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.
