Cultural Industrialisation - cause and effect.

The following article referenced below, concerned the growing difficulties on respect pf art making/makers (certainly here in the UK). Below is a brief excerpt taken from a blog article by Anthony J Hughes http://anthonyjhughes.vox.com/library/post/mad-as-a-march-hare-march-madness-beware-the-eyes-of-march.html


.....What am I saying?

Funding procedures and practice and the funding and economic redevelopment projects aimed at supporting ‘creative industries’ has actually become a system supporting government ‘intervention[1]’ and policy. That policy has either intentionally or inadvertently become a controlling factor in the human act of creativity and now acts in a legislative, often excluding manner and is often damaging for the industries it claims to ‘support’[2].
The funding system has led to: -

1 A skewed artificial view of the creative industries in both nature, practice, shape, scope and for the purposes of counting economic value attached to it.

2 A new industry[3] which originated as a parasite on the back of creativity – and has now been extremely manipulative in reversing the role. This new ‘industry’ is policed by civil servants, accountants, admin paper pushers and is predominantly made up of those who are not from a creative background and have little or no understanding of the nature of either creativity or indeed commercial practice.

My reply to his blog is as follows:

A refreshing thought on the damage that the cultural industrialisation has become. Business as manipulation it certainly is and I agree that civil servants are proudly pushing government policy as art of course. Intervention into the artistic fabric of the day to day is a tragic development. Indeed, cultural industry was a term which was fiercely derided and debated in the early to mid 1990s. Now its accepted common language and way of being for many people (and artists).

As a strategy to this, I continue to disengage from this persuasive financial and political process. Anonymity as hoax and prank work for example, humiliating the art mainstream at times, ad hoc and unpredictable manifestations, mean that I'm less involved in cultural tourism/governance, service led cultural activity (simply helping the needy (which I don’t deride by the way)) and the attack on intelligent human beings (who are of course, innately creative).

In the late 1990s, I was increasingly aware of the dangers of a mediated art making culture and the mechanism in adopting the coercion of money lead creativity. In the 2000's it is clear that many so called artists are robots to a system other than their own autonomy as makers. This has not only dumbed down any potential artist as extraordinary and experimental, but on the contrary, become a way of moronisation of the said individual. Its all about what fits in, with who and how.....the artist is political despite the guessing games that are encouraged to make the quick and continued £1 sale!

I do believe that we are living in a culturally pitiful time (I refer to the UK), devoid of the extension of ideas that foster the superb evolution as humans (worse now than the 1990s which is saying something!). I am lucky to know and work with some great people fortunately, who resist and push forward art-as-ideas in ways that I and others would not expect, hence limit the insistence that I should become involved in the tragic tale of New Labour! I didn't believe it for one minute of course!

It's been great to read this article. Thankyou.

- Mr/Miss/Mrs/Ms B.

Don’t fuck with the jesus

Well, I got a polite and affirmative message from Russell (thankyou) and I am obliging the Birmingham countercultural activity in return of course. Who knows what this event might be like, but here's the information. I took a look at their myspace site and read 'bad drunken sex with qwerty keyboards' which was a good sign for something less (or more than) the ordinary. I'm unsure if this event as advertised below costs anything to enter, but I'm sure you would find out if you took to more research c/o the link etc...

On with the show! Good luck!

- Mr/Miss/Mrs/Ms B

Don’t fuck with the jesus.


Featuring Live Performances From:

The New Jerusalem...

Kramer Vs Kramer Vs Gosdzilla...

DJ Space...


And a special DJ Set from Brumcast...



8pm - 11 Thurs 6th Nov


@ Flapper & Firkin, B'ham.


please find me at www.myspace.com/kvkvg2 where you can find more details and insights into the nature and meaning of this event!

A countercultural trip in Birmingham.....

Fancy a trip to visit an alternative cultural place in Birmingham where creative countercultural activity continues to take place? Pop along to Bournbrook Recreation Ground in Selly Oak. Here, you’ll see a place littered with graffiti. It’s overwhelming. I was delighted to come across such a large public space that is decorated and dedicated with so much (ongoing) graffiti. All parts of this small park are up for spray-can grabs: walls, sides of houses and offices, graffiti on paving stones, lamp posts and railings - all make for a superbly creative individual place here in Birmingham.

There seems little to literally read, and whilst personalised tagging is triumphantly marking people’s designs, what is fascinating is the saturation of colour when you spin around on the spot. It’s a living organism! The paint has taken-over, slowly and surely creeping like veins across fences and doors, bricks, along pathways etc…

Birmingham counterculture salutes those individuals that have made Bournbrook Recreation Ground a special place in Birmingham!

Flickr link I came across:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/newfolder/2764341625/

Location:

Between Selly Oak library and Lidl supermarket.

Transport:

Buses:

Travel West Midlands (0121 254 7272) - Route Numbers 11A, 11C, 21, 44, 61, 62, 63, 69

Major Roads

A38 Bristol Road (N) / A441 Pershore Road (N) - Northbound towards Birmingham centre, M6
A38 Bristol Road (S) - Southbound towards M5, M42, Northfield, Rubery, Bromsgrove
A441 Pershore Road (S) - Southbound towards M42
A4040 Oaktree Lane / Harborne Lane - Outer Ring Road