organisation will undergo quality comes into play. It is supporting individuals, artists, fore was to explore a shared the process of setting up more obvious that this is the point at there is still no mechanism in and/ or synchronised future of or less flexible structures within which bureaucratic structures place which would be remotely artist-run-spaces across the con- which the individuals running and demands, such as replace- comparable when it comes to tinent, but at no point was this the joint can place themselves ability, are being turned upside actual artist-run-spaces. At pre- seminar meant to be representa- and a ‘written constitution’ most down. In fact, I believe that the sent funding for an artist-run- tive of the entire European often follows simply because individual qualities of the artist space might be reasonably scene. funding applications demand it. entering an organisation, at consistent as long as the space Once all this has been laid out, some point will leave their indi- ingly. Moreover, a participative manages to maintain itself From the organisational point of view: structure, culture and the doors can open for the gen- vidual and irreplaceable stamp. environment for policy develop- through project oriented fund- charisma in bureaucracy erations of artists to follow the And they do. ment where artists are involved ing (gaining dedicated support initial momentum of sponta- in the process of policy making from project to project). Support From a funding point of view: The long and extensive weekend neous self-determination. was said to have been estab- for the costs which come with might well have been more gen- policy-making in the cultural As new members enter the industries lished. Such initiatives are even simply running a space are erally concerned with artists’ institution they carry their more interesting when put into being neglected by governmen- initiatives, instead a strong focus expectations and hopes with Running a space of any kind the context of the restructuring tal agencies or incredibly hard on ‘the spaces within which them, nevertheless, the individ- lifts the term artistic practice of the funding body itself, name- to access. Capital funding might activity happens’ emerged. ual will very soon be in the onto a different level. Many ly The Arts Council of England. be a starting point, providing While not explicitly formulated process of defining their space artists involved in artist-run- The most recent history of ACE substantial coverage of buying/ or made part of the proceedings so as to manoeuvre within the spaces express their resentment seems to indicate that a restruc- renting/ renovating a space and this issue certainly underlined institution. To some extent this at the amount of logistic and turing of the process of policy supplying initial material and most of the presentations made process is self-determined, to managerial tasks which need to development was not to be equipment, but receiving fund- by the initiatives. It is precisely some extent it is brought be taken care of, in some cases detached from the bureaucratic ing to keep going in providing this concentration that struc- towards the newcomer in terms those structural forms of labour body itself. ACE has undergone such a resource is increasingly turally and content-wise made of the structural realities laid substitute their individual artis- a severe restructuring process, difficult. FESARS something very differ- out by the organisation. An tic practice altogether. cutting management and This might be one of the most ent, even so, sitting through over example of this is the necessity Nevertheless, the initiatives pre- departmental specification with promising futures of the thirty presentations the seminar of book keeping, which while it sent in Stockholm were all doing various sections of responsibility FESARS initiative, developing a attendant did encounter may be done in a looser way it. So it can’t be all that bad… being handed on to the Regional lobbying group across Europe moments of suppressed hyperac- than the business world might Those collective efforts to Arts Boards across England. which will be in the position to tivity. expect, the bare necessities are become more than the sum of Further devolving to the establish a policy-making envi- Everyone is an individual, for the same, and seemingly accept- individuals are extremely impor- regions the realising of funding ronment for artist-run-spaces. sure, nevertheless there did able to funding bodies. tant in the climate where the policies within a framework set Outside of unshared government seem to be inherent stages and ‘flexible workforce’ has become by central government seems an structure and policy, the main processes which most of the the euphemism for potential inevitable process in the present obstacle of such a lobbying spaces present had gone unemployment at any given political climate. More interest- group would of course be the through. Being more than just a moment in one’s average rocky ingly, coupled to this regionalisa- fact that the individuals in such collaborative project — in fact biography. Concurrent to the tion of fund distributing bodies spaces tend to change compara- becoming a bureaucratic body attention of the ‘cultural indus- we are also experiencing a shift tively quickly. This was seems to follow inherent rules tries’ as an economic sector, a to different parameters by expressed at the seminar when which are shared across many broad range of arts activity has which the ‘quality’ of artistic the issue of a possible second forms of business, not only the received an incredible amount practice is being measured: event arose. Not only was it arts. When combining efforts of interest from the business social inclusion, audience devel- unsure what artist-run-spaces and taking on the task of estab- world over the past years. In opment, cultural diversity, lega- could be present, but additional- lishing their own institution- In becoming part of a bureau- part this is due to an attraction cy and skill development to ly it became obvious that some alised form of presentation and cratic body, the individual in this to the very flexible structures in name but a few. Such funding of the spaces might not be in representation, artists are clear- environment additionally faces place within the arts that enable policies being attempts to gener- existence, or alternatively a new ly shifting from the stage of another quality of the bureau- artists to operate as they do. ate a check-list of acceptable set of individuals would meet being one-person enterprises. In cratic structure: by default the Despite the reality that few artistic practice, a yardstick for with the same label attached to doing so they accept a level of individual needs to be replace- artists really have steady and qualifying art as ‘good art’. This their presence. bureaucratisation which is able. It is no good to have some- regular forms of employment task seems ridiculous, but there inherently counter-productive to the mortality rate is comparably The future is bright, the future is body keeping the books for two seems little else funding bodies orange? Sponsoring the bare process of practice. It is years, just to leave an inaccessi- low. Good enough a reason to can do, or —come to that —have important that this should not ble pile of paperwork for the put this system of self-mainte- to do. Apart from the facade of “If you take ‘no’ for an answer, be mistaken with collaborative next generation of ambitious nance under the economist’s regional autonomy, another then you are in the wrong busi- projects, which have proven to artists that comes through — microscope —along with the restriction on such reallocation ness.” Which business would be advantageous to artists who though this seems to be one of funding bodies for the arts. of money is the actual small that be? Yours or the one you are pooling resources and knowl- the main problems across artist- Tim Eastop and Eileen Daly amount of revenue available. rang up in order to receive edge as a means to achieving run-spaces that continue for from The Arts Council of The resulting situation is where equipment or money from for goals —making work. Instead we more than one generational England (ACE) put a strong funding policies and priorities the next project? Bill Rubino, are dealing with artists taking cycle, in other words spaces emphasis on the development of come in handy, in the form of fund-raiser at The Life on the management and appropriate policies in the field Foundation from Stockholm was VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 • PAGE 31 talking straight, and rightly so. intervention —in place of gov- Sponsorship from private indus- ernmental support there is now tries seems to be gaining in a calculated drive to support importance for artistic practice through private sources. In this as ‘match funding’ —a require- environment the concept of ment to generate income from ‘attention economy’ has truly other sources to match with pub- reached private industry. If you lic funding —is the term on take a closer look at the activi- everybody’s lips. New funding ties of companies such as Glaxo policies of the European Union Welcome you quickly arrive at as well as the SOROS the depressing conclusion that Foundation for the remaining they tend to buy or support any- part of Europe that include thing that will carry their name, match funding criteria means however controversial it might that money coming from the pri- be, simply for the sake of atten- vate sector has become a neces- tion. And for them that makes sary source of income. Despite sense. When dealing with dodgy the ethical issues at stake, there ways of making money, the com- is an immense interest amongst pany can easily use art to associ- artists to understand what ate itself with a critical platform makes industry tick, and then of debate, so connecting their pull the right levers. Rubino, own product line to the process addressing the nature of the pre- of discourse while maintaining a sentations at FESARS, stated: safe distance from any self ques- “all of you were given five min- tioning, as such having little to utes for your presentations. lose. Critical work bought by the Most of you went over time and person you intend to throw a most of you failed to provide a brick at says more about the art clear outline of what it is you system than the company. Keep are doing, why you are doing it, on moving… and —in relation to receiving Artist-Run-Spaces, Unite! money —what it is you could do for them.” Apart from the fact At the end of the weekend there that FESARS was not a sponsor- were clear plans to continue the ship drive, it would seem artists tradition born through the working in artist-run-spaces not event. What form such a continu- only need to adjust themselves ation should take is unclear at according to the bureaucratic this present moment. There were necessities within their organisa- thoughts to carry the initiative tion, they now apparently also towards East Europe, but it need to develop additional skills might be just as interesting to in order to sell their products, carry it South. At this meeting this is after going through the the constellation of spaces pre- process of ‘understanding’ — sent did represent the wider net- that is aligning —their work as work of where it was held, product oriented. Stockholm in Scandinavia. In There has always been an doing so FESARS managed to ongoing debate about accepting stay realistic. Any attempt to private money. The ethical issues plan such a European wide at stake for the integrity of polit- event and keep the question of ically motivated art are just too equal representation in mind sensible to be messed around would be bound to fail. So the with, one could think. On a more further development of this pragmatic level it has been loose network will mainly need argued that public funding is to deal with issues of inclusion just easier to deal with. With on an organisational level. Given private funding you are just the reality that most of the par- complicating the issues as they ticipants will have changed their want to get something more commitment by the time the material out of the deal. Second ESARS takes place, and Both arguments could be jus- most likely that some of the tified to an extent. Within the organisations will have ceased to political framework that com- exist as well, the continuation of prises of the most recent this seminar will depend on the ‘Europe at War’ spectacle, gov- outline which it intends to give ernmental money could be per- itself. This year in Stockholm a ceived as ethically questionable grand gesture was made. The by default. In addition, the next step would possibly require money for governmental art what had been stated earlier funding is not being printed about the reality of artist-run- inside the funding institutions spaces: Institutionalisation. With themselves, there being a direct the bureaucratic burden which economic link between art sub- would come out of such a sidies and industrial develop- European network, the most ment. As it is, ‘culture’ is essential objective would be the formulated as a luxury commod- definition of a clear purpose, ity within economically devel- and the development of a prag- oped countries and as restricted matic way of how to achieve public funding for the arts has this. reached a point of saturation — beyond the simple question of re-allocation of resources through further governmental http://periodafter.t0.or.at http://www.yourserver.co.uk/crashmedia http://www.art-bag.net/convextv http://www.konstakuten.com/Konstakuten%20material/fesars/fesars2.html http://www.konstakuten.com/Konstakuten%20material/fesars.bilder/fesars.grupp PAGE 32 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 Return to the Far Pavilions Daniel Jewesbury

Something is always missing in a translation. what churlishly, refuse to print full addresses for However perspicacious the translator, some them on publicity material. Wander the nuance will always be neglected, some particulari- labyrinthine alleyways of Venice looking for one of ty left unconveyed. The verb ‘to traduce’, original- them and you’ll quickly see through the rhetoric ly meaning to transport, convey or translate (and of openness and equality clinging to this year’s related to the modern French verb traduire, to event. The Irish pavilion has been in the Nuova translate) now means to slander or calumniate — Icona gallery for several years, down one of those to misrepresent. The desire to render all knowl- inauspicious-looking alleyways on the island of edge into a commonly-accessible code leads, Giudecca. This year’s representative, Anne conversely, to a canon of decontextualised signs, Tallentire, presents a body of work that resists tra- which float or drift, reverberating dully in new duction into the globalist miasma of Szeemann’s contexts. The modernists’ utopia, enabled and überBiennale by insisting on its own specific con- epitomised by perfect communication, never texts. The show, Instances, pulls together three arrives, because they failed to account for the curiously jarring elements (a series of short per- fragmentary character of language itself. formance videos, a backlit transparency and a Does all this sound like a lesson in things we half-hour video projection) and with them already know, that we hardly need to be reminded addresses the concerns that have occupied Biennale), I was put in mind of the right to silence of? Then consider the rationale and ambitions of Tallentire for several years: translation, communi- and its gradual removal from British law. Silence the 48th Venice Biennale (which has the catchy cation and authorship. In the first room a small itself, the absence of information, can now be an title “dAPERTutto / APERTO overALL / APERTO colour monitor rests on a flight case and shows a implication of guilt. partTOUT / APERTO überALL”).This year’s series of hand-held single-edit sequences that fade Tallentire’s work draws out considerations of event, the biggest so far, attempts to represent up from black. In them, the artist is engaged in space as well, by figuring the construction of nar- everything in late twentieth-century art, before various activities, pulling up a floorboard, arrang- rative in four dimensions. Several artists in the the Three Zeros finally arrive, and to fabricate ing small pieces of wood, spreading broken glass Biennale explored our contemporary relationship from it (and for it) a uniform narrative of ‘interna- on the floor until it fills the monitor screen. The with urban space and built landscapes, most tional art now’. It is one which, predictably, privi- way the camera frames the performances, concen- notably Doug Aitken. His video installation leges the slight and the banal. New terminologies trating solely on the act and cutting off even the Electric Earth is divided into three consecutive have been found to articulate and perpetuate the performer’s body, prevents any external contexts ‘rooms’, with images and sounds overflowing from old yearning for a True Story of Art: the dual from becoming visible, except that it’s clearly the one chamber into the next. In the first room a rhetoric of ‘globalism’, both as a nostalgic recollec- same room in all the shots. Every so often, the nor- young black man lies on a bed in a motel room or tion of the ideal of Socialist Internationalism and mally-silent video breaks into sound, just for a sec- apartment, endlessly changing the channels on his as a metonym for the ‘real’ internationalism of ond or two: the sound of glass scraped across TV, which we then see is showing only noise. His global capital, is invoked repeatedly, often almost wood, of a floorboard banged back into place. In glazed expression contrasts with the voice-over: “A mystically, by the various organisers and national the back room of the gallery a wall is taken up lot of times I dance so fast I will come... It’s like commissioners of the Biennale. Overall curator with a video projection. Walking into the space at food for me”. In the second room two mirror- Harald Szeemann writes in his press release that the beginning of the loop one finds it almost com- image projections are shown at right angles to one in this year’s Biennale the “national ghettos will pletely black, save for one pinpoint of light. another; in the third another three screens form be abolished”; yet the idiosyncratic logic of the Gradually the space gets lighter, but it’s not just three sides of a square. In these two spaces the Biennale depends on those ghettos, on the seem- your eyes that are getting used to the darkness; same young man dances in the deserted streets at ingly random cluster of pavilions gathered in the the half-hour video shows dawn breaking some- night. The familiar signs of the city —barbed wire Giardini, empty for eighteen months until the cir- where over the nondescript inner city. The process fences, abandoned shopping trolleys, empty park- cus once again rolls into town. of elucidation (literally) that the video records is ing lots —litter Aitken’s beautifully filmed envi- As the dismantling and re-organisation of ultimately pointless: there is no landscape for us ronment, while the soundtrack mixes shadowy Modern sciences of classification continues, insti- to survey, since all that can be discerned of this hip-hop beats with the character’s narration: “It’s tutions are attempting to align with the spirit of ‘grand vista’ is a steel fence that occupies the the only now I get”. His peculiar autism, his alien- the supposed ‘new democracy’ under spurious whole of the foreground, and an unremarkable banners like ‘respecting difference’ or ‘celebrating tower block. Taking the shedding of light as a diversity’. It’s easy to ‘celebrate diversity’ when metaphor for the explanation of intrinsic mean- that simply means devising a few new sub-divi- ing, both these video pieces are about narrative, sions of the existing categories: the 2001 census in about our desire to make stories of ostensibly the UK, for example, will attempt to include defin- unconnected events, and yet each refuses to be itive categories for all people of mixed race. narrativised. The third element of the piece, which Similarly, the supposedly benign rhetoric of ‘multi- sits between the two video rooms, is a large colour culturalism’ is now widely denounced as a ruse, a transparency of a woman’s ear pressed up against barely-disguised reiteration of the status quo. concrete, listening where there is no hearing to be Rather than seeking tangible shifts in power, such done. Writing in his catalogue essay, Brian Hand strategies attempt to assimilate ‘difference’ into suggests that a translation is not simply a corrup- the existing structure, even when that structure tion of an original text, but that the original is has no place for difference, or rather can only itself always infected with omission, that the com- offer subordinate places, as fragmentary traduc- municative act is always partial, approximate. tions of the monolithic centre. Tallentire’s deftness lies in drawing this out, mak- The number of national pavilions establishing ing out of it a body of work that is insistent, but themselves outside the main Giardini site has cer- which clings to its own partiality. Leaving the tainly grown, but if you try to find any of them gallery and the contemplative space that has been you’ll have trouble; the Biennale organisers, some- constructed in it (in contrast to the rest of the VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 • PAGE 33

has stopped, the camera pulls back once more to reveal the picture framed, re-filmed, on the wall that we are watching now... More literal approaches to space are found in the large-scale black and white aerial photographs of Balthasar Burckhard and in Frank Thiel’s colour photos of the enormous reconstructions underway in Berlin. Both concentrate on the ‘given-ness’ of the urban realm, on its seemingly random (but actually tightly controlled) development and growth. The Biennale features a large number of Asian artists, particularly young Chinese artists. Speaking at a discussion organised by Audio Arts magazine in the British pavilion, Charles Esche suggested that it may be more than coincidence that at a time when China is the only Other super- power in the world, when its international rela- tions are continuously headline news, European ation from the city which surrounds him, recall and American curators have decided to discover Frantz Fanon’s disturbed subject of European Chinese ‘culture’. Many works concentrate on re- colonialism, fragmented and re-inscribed by intan- articulating the myths of Socialist Realism, most gible processes of power located far away. notably Cai Guo-Qiang’s Venice Rent-Collecting In the Italian pavilion, three artists collaborate Courtyard. The piece is a slightly-altered replica of to explore the spatialisation of narrative, with an a series of sculptures originally commissioned by elaborately-constructed series of three interwoven Mao during the Cultural Revolution. However bad films. In the first, Jump-Cut, Dominique Gonzalez- things are now, the sculptures tell us, look how Foerster, Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno pre- bad they were before: peasants toil, their backs sent us with a clip from a French film of the early bent under their loads, while the landlords extort 1970s. A moustachioed character mutters urgently their rent and the bosses stand by ready to beat down the phone, agreeing to come over straight anyone found shirking. The lifesize sculptures away. He leaves his apartment block, and emerges were toured around China in the ‘70s and copies from the building 25 years older, the same actor in made for various eastern European cities. Harald the Paris streets of today. He salutes the camera Szeemann wanted to exhibit them in Documenta and begins to walk across town... The piece con- in 1976. Figures were added whenever politically centrates on a single break in continuity in the expedient: heroic soldiers when the army were original film, in which the character was shown needed to maintain ‘order’, virtous workers when standing in a building in one part of town and there were shortages. The piece re-emerges now as emerging, miraculously, in a completely separate Guo-Qiang’s personal remembrance of recent his- area as he leaves that building. In this ‘remake’, tory. A straw panama is added to one landlord, a the same actor has been engaged to walk the dis- wooden sword placed in the hand of another, in an tance between the two shots, re-uniting a space attempt to re-locate (or dislocate) the figures. that had been fragmented, but at the expense of However, the piece sits uneasily between irony and poignancy in the surroundings of the Biennale. Nearly all the Chinese political art shown (there are several exponents here) suffers from its translocation, from a situation where con- texts (history and politics) are immediately avail- able, to the glib neo-Orientalism of the international art show. Some of the work seems to comment wryly on precisely this condition, particularly Zhou Tiehai’s painting The relations in the art world are the same as the relations between states in the post Cold War era. Or as Szeemann puts it, “The large number of Asian artists this year will facilitate an encounter with a history that is very different from that of Europe or North America”. To return finally to that claim of non-territorial- ity, let’s end with an anecdote, one which, obvious- ly, proves nothing. A friend from Dublin, another freelance writer, asks for a copy of the Gary Hume catalogue at the British pavilion, showing her press accreditation. She’s told she needs a union card to get any press information. When she says the ‘linearity’ of time, of narrative. As he reaches that she’s a freelance, that art writers in Dublin his destination, the film reverts to the original, the don’t need press cards, the new internationalism is break ‘sutured’. Watching the video, one gradually explained to her immediately: “You’re not in becomes aware of another layer: the projection is Dublin now.You’re in Great Britain.” Roll on the itself a re-presentation of another projection, the abolition of national ghettos. film having been projected in the same room some time previously and re-filmed with a hand- held camera. The people walking in front of the projector are themselves part of the film. As the loop comes to an end, the camera leaves the room, walking out into the night-time desertion of the off-season Giardini; just as we think that we’ve returned to a simple projection, that the re-filming PAGE 34 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 When you care enough to be the very best Leigh French

Littering the living room floor is the residue, some Scottish Library Association, is designed to buoy technicolor press launches of its funds*: funds and truly detritus, of the processes of ongoing ‘service their position regarding the focus already on the schemes available from SAC in 1998/99 pack. Of reviews’, ‘consultations’ and ‘research’ of the Arts ‘Cultural Sector’ as a driving force for a talent dri- course, it is stressed that the numerous sugges- Councils, Local government and associated arts ven society and the much vaunted entrepreneurial tions within the guidelines of the kinds of projects agencies in what has become an endless game of spirit, calling for a dedicated Ministry of Culture that might be eligible for funding are merely illus- central government ‘Cultural Policy’ deployment, within the new parliament and a National trative. What this does underscore however is that validation and marketing. Strategy for the arts. Once again a restrictive view ‘cultural activity’ is to be ‘on message’, that the While ingratiating programmes of ‘Cultural of “cultural action”, experimentation and innova- agenda for funding is not ‘discursive’ but ‘prescrip- Policy’ advocacy escalated as part of the build up tion assures the arts are resigned to stimulating tive’. As such, ‘equal opportunities’ and ‘equality to the Scottish Parliament, given its new custodial market growth. of access’ are enunciated in terms of consumer mantle of cultural overseer, the phenomenon has Similarly there is the Towards the New development, the arts rather than a catalyst for to be seen as an effect of a broader intensification Enlightenment: A Cultural Policy for the City of social change appropriated as a constituent of job of an imposing of market philosophy across the Edinburgh 1999, an Edinburgh City Council cof- ‘training’. public sector as a whole. Within this the specific fee-table brochure couched in the rhetoric of Open Access Provision and Facilities for Artists in focus on the arts is becoming increasingly techno- relieving the vulnerable whilst soliciting industrial Scotland: The Review is a SAC commissioned cratic, that is the arts are being seen exclusively in partners. This is a sepia toned cheerleader for the “investigation” into artists’ workshop provision terms of their ‘use value’, having a ‘cultural pur- instrumentalisation of the arts as an acceptable within Scotland by Peter Davies of the Arts pose’ in regard to ‘social inclusion’, ‘education’ and face of commerce within the city. Council of Wales. His responsibility was to assess ‘regional development’ criteria as defined by gov- Best Value Service review: Museums, Heritage and current needs and provisions and recommend pos- ernment. sible change, however these changes were princi- To synopsise a few recent documents: Visual Arts, is Glasgow City Council’s first stage report in an obligatory exercise for all Local pled as having to be done within the euphemistic The Scottish Arts Council’s Scottish Arts in the 21st Authorities as stipulated by government. Far from “present financial climate”. While the report Century is an attempt at a promotional/lobbying exploratory the document in verbiage of efficiency acknowledges the necessity of workshop provision life belt for the SAC in the face of calls in Scottish succeeds in drowning the scope of activity blan- and the work done to date, it also concedes a lack parliamentary manifestoes for a euphemistic over- keted by the construct ‘Culture and Leisure of international standards and substantial gaps haul of the SAC. Hiring the ‘out-of-house’ ‘celebri- Services’ within the cadre of market enterprise within areas of provision. The fetter of the “pre- ty’ services of Ruth Wishart (see Variant, vol. 2, and regional (business) development. ‘The arts’ sent financial climate” instructs the scope and issue 7 editorial) it attempts to position the SAC as are to be sequestered to play promotional fiddle thrust of the document and the resulting sugges- both a free-market advocate as well as an integral to the city’s business community and ‘Band-Aid’ to tions are predictably for an extension of market part of the public-service-sector accountable to an ailing social services —to be technocraticaly principles professed as a cure-all. ‘the people’. Defending itself as committed to the utilised for deterministic social, educational and Such documents claim to make the process of dis- demands of ‘consumer access’ is undoubtably also economic purposes, confining funding to the ends course central to either their construction, as in an offensive against ceremonial accusations of of ‘strategic planning’. the transparent and benign representation of the elitism and media inspired controversy, real or The SAC Lottery’s Summary or Responses to New results of consultation, or as documents whose otherwise, of where and how the public purse is function it is to stimulate comment and feed-back, being spent. Directions Consultations [sic] is a marvel of effi- ciency. Its lack of substance as to how the priori- asserting consultation as an integral agent to poli- The Creative Scotland: The Case for a National ties for the Lottery’s New Directions were arrived cy outcomes. It could be stated that since bodies Cultural Strategy circular, produced by an amal- at is simply awe inspiring given their repeated such as the SAC are courted for funding, the rela- gam of agencies including COSLA, SAC, Scottish bulwark of an extensive consultation procedure. tionship between them and those they establish to Screen, Scottish Museums Council, and the This has to be contrasted with the roving, full consult is often illusory, i.e. by the nature of con- VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 • PAGE 35

sultancy those consulted ultimately have a vested serving and vested professional interests in main- be subsumed under the concept of commodifica- interest and as such may be reluctant to openly taining the status quo of public service.” tion since the important point is to do with the criticise. These can then become ritualised perfor- He describes the fostering of ‘market strate- resemblance to the market rather than a direct mances, purely formal exercises, leaving the real gies’ as a ‘discursive shift’ within bodies such as identity with it... insofar as the state continues to processes of decision making as being open and the Arts Councils as ‘the arts’ have not actually hold some responsibility for cultural provision transparent questionable. Such knowledge pro- been abandoned to the ravages of the commercial through the collection and disbursement of tax duced for official use and funded accordingly sector, instead there is still a persistence of state revenue.” There is of course a contradiction rarely questions the fundamental aims and objec- intervention in the cultural field and public sub- between the promotional ideology of individual- tives of the client organisation and any such sidy of ‘the arts’. However he sees it not by chance ism and choice, and the evidence of actual condi- research is by definition subject to pre-existing that the total abolition of state-sponsored culture tions. that this endless propaganda vastly agenda of policy and policy implementing bodies. has not yet occurred, instead he sees a “continu- exaggerates the power the ‘consumer’ has over A synchronous action in this process is the expos- ing use of the public sector in the construction of their daily lives. As McGuigan asks regarding ing of the public sector to marketing rhetoric a new common sense, the ‘social-welfare-state’ Pierre Bourdieu’s writings on the field of cultural where manipulation of ‘market imperatives’ as swept aside and replaced by a pervasive ‘market production: “How far is the real problem for ‘cultural imperatives’ is a pedestrian constituent. reasoning’.” Whereby “[t]he effect of certain dis- Bourdieu the unequal social distribution of cultur- An initial argument for public subsidy of ‘the courses is to make it virtually impossible to think al dispositions and competencies or how far is it arts’ with the creation of the Arts Council of Great outside of them. In a society of discourse there are the power of those with cultural capital to impose Britain in 1946 was to protect ‘the arts’ from the control procedures for what can be legitimately a system of cultural value which fits in with their ravages and tarnishes of the commercial market thought and enunciated: exclusion procedures own tastes?” —“not to teach or to censor, but to give courage, that mark the boundaries of a discourse, defining “The most profound accomplishment of the confidence and opportunity”1. The understanding that which is permissible and impermissible to New Right in Britain may be not that it literally that ‘the arts’ (initially consisting of the arts of say; internal procedures that regulate the distinc- rolled back the state in order to release the full drama, music and painting, broadened out in 1967 tive operations of a discourse; and access proce- blast of market forces but, rather that it inserted to encompass a wider remit of activity) could not dures that regulate entry to a discursive field. the ‘new managerialism and market reasoning’ exist without subsidy was of course never a sole Where once was ‘the state’ there is now ‘the mar- into the state-related agencies of the public sector, reason for such support, other prime elements ket’ in discussion of cultural policy.” It is then no in effect calling upon organisations that are not being the ‘cultivation of the masses’ —the political small matter that such attempts to dictate the themselves private businesses to think and func- objective of social control through cultural dis- parameters of discourse through a pervasive man- tion as though they were.... The public sector has course —and the use of public money to build agerialization of ‘culture’ threatens the outright been required to function pseudo-capitalistically, institutions of national and international prestige commodification and privatisation of information which is not only an organisational phenomenon —a cultural player on a world stage. The Arts through the total commercialisation of the public but a deeply imbibed ideological phenomenon Council’s position was thus intended as an ‘inter- sphere. and one which has enormous impact on cultural mediary’ body between the state and civil society, The traditional discourse of ‘quality’ as a deter- agencies and the network of arts-subsidising bod- avoiding the view of direct government control minant of public subsidy was primarily the con- ies.”3 over day-to-day practice as well as the perceived summation of class ‘taste’ by naturalised The Left and Right have coalesced in imbuing insidious pressures of an otherwise exclusive com- arbitrators of cultural competence and aesthetic ‘the arts’ with the rhetoric of the market. mercial arena. disposition2. Capitalising on not unfounded asper- However, in spite of this deployment oligopoly, the In this sense ‘Culture’ was determined as con- sions of elitism, these capricious ‘qualitative val- rule by a few, rather than ‘free-market competi- sisting of a particular field of government, a ues’ have now been re-inscribed within a tion’ is ultimately the driving force in order to broader sense of government than just governing seemingly objective ‘common sense’ discourse of operate a governmental pedagogy organised by the state, encompassing the mechanisms of social ‘value’. That value and worth, as well as having the technology of moral supervision underscoring management —‘Culture’ here referring specifical- monetary implications in the sense of ‘value for the promotion of ‘market values’. In so doing the ly to the practices and institutions that make money’ have been equated as ‘the right of access dissemination of critical ideas is suppressed. The meaning. The very operation of policing ‘Culture’ to cultural consumption’, and that consumption implications for democratic debate and diverse through ‘Cultural policy’, aside from the etymolo- has itself become evidence of ‘cultural action’. The cultural experimentation in the face of the censor- gy, raises questions of regulation, control and cen- language of the market is deployed as the residu- ial criterion of pan-promotionalism hardly needs sorship, the tendency being to treat culture as ally good intention of a ‘constructive advance’ spelling out... though it were either a dangerous law breaker or towards a more ‘cultured’ nation, that being a Notes a lost child. nation with equitable consumer access to cultural In Culture and the Public Sphere (1996) Jim goods — so much for cultural critique as an instru- 1. John Maynard Keynes, The Listener, 12 July 1945; Raymond Williams, The Arts Council: Politics and McGuigan traces the move from ‘state’ to ‘market’ ment for changing consciousness. Ultimately con- Policies, An Arts Council Lecture, 1981. within the public sector as a ‘discursive shift’ to cepts of ‘quality’ and ‘value’ are utilised to “an administrative philosophy as a set of ideas for function as qualification for encouraging and 2. Described as “timeservers in the turgid little can- managing all institutions in the public sector, (willingly or unconsciously) suppressing cultural ister of Scottish arts” —Norman Lebrecht, Daily Telegraph involving devices such as internal markets, con- activity. Within the states’ feigning of indifference, tracting out, tendering and financial incentives... these are employed as mechanisms in the veiling 3. Jim McGuigan, Culture and the Public Sphere, [which] coincided with the incessant promotion of of an imposition of a distinct market ideology. (1996), Routledge a loud yet diffuse rhetoric of ‘enterprise culture’ The arts are currently ‘marketised’ to such an which was not only about organisational change in extent that their circulation now resembles that of both the private and public sectors but also about the non-state sector, the ‘private’ market of cultur- the cultivation of an ‘enterprising self’, a personal al commodities. However, McGuigan makes clear way of being contrasted with bureaucratic time- that ‘marketisation’, as he uses it, “is not strictly to