The Guardian Angels....

They are not activists. Nor artists. Nor angels. But their ideas are interesting..

It's basically an organization with chapters in large metropolitan cities that tries to monitor street crime. The Guardian Angels patrol local streets and can make citizen's arrests if need be. They also educate the community and act as mentors on safety. Their presence may not be the key to stopping Toronto street crime, but I think that it does instill community values in possible future criminals.

Wikipedia explains the Guardian Angels

The Guardian Angels website

Response to a derive blogger..

I was browsing through the blog of another student in VC308, and I came across something that I really needed to comment on. Before I introduce that student's blog to you, I am going to introduce three key terms from the Lettrist Internation and the Situationists. (These definitions have been taken directly from Simon Ford's article "Potlatch, Pshychogeography, Derive, and Detournement").

Potlatch: The enhancement of status through ceremonial gift-giving or festive destruction.

Psychogeography: The study of the specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals.

Derive: drifting and deliberaterly trying to lose oneself in the city. In derive one or more persons during a certain period drop their usual motives for movement and action, their relations, their work and leisure activities, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there....From the derive point of view cities have a psychological relief, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes which strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones.

Detournement: a process involving the transformation of both everyday ephemera, such as advertisement slogans and comic strips, and significant cultural products, such as quotations from Marx and old master paintings. These would then be re-presented within a new artisitic context. The integration of present or past artisitic production into a superior construction of a miliey.



The blogger I mentioned earlier is Erin Pereira. The particular postingI am interested in is titled THE SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL. Erin writes about the derive in this post. She describes it and goes on to say that the derive is not possible in suburbia.



Erin describes the derive as: "It is a wonderful notion, of giving up your regular desires of movement and freeely going where the landscape takes you." I feel that there is one tiny misconception in Erin's definition that restricts her from derive-ing in suburbia. She believes that the derive makes us "give up our regular desires of movement" to allow the landscape move us. However, I wonder....what exactly are our regular desires of movement? I don't think we have to give up our regular desires, or any desires for that matter, during a derive. The derive is all about letting our desires guide our movement. I think that on a derive, we need to give up our regular restrictions of movement like time constraints, following a paved road, avoiding oncoming traffic, dodging puddles, stopping at traffic lights, a map so we don't get lost, a destination to reach. These are restrictions that we impose on ourselves. Once we give up these restrictions, I believe that we can allow our desires to collaborate with the landscape. And this collaboration, this sense of landscape attached to our sense of free movement and exploration, is what should guide our movement on a derive. Thus, we need to let go of restrictions, not desires. We need the desires to derive.

That being said, I want to point out that Erin believes that we can not derive in suburban environments like Mississauga or Oakville. She feels that the landscape takes us throw rows of sterile, identical houses and leads us to malls and movie complexes. She calls it "safe looking, planned for enclosure and self suffieciency". Living in a rural town myself- bordering on Milton and Mississauga. If you look at the map, you will see that I have one foot in a housing area and one foot in the wilderness. And I daresay that a derive in this suburban area would not only be possible, it would be fun.


If I take care to not wear my fancy shoes, I would probably venture away from the road. I have seen everything the road has to offer- stop signs, grocery stores and the cinemas. But if I walk away from the road, I will see farms, cows, maybe even a nice old lady gardening. She will offer me some lemonade because it's such a hot day outside. When I tell her about my derive, she will invite me to come to the neighbours because they have a beautiful view of the "city" from their porch. I go over and yes, the view is indeed breathtaking. I see that there is a lake a few kilometers away. I take the shortcut through the farms and approach the lake. There, a butterfly catches my eye. I follow it. It takes me into a ravine, where I sit to eat my granola bar (which tastes amazing after the long walk I've had).
I could go on and on imagining this derive. But I won't. We each are entitled to our own derive. And who knows, mine may turn out differently. I may meet the man of my dreams crossing the street. Or I may find a diamond ring somebody had lost decades ago. I may even end up in a ditch, calling 911 to help get me out because I'm afraid of spiders. The point is, a derive should lead ur emotions and curiosities. We should not limit ourselves to the artificial constructions that the city has provided for us. A derive in the country may be more fun and interactive than a derive in the city (specially since people in the country are so much friendlier. I doubt we would find nice old ladies in downtown Toronto who will offer us lemonade in their kitchens).

The revolutionary Avant-gardes..

Avant garde- my favorite term in art history. It is a French word with military roots. It refers to the advance guard- that team of soldiers that preceeds the army- they explore the territory and plan out the route that the army will follow. (Check out wikipedia for a nice long definition)

Paul Wood's definition is the most accepted one in art academia. The avant-gardes were revolutionary artists in the 1920s and 1930s. Peter Burger, a German writer, explains that the bourgeois culture of the 1920s had its own art that "co-exists with the status quo" (Wood 227)- art-for-art's sake. The avant-garde is art that defies bourgeois culture and the status quo. Avant-garde art stemmed from World War 1 and the Bolshevik revolution and included Dada, Constructivism and Surrealism.

Dadadadadadada...

This avant-garde movement began in Zurich in 1915. Marcel Duchamp, the daddy (or shall I say Dada-y) of Dada was already making waves in France. Picasso had rocked the art world with his three-dimensional sculptures that did not look like anything the world had seen before. The word "dada" is not supposed to make any sense. It may just be a random word from the dictionary, a term for 'rocking horse' or maybe even a baby's babble. I like the baby definition the best: I like babies that go "dadadadada....dadadada". Very Duchamp-ish.

As an art, dada rejects the treatment of art, specifically bourgeois tastes, like "the concentration on artisitic form, the production of aesthetic effects, the achievement of expression" (Wood 227).

Picasso's sculptures that did not mimic reality and Duchamp's Bottle Rack were pieces that confused the public. The modes of representation had changed- anything could be turned into art. The authority of the artist had changed- anybody could become an artist. The quality and aesthetics of art had changed- there was no standard of aesthetics that art had to adhere to.

This Bottle Rack made people stop and think about art. Art became a thinking game. People were made to think about the work as art, and the very nature of the term "art". Bottle Rack showed that there is no inherent property of art-ness in art works that sets them apart from other products. Art works are art because we, the audience, treat them as art. If Duchamp wants Bottle Rack to be art, it will be art.

In 1914, World War 1 split the artists up, and many moved to Switzerland where they experienced the conflicting forces of European culture. In criticism of Europe's barbarianism, the avant-gardes began the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in 1915. The Dada Manifesto, a crazy work in itself, was read by Tristan Tzara in 1918. "Dada was born of a need for independence...We have enough cubist and futurist academies: laboratories of formal ideas. Is the aim of art to make money and cajole the nice nice bourgeois?...there is a great negative work of destruction to be accomplished. We must sweep and clean. Affirm the cleaniliness of the individual after the state of madness, aggressive complete madness of a world abandoned to the hands of bandits" (quoted in Wood 230). Dada work involved cutting up bourgeois culture and letting itself randomly arrange itself into a Dada work.

From Zurich, Dada travelled to Paris, New York and Berlin. Dada felt that it was German Bolshevism- another type of World War 1 avant garde. The German avant-gardists arranged the Dada Fair to reject German Expressionism (which was too individualistic and subjective). After the World War, with the country in ruins, some avant-gardists became Communists. Subjectivity and Individualism became prominent ideals for the avant-garde.

Constructivism...

Amidst the miserable social conditions post World War 1 in Germany and Russia, the avant-gardes did not sit silent. In Germany, the "revolution from below" was defeated. In Russia, it was successful. The Russian avant-garde aimed to construct a new social order: thus Constructivism. In 1914, Russia was a backward, repressed society hiding under the blanket of modern foreign investment and progress. Bolshevik October was a major breakthrough in a social revolution waiting to happen. As Wood explains: "The combined yet also uneven development of modern capitalism had its most extreme effect in Russia, and ultimately this was the situation that produced the revolution of October 1917" (Wood 237). After the revolution, the avant-gardes became the Soviet avant-garde; international artistic subcultures that occasionally competed with each other. This avant-garde tried to collectively construct a new socialist society by juxtaposing visual analysis with technology to produce/construct designs that will economically benefit the new socialist society. The German Bauhaus supported these principles more than any other group or institution.

<--Bauhaus chairs- form follows function

The Bauhaus educated future avant-gardes. It "sought to rationalize the developments of the avant-garde into a comprehensive approach to modern design. Their slogan was 'form follows function'.." (Wood 239). The constructivists wanted their economical, practical designs to aid in the construction of a new society.

For over a decade after the revolution, the Soviet avant-gardes tried to integrate their practices into the society as a lifestyle, rather than an artisitic style...and failed.

Surrealism...

In the 1920s and 1930s, rhe West was home to media imagery controlling social ideogies through the new media of film and radio in dominant positions. Spectacularization, "urban living, literacy and mass consumption" were the main attitudes of life in the West. Surrealism found a niche to relate art and social life by resisting the newly restabilized bourgeois through an objective social revolution. Surrealism relied on Freud's psychonanalysis, because the Surrealists felt that psychoanalysis was a critique of bourgeois society and personal identity. Modernist critics attempt to reduce Surrealism to "an eccentric 'modern art movement'" (Wood 248) instead of raising it to the status of an avant-garde cultural movement that aspired to use different media to criticize "high art" and civilized canons of taste. Surrealism changed notions of authorship by crediting the psyche with the ability to create without any help from outside, by letting a truth emerge on its own without society's limitations or restrictions. Surrealists tried to remove the consious mind from their work, in order for the unconscious mind to emerge.

Surrealism's most well known artist- Salvador Dali-

Dreaming the experimental university..

A bright red page with the title "Anarchy in the ruins: dreaming the experimental university" in a bright yellow font. With such attention grabbing colors, such attractive layout and the word "AnArChY" in the title, this article by Nicholas Mirzoeff invites the activist in me to take a trip into the activist dreamland.
He asks us to imagine the imaginary university. For the remainder of this entry, I shall do just that: I...M...A...G...I...N...E..........

Edward Said thought that the university was the last utopia in Western Society. My imaginary university, which I shall call Utopian University (UU for short) is indeed the last utopia in the West.
I am not a customer of Utopian University. I am a participant in its knowledge making process. Without me, and others like me, UU would not have a knowledge base to build upon. Without students like us, UU would not have anybody to do research, invent inventions and produce theories. Without us, UU would be an empty institution with tiled hallways, florescent lighting and stale donuts on the Tim Horton's shelves.
Mirzieff wants Utopian University to produce "knowledge, not information, and there is a difference". UU teaches me a lifestyle; or many lifestyles if I choose to major in interdisclipinary studies. It tells me about history and explains why and how things happen. And then it goes one step further and teaches me how to make my own things happen. I learn how to produce culture, and how to treat culture that is produced by others. I understand that every interaction in my life is meaningful. I learn to learn from each interaction because in essence, my life is my classroom. What about exams you ask? *pshht* UU does not believe in exams. We are tested automatically when we produce culture and interact with others' cultures.
Mirzoeff thinks that Utopian University is a place where people encounter each other. I think that the word "people" is loaded with meanings. At UU, people do not simply encounter each other, they encounter the baggage each "people" comes with. Did I lose you? Okay, let's pretend that I encounter another UU student, Ryan at the bus stop (I would like to point out that public transit is free for UU students, because the Western world knows that UU students are the only emancipated race that is not reaching extinction). Ryan is carrying a large backpack filled with "soft stuff". This soft stuff is a term used to describe the kind of baggage UU students carry around. It includes things like dreams, ideas, light-bulb moments, jokes, emotions, aspirations, hunches, personal histories, family histories, relationships, stories, language, reason and creativity. I also have a large duffel bag full of "soft stuff". While Ryan and I have a nice little chat about the weather, plans for the weekend and homework, our "soft stuff"''s start oozing out of our bags towards each other. Ryan notices that his "soft stuff" is combining with my "soft stuff" and he laughs. Then I laugh. Our laughs mingle as our "soft stuff"s join together to create a funny moment. But his "soft stuff" is concerned about me. Ryan tells me that my approach to laughing does not logically fit with my personality. I, too, have a criticism for Ryan's "soft stuff". I tell him that his soft stuff is too idealistic, and that it needs to adapt to the world outside the UU walls. Our "soft stuff"s immediately paint a picture of the land outside UU walls- a picture of the West: billboards, CNN, nuclear missiles, cars lined up at gas stations, hundreds of large eyes in World Vision posters, corporate headoffices......and then our painting collapses. Alas, our buses approach. We both pack up our "soft stuff" and say our goodbyes. This was a casual encounter between two Utopian University students, where intellects met, humours collided and a funny idea was born.

Mirzoeff says that this university is "..a place of emancipation rather than instruction, formed by critique rather than the transfer of information". During classtime, we share our ideas and dreams. During labs, we work together to actualize those ideas and dreams. For homework, we critique each other's projects to make them better. At our graduation ceremony, we are awarded diplomas that recognize our individual status in the world, and our unique collection of ideas, and our abilities to visualize our ideas. During our time at Utopian University, we learned, above all, to conduct meaningful interactions with each other. We were emancipated from the capitalist, machine like attitudes of Westerners. We were emancipated from the evils of lack of imagination. We were emancipated from the chains of computers, economy, fiscal years, pollution, income taxes, political races, colonization, the United Nations, first world-third world binaries, sexism, social propreity and mundane lives.

And with this graduation ceremony, my dream of a Utopian University ends...

Activists and Yippies..

Nina Felshin's definition of activist art is probably the best way to introduce this blog: "This cultural form is the culmination of a democratic urge to give voice and visibility to the disenfranchised, and to connect art to a wider audience" (Felshin 10).


Activist art is usually collaborative art. More than one artist put their intellects and skills together to produce a piece or performance that comments on a social cause of interest to them.


Question: Why is activist art collaborative?


Answer: Art, as a cultural form, stands on a pedestal. The artist gains a cult status as the sole producer of a work. The public's attitdudes towards art works sometimes appear blasphemous- like the hordes of people that flock to the Louvre to get a glimpse of the Mona Lisa. Is it not a form of worship? When they praise Michelangelo's David, do they not imply that Michelangelo created a divinely beautiful creature? Activist artists want to stay away from that cult status. That is why their projects can not be attributed to one single genius. "As many artists who work collaboratively have noted, attention on personalities diminishes the impact of their work" (Felshin 11).


Also, the media and technology used for activist art favors teamwork and collaboration. For example, the Billboard Liberation Front rely on the creation and presence of a billboard for their work. By their very defition, if somebody else had not created a billboard and installed it, they would not be able to "liberate" the billboard and appropriate it.

ORIGINAL BILLBOARD FOR RESPONSIBLE DRINKING BY JOHNNY WALKER

AFTER BLF WORKED THIER MAGIC

Nina Felshin credits the beginings of activist art to the Yippies. The Yippies were a political party in the 1960's known as the Youth International Movement. A few yippies still float around New York. I daresay I know a few wannabe yippies myself; starving students in debt, hating the status quo, swearing death on George Bush and singing along to Sean Paul's "Legalize It!". They even have a variation of the original YIP flag.

Original Youth International Party Flag

2007 Canadian wannabe Yippie Flag

Fascinating, isn't it?

CAPITALISM KILLED THE THEATRE STAR...

I find Darren O'Donnell's ideas on theatre really interesting.
He argues that theatrical performances can not be duplicated. I agree. Once performed, they are finished. Other performances may take place, but none will be the same as the other. Theatrical performances are unique- they can not be duplicated.
O'Donnell also claims that theatrical performances can not be mass-produced. Again, I agree. Each performance is unique. And each takes time to develop. There is no production line of theatre where identical performances are churned out in masses. Even if an artist decides to perform 25 times a day, he is not mass producing the performances. In fact, if he does perform 25 times a day, his work will probably be seen as one large unit, one large performance as opposed to 25 smaller ones.
O'Donnell says : "Recording the event is next to impossible, and the published playscripts, while a commodity within the industry, hold little interest outside the field". I disagree with this point. Yes, it is true that if a theatre performance is recorded on camera, it will lose its dimensionality. However, with the advancement of camera and editing techniques, and the ability to juxtapose different camera angles on the same screen, one can record theatre and watch it without much loss of effect. As far as the playscripts are concerned, I think it depends on the fame and size of the theatre performance. If it is well received or well known, the playscripts may hold great value. However, the value of the playscripts is not really the issue because other artifacts related to theatre may hold capitalist value. For example, theatre venues hold a nostaligic as well as cultural value. People visit these theatres because of the theatre's history- who has visited there, who has performed there. Current plays also increase the venue's value.

I feel that theatre can be commodified and capitalised upon, but its value depends heavily on other media. Advertisements on television and the radio for a performance correlate with the number of people in the audience. The larger and more financially sound the theatre is, the more advertisements it can afford to put out. And the more ads that are played over the media, the greater the number of people listening/watching. The more people viewing/hearing the ads, the more people attending on the opening night. The more people in the audience, the more tickets sold. And this way...more money is made.
As the audience watches the play, critics publish reviews about it. These reviews are part of magazines/newspapers/television content. Their audience reads the reviews, and depending on the review, more people will go/choose not to go to the play.
During the performance, television camera attempt to record the action. They also interview the actors, producer and director. That night, the footage is aired on the news. This, again, informs more people about the play.

However, capitalism did have a negative effect on the arts. Since the rise of Positivism, people have trusted the scientist more than the artiste. And today, the economist is considered crucial to society while the artiste is just entertainment. Capitalism has taken our imaginations and locked them up in white cubicles on Bay Street/Wall Street. Capitalism has prescribed 9-5 formulaic lifestyles for the Western man (and often woman), leaving very few hours every night for family time. Capitalism promotes work, not leisure. It promotes formulae, not creativity. Capitalism takes people away from art performances and theatre.
The lifestyle that capitalism promotes does not leave time for entertainment of socializing. It has affected all the arts to an extent, though I feel that theatre suffered the most. People do not have time to dedicate entire evenings to watching a performance. They would rather use their remote control to fast forward their movie and get to the climax. They would rather sleep the well-deserved 6 hours of sleep which is a rarity.

Capitalism killed the theatre star...