Conceptronica

[padraig (u.s.)]

I think the anti-art school/student talk misses the point

art gonna art. always has, always will.

not a new complaint

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

third is more on the track talking about the economic nuts + bolts

which is always the move with art (with anything really, but art especially)

OP calls out "grant class vultures" or whatever. idk the truth of that or not, but follow the $, be it grants, vertically integrated press/promotion, whatever.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Is it possible to build and sustain a scene that exists as an independent principality or must everything be absorbed into empire?

this is part - the immediate part - of what I was asking in the "is a counterculture still possible" thread

as then, I don't know the answer

 

[Leo]

Padraig also always finds a way to insert some old U.S. hardcore punk record into the conversation!

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

their politics are precisely aesthetics

yeah that line rings true

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Padraig also always finds a way to insert some old U.S. hardcore punk record into the conversation!

write what you know

also, too directly relevant not to use

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

This always feels to me like a) a depressive position and b) a failure of imagination.

only if you a) allow yourself to be depressed it by (which granted, is easy to do) and b) stop trying to imagine something else

but on the face of it the evidence for the staggering - and ever-increasing - efficiency of recuperation is overwhelming

 

[luka]

Explain exactly what you mean by recuperation please.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

it's not that things can't exist at all outside of "empire" (or hegemony or whatever other Gramscian title one wants to give it), at least not yet

but as soon as they become worth monetizing, someone will

which was always the case, it's just more ruthless and rapid than ever, and only getting more so

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Explain exactly what you mean by recuperation please.

anything challenging or radical being defanged, repackaged and sold as a commodity

youth rebellion, transgressive art, (perhaps especially) explicitly anti-consumerist art, etc

 

[luka]

I've never been able to understand quite where you're coming from but it seems to revolve around a very hardline money is evil stance. Have I got that right?

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

and one could add the gauche, bad taste, working class to that list

which are not directly challenging in the same way but can still have their edges smoothed out and sold back as nostalgia, romantic, kitsch

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I've never been able to understand quite where you're coming from but it seems to revolve around a very hardline money is evil stance. Have I got that right?

not remotely

 

[luka]

I get confused cos obviously if you wanted to go to a disco you'd have to pay at the door and if you wanted to own a disco record you'd have to buy it.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

money is just a medium of exchange. the key would be commodification. (if you want a more technical explanation, ask third)

but I'm also almost always talking about culture and the transmission of culture.

the two things (commodification, culture) are intertwined.

creative expression - i.e., art - is culture. it is then commodified and sold as a product. I'm not sure how I can be clearer.

 

[luka]

I love third but I've got a feeling he's unlikely to make it any clearer.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I get confused cos obviously if you wanted to go to a disco you'd have to pay at the door and if you wanted to own a disco record you'd have to buy it.

of course

before disco is codified as "disco" it exists as an unnamed idea - DJs using existing records to soundtrack the atmosphere of all-night clubs + parties for (mostly) queer men

at some point it becomes "disco", is then a concept that can be commodified + monetized

but even before it was reliant on other, already commodified concepts - music genres, clubbing, drugs, whatever

which speaks to the inevitability of commodification

it's kind of an endless, repeating, ouroboros situation

the age of everything being "content" has just made the process starker

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I really wasn't trying to sidetrack us with this, tho

in terms of the original topic, it's mostly about the difficulty of taking seriously any of these things being challenging in the ways they claim to be

everything is bound to be repurposed and sold, but this stuff is already purpose-made to be sold in the same breath it proclaims it isn't - and that chafes

whatever else it is, it's chic, and in good taste, and so on

it's perhaps a fancier way of what you're saying about the art school mentality, I guess, tho I wouldn't narrow it down to art students

 

[luka]

I don't mind the digression so long as I can start to get where you're coming from. I think part of my confusion is that the whole counter culture at inception comes from the heart of capitalist America. So you're not opposing today's consumer capitalism with folk song from medieval Russia or something. i can't get it to fit together.

 

[luka]

It seems like all you're favourite things are products of a developed capitalist economy so I don't understand why, if it was possible a very short amount of time ago, under very similar conditions, why it should be impossible now.