Nothing Special

Having visited my first Literature Festival, in Norway, I’ve been thinking more about value and the different ways in which it accrues in the art and poetry worlds. One thing that struck me was the importance of delivery in poetry. Regardless of content- which I mostly couldn’t understand- it was clear that intonation, timing and projection were desirable attributes, meaning that some performances were riveting even in a foreign language. For example Paal Bjelke Andersen, rapid-firing a list of nouns taken from New Year’s speeches of Scandinavian prime ministers; and Christian Bök where the delivery was inseparable from the content, at least when reading sound poems (including one by Kurt Schwitters). His performance was exciting, funny and verging on terrifying, and as a viewer I appreciated the effort made to convey the tonal discrepancies and variations in volume and intonation.

Perhaps it’s the question of the importance of the ‘good performance’ that differs in the art and moving-image context, where there is something almost suspect about it, suggesting too much of a desire to please, or to be ‘professional’, or to entertain the audience. While I can’t find any quotes to corroborate the idea, Peter Gidal immediately came to mind; he would probably claim that it’s not the avant-garde filmmakers’ job to entertain and if the viewer wants entertainment, they have Hollywood.

I’m sure some would accuse ‘video art’ as a genre of adhering to the boring = ‘good’, engaging = ‘bad’ formula. This situation was parodied as far back as 1971 by John Baldessari with his video “I will not make any more boring art”, a self-deprecatingly knowing proposition which humorously and intentionally undermines its title. Perhaps its also associated with the idea of performance as fulfilling some sort of neo-liberal agenda- we perform well, we are flexible and adaptable, we are good for the economy. Artists like to resist this idea- or maybe that’s just me.

Another thing is the hoary old question of originality which plagues poetry, it would seem, even more so than it does art. I leafed through Marjorie Perloff’s Unoriginal Genius while at the festival, and read a chapter on poet Kenneth Goldsmith, which points out that the poetry world is still catching up with aesthetic concepts- such as appropriation, cut and paste, plagiarism- formulated in the visual arts decades ago. These aesthetic concepts are championed by a new breed of conceptual poets, like Bok, Caroline Bergvall, who re-use found language, championing what Goldsmith calls ‘uncreative writing’.

Crucially he also name-checks Conceptual Art, and Sol Le Witt, in both the title of his manifesto- Paragraphs on Conceptual Writing- and in its final statement: “the idea is a machine that makes the text”. As with Le Witt’s paragraphs, ‘execution is a perfunctory affair’; and according to him, the reader need not even bother with the actual task of reading a book such as Traffic (2007), which is billed a straight transcription of traffic reports from one of New York’s ‘jam cams’.

Its definitely boring, an attribute normally anathema to poets that Goldsmith gleefully embraces, proclaiming himself the most boring writer working today. Boring, and by his own admission, completely unoriginal. So why is his work valued in a poetry community which is still attached, not just to ‘the word, but My Word’ (as he puts it)?

Perloff argues that on closely reading his work, the ‘straight’ transcription turns out to be a little bent- either through Oulipo-like constraints or by time elisions which help create a vaguely coherent narrative. Does this show that his so-called ‘uncreativity’ nevertheless exhibits some ingeniousness, thereby making him a genius, albeit one who uses/ processes unoriginal texts, as opposed to creating ones? Or maybe what is valued is the decision to undertake a writing project like that in the first place; the sheer mind-numbing boredom, and effort, involved in its execution, which echoes durational performance art strategies.

Or maybe in a nod to Warhol, whom Goldsmith greatly admires, its ingeniousness is precisely in savouring, instead of ignoring or complaining about, the excruciatingly mundane- but unavoidable- aspects of city living. By paying it some attention, traffic and its concomitant ‘unloved’, valueless language is transformed into something worth caring about.

Kenneth Goldsmith reads poetry at White House Poetry Night

I’ve added one last image and video to my video Manifesto Piece; this blog consists of a few thoughts on the project. Duncan White also mentions the video in a post about Street Art, writing that “the policing of street space combined with its commodification, has forced artists to consider more closely the increasingly mediated condition of the ‘street’ itself.”, an observation which was one of the first things I noticed when I moved to London 13 years ago. Even then, London’s street space was totally rationalized, accounted for – either for commercial or public purposes, there was sense of it being instrumentalised to produce certain types of behavior.

With Manifesto Piece, hand-drawn posters of different texts were stuck around London in various public spaces and filmed. The texts are corporate slogans fronted with the phrase ‘we want to’, converting them into demands, promises or unfulfilled yearnings. Taking inspiration from Nietzsche’s statement ‘We want to be the poets of our lives’, and the use of the phrase ‘we want’ in political speeches, philosophical tracts, polemics and corporate verbiage I was interested in the commonality between these different discourses. Each lays out a vision of a belief in something; each tries to sum it up succinctly in a way that will resonate with the wider culture.

Zizek (and others) have pointed out how the ‘spirit’ of ’68, was embraced by the new capitalism which evolved out of this anti-hierarchical movement, “presenting itself as a successful libertarian revolt against the oppressive social organizations of corporate capitalism”. Fittingly, May ’68 revolutionary slogans like “Be realistic, ask the impossible” could be imagined as corporate taglines for a high-tech gadget; even current tracts like The Coming Insurrection contain slogans such as “Get Going” which wouldn’t be out of place advertising weight loss, a brand of trainers, or an MBA programme. These overlaps in language could simply be a consequence of the limited number of expressions at a writer’s disposal, but perhaps point to a desire to get beyond mere words, to kick off some sort of action through the use of this instructive voice.

The use of the ‘we’ also posits a collective expression, whereby the many become one; it also implies the existence of ‘them’, the ones left out, excluded in this act of inclusion. Dave Beech discusses this in relation to Ranciere’s take on the politics of participation, namely that it necessarily implies division; an inclusive practice that neither can nor does include all necessitates the separation of society in to participants and non-participants, or “them” and “us”. (Include Me Out, Art Monthly (April 2008)).

Although he is talking about the political implications of participatory art, the question of them and us applies also to the use of the collective ‘we’ by politicians and corporations. Positioned in public spaces varying from run down side streets to shiny new developments, the posters ask who the ‘we’ the text refers to is, and conversely who the ‘them’ is.

The them/ us divide of the public realm is thrown into sharper relief now that ostensibly public spaces like city centres, housing estates and shopping precincts are increasingly being run by private companies. As private developers prefer an ABC1 clientele, a whole section of the ‘public’ is excluded, and not especially welcome: not just the poor but also photographers and political protesters. This tendency towards explicit (e.g. gates communties) or implicit sectioning off of public space to ‘undesirables’ is also reflected in virtual space. Sylvere Lotrigner spoke of plans to create a ‘gated community’ online, while rumours have been circulating for years about a new Web in which access is only free to big sites, with all smaller ones being pay-to-view.

The use of corporate slogans in what looks like illegally posted bills onto spaces normally reserved for public transport announcements or commercial adverts reflects the confusion as to where the public is positioned in relation to the corporate world. Is there any distinction between public and corporate space? And if the citizen is a consumer, then perhaps the posters are an expression of the danger of becoming so wholly integrated with commercial concerns that even a radical practice cannot ‘see’ or speak beyond it.