Established culturalization.

(this has become rather long mainly due to some people missing the spirit of

what was originally written and pinning their own methods of thought over

the top of the original discourse. Also, I really need to concentrate on my
art

and not on writing all opf the time)


Firstly, I would like to get something clear - there is a big difference

between intellectual argument and academic argument. Academic argument comes

from a place of culturalized reference, high art, high science, or accepted

and informed knowledge that has been institutionally accepted. This means

that if you use an academic argument, you are more likely to be agreed with

by those who value such structures and theories. Because they instantly

understand the triggers, signifiers being inferred. Thus, an immediate

rapport occurs, a kind of mental handshake. This of course is a positive

experience for those who wish to have their so called educational references

re-affirmed, but it serves no solution to solve the issue or crux, that

'Academia' only serves the few.


Thomas Moore said 'All attempts to give a strict form to life, even if they

are based in a fantasy of self improvement, participate in Sadeian monastic

ideals'.

The psychological relationship between academic intelligence and outsider

intellectuals, has been a constant battle through history and one that

institutions should not be proud of. The stance that many academic

individuals use to hide their emotional and intellectual inadequacies is to

add clout to their own use of language by imposing the official 'wild card'

that they know more because they have gone through the process of induced

learning. This failing of coming to terms to the idea, reality that actually

there might be relevant ideas out there that not of been processed by the

same protocols, is shameful. For this puts in place barriers enhanced via

denial, plus the default of the tiresome dichotomy of we are right and you

are not.


Now, if academics are not able to make the shift out of their mannerist,

singular 'rule', and still rely on assumed ideologies, continuing

'stubbornly' to force others to conform to methods or structural language

'laws'. Then we are going to have a problem on our hands. For this brings

about issues of ownership of language and who has the right to use certain

words, and in what context that they will be allowed to use language. Which

also means that there is a kind of 'mental Mafia at large, patenting the

use of how we can discuss or declare our feelings and ideas on our own

terms. So what occurs is a kind of intellectual rank-pulling via academic

principles but not the greater consciousness.


The Fear and distrust of 'Embodied Knowledge'
via complicit denial and support of exformation.

When one cruises the Internet observing the mass of academically induced

digital artists that primarily use standardized, blanket theories and

solicited references to beef up their actions and ideas. One begins to

perceive that there could be a 'fear of emotion' which culminates in

stunting, in tune, humane 'embodied' potential. Now to say that this is

true, all through, would be a misrepresentation on my part. I also would

wish to add here that I am also prone to this behavioral trait at times.

I see the issue on par to a nervous twitch that one feels, insecure with

one's own creativity, so one bungs a few well thought out tags onto the art

piece, hopefully the (possible) flaws or weaknesses in the work will not be

so apparent. Not everyone does it all of the time, yet everyone is prone to

doing it some of the time or a lot of the time.


My brief sniff at Deconstruction and its isolationist impracticalities…


I apologize to the millions of individuals whose found faith in logic gives

them both strength and courage to explore new vistas that they had not

touched upon before. This may serve as a singular tool to unearth, or dare I

say it 'Deconstruct', accepted narratives to find solutions of what is

really being said in various contexts. Yet I can't help viewing such

function(s) and mannerism as a monotheistic religion. Therein lies emotion,

but hidden for the sake of using such logical methods towards an end that

has no end, possibly mental masturbation.


It's like being limited to using a dictionary but without the grounding.

Thus informed with 'Virtual Knowledge' yet lacking in the intuitive lateral

richness of 'Embodied Knowledge'. The dictionary rests in the realm of

language like Deconstruction, full of its own words, everything has a

description, a tag of what a word is or should be. If you try to use

Deconstruction to find out what a word means it only points to other words

and you chase your tail indefinitely.Is Deconstruction now an accepted

narrative in its right? Meaning that it has its own set of behaviors by

which one must conform to, thus a role, a character in which the user

becomes? 'There is nothing in it that everything else rests on.' N.Chomsky.


If Deconstruction is to move somewhere positive, it has to leave the comfort

of academia and grow into the everyday world, where people are going to

enjoy its possitivities to a point of using such a tool, for questioning

various issues that affect their lives. In short, it has to become

relational, part of the world as everyday experience, thus become part of

the larger body, humanity. A playful and freed-up social alchemy needs to

breed out of the trappings of self-referential arenas.


The same applies to general academia. The failure of the artworld academia

and science academia to consciously deal with big or small subject matters

that can reach people in a way that meets their intimate realities and (of

course non realities), in terms of 'everyday life', is not a healthy badge

to wear. For if you want to make clear your ideas, academia is going to have

get of that structuralized pedestal, that was once modernist as a

foundation but reevaluated, so it is easier to sit upon for the new

academics.


'Why would artists be sculpted to adhere just because the institutions of

art have certain agendas? It is because artists want to be recognized by

them. Why would they want to be recognized by them? It is because these

institutions are centers of the structure of the art world by which

something as subjective and elusive as art can be fixed and stabilized. The

result of this stabilization is art history.' Dyske.


The above is, precisely what I am (hopefully and many others) are trying to

question and reevaluate, the habitual need for artists to adhere to an

already accepted default that just by existing, causes isolationist rifts

between artists and everyday people; is not productive psychologically or

socially. Just because the history of Art and theory is contained within a

certain area of established vaults, does not mean that it is the best way

for our imaginations to carry things forward. By taking responsibility,

understanding that the world needs a more fluid interaction, that opens up

more questions of why it exists and its purpose, thus rebuilding alternative

strategies from within and the outside of these bodies, how can it not be

productive? OK - I admit, certain established individuals might loose their

shiny badges, and (possibly) well earned status's, but there is a greater

scheme to be put at work that can help a greater amount of people.


Whenever artists (individuals) and groups have actively challenged

institutional 'sloppiness, and accepted defaults, good things have happened

culturally. Out of these shifts, constant reevaluation of where we are now,

even though it can a painful laborious process for many must occur,

enlightenment is a necessity if humanity is to move on to healthier turf.

The explorative, creative individual does not have to conform and feel

limited, contained by society's lack of imaginative adventure. A shift has

been taking place as a mass collective geo-autonomy has been growing. As

this global movement fluctuates, regroups and forms various factions of self

styled (D.I.Y) initiatives have occurred. New opportunities have opened up

for people who once did not fit into the Art establishment's stranglehold on

creativity. Thus there is a fresh role and place in the world for

independent Artists, Entrepreneurs, Creative individuals and Collectives in

the 21st Century who are no longer reliant on institutions alone to further

their adventurous ambitions.


The Power of the institutions such as museums, galleries and libraries has

always had a cultural, psychological and social impact on how creativity is

perceived in the public's eye. Within the educational establishment,

Postmodernist theorists and critical minded artists, have had a dramatic

influence in changing the order of things, with occasional small tremors of

art activism trickling out of the contained art world and its institutions.

In the 1980's we saw an increase in the number of people advocating and

practicing "do-it yourself" culture. DIY Culture was born when people got

together, realizing that the only way forward was to do things for

themselves. The term covers everything from taking direct action against a

road that is being bulldozed through your area, to disabled people

campaigning for equal rights. And ingenuity and imagination are the key

ingredients. This explosion involved all types of people. Artists,

musicians, anarchists, intellectuals and many other dissatisfied individuals

wanting to make a change in their everyday and global environment, realizing

that institutions, multinationals and governments were not interested in

liberating people or the world that we all inhabit. A broad consensus has

emerged involving environmental awareness and issues of social justice.


This gradual progression of self-liberation, collective group forming and

activism has always been closely related to the ideas of many artists,

critical thinkers and others who possess an independent imagination.

Selected groups and individuals, who have actively challenged authority via

creative means.


In 1967, the German Student Party, so named because every human being was

considered a student, grew out of the public discussion circles that Joseph

Beuys regularly held in his class at the Dusseldorf Academy of Art. In

October 1972 after conflicts about the over enrolment of 125 students in

Beuys' classes, he was dismissed with out notice from his teaching, which

was followed by an international wave of protests. (Beuys filed a lawsuit,

which he eventually won at the Federal Labor Court in 1978.)


At the end of 1967 Guy Debord in 'The Society of the Spectacle' and Raoul

Vaneigem in 'The Revolution of Everyday Life', presented the most elaborate

expositions of what was termed as Situationist theory. It had a widespread

influence in France during the 1968 student rebellion. Many of the most

famous slogans that were scribbled on the walls of Paris were taken from

their theses, such as FREE THE PASSIONS, NEVER WORK, LIVE WITHOUT DEAD TIME.

In their analysis, the Situationists argued that capitalism had turned all

relationships transactional, and that life had been reduced to a

"spectacle". The spectacle is the key concept of their theory. In many ways,

they merely reworked Marx's view of alienation, as developed in his early

writings. The worker is alienated from his product and from his fellow

workers and finds himself living in an alien world: The worker does not

produce himself; he produces an independent power. The success of this

production, its abundance, returns to the producer as an abundance of

dispossession. the Situationists enriched anarchist theory by their critique

of modern culture, their celebration of creativity, and their stress on the

immediate transformation of everyday life.


British Art activist Stuart Home along with a small group of anonymous

individuals using the alias of Karen Elliot, in 1990 began an Art Strike as

a means of encouraging critical debate and general chaos. Certain

individuals made the decision to put down their tools and cease to make,

distribute, sell, exhibit or discuss their cultural work for a three-year

period beginning on January 1 of that year, demonstrating that the socially

imposed hierarchy of the arts can be aggressively challenged.


One of the main issues for those who desire radical change within

organizations and educational institutions is the fear that if they bite the

hand that feeds them, they will lose their jobs. Of course times have

changed now and a more flexible climate of independence has arisen with the

emergence of alternative networks and work in different technologies, thus

issuing space for the critical mind to develop new strategies.


If one looks at organizations, educational institutions with a simple,

psychological glance. You will notice that they are almost like model-

countries, possessing borders. Each department is a unit and it has its own

borders placed around it in order for course group classification and

utility. The leader of each unit hands down certain instructions and

information to the chosen sub-heads of that unit. Then the lecturers execute

these orders, informing and teaching the agendas prescribed. For me,

describing the function of a place, an activity, even an emotion says what

it really is and how it works and why it is there, therein sits part of the

truth.


Idris Shah wrote in 'Learning how to Learn' that 'Virtually all

organizations known to you work largely by means of your greed. They attract

you because what they say or do appeal to your greed. This is concealed only

by their appearance. If you stop listening to their words and look at the

effect, you will soon see it'.


There are a lot of individuals out there who have not taken it upon

themselves to acknowledge that there is an Establishment that controls with

a paternal supremacy. And they do not even know that they themselves have

been processed socially. Our most valuable asset is the mind and if it is

influenced and with information it will act accordingly. We have all been

trained from a very young age to be part of a workforce, becoming

subservient to our bosses and institutions. Traditionally we are judged or

validated by our position in society. We are forced to posture our

worthiness competitively by comparing each other with how much we earn, what

we possess and how we have advanced our position on the rung of the social

ladder. This delusory stance has been planted deep into our psyches, and in

every walk of life this childish self-conscious scenario is active.


Jean Dubuffet wrote 'What cultured people want, in terms of language (and

thought), is to be well-defined, correctly positioned in strictly combined

terms, and this is what they call good speech, good thought, and good

writing. But they do not realize that they are thereby creating a closed

circuit that leaves no room for anything but what was there in the first

place—except for the decomposition inherent to all closed circuits, like

moss that grows in a hermetically sealed jar.'


With the rise of the Internet, ideas are now part of a fluid equalitarian

platform that anyone can share. You can now discuss with students, academics

and lay people your ideas without having to enter a curriculum controlled

environment. A good example of this is the rise of literary sites and Blogs

on the World Wide Web. There are thousands of sites out there created by

people who have not been to college or university, yet they are learning how

to build web sites to publish their own stories, poetry and ideas.

So now, we have the choice of joining forces and making things happen to

bypass the slump of 'divide and rule'.


marc garrett