this is about critical theory and may be tl;dr
i watched these lectures by cultural theorist Jeffrey T Nealon about (post)-postmodernism. the lectures are a chapter from his book Post-Postmodernism, which is like a re-situating of Fredric Jameson's ideas on postmodernism and contemporary capitalism following the fall of the Berlin wall and (as eg Mark Fisher would also say) the apparent end of Communism as a "viable alternative".
the interesting bit for me was the way he talked about leftist artists switching from "resistance" to contemporary capitalism to "production" through it, following the ideas of deleuze and guattari.
i'm sure this sort of theory will be old news to people on here who've read deleuze and guattari or more recently nick land. but it cropped up in adam harper's writing on vaporwave and other bits he's done, which led me to Dismagazine. Dismagazine seem to be trying to aesthetically embody the accelerationist concept. right now they're holding a talk addressing the following thoughts and questions... (written by an artist in an essay on their site)
the event that is organised around these ideas is called an "ongoing retail platform" and is linked with Red Bull.
since then i've noticed UK "underground" artists and the world they make music in/for is increasingly tied up with big business sponsors and media partnerships.
you've got RBMA lectures and events, Boiler Room producing branded content for Ballantine's Whisky and doing events with loads of other companies, Converse getting DJs and producers onboard, Adidas appealing for artists on factmag etc etc. I also recently saw Dazed are doing docs on "underground" UK music. from the Brandy and Coke trailer it looks like they're going to be mostly opportunities for product placement and creating lookbooks.
on the one hand i'm intrigued by the ideas highlighted by Dismag, and i want to read the stuff that they're sourcing their ideas from (like Deleuze and Guattari). but on the other i can't help feeling that it could be a bit of a cop out; a really clever, well-developed justification allowing left-leaning artists and musicians to forget about boring resistance and material realities, and jump onboard with lucrative media partnerships. but maybe that thought comes to me from my own inability to believe in a really radically different political future.
when it comes to the arty underground of UK music there are DJs and producers that seem to attach themselves to oppositional politics and anti-capitalist messages. is it a problem if they then appear on a stream for the transnational franchise that is boiler room? or get paid to wear adidas jackets at gigs?
i realise that politically minded musicians might be in the political gesture business rather than in the social change business. but at the same time, if the cultural success of the brand they become allied with is heightened through tactics of exclusivity that, for example, happen to reinforce class or gender discriminations, does the utopian political meaning you can read in their work get undermined to some extent?
i watched these lectures by cultural theorist Jeffrey T Nealon about (post)-postmodernism. the lectures are a chapter from his book Post-Postmodernism, which is like a re-situating of Fredric Jameson's ideas on postmodernism and contemporary capitalism following the fall of the Berlin wall and (as eg Mark Fisher would also say) the apparent end of Communism as a "viable alternative".
the interesting bit for me was the way he talked about leftist artists switching from "resistance" to contemporary capitalism to "production" through it, following the ideas of deleuze and guattari.
i'm sure this sort of theory will be old news to people on here who've read deleuze and guattari or more recently nick land. but it cropped up in adam harper's writing on vaporwave and other bits he's done, which led me to Dismagazine. Dismagazine seem to be trying to aesthetically embody the accelerationist concept. right now they're holding a talk addressing the following thoughts and questions... (written by an artist in an essay on their site)
can art, as the ultimate benchmark of connoisseurial consumerism, really be mobilized to redirect networked flows of power, capital and desire?
how now might neoliberal hegemony be confronted through repurposing the institutions of commerce?
it seems to me that this is the crucial political challenge for today’s artists working through commercial processes, with the possible horizon of accelerating consumption beyond the internal contradictions of capitalism’s most exploitative formations.
the event that is organised around these ideas is called an "ongoing retail platform" and is linked with Red Bull.
since then i've noticed UK "underground" artists and the world they make music in/for is increasingly tied up with big business sponsors and media partnerships.
you've got RBMA lectures and events, Boiler Room producing branded content for Ballantine's Whisky and doing events with loads of other companies, Converse getting DJs and producers onboard, Adidas appealing for artists on factmag etc etc. I also recently saw Dazed are doing docs on "underground" UK music. from the Brandy and Coke trailer it looks like they're going to be mostly opportunities for product placement and creating lookbooks.
on the one hand i'm intrigued by the ideas highlighted by Dismag, and i want to read the stuff that they're sourcing their ideas from (like Deleuze and Guattari). but on the other i can't help feeling that it could be a bit of a cop out; a really clever, well-developed justification allowing left-leaning artists and musicians to forget about boring resistance and material realities, and jump onboard with lucrative media partnerships. but maybe that thought comes to me from my own inability to believe in a really radically different political future.
when it comes to the arty underground of UK music there are DJs and producers that seem to attach themselves to oppositional politics and anti-capitalist messages. is it a problem if they then appear on a stream for the transnational franchise that is boiler room? or get paid to wear adidas jackets at gigs?
i realise that politically minded musicians might be in the political gesture business rather than in the social change business. but at the same time, if the cultural success of the brand they become allied with is heightened through tactics of exclusivity that, for example, happen to reinforce class or gender discriminations, does the utopian political meaning you can read in their work get undermined to some extent?