Before moving onto the history of alternative theatre I want to continue outlining my thoughts re the "cultural industries"There will be some odd references like "the big other"hope you mind folks,but I will leave this to one side for now,its slightly difficult concept to outline so for now,if you don't mind I'm going to move onto my ideas about re culture.
I'm suggesting that it is in the twin sites of domination and authoritarianism which is the foundation of the core of the cultural industries.My own generalisation is that the cultural industries are rotten at the core.Its a system embraced by a conservative mindset and the values of the corporate state.Its liberal exterior hiding behind a controlling interior, its a dangerous set of systems geared towards monitoring difference in order to set targets and ever more impossible quotas.Administrators define the agenda for creativity and in so doing have created an aura of mass ornamentation. We have come to an age where by the application form is judged higher than the process of creativity.We have entered the age of "The Great Leap Backwards" a term of reference first highlighted by John Ralston in his book "THE UNCONSCIOUS CIVILIZATION"
The authoritarianism secreted within the Post Modern Condition will be come more visible as this introduction unfolds.Irrationanalism is all part of the on going debate re the actions which govern the state of corporate identity and control,its almost akin to a mystical anarchism,we the citizen invest the corporate state with a personality which defies reality.We have allowed administration to acquire a monopoly over all manifestations of our cultural life we are looking down the barrel of a very nasty weapon,because the administration of culture relates to a concept of creative exclusion.
TIME AND SPACE ARE NECESSARY FORMS OF THOUGHT...Kant
When analysing the rise and decline of cultural movements and radical politics during the 60s,70s,80s through to the cultural hegemony of the Cultural Industries of the 90s and the new century one must be aware of the dangers inherent of revisiting the recent past,more so when we are exploring the problematic of radical politics and radical cultural engagement.There is a danger that ones own "personal"memory becomes problematic.The journalist Melissa Benn writing about Susan Brawnmiller the American feminist suggested:
"Amnesia and caricature, distortion and forgetting are the greatest dangers facing
the history of any radical social movement"
Memory is selective,restrictive and contaminated.When we explore our memory we give ourselves no peace,we are our own memories and in reality we create our own myths.Our experience will never entirely be absorbed by theory and outside observation,but it is a wide open to abuse and obliteration by others who view aspects of the recent past with envy,distrust, and personal ambition by walking over other peoples histories.. I aim to give back the history and the voice to all those groups and individuals whose idealism,creativity,courage,hard work and humanity have been conveniently air-brushed out of reality(history).Eventhier ghots and shadows are nit allowed to contaminate the superficially created inclusiveness and individualism of todays corporative empiness.
Monday 27 September 2010
Friday 24 September 2010
TOUCHED BY FIRE 2
CONTINUED:
I intend to pose many questions without coming to any conclusions,this is a journey of ideas and experimentation,rather like Oval House was,in many respects I want to experiment with conclusions once held dear to me but now seem out dated in so far as they were events only remembered by me at a moment in my own personal,creative suicide(more about this latter).This is an introduction without a map.Its going to be a scatter gun set of opinions and remembered arguments with a good does of dream scape added to raise anger and frustration.Some said to me the other day"we don't seem to do anger no more",it seems a valid observation to me.This reality,this strange frightened world gives the appearance of being out of sync with its own shadows.Anger is reduced to frustration and then violence, there is no room for that space in between,that small space where its safe to express feelings with out appearing unusual
One of the overriding philosophies which drove Oval House to challenge the boundaries of our "elders" was tied up in the belief of the right fail,the right to make mistakes and not have to worry about the impact of the big other,that sense of dominating super ego for ever telling us what we cant or can achieve ,we offerd a place of safty in which the" other" was respected and creativty was was seen as site for challange. We gave leadership simply by being who we where and being there.We were concerned with our status infact we sort to undermine our status in order to give others a sense of being.
My first quistion "Why is that all inclusive theories of economic inevitability
have distracted us from the shift of legitimacy to specialist
and interest groups"
What Oval House never foresaw was the arrival of the non invovled specialist who was hovering just out of sight,waiting in the shadows.People who would arrive and trample on memory and other peoples achievments.We had become distracted by our own sense of direction,but for me the directon was leading to a place without a home ,and for a lot of indivduals the fight to change society had become to much of a bitter night.We exhausted our dreams.
Now is the time to return.The suicide went on to long,the silence of memory contaminates the present.A fight back to reclaim past acheivments and memories begins with a quote from Horkeimer "our consequent incarceration in the "iron cage"
of bureacratic rationalization and technical domination"
It is with this quote in mind,this one isolated little gem that ignites my sense of injustice.I allowed myself to trample on my achievements,that was my action to undo the past,but I do have a responsibility to all those folk who mad Oval House into a dynamic challange against"anything"which came to mind.
Oval was a youth club in a community,we never ever forgot that.
I intend to pose many questions without coming to any conclusions,this is a journey of ideas and experimentation,rather like Oval House was,in many respects I want to experiment with conclusions once held dear to me but now seem out dated in so far as they were events only remembered by me at a moment in my own personal,creative suicide(more about this latter).This is an introduction without a map.Its going to be a scatter gun set of opinions and remembered arguments with a good does of dream scape added to raise anger and frustration.Some said to me the other day"we don't seem to do anger no more",it seems a valid observation to me.This reality,this strange frightened world gives the appearance of being out of sync with its own shadows.Anger is reduced to frustration and then violence, there is no room for that space in between,that small space where its safe to express feelings with out appearing unusual
One of the overriding philosophies which drove Oval House to challenge the boundaries of our "elders" was tied up in the belief of the right fail,the right to make mistakes and not have to worry about the impact of the big other,that sense of dominating super ego for ever telling us what we cant or can achieve ,we offerd a place of safty in which the" other" was respected and creativty was was seen as site for challange. We gave leadership simply by being who we where and being there.We were concerned with our status infact we sort to undermine our status in order to give others a sense of being.
My first quistion "Why is that all inclusive theories of economic inevitability
have distracted us from the shift of legitimacy to specialist
and interest groups"
What Oval House never foresaw was the arrival of the non invovled specialist who was hovering just out of sight,waiting in the shadows.People who would arrive and trample on memory and other peoples achievments.We had become distracted by our own sense of direction,but for me the directon was leading to a place without a home ,and for a lot of indivduals the fight to change society had become to much of a bitter night.We exhausted our dreams.
Now is the time to return.The suicide went on to long,the silence of memory contaminates the present.A fight back to reclaim past acheivments and memories begins with a quote from Horkeimer "our consequent incarceration in the "iron cage"
of bureacratic rationalization and technical domination"
It is with this quote in mind,this one isolated little gem that ignites my sense of injustice.I allowed myself to trample on my achievements,that was my action to undo the past,but I do have a responsibility to all those folk who mad Oval House into a dynamic challange against"anything"which came to mind.
Oval was a youth club in a community,we never ever forgot that.
TOUCHED BY FIRE 1
IMAGINATION AND MEMORY ARE ONE AND THE SAME THING...Thomas Hobbes
HE WHO DOES NOT KNOW HISTORY IS DESTINED TO REMAIN A CHILD...Cicero
Welcome to this introduction,which is part of many introductions,and which forms the basis of a Cats Cradle research project embracing,history political theory,scatter gun ideas ,venom,personal experience,and part of a history of a youth club turned creative arts centre,community centre,and educational centre plus much else.Its agenda is unravel what happened during a critical political and cultural period which affected the destiny of cultural,community politics in England during the 70s,80s,and early90s.Its a history hardly spoken about because most of the people involved in the evolution of of this wild and exciting project still maintain a sense of moral honesty in so far as they refuse to trample over peoples experience,creativity and memories.This fist introduction will critically analysis the growth of authoritarianism within today's corporate Post Modern/Cultural Industry Society.
HE WHO DOES NOT KNOW HISTORY IS DESTINED TO REMAIN A CHILD...Cicero
Welcome to this introduction,which is part of many introductions,and which forms the basis of a Cats Cradle research project embracing,history political theory,scatter gun ideas ,venom,personal experience,and part of a history of a youth club turned creative arts centre,community centre,and educational centre plus much else.Its agenda is unravel what happened during a critical political and cultural period which affected the destiny of cultural,community politics in England during the 70s,80s,and early90s.Its a history hardly spoken about because most of the people involved in the evolution of of this wild and exciting project still maintain a sense of moral honesty in so far as they refuse to trample over peoples experience,creativity and memories.This fist introduction will critically analysis the growth of authoritarianism within today's corporate Post Modern/Cultural Industry Society.
Tuesday 21 September 2010
coming down very fast!!
I can feel the old horror making its return,depression will never give up.Like Iv said before "it knows how to wait".Its not worth the space trying to explain this sense of bewilderment,anxiety and tiredness. My eyes feel tired and painful I'm frightened of sleep because it wont be a sleep the mind will hang heavy in the dream scape of another reality. i was hoping to explore an idea which floats around and nags at my consciousness its a sort of personal challenge/almost an attack on the recent past. Nostalgia is the new radical ideology,the problem is people who use their life experience as the experience of reality are only indulging in a conservative return to a past lived in the narrow confines of nostalgic sentimentality.We look back on our recent past as if there really was going to be a social revolution,some people even believe there was a revolution.Well there was some kind of revolution it is called market forces.
People who where there at any given time look back on their experiences as if they were the most important experiences ever to grace the history of experiences.Nostalgia works on our sense of something lost holding out the possibility of a return to then.The "then" is that place logged in our minds which tell us that "then" can be regained.What happened in the past happen in our minds,our memories are us.But memory is contaminated,it plays games with what we were to all we are now.We may have been at some event in the past,but how we remember that event is about how "we want to remember"that event.My observation is different from your observation.The present is the site of painful reflection.The past is romanticised to keep at bay the power of nostalgic returns.It up to poets to explore the desires inherent in nostalgic reflections.the past is not a place of social change, unless real social change takes place.The sadness of our returns is they are instant and conservative. We are in the age of instant history without truth.my past was better than your past and my depression is darkening my mind the solitary prison is beckoning.....
People who where there at any given time look back on their experiences as if they were the most important experiences ever to grace the history of experiences.Nostalgia works on our sense of something lost holding out the possibility of a return to then.The "then" is that place logged in our minds which tell us that "then" can be regained.What happened in the past happen in our minds,our memories are us.But memory is contaminated,it plays games with what we were to all we are now.We may have been at some event in the past,but how we remember that event is about how "we want to remember"that event.My observation is different from your observation.The present is the site of painful reflection.The past is romanticised to keep at bay the power of nostalgic returns.It up to poets to explore the desires inherent in nostalgic reflections.the past is not a place of social change, unless real social change takes place.The sadness of our returns is they are instant and conservative. We are in the age of instant history without truth.my past was better than your past and my depression is darkening my mind the solitary prison is beckoning.....
Sunday 12 September 2010
from the mouth of the pig
Have just received a massage from a close friend of mine regarding Kelvin McKenzie him from the runaway Sun days.Kelvin is viewed by the liberal elite and the right elite to be a bit of a "bloke"a diamond geezer sort of guy,you know where you stand with Kelvin,he speaks his mind always up for a joke
OK?
Well Kelvin says there is nothing wrong with phone tapping. Now we know.
He speaks the mind of the Aussie boss.The Aussie who is now an American.One time a long time ago an American President got done for phone tapping.
East Germany lived under the boot of a vile organisation who took phone tapping to new heights.Kelvin speaks for a thug who hes no moral compass.The Murdoch Empire,like all Empires exists in a state of permanent paranoia,and greed.
OK?
Well Kelvin says there is nothing wrong with phone tapping. Now we know.
He speaks the mind of the Aussie boss.The Aussie who is now an American.One time a long time ago an American President got done for phone tapping.
East Germany lived under the boot of a vile organisation who took phone tapping to new heights.Kelvin speaks for a thug who hes no moral compass.The Murdoch Empire,like all Empires exists in a state of permanent paranoia,and greed.
Saturday 11 September 2010
where now the arts?
Yesterday I heard a Coalition Member talk about funding the Arts in a climate"of Global slow down"..note the terminology"global slowdown"once the Cons referred to Browns recession,now they have stolen power they are shifting the playing field...its not our policy which is going to mess up the kingdom its all the fault of those other factors.
Anyway, this Coalition Member suggested the Arts need to go back to the 1930s!!
Lets take a step back and think what this means.
We already know the Unions are going to be decimated(unless we the citizens rise and take matters into our own hands), so know we ere getting some idea where we are heading.What about the Arts?Indeed lets ask a deeper question, what about culture. Where is this Coalition heading and where is it taking us.
Well the arts really did sell out,if the funding is slashed then I will shed no tears,what we have now is a candy floss culture which sneers at the values of the collective ideals which set out a dynamic map in the 70s/80s.The so called left wing thinkers and writers of those years set out on a path FOR THEMSELVES.
Real cultural activists and writers where pushed to the side,their creative ideas stolen,their radical interpretations trodden on,a sense of permanent resistance mocked,and the arguments and dreams of communities watered down and turned into as spectacle of respectability.
Go look at the South Bank.
Liberalism took over from pure radicalism and embraced the sensations of the free market by peddling guilt rather than deep anger.Style became reality.The book trade took on the culture of a country fair a site of privilege and the collective exclusion of the other in our midst.The corporate mind set dictated the import of a post modern elitism into the the critique of the alter native.There was no alternative,the whole became the business.
Creativity/culture succumbed to the liberal spotlight.If you did not fit into the corporate image you had no way of presenting your values or your ideals.Without the excepted style and liberal guilt your work suffered in a market of conservative evaluation.
The Arts acted as conduit for liberal dissatisfaction.They offered nothing in the way of dramatic cultural transformation.Indeed change is the last thing the Arts want.Only when the political /community is introduced into a cultural determination will the arts be able to revitalise its self .to attack from the outside is the only way to destroy the carnage coming our way.
A wild interpretation of pure radicalism is needed on one hand and a radical reinterpretation of the dynamics of cultural/communnity engagement is needed on the hand.the rejection of the stupidity enclosed within "the Big Society"must be the conservative ideal to be dismantled,then we can start to attack this surface authoritarism called style.Should be exciting times.But dont shed to mant tears for the Arts establishment.theyb are our enimies.
Anyway, this Coalition Member suggested the Arts need to go back to the 1930s!!
Lets take a step back and think what this means.
We already know the Unions are going to be decimated(unless we the citizens rise and take matters into our own hands), so know we ere getting some idea where we are heading.What about the Arts?Indeed lets ask a deeper question, what about culture. Where is this Coalition heading and where is it taking us.
Well the arts really did sell out,if the funding is slashed then I will shed no tears,what we have now is a candy floss culture which sneers at the values of the collective ideals which set out a dynamic map in the 70s/80s.The so called left wing thinkers and writers of those years set out on a path FOR THEMSELVES.
Real cultural activists and writers where pushed to the side,their creative ideas stolen,their radical interpretations trodden on,a sense of permanent resistance mocked,and the arguments and dreams of communities watered down and turned into as spectacle of respectability.
Go look at the South Bank.
Liberalism took over from pure radicalism and embraced the sensations of the free market by peddling guilt rather than deep anger.Style became reality.The book trade took on the culture of a country fair a site of privilege and the collective exclusion of the other in our midst.The corporate mind set dictated the import of a post modern elitism into the the critique of the alter native.There was no alternative,the whole became the business.
Creativity/culture succumbed to the liberal spotlight.If you did not fit into the corporate image you had no way of presenting your values or your ideals.Without the excepted style and liberal guilt your work suffered in a market of conservative evaluation.
The Arts acted as conduit for liberal dissatisfaction.They offered nothing in the way of dramatic cultural transformation.Indeed change is the last thing the Arts want.Only when the political /community is introduced into a cultural determination will the arts be able to revitalise its self .to attack from the outside is the only way to destroy the carnage coming our way.
A wild interpretation of pure radicalism is needed on one hand and a radical reinterpretation of the dynamics of cultural/communnity engagement is needed on the hand.the rejection of the stupidity enclosed within "the Big Society"must be the conservative ideal to be dismantled,then we can start to attack this surface authoritarism called style.Should be exciting times.But dont shed to mant tears for the Arts establishment.theyb are our enimies.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)