This can not be our revolution

For the first time in many years I find myself motivated to pursue cultural revolution. And ashamedly, I find my motivation in a selfish desire to avoid violent protests of a banal consumer nature to beat me to it. My distraction almost complete, I felt prompted to write about it.

Let me explain:

Every 20 or so years there is a cultural revolution. The beat and jazz revolution in the 40’s with the likes of Kerouac, rhythm and blues, and the emancipation of women’s clothing (The Bikini!) and employment and the dissolution of old empires. The 60’s had their revolution spurred on by rock’n’roll, the evolution of the beat movement into ‘counter-culture’ and the sexual revolution. The technological revolution of the 1980’s and the rise of hiphop and DIY rock in a variety of forms emerged (I won’t mention the fashion). All accompanied by new invention, new cultural expression and social forms.

…And then it would seem that we waited for 30 years… We shelved space travel and interplanetary colonization, we developed the genres incrementally and diversely but didn’t really create much that was new, there was nothing new under the sun, and we could have it all… and we had ‘the clash’ playing ‘know your rights’ on repeat. We didn’t really go anywhere from there, and we re-embraced 80’s fashion, and vinyl, and aviators. We were cyclical consumers, re-living the latest revolution through our on-demand discographies (don’t get me wrong.. I love listening through my collection of late 90’s grunge or early millennium pop-punk).

And then on a Monday morning in 2011 I find myself watching the youth looting the European cities that I love, destroying their own neighbourhoods, demanding ‘respect’ and ‘equality’ and change. I see the whole world irrecoverably indebted to each other and facing collapse. I see a season crying out for creative invention and re-definition. What do we live for now? What is our future in this new uncertain world? And how do we get the change we want for our youth and for our cities? And not just incite unproductive conflict.

These latest riots in England have been characterised by one thing. Consumer choice. Sold a culture of accessories that they can’t afford, and unable to dismiss the proseletising of the TV, the rioting in London was not directed at symbols of the state or symbols of questionable morality, but at shoe stores and electronics games retailers and a few jewellery stores. Ipods, Gucci, Sony and Nike. Lootings looked like a child’s Christmas wish list rather than the hard won artifacts of rebellion.

Now note where the looting is taking place... Looters are targeting places based on their innaccessible consumer choices because that is what they think a) they need, and b) will demonstrate their rise to power and garner respect from authority and people to make them pay attention to their issues.

They can’t possibly really believe that A) we give a rat's arse about foot locker, and B) This crap they are taking is worth anything politically or socially. Are our youth really that naïve???

This is not meant to read as a justification by any means, I find it increadibly pathetic and very very sad. Here we have the cyclical cultural revolution (I suspect there is one brewing on the back of a GFC2.0, as essentially we have been waiting for one since the 80's)… ...but these kids are wasting their youth, their energy, and their creativity on shit. And we may only get a few opportunities to define what it is this future culture will be about beforeit gets hijacked by the hyper polar nodes of extremism and ultra-conservatism. I do not want 'my-revolution' to be about gucci bling and xbox. I want my future to be about communities, fiscal responsibility, p2p economies, creatively hacking oppressive systems to iterate and establish new equitable ones which focus on social rehabilitation instead of exploitation, and the power and purpose of youthful play and creative resilience in the face of immovable conservatism. I want it to be about liberty to create better freestanding systems that can be folded into the mainstream as a result of their success in a meritocracy. There has to be more for the youth to inherit. There has to be connection and ownership and civic evolution and cultural filigree.

We need alternatives to consumer-citizen engagement with place and people, and we need it now! We need to identify our limits, and overcome them daily with new creative and beautiful actions that, based upon their merits and success, can change the way we see and interact with the world.

SI and Architecture

Flicking through my old diary entries I discovered a summary for what I intended to be part of a university undergrad thesis. I figure if at the very least I can post it here, then I can either move on from it - or actually apply myself to it's realisation:

Since the birth of the SI, cultures and expressions within the built environment have changed dramatically. Sub cultures have developed, independantly of the SI, new systems of revolutionary thought that have become (or have the potential to become) more readily accessable to larger communities and cultural groups. Where the SI had trespass and graffiti, there now exists a plethora of other, more palatable vehicles through which the larger public can challenge their built environment's assumptions and oppression.

Activities identified for the purposes of further investigation include:
Parkour
Skateboarding
Technological Age Graffiti
Guerilla Gardening
Draininge/Vadding

It is proposed that these activities all share some foundational attitudes and methods which enable their effective implementation. All of these groups adopt a peer based, web enhanced network through groups such as facebook and online forums. The Web element relies on contribution by all members of the community to encourage and inspire each other. It is organic and often a pure meritocracy in organisational structure. Spontaneous and self-directed engagement is expected, placing the power of development and change directly in the hands of each individual participating.

as Constant wrote in the exhibition catalogue published by the Haags Gemeetenmuseum, The Hague, 1974;
"The culture ...does not result from isolated activities, from exceptional situations, but from the global activity of the whole world population, every human being being engaged in a dynamic relation with his surroundings. There are no a priori links between anyone. The frequency of each man's movements and the distances he will cover depend on decisions he will make spontaneously, and which he will be able to renounce just as simultaneously. Under these conditions social mobility suggests the image of a kaleidoscopic whole, accentuating sudden unexpected changes -- an image that no longer bears any similarity to the structures of a community life ruled by the principle of utility, whose models of behavior are always the same. In our case, the urban must respond to social mobility, which implies, in relation to the stable town, a more rigorous organization on the macro level, and at the same time a greater flexibility at the micro level, which is that of an infinite complexity. Freedom of creation demands in any case that we depend as little as possible on material contingency. It presupposes, then, a vast network of collective services, more necessary to the population in movement than to the stable population of functional towns."
(from: http://www.notbored.org/new-babylon.html. Accessed 5 April 2009)

An analysis of the contexts surround the developments of these groups would be benificial, beginning to understand the socio/media petri dish which each has developed from, and the communications systems used for community.

It is also important to consider threats to these new methods of free thought and movement, both perceived and real. Certainly a battle of ideals exists between the poles of community freedom and security based authoritarian fear mongering. Certainly in this current security culture the presence of a free spirit is like a breath of fresh air.

Lastly, In contrast to New Babylon's (Constant Nieuwenhuis) unbridled accomodation of hyper-desire and forced revolutionary thought, how can we make fertile the current built environment for new expressions of freedom, whilst exhibiting some sense of social responsibility and reason?


POSTCRIPT
Having said all this... I discovered a quote from Chtcheglov (on wikipedia of all places) which I believe gives some grounding to the despondancy I have felt lately as a result of my derive'(s)

"The dérive is certainly a technique, almost a therapeutic one. But just as analysis unaccompanied with anything else is almost always contraindicated, so continual dériving is dangerous to the extent that the individual, having gone too far (not without bases, but...) without defenses, is threatened with explosion, dissolution, dissociation, disintegration. And thence the relapse into what is termed ‘ordinary life,’ that is to say, in reality, into ‘petrified life.’ In this regard I now repudiate my Formulary’s propaganda for a continuous dérive. It could be continuous like the poker game in Las Vegas, but only for a certain period, limited to a weekend for some people, to a week as a good average; a month is really pushing it. In 1953-1954 we dérived for three or four months straight. That’s the extreme limit. It’s a miracle it didn’t kill us” (Ivan Chtcheglov, excerpt from a 1963 letter to Michèle Bernstein and Guy Debord, reprinted in Internationale Situationniste #9, p. 38)."

Food for thought.

Peace.