© Lucy Panesar, 2002

(copyright notice: footnote references yet to be added)

Introduction.

Victor Burgin made posters in the 1970’s saying things like - “seven percent of the population owns ninety-four percent of the wealth.” At the time this was revolutionary, but now, as modern art critic Matthew Collings reveals, it illustrates the notion of current “blank revolution or amused revolution or revolution where nothing is expected to change.” For the Western world, capitalism is a uniquely domineering, complex strategy of success. The fragmentation of society and culture, under what is now a post-modern condition, has done nothing but increase depression and frustration for failing anti-capitalists . We no longer seem to know what we want changed or how to go about it, which has resulted in apathy.

The original aim of this paper was to suggest why a radical counter-capitalist revolution is not taking place. However, the recent terrorist attacks upon the USA , lead me to believe that the only kind of revolution we are likely to witness from here on will be unlike anything we have seen before. The shock of these attacks and the ambiguity of what will happen next is felt world over, even by the countries supposedly harbouring the enemy. While preparing and researching for this paper, I was leading myself to the conclusion that an oppositional revolution would not take place. The passively satisfied folk of the advanced capitalist world felt no need for change. The only possibility of a revolution would be through the rebellion of frustrated and tormented souls only able to express their anguish through destruction and attack.

Artist and writers, such as Bret Easton Ellis, are aware of the frustration and depression, and their works illustrate their fear for its violent potential. Lasn and Grierson contend that their “intuitive response can’t be ignored.” Indeed, George Bataille was saying way back in the 1930’s that everything in the universe has a parallel existence. He talked about humanity and our need for expression, or else explosion.

There’s a certain vulnerability in art which can not be avoided or hidden. It is this vulnerability that reminds us of the artist’s humanity, and at once their recognition and shame of being human, a mere mortal, regardless of how confident, entertaining or even haughty they may seem. It would be ideal to bridge the gap between the culturally privileged and the blue collar worker, but without grand narratives, post-modernism shall inevitably fracture the divide further, keeping the two apart and prolonging apathy. Why are contemporary artists not collaborating with post-office letter sorters, in their journey towards displaying the reality of ordinariness? London artist John Strutton has a kazoo band; they have fun, they entertain, their amusement is everyday, and is also ‘art’ in the appropriate context. They bring the artwork down from its elitist pedestal to an overall wearing level, pushing Cork Street purchase power mongers further into their commodified nonsense.
The notion of expression is something intrinsically related to art, but how does it fit into the consumer-capitalist regime? As an artist I want to know how free I am to express my concerns about freedom, equality and human rights through art, and more importantly, whether this would limit my audience and their understanding. Based on the knowledge that state elites see art as a potentially powerful tool for subversion, this paper uses examples of the suspicion and oppression of the arts and its celebrities, from the activities of J. Edgar Hoover to surveillance in the shopping mall. Such instances and examples have frightening familiarities to the fictions of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley.

The second section of the paper looks at art as a commodity, using Lyotard’s writings on postmodernism. The paper sets out to be a critical exposure of the use of art to serve capitalism’s gain. This leads me to introduce varying examples of art forms or artists who have tried to produce and display art for art’s sake or the peoples sake, rather than for money or fashion. Part three deals intensively with the Anti-copyright Network publication "Flyposting", which reveals alternative and crude means of making art which has a social comment, and shows an attempt at elevating or resolving the situation of the ‘outsider-artist’. The second example is the contemporary, London-based, art collective BANK. Further examples include N55 and Nils Norman, who like BANK have ‘outsider-artist’ status due to their production of socially challenging works. Part six unfolds as a comparative study of art and popularity, thus frustration and apathy, in the context of only the British, i.e. the London-based art world. Confining this latter part of the paper to London is an attempt to avoid complete despair, since I have more hope for art at an international level.

The Huxley and Orwell Prophesies.

George Orwell was not playing the prophet in “1984”, he was simply detailing, in a satirical way, the socio-political climate of Stalinist Russia and the repressive and fearful atmosphere of a possible third world war. Orwell’s vision is nevertheless a vision of totalitarianism, from which 100 of the 137 surveillance predictions made are now currently in operation. Orwell did not intend to be prophetic, but if only because of the extensive use and power of surveillance techniques today, we certainly cannot deny the reality of his visions. The title “1984” came from Orwell simply switching around the ‘4’ and ‘8’ of 1948, which incidentally was the year that the ‘Hollywood ten’ were sentenced for refusing to answer questions to the American state detailing their political beliefs regarding communism.

This was one of the activities of J. Edgar Hoover noted in historical documentation as a reminder of his contempt for privacy and freedom of speech and thought. Yet John Parker reveals in “Total Surveillance” that the amount of surveillance technology available and in use today, in Britain alone, far exceeds that of Hoover’s extreme activities, highlighting the potential danger of Britain’s capabilities. Just in time to reassure the FBI’s increasing doubts over his competence, Hoover said the following:
“It is time we stopped coddling the hoodlums and hippies who are causing so much serious troubles these days. Let us treat them like the viscous enemies of society they really are.”

Subsequently Hoover continued tenfold his watch on the famed hippies, John Lennon and Jane Fonda, both targets due to their anti-Vietnam War support. Up until the year 2000 the intrusively detailed files on Lennon were still classified, even after attempts to release them by the Freedom of Information Act. Parker explains that it is “because of the deep embarrassment they might cause to FBI and the American Nation as a whole.”

Earlier this year the census arrived through my door; an ‘innocent’ request for details of my age, sex, race and creed. Under the guise of public welfare and consumer improvement the state is collating enough information on us to be able to predict and control our every move. Under the guise of law enforcement the state has justified watching our every move in the public domain. The greatest official fear presently is of the general public armed with home computers; every one a potential hacker and cyber terrorist. It seems teenage computer hermits alone are capable of sabotaging corporate databases; imagine then the mass chaos that could be caused by IT professionals.

The state’s nominal reason for maintaining and increasing such intense surveillance is in order to serve its combat against ghastly threats to humanity such as paedophilia, terrorism, drug trafficking etc. An alternative account is they are deliberately creating a climate of fear in which no-one would dare subvert, in respect of law enforcement and protection. A close friend of mine has an in-car tracking device using numerous satellite power to track himself whilst driving; I witness on his lap top computer the motion of our car travelling along the streets of Canterbury. They can take close-up photographs of us using these very same satellites. Britain is the most surveyed nation in the world, having “more cameras per capita” than any other. In this situation the defence of rights by groups such as Privacy International (who challenge the surveyors motto “nothing to fear, nothing to hide” ) is believed by headman Simon Davies to be indispensable. Orwell’s Big-Brother-challenging characters were quickly vaporised . Huxley’s clones were bred without the choice to question.

Modern life 25 years ago was not idyllic. Time Square in New York was a haven for drugs and prostitution. Yet when CCTV was introduced to catch the criminals, there was mass public protest. 25 Years on, the illicit activities have been eliminated, Time Square is safer yet ironically CCTV has been accepted and is even enjoyed as a form of entertainment. Citizens in L.A. flock to the outer suburban Malls to enjoy the safe-haven-like experience of shopping under the probing eye of surveillance. 25 years ago crime was the target for surveillance efforts, but now crime isn’t on the monitor. The target of Time Square and Mall surveyors now is to prevent the obstruction of commerce; they want people to be able to buy in peace. In 1981 Richard Serra constructed a Tilted Arc to obstruct commerce in New York’s Federal Plaza, in the name of public art. The art had power over the local office workers activities; commerce flagged, and by 1985 “the government body that had commissioned the work stated that it should be moved”. This was a violation of Serra’s contract, however, so Serra’s work continued to obstruct business until 1989.

Since we are now fully aware that we are being watched, surveillance may seem no longer to be a covert means of control. We are aware of CCTV cameras, and we accept them. We let them entertain us; they satisfy voyeuristic curiosities. Witness the popularity of Channel 4’s “Big Brother”, where we were able to interact and survey people ‘like us’, not actors, and not within the ‘soap opera’ context. Each night we still get cliff-hangers and scandal and romance. Watching ourselves is increasingly becoming popular culture, but is it because we want to probe and be critical of ourselves, or is it more for the affirmation that we exist? Documentors believe that the time has come to replace Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” with “I am surveyed therefore I am”. CCTV was once used to “track transgression” , now it’s yet another sexy, desirable technology; servant to our image needs, allowing us fame for five minutes. One advert, which fully utilises this consciousness of the camera, says “You are on a video camera 10 times a day. Are you dressed for it?”

Stating your awareness or suspicion of the all-seeing eye was once a punishable offense in “1984”, “Brave New World”, and even in British historical instances , but now our awareness of the cameras presence is part of the operation. We are encouraged and are also happily obliging to get involved with our own surveillance. It is therefore a far more complex issue trying to unfold what it is exactly that we fear. In “1984” and “Brave New World” you are never alone. In the former, Big Brother keeps you company, in the latter soma drugging aids you into a permanently orgiastic lifestyle. Where’s the oppression in such a caring, happy society? In these prophetical texts, the eye is evident, the oppression ultra-covert.
Those concerned with privacy and rights in Britain today are supposedly a minority, on the decrease since the 70’s. That means more and more people are either conforming to capitalist ideals and are satisfied, or have been silenced with no way to express their fear. Civil rights and rights of privacy have been given a place on the official agenda alongside surveillance maintenance and database tracking, but that slotted representation may be holding back millions of confused anxieties. We may now be witnesses to apathy, passivity and maybe even the illusion of contentment. Perhaps we are closer to Orwell and Huxley’s invented societies than we think.

“When the individual feels, the community reels” , claims Huxley’s character Lenina, hypnopaedically taught since birth to believe and maintain such sentiments. In her world happiness is blindness, truth can only lead to torment and question. Their duty is to conform, to be infantile, to deny emotion, to never commit or love, only recreational sex, no conception. “Progress is lovely, cleanliness is next to Fordlinesss, civilisation is sterilization.” To be subversive is to stand in the way of those things, “the more stitches, the less riches,” means that even repairing clothes is anti-social and anti-capitalist. Not taking soma and not liking sport, and not wanting to have casual sex with anyone and everyone, is regarded as a conspiratory threat in the Brave New World; it is unorthodox, dangerous and subversive behaviour. Printed text, in “1984”, is strictly scrutinised and subsequently censored or not published if it is seen to divulge information heretical to the social order. Science and art are dangerous protagonists in the quest to explore knowledge and change the order of things.
However, Huxley’s Controller is aware of how:
“Men and women must have their adrenals stimulated from time to time… that’s why we’ve made the Violent Passion Surrogate treatments compulsory. It’s the complete physiological equivalent of fear and rage.”
To maintain a stable and productive society is to keep its occupants stable and solid. Questioning and scrutiny only increase consciousness, which can disrupt the work/play lifestyle set up for the fictional characters like Lenina. Here it seems there must be a choice made between happiness and art. The Brave New World sacrificed art, and had the 'feelies' and scent organs in its place. The inquisitive nature of art and science is incompatible with happiness, claimed the Controller. An emphasis on beauty and truth is transposed by Ford’s emphasis on comfort and happiness. To be productive happiness is required, constant reassurance and security essential. This brings us back to the here and now, where the cameras keep us cosy; the TV keeps us medicinally entertained ; football keeps us fit and fighting, improving our strategy skills. There is little room left for art.

Profitable Comfort Culture for the Masses.

Jean Francios Lyotard argues that society is content on living in the fantasy of a determined reality, under the illusion of nostalgia, and in a climate of fear. Whether this is modern, post-modern, or both and simply capitalist, is not clearly defined. Lyotard explains how the authorities once believed that post-modernism, being the patron of diminution and moderation, could never offer society the ideological security blanket which dominant modernisms did. Their fear was that a society without security would be a society of doubt, concern, question, overrule, riot and chaos. Lyotard is suspicious that the security blanket is a mere illusion disguising totalitarianism. He says:
“Let us wage a war on Totality; let us be witnesses to the unpresentable; let us activate the differences and save the honour of the name.”
Lyotard is celebrating the fragmentary effect of post-modernism, which conceives of itself as a reaction to the modernist, and ostensibly totalitarian view of reality.

In “The Post-modern Condition” Lyotard posits intricate differences between modernity and post-modernity, initially by stating that:
“Post-modernism, thus understood, is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant.”
Meaning, by definition of ‘nascent’, that post-modernity is that which is constantly in the process of birth or becoming. Post-modernism fractures totalities, and activates differences, but then goes on to pacify the resistance of each newly formed section of society. Passive, reassured, segmented societies are easier to control, and come with their own modifications of security blankets. The authorities now see how post-modernism can be used to their advantage – divide and rule.

The nature of post-modernism’s constant nascentness encourages the search for new means of presenting the unpresentable. The works of modernist artists and writers are often unoriginal for they work within a strict set of predetermined rules, in contrast to post-modernist work, which seeks to be free from familiar categories. Paradoxically, post-modern work actually seeks rules and categories, so therefore cannot be subject to them. Only after completion do the rules appear, thus the “post-modern would have to be understood according to the paradox of the ‘future anterior’.” An example of this is the post-modern essay, with its meaning or aim only found in its writing. In contrast to the modern fragment or excerpt, which has no immanent finality and seeks to reach its horizon of meaning at the level of its relationship to its referent, for the post-modern text its rules are within and can be read in a predetermined context.

With modernity, the aesthetic experience is no longer a judgement of taste but an exploration of historical and political problems. It seems, however, that modernity cannot achieve a “dialectically totalising experience” due to the nature of the discourse preventing synthesis in the context of capitalist social relations. Post-modernism therefore sets itself the job of picking apart modernist attempts at doing so, such as for example ‘The Enlightenment’, which attempted to unite the end of history and the subject.

Capitalism is a world in which all familiar objects/things/roles are subject to petty nostalgia, but which sits on the fence between modernism and post-modernism. It is a world in which ‘realism’ apparently ceases to exist. In this world it seems there is no longer experience, only ratings and experimentation. There is no longer replacement, only progression and evolution. Remember “the more stitches, the less riches”. It is the world where photography is a step past painting, cinema a step past literature. The aim here is for progression towards a more easily arrived at conclusion and identification. Websites could be seen to be the best achievement of this yet. An artist who makes art for their own therapeutic means is denying their moral obligation towards progression. They should instead be constantly attempting to present existence in its most deceivingly comfortable and hence non-truth form, using the skills that their predecessors made available to them. Only artists who obey these rules of art practice are able to modify the masses, to a point where the reality of objects can be achieved in an easily gratified representation. The artist becomes a useful tool, a cultural pilot of capitalist ideals.

The artist who uses the concepts of arts plasticity greatly risks losing their credibility and audience for they attempt to alter the reality and identity of the conformists. The ‘plasticity of art’ question transforms ‘is that beautiful’, into ‘is that art?’ But would the state (in its most neo-classic form) go to the lengths of censoring the experimental avant-garde? The undisputed ideal of the state is “correct images, correct narratives, correct form” , prescribed by them to remedy the anxieties and depressions of public experience. The possibility of an attack on art experimentation, by political academics, would be seen to be reactionary since it would arise from an a priori criterion on what is beautiful. Therefore, it would prohibit the artwork to define itself, and also from defining an audience. To answer my previous question, the state certainly would and is in fact already censoring the experimental avant-garde in this manner.

Crucially, specifically capitalist power, in contrast to political academic power, finds these previously disapproved trans-avantgarde and post-modern solutions to be more suited than the anti-modern ones. One particular, vital trait of post-modernist life is eclecticism, the selection of concepts from various sources, mirroring that false pluralism of the selection of products in the ritualised consumer-capitalist act of ‘choice’. Indeed, postmodern art and literature relates directly to such eclectic middle-class living. It therefore has easy assimilation and market acceptance, and thus an audience is more successfully gained. Contemporary art critic, Matthew Collings describes how the young British artist’s (aka yBa’s; Goldsmiths alumni of Sensation fame) have gained lasting power and popularity by using the following formula:
1) penetrate the fashionable, social realm (and be blasé about it)
2) resist sentimental assimilation into the artwork
3) reject the new/spectacular/coherent
4) be speculative and esoteric
5) profess to hold left-wing views
6) be an entrepreneur
Their work is kitsch and knowing and flexibly pious or non-pious, and therefore suited to the overwhelming taste of the patrons. This proves advantageous since their ‘anything goes’ attitude becomes fashionable and therefore profitable. Capitalism supposedly accommodates all needs; ‘realism’ therefore provides the taste and entertainment to the post-modernist patron junkies from which capitalists gain a purchase power position.

Again we have a guise under which the state can overlook ‘good taste’ in art to give way to popular hybrid, post-modernist taste. Cultural policy therefore becomes a threat to research in the fields of art and literature as the market is already large enough, what with it being able to manufacture recognisable, well-made, comfortable art. Similar to the Controller in Brave New World, Lyotard claims that in our world science and technology are feared just as suspiciously as art and literature for their threat to capitalist ‘realism’. We are already witnesses to the techno-science transcendence of the once respected ‘cognitive statements’; these are now subordinate due to techno-science’s performance and provision. Thus the unification of mechanics, industry and art-making keeps capitalism happy since their compulsory support of rules maintains capital;
“the rule that there is no reality unless testified by a consensus between partners over a certain knowledge and certain commitments.”
From this there arises a battle of faculties, a battle between “conceiving something and presenting something.” This refers to Kant’s distinction between ‘imagination’ and ‘understanding’ in the “Critique of Judgement”, which rephrases Plato’s theory that all things beautiful are so because they participate in the 'absolute' form of beauty. This defines for us a difference between the pleasure we might gain from a beautiful work of art, and the superior beauty it may be attaining to, for which of course an explanation is required prior to or during the viewing experience. We are able to witness beauty without knowing truly 'absolute' beauty. However, this is under the universal consensus, which poses a problem in presentation, for the only true universals, which can be conceived, are ‘infinite great’ and ‘infinite power’, which problematically cannot be presented. If absolutes cannot be instrumentally presented they cannot give us any real knowledge of reality. Therefore, what you see is what you get, no questions asked, unless you desire the life of an outsider-artist; the peripatetic.

"Anarchitecture"

By using the tricks and traits of consumer-capitalism, the 'outsider-artist' can be potentially subversive, whilst also elevating their existence as an artist. Photocopying, for example, is cheap, crude, and impermanent, but able to make swift and accurate reproductions, which caricatures bureaucrats and businessmen alike. The Anti-copyright Network therefore claim that it is a "powerful tool for subversion" , since it is widely accessible and requires no skills. The Network practices what Walter Benjamin described as the elimination of ‘aura’. In "The Work of Art in the age of Mechanical Reproduction" Benjamin describes how the inevitable progression of modern technology has caused a mechanical process in the production of art. To quote:
"The film is the art form that is in keeping with the increased threat to his life which modern man has to face."
The Network reveals how we are confronted with the "fab products of the multinationals" , such as photocopiers, image manipulation programmes (e.g./PhotoShop) and audio samplers. These defeat Benjamin’s ‘aura’, negating the traditional value of the artist as author, and Herbert Marcuse’s demand for autonomy . The Network see how this can be used to the capitalist opposition's advantage, since this negation opens culture to all, giving everyone the freedom to be creatively active.

The photocopy is therefore social, with its lacking ‘aura’, its uniqueness, techno-aesthetic and multiplicity. It doesn't share the sentiments of the artist author of grand masterpieces. The photocopy as an art medium is egalitarian. The aesthetic and format of official authoritative documents, (initially designed for corporations and governments,) can be easily adopted by the opposition. With ready access to the photocopier this mimicry is a sure way of undermining authority. Since the original copy and author is forgotten or lost, the developments of the poster are seen to come from "the enrichment of the collective sum" (clearly a communal concept) opposed to "sporadic bursts of (hierarchical) genius."

With poster copying, innovation evolves as a subtotal of that done so far. As I mentioned before, nothing is new, only progression; as the Situationist slogan goes, "Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it." As an accumulation flyposting can be seen to include all; the Network sees it as the cultural form of the minorities, "exciting, dangerous and subversive." The Anti-copyright Network encourages the use of posters as an agitational form to help "intensify the debates around interventional cultural practice in public spaces." Some of the best known artists to have flyposted are Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, and the Guerrilla Girls. This is their quasi-mission statement:
"Anti-copyright connects with this new media practice but also with its flip-side; manifestos, broadsheets, montages, pranks, disinformation and with the necessity of constructing political and cultural activity in the face of important and immediate threats such as homelessness, racism, the destruction of ecologies and so on."
Flyposting could therefore be the solution for those enthused by the idea of an oppositionary culture, which is militant and not romantic.

In material terms the poster counts as a mere second skin to the city’s membrane, which flakes off into dust shortly after it is pasted up. It is the ephemeral display of the city, opposed to the permanent monuments, which symbolise worth and ownership. When an interested viewer sees a flyposter they may well realise how impermanent it is and be encouraged to keep its message going by being active themselves. The concept of the city has contradictions, what with its shops, rubbish bins, executives and beggars. So called ‘Public Art’ attempts to please its constituency in the city, inevitably misrepresenting the contradictions. Flyposting however could be seen to embellish conflict as it provides an outlet for the victim and provokes those responsible. Working from the "orientations of struggle, challenge and acquiescence" flyposters urge the exposure of the victims desires and intentions.

The Anti-copyright Network reinforce the notion of how built environments are symbolically constructed in order to simultaneously allow and deny possibilities, creating an equally liberating and oppressive environment, which intentionally work to capital’s advantage, (remember the instance of Serra's Tilted Arc). The desire is for ‘public space’ to be one big shopping centre, where consumers have a bit of everything under one roof; Art-decor doorknobs, Tudor gables, an American grill house with neighbouring Sushi take-out, theatre, car park and specialist sock company. The Shopping Centre "embodies an official post-modernism; the pleasure dome of consumption." The shopping experience is also heightened by its stacked-up, super security, guarding off the tramps, demonstrators and thugs. The ultimate project of the shopping centre, as the Network describe it, is: "The channelling of desires into an endless and well monitored one room labyrinth."

The hierarchy of forms and functions once established under the architect’s authority is soon forgotten when trendy developers turn warehouses into a luxury apartments. The Bauhaus wanted to provide form and function in its most utilitarian form; they knew they could change social life by changing social space but couldn't bare the contradiction of changing a church into an art gallery. The Anti-copyright Network re-define 'public art' as that which is financed for the benefit of social development, (decided democratically). Civic attempts to improve matters through social projects often result in synthetic 'healthiness', and efface community participation, since they suffocate the diversity of the people and forbid any confrontation with those in authority.

The artist plays alien and objective social surgeon, having sympathy for the underprivileged. There is the birth of a new genre, specialised 'art for the people', but in its institutional context it’s all fake and probably now accompanied by a handbook. Career artists now stand on the same ground as the dominant authorities. Are they part of the same package, mutually dependant, Ying/Yang? Flyposting is maximum effect with minimal effort, the job is done, little cost, no capital, no reason to get an office. This engagement with culture, getting its hands dirty on the street and confronting the proletariat may be one of the only remaining ways to challenge the authoritative plateau. At its best, the DIY approach:
“creates a culture responsive to those taking part in it, diverts itself of any central authority and enables perpetual reinvention.”
Comic artist Harwood explains:
“for many working class artists ‘Fine Art’ is a redundant medium which can only collude with injustice through its ability to make the ruling class feel civilised.”
The poster, like the comic, may be one of the few remaining alternatives capable of defeating this.

The Proles Will Save Us!

Compulsory art theory at art colleges was only introduced into the curriculum in the 1980’s, encouraging the yBa’s to study the issues that concern the likes of Lyotard and flyposter artists, which gave them a critical approach to their own practice. This could be held to have aided their radical capabilities in taking art beyond public taste and expectations. Perhaps we shouldn’t necessarily be mistaken into likening the confident, disdainful attitude that many London artists now seem to have (which has come about partly from such critical awareness), to the depoliticised lottery culture of society, just because it is juvenile/arrogant/anti-intellectual/anti-collectivist. On the contrary, the yBa’s in particular claim to regard popular culture as an aesthetic worthy of personal critique, including the “pornographic, sleazy, abject and trivial.” This may at first sound potentially exciting, but in reality post-modernism has been repressive and distancing for the artist’s attempts at using the everyday. We are therefore dealing with a plague of iconophobia, which can dispute visual experience and suspect representation. Nevertheless, the yBa’s stand out from the 20th Century history of art. BANK are of the same generation but they stand out from the yBa’s. They stand out because they mock all that the yBa’s are or have done to gain such fame and fortune. BANK use irony. But is irony the difference here? By mocking the yBa entrepreneurs, BANK become ‘philistines’ of the art world who use, feel and make everyday stuff. Maybe it’s just ironic that BANK had the same education, opportunities and possibly the same funding as their contemporaries.

Zombie Golf was a BANK show at the BANK art space called ‘Gallerie Poo Poo’ (a joke on art world pretentiousness) , including lots of art on white walls and plinths. The art was confronted/watched/bogged at by zombie like, shabby, hand-made figures of the BANK group members. They were placed there in the gallery space, staring at the art, representing the ‘philistine’ with their everyday interrogations of the pleasure or purpose of the art. Of course, on the grounds of its bodily uselessness, the ‘philistine’ refuses the work. These added members to our golfing experience do not come across as hostile, but actually as quite a comfortable reminder that there is some intrinsic 'everydayness' missing from the work. It reminds the artists to work harder at serving the “sensitivities and judgements of the non-specialist spectator.”

Roberts believes that BANK lower the truth of art with their philistine common sense which, rather than exclude classes, exudes the reality that art has cognitive problems. And yet BANK have not failed by being the “philistine that possesses a dialectical identity across the borders of the empirical and discursive,” but have in fact been successful in unsettling the bureaucratic masters of post-modernism, which would otherwise be smoothly progressing to an ultra-efficient digital culture. Opposed to other artists who have lost critical tension through their clear identification with popular culture , BANK have been successful in adopting the language/form of popular culture. The illicit pleasure of doing such a thing is no longer so illicit it seems, for there is no shame or guilt to be felt in doing so.

Among the larger framework of the “ordinariness of culture” the everyday has been assimilated into art as if the two were mutually determining constituents. This however creates a new problem, for art seems to become no longer a culturally elite pleasure, but rather in its popular assimilation, just as commonplace as politics. Even the yBa’s unashamed engagement with porn/vulgarity/profane is becoming more desensitising and non-sensational. Tate Modern is an example of this
“as it stands for playful, empty, ironic, vacuity, hyper-professionalism, a sort of innocuous clumsiness, p.c. values and slightly diluted sexy fizz.”
Cocaine Orgasm, another show by BANK, exemplified the display of angry, intoxicated, bodily excess as the natural result of this “progressive eroticism into an angry voluptuousness.” Which reinforces the detachment involved in the artist's escape from the boundaries of post-modernism.

If BANK have not failed at the everyday engagement game, then why have they not received recognition up until now? Maybe their failure is having not reached art-stardom. But maybe exclusivity is part of the success in challenging the prescribed rules of culture under capitalism. If it is, is that relevant? BANK member Simon Bedwell elucidates:
“While article length features about under-ambitious twiddlers fill the mags, we’re as peripheral as ever… and whether this is because we haven’t just done one thing again and again and again, or we haven’t behaved correctly socially, or we’re just crap and naïve and haven’t entered the marketplace because we couldn’t rather than wouldn’t… is not for me or us to say, partly because we don’t know.”
It seems that BANK are proud of their exclusivity, and being peripheral is success to them.

In contrast, yBa’s like the Chapman Brothers appear to thrive off popularity. They are constantly productive, always making art and getting shows and doing interviews, but their success is dependant on the formula I mentioned in part two (p.14). Their bloody, apocalyptic scenes are familiar to our preconceived notions of massacre and apartheid. In a documentary called ‘Taboo’, regarding the violent content of their work, they said that “art should not have a redemptive ending” . But their work is redeemed and excused and shall never change the face of war and apartheid because it has been entirely subsumed into the context of art. Their work gives the press something to talk about, but never really affects our consciences.

The Chapman's are undoubtedly more popular and receive much more media attention than BANK. They are now celebrities and they even have their own gallery, which interestingly has hosted a show by BANK . Maybe the Chapman's admire and wish to encourage BANK’s attempts to gain appreciation from the ordinary non-art public, and respect their efforts at assimilating intellect and quotidian in art. If so, they must also appreciate BANK’s negative, sloppy, adolescent activities. Or perhaps we’re simply dealing with a ‘yuppie’ elite sphere of mutually reinforcing entrepreneurial activity. Either way, Emin and McQueen showed up to the private view, and Mr Mayor from Cork Street. It was quite an event, no performances, no zombies, free beer and Goldsmiths girls in fairy wings galore. BANK had done their 'work', they could now sit back and enjoy. Everyone took a quick glance at the paintings and said 'yes, that is art', kissed Simon and Millie, then mingled. BANK are aware of each and every one of their successively more contradictory endeavours, and appear to be quite sensitive about them. Collings reveals how Simon often feels like a loser and how he makes “evasive mutterings.” BANK are ashamed at being involved in the clique, Shoreditch art scene, but at the same time they are down about not having a representative. So they let themselves look vulnerable and shy and go for the Chapman exposé anyway, because after all they are only human.

Failed anar(t)hists.

In contrast to the popular success of the yBa’s and the borderline peripheral success of BANK, there are artists concerned with social change and innovation whose revolutionary concepts and creations leave them out in the cold: Firstly, there is Nils Norman, an independent artist, who is passionate about social change and the creator of admirably innovative art works. I saw one of his 2000 works as part of a group show at the RCA called 'democracy!' It was a bicycle carrying a cabinet full of environmental books with a solar powered photocopier on top entitled The Gerrard Winstanley Radical Gardening Space Reclamation Mobile Field Centre and Weather Station (European Chapter). Emily Pethrick describes his work as being:
“informed by local urban politics and ideas on alternative economic and ecological systems that work within the city, merging urbanist utopic alternatives with a humorous critique of the history and role of public art.”
Norman has unintentionally positioned himself as a social revolutionary, his audience and support coming only from exclusive subversive groups. He gave a slide presentation at the RCA, where I learned more about his less gadgety, more realisable art designs. Mostly he creates small architectural models, using standard sawdust and imitation brick paper effects to design living compartments, which encourage communal living and perma-culture. Some of his projects are titled: Eco/Civil Disobedience Bookmobile, Underground Agrarians, The Edible Garden, and The Tompkins Square Park Monument to Civil Disobedience. Norman’s audience were pleasantly amazed at how practical these ideas were, and were quite insistent that Nils approach the council about building these designs. Nils then revealed that he was actually on the board of social housing in New York, but remained only as an orally contributing member, not designer or architect. The models in themselves remain intriguing and remind the viewer of the various unexplored ways of living. With such possibilities (subversive, commie, life-changing possibilities) Norman is contrary to capitalist ideals. While BANK challenge the conformities of contemporary art, Norman ultimately reviles the consumable, disposable, material intentions of capitalism. If Nils were a character in Brave New World he’d be shunned for mending his own socks.

Secondly there is N55, a Dutch collaboration, (non-celebrities). They make art in the form of practical utilitarian solutions and could be seen to make their art politically. In their booklet "Art and Reality" they expound how inextricably related persons are to art, and how we should respect persons if we are to respect any work of art. They also talk a great deal about power and concentrations of power. To quote:
"Concentrations of power do not always respect the rights of persons. They characterise our society, force persons to concentrate on participating in competition and power games, in order to create a social position for themselves."

N55 bring to my awareness the concentrations of power which have vested interests in the art world. For instance: the mass media holding reign over art criticism; capital collecting and owning art; and the state inspecting its political content. N55 state that -
"one cannot permit these concentrations of power to have decisive influence and at the same time respect persons, the rights of persons or art."

N55 also have firm beliefs on how an artist should practice, such as maintaining in the smallest concentration of power possible, raising consciousness, and having concern for politics.
"In this case we have a fundamental ethical norm and thus ethics become decisive for aesthetics. A case where politics become decisive to the performance of art."

Not only do they believe this but they also experience this through their daily art activities. In the summer of 2000, N55 deposited an interactive unit around the back of Sainsburys on Canterbury’s River Stour. Entitled ‘Public Things’, the multi-functional, tetrahedral construction formed an island which not only attracted ducks for nesting and collected river debris, but its components could also be used as a shower, public speaker, seating, protective sleeping, lighting and more. It was art and purpose at its most functional. However, it looked like an abstract heap of aluminium poles; not a splash of water-colour or chunk of pottery in sight. It therefore did not appeal to the taste of Canterbury’s public. Frequent river walkers were in fact so angered by N55’s work that they took to sensationalising it in the local press. Audrey Eyton, author of the best-selling ‘F-Plan diet book’ said that she “loves good modern art, but this is beyond a joke” and after her walk that day she felt ready to murder someone. Another intelligent response came from one of Canterbury’s Councillors:
“My suggestion to the ‘art’ on the riverbank is to put it in the river in a big hole, unfortunately the dullness of the art would destroy the beauty of the river.”
This leads me to assume that the taste of Cathedral City middle class dwellers greatly depends on the aesthetic of pretty, eye pleasing and soothing visuals. This leaves no room for the experimental avant-garde, or for artists of utopian innovation.

This recalls Herbert Marcuse’s critique of Marxist aesthetics, which claims that any intentional effort to make art which has a social or public use defeats the intrinsically subversive potential of art alone. His distinctly bourgeois preference is for the “poetry of Baudelaire and Rimbaud, rather than the didactic plays of Brecht”. His main point, however, is that the artist must remain autonomous in order to fulfil their subversive potential. Marcuse’s successor, Carol Becker, brings this idea up to date with the following statement:
“If there is a utopian aspect to art, it is in the rare spaces where artists can free themselves from the expectations of the art market and the contingencies of the economic reality to immerse themselves in the making of their work.”

This reminds me of Matthew Collings recent television series called “Hello Culture” , which was a basic account of romanticism throughout the history of art, music and literature. Romanticism and making the world a better place, Collings declares, is the notion behind every revolutionary and can only be driven by sincerity and passion. Becker supports this with her observation that “art that is considered ‘political’ by the art world often has little to do with the larger political arena” , and that the political strength of art can in fact be achieved one - dimensionally, even using suspect mediums like painting. This reminds me of BANK once again. Their interview with Collings was shown on national television, and the work they presented was nothing but paint on canvas, thickly spread, oozy, abstract and fully felt. BANK seem to be following the N55/Becker formula for subversive art, which they believe somehow excuses them of contradiction. Simon confirms to his confused audience that, ‘yes, BANK are romantic’ , and peripheral, and invite the occasional 5 minutes of media fame.

“London Kills Me.”

Recent films like “American Psycho” and “Fight Club” describe the feeling of psychotic frustration which can result from living in a numbing capitalist society. The central characters in both films are driven to murder and terrorism respectively,
"and what else should we expect but occasional psychotic eruptions on a vast plain of disengagement sustained by an economy devoted to simulation."
If awareness can only do harm, then ignorance must be our only hope of bliss. Happiness requires no art or questions, just formulaic life routines and distraction. Lasn and Grierson describe the symptoms,
"the more anxious we get the more we need to be distracted; the more distracted we are, the more anxious we get."
Refusing to think about, let alone answer, the big questions of the world at breakfast is a defence mechanism, since ignorance is a known reservoir of 'bliss', but how far can we take it?

Fictional character Ian Wharton try the 'bliss' solution. He is a top marketing consultant who wears Barrie's suits and underpants. He wants the typical lifestyle of a successful city worker, which he gains. He appears to lead an ordinarily blissfully simple life. However, he has another, hidden, uncontrollable self; an eidetic, manipulating and murdering alter-ego. Like the American Psycho, Ian soon enjoys the fact that through the mask of his successful image he can get away with anything. Jeffrey Archer, on the 18th July 2001, was charged with perjury and now faces four years imprisonment. Archer was all this time deceiving us; he led two lives. We were so shocked, by the hour, on each television channel that this ‘great travesty’ was mentioned. I say shock, but it’s not authentic shock, but a mere simulated, pain-free experience, because of course on TV and in newspapers nothing is real. The violent or otherwise shocking events above are caused, claim Lasn and Grierson, by the "emotionless violence so pervasive in contemporary pop-culture" . They maintain how the work of artists like David Fincher, Will Self and even the Chapmans, act as exhortations, by which we should be warned to strive not to be ignorant.

Consumer capitalism may well cater for our need to have the occasional adrenaline outburst, and even encourages us to lead an eclectic lifestyle, but instead of having Violent Passion Surrogate treatments available over the counter, the authentic experience of change and risk for us is remedied (in other words repressed) by the notion of fatalism. Like art with a redemptive ending, the belief that everything is predetermined serves as an excuse for us to deny the responsibility of being an individual. Consumer capitalism successfully alienates individuals from their friends, turning their responses towards the 'masses', which in turn seduces them into buying the products of the 'masses'. We can then be sold solutions to our isolation and depression, as the advertisers assure us that, "Our products will make you whole again" . Products such as expensive psycho-analysis sessions or Chi healing; DIY self-help guides or Feng Shui desk tidy manual; over priced herbal highs and other drugs .

Such "Malignant Sadness" isn't a purely contemporary issue. Jean Paul Sartre, the man of existentialism, accounts his torment and anxiety in his 1938 book 'Nausea'. Louis Stevenson illustrated the possibility of an alter-ego with "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". Marquis de Sade is yet another historical example. The sadness isn't new, in fact back then it was admired in a masochistic way, since it was a symptom of profound intelligence. What's new now is the avoidance, or the exploitation, of sadness. Orwell’s Winston Smith thought that “If there was hope, it lay in the proles” , but Channel 4 reports that in 2001 the public were more active in consumer surveys than they were for the 2001 national election. Joe Public is fixed on working hard to get the money to pay for his therapy. He's got football frenzy and Christmas hype and interactive Big Brother eye-spy home entertainment. Why would he want to upset that with a revolution? He may support the wars or distant revolution the media inform us of, but to be involved in the real thing, for the average Brit, is another matter.

The media successfully deceive us into believing that we are well informed, which satisfies our need for involvement. But as I mentioned before, the capitalist state allows us the pleasure of involvement in order to control us. The media portray the concerns of the nation with soap opera emotions, frosted frames, dramatic soundtrack and photo stills to enhance our safe, home-viewed experience of authentic world disasters. The 2001 May Day protests were against globalisation, capitalism and exploitation. The protesters claim that the September 11th terrorist attacks are rooted in one cause, U.S. foreign policy. The pro-active, eco-warrior can have their say and is certainly allowed to attempt to change the world, but only within the increasingly invisible guidelines of capitalism. Endorsing Collings' view of a "revolution where nothing is expected to change" , Lasn and Grierson regretfully inform us that "the modernist tradition of progress and ceaseless extension of the frontiers of innovation are now dead." Hammering the nail in the coffin that also contains the avant-garde, utopian visions, resistance, revolution, and originality.

The narrator of “Fight Club” , played by Edward Norton, had no other name in the film than those he either falsely assigned to himself at the self-help groups; or that which he used when describing himself as the bodily functions of an unknown Jack character; or that which we later find out to be his alter ego, super self, Tyler Durden. Reviewers and even the Blockbuster video description on the back of one of their rentals failed to notice this, they called the main character Jack! Like the critics, most of the audience believed the fight to be for manhood, against the emasculation of men by feminised power.

The fight however, as more enlightened viewers are aware, is for our survival. It’s against the commodity, against purchase and decoration and group therapy, against a life under constant surveillance, or under the false impression that we must hold one full time day job, and have a Visa card in order to be happy. Fight Club announces this subtly, confirming the suspicions of those already harbouring them, but excluding the majority that has never contemplated a conspiracy theory. Capitalism has given us everything, even chaos and danger in small doses. It’s only small minorities who crave unlimited quantities of such drugs. Thus Fight Club could be seen as yet another exclusive work of art with a politically challenging message restricted to a disabled, angst-ridden minority.

Conclusion.

In Camden Town there was a young, faded denim and leather clad man with a Germanic accent. He sold me a screen printed cloth patch with an illustration of a sleek, white-smiling, suit wearing businessmen holding a baby, the text on the print read “Kill the rich and eat their babies.” In other words, witness the consumption of our own grotesque capabilities. Like in Fincher’s previous box office smash “Seven” , this example of art illustrates the fear that we shall be punished for gluttony, for sloth, and for wrath. We seem to be slowly consuming ourselves, so killing the rich may be further progression. The patch served as a reminder for that. The patch was that man's art and that man's message, and like fly-posting, his aim was to stick them to us to remind us not to be greedy.

Throughout the paper I have frequently mentioned the art collective BANK, in a somewhat contradictory manner. In the former part of the paper I described how different and more in touch BANK are compared to the other more successful yBa's. Yet a few paragraphs further I described the cliquey geniality of the scene at their recent viewing. The truth of the matter being that, and I quote, BANK "believe in Art; popular culture is for idiots!” . They do actually respect and maintain the power of the 'work of art'; hence they give out free beer to fairy winged Goldsmiths students and alumni. BANK are therefore not social revolutionaries as they first appeared to be, but in fact merely art revolutionaries. Their ultimate passion for art and only art may leave them vacuum packed in the Tupperware land of Shoreditch, however:
“BANK believe the real revolution is in the head – not through the imposition of structural solutions, but through the provision of a new world consciousness.”
Their recent exposure, with the Chapmans and in their first book, has suggested their sincerity and humanity, both of which Collings claims to be essential for a forward looking artist. I'd have to agree with him when he says:
“BANK’s surly, self-destructive, self-conscious, introspective attitude – combined as it is with critical intelligence and a flair for spotting weaknesses in the art system – is what will make winners in the end of whoever’s still in the group.”

N55 have a passion for politics and what an artist should be like, which leaves them quite unpopular since they create utilitarian rather than eye-pleasing art. However, there may be some truth in what they say about concentrated powers in architecture, for it seems that life, and what we live in, is far more interesting than local elections. Nils Norman designs for alternative ‘lifestyles’, and since his designs simply adapt that which we are used to already, they are far more attractive than N55’s. In the 2001 May Day protests the ‘Wombles’ and friends used humour to rally against capitalism. The ‘Wombles’ could be seen to be satirical, so could BANK. However, Pilger reveals that when Rupert Murdoch won the ‘Humanitarian of the Year Award’ from the United Jewish Appeal Foundation, (presented by Henry Kissinger, who had previously won a Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution for ‘peace’ in Vietnam), the U.S. satirist Tom Lehre retired “because clearly satire was now dead.”

When it comes to making truly subversive or socially critical work which gets a chance to engage with the people it’s talking about, we should be reminded by Jean-Luc Goddard who said something about not simply making political art, but making art politically. Flyposting and graffiti are both examples of the latter since they are, or at least have been until very recently, non-marketable mediums which interfere directly with public space. Graffiti artist Barry McGee (aka Twist) observes that the most beautiful works of public art
“can be a rock soaring into a plate glass window at Starbucks or a message spray painted across the façade of Exxon’s Headquarters.”
Today’s urban streets are full of relegated members of society, muttering solitary anxieties to themselves. Graffiti art could restore the human element so lacking in their world. Our London art world correspondent, Matthew Collings, urges us, the new generation of artists to:
"not just reflect the numbness of society and be fashionably Nihilistic, demand that the future be better!"
Maybe there is hope that post-post-modernism will revive the faith that there are things in life worth living for, and that those particular things are more achievable for all of humanity than we think.

Primary Bibliography

Texts

1. Anti-copyright network with introduction by M. Fuller,
Flyposter Frenzy (Workers Press, 1992)
2. Archer, M, Art since 1960 (Thames & Hudson, 1997)
3. BANK, BANK (Black Dog Publications, 2000)
4. Benjamin, W, The Work of Art in the age of mechanical reproduction, from Benjamin, W, "Illuminations" (Harpercollins, London, 1992)
5. Collings, M, Art Crazy Nation – The post-Blimey! Art world (21 publishing, 2001)
6. Harwood, C, IF COMIX, Mental (Working Press)
7. Huxley, A, Brave New World (Flamingo Modern Classic, 1994)
8. Huxley, A, Brave New World Revisited (Flamingo Modern Classic, 1994)
9. Koolhas & Mau, S,M,L,XL (Monacelli, 1995)
10. Lyon, The Electronic Eye (Polity Press, 1994)
11. Lyotard, J.F, The Post-modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Manchester University Press, 1997)
12. Kureshi, H, London Kills Me (Faber & Faber, 1991)
13. Marcuse, H, The Aesthetic Dimension: Toward a critique of Marxist Aesthetics (Macmillan Educational Ltd., 1990)
14. Orwell, G, Nineteen Eighty-Four (Penguin, 1983)
15. Parker, J, Total Surveillance (Piatkus, London 2000)
16. Pilger, J, Hidden Agendas (Vintage, 1994)
17. Pethrick, E, democracy! Socially engaged art practice, (Royal College of Art, MA Visual Arts Administration: Curating and Commissioning Contemporary Art, 14/4 – 12/5 2000, Catalogue supported by Pale Green Press, 2000)
18. Sartre, J.P, Nausea (Penguin, 2000)
19. Self, W, My Idea of Fun (Penguin, 1993)
20. Servin, Luther, Wendgt and Aubakke, Art & Reality (N55, Sept. 1999)
21. Tarnas, R, The Passion of the Western Mind (Pimlico, 1991).

Journals/Newspapers

1. Charity, Beating a Retreat (Time Out, 29/09 – 06/10/1999)
2. Eburne, L, That ‘rubbish’ is Danish art (Kentish Gazette, 20/07/00) and Your Letters (Kentish Gazette, 27/07/00)
3. Grierson & Lasn, Malignant Sadness (Adbusters, No. 30, June/July 2000) pp.28-39
4. Honigman, American Graffiti (Contemporary, 2002)
5. Jovanovic, Bulldozer Revolution (Thames & Hudson, World of Art 45th Birthday Newspaper, 2000)
6. McLean, Fuck You Hero (The Face, December 1999)
7. Roberts, J, Mad For It! Philistinism, the Everyday and New Brit. Art (Third Text 35, Summer 1996)

Film/Television

1. Bakewell, Taboo (BBC2, 05/12/01)
2. Collings, M, Hello Culture (Channel 4, 11pm 22/07/01) www.channel4.com/plus/
3. Dir. Fincher, D, Fight Club (20th Century Fox, 1999)
4. Dir. Fincher, D, Seven (New Line Cinema, 1995)
5. Dir. Harron, M, American Psycho (Lions Gate Films, 2000) Based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis
6. Dir. Kaufman, P, Quills (20th Century Fox, 2000)
7. The end of politics (Channel 4, 13/05/01)
8. The Rebels; The Bob Marley Story (Channel 4, 11/05/01 1.a.m)
9. The rulers of the world: The Oklahoma bombing (Channel 4, 13/05/01)

Internet

1. E-mails from Simon Bedwell, (14.04.01 13:36)
2. www.n55.dk/
3. http://www.q.com/movie/fightclub.html
4. http://www.msnbc.com/news/329028.asp?cp1=1
5. http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&id-1800018964&cf=info
6. http://yp.washingtonpost.com/e/m/wasdc/0000/14/18

Secondary Bibliography

Texts

1. Andreotti & Costa, Theory of Derive and other Situationist Writings on the City (Musea d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 1996)
2. Atkinson, C, The State of the Art & The Art of the State (Working Press, 1991)
3. Baudrillard, J, The Silent Majorities (Semiotext, 1987)
4. Coren, A, The Bulletins of Idi Amin (Robson Books, 1974)
5. Ed.Elliot, Wounds; Between Democracy and Redemption in Contemporary Art (Moderna Musset, 1998)
6. Foucault, M, Discipline and Punish (Peregrine Books, 1986)
7. Foucault, M, (Ed.Gordon,) Power/Knowledge: Selected interviews and writings 1972-1977 (Harvester Press Ltd, 1980)
8. Foucault, M & Ewald, interview, The Regard for Truth (Art and Text 16, summer 1984)
9. Kerouac, J, On The Road (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics, 1991)
10. Morris, Postmodernity and Lyotard’s Sublime (Art and Text 16, summer 1984)
11. Norris & Armstrong, The Maximum Surveillance Society (Berg, 1999)
12. Rosler, Place, Position, Power, Politics (Chapter 5) and Becker, Herbert Marcuse and the subversive potential of art (Chapter 8) from Becker, “The Subversive Imagination: Artists, Society and Social Responsibility” (Routledge, 1994)

Journals/Newspapers

1. Burrows, D, Art & Language/BANK (Art Monthly, Dec. ‘98/Jan. ’99)
2. Charlesworth, The Art of the Third Way (Art Monthly, Nov. 2000)
3. Collings, M, Oliteski’s Excellence (Modern Painters, Autumn 1998)
4. East International & Riverside (Art Monthly, Sept.’99)
5. Ekpo, How Africa Misunderstood the West; The failure of Anti-West Radicalism and Postmodernity (Third Text 35, Summer 1996)
6. Khilnani, Concrete Utopia (Thames & Hudson, World of Art 45th Anniversary Newspaper, 2000)
7. Roberts, Was This Saddam’s Bomb? (The Sunday Times News Review, 25/02/01)

Film/Television

1. Colleridge, Surveillance Society, from “The Sci-files” (BBC2, 03/03/97)
2. Council spies for “First Sight” (BBC2, 26/02/98)
3. Dir. Haas, P, The Music of Chance, Based on the novel by Paul Auster (1993)
4. Dir. S. Jonze, Being John Malkovich (Universal Pictures International, 1999)
5. Dir. Szabo, I, Sunshine, Mephisto, Colonel Redl

Internet/Other

1. Pieced together shreddings from Cork Street case, Feb. 2001.
2. Cold Cut www.Re:Volution.com
3. Interview with Douglas Foght: http://www.vpro.ml/data/laat/material/chapman-bros-interview.shtnl and with Maia Damianovic: http://www.ca-online.com/chapman.html