Refreshed by a certain extremism

[imomus]

Urgh, I've spent the day writing about "viral marketing" (also known as astroturfing, sock puppetry, stealth marketing, shilling, product placement, vlog-flogging etc) for Wired and am thoroughly minded to say -- with a great sweep of the hand -- "Away with the lot of this stuff!" (Which was also very much the vibe of yesterday's anti-capitalist Mayday celebrations in Kreuzberg, by the way.)

I've also been watching the big French presidential debate, and finding it disappointingly mealy-mouthed, as both candidates made a rush for centre ground. The candidate of the left spent much of her time praising entrepreneurs, promising to check immigration "on a case-by-case basis" and saying that Turkey's admission to the EU should be delayed and "thought about very carefully". I still hope Ceres wins on Sunday, naturally, but... how boring!

For truly red-blooded, unapologetic socialism -- the socialism of the future, according to British Army futurologists -- you have to travel to South America, where red presidents Chavez and Morales are happily -- and popularly -- re-nationalizing telecoms and energy companies in Venezuela and Bolivia.



Or how about Brazil, where the Sao Paolo government recently banned all billboards -- the "delete all option", as the International Herald Tribune calls it, conjuring images of other satisfyingly Draconian legislation like China's one child policy and Arnold Schwarzenegger's zero emissions target for California.

"The billboards were very very very ugly and for sure nothing besides visual pollution," my Sao Paolo spy (an art student at the university) tells me, when I suggest that Tokyo would be diminished by the removal of its neons and signs. "Tokyo seems to have a diverse homogeneity (it sounds paradoxical, but I hope you get it)... here everything was alike but there was no homogeneity... It wasn't nice at all. Now it's still ugly, but at least people are invited to think again about facades and advertising... Maybe it can turn into something better... Sometimes we need some radical decisions here."



"A rare victory of the public interest over private, order over disorder, aesthetics over ugliness, and cleanliness over trash," is how weekly newsmagazine Veja greeted the decision. "For once in life, all that is accustomed to coming out on top in Brazil has lost."

And it's true that you can't see any billboards whatsoever in the Sao Paolo pictured in CSS's Let's Make Love video. Not because they weren't there -- the video was shot last year -- but because they obviously didn't add anything aesthetically to the city's skyline or enhance its sexy young ambassadors. Now all we need to do is make cities as car-free as this video suggests Sao Paolo's freeways might be!

While we're in Brazil, being refreshed by a certain extremism, here's an extremely refreshing video of a re-enactment of a performance piece by Tropicália artist Hélio Oiticica. It's called Parangolés:

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Comments

[niddrie-edge.livejournal.com]

Just watched Storyville's two parter on Cuba's involvement in Africa.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/storyville/
Its hard not to see Castro as some kind of hero.

Storyville now has a myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/storyvilledocs)!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Castro is very much a hero.

Also, if we're collecting satisfyingly extreme views, after hearing Sego and Sarko vying with each other to contain Iran's nuclear program ever-more-effectively, it's nice to re-read Zizek's Give Iranian Nukes a Chance (http://www.lacan.com/zizekiranian.htm).

I think we need some "Extremism Brainstorming" classes to break out of the kind of stolid half-percentile concensus politics that prevails in Europe. 35 hour working week? Yes, says the left, Yes But says the right!

[dmlaenker.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, but I can't see Castro as a hero after the ways he treats queers in his country. Are you familiar with Before Night Falls?

Also, I thot you liked billboards? Not to be too confrontational, but I'm a little confused.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

The notion of Castro as hero is an obsenity. I lived next door to a Cuban family, and I could tell some first-hand accounts of people who have experienced Castro's so-called "heroism".

(I'm sure they were right-wing zealots, though. They had jobs and children.)

the tangled web

[niddrie-edge.livejournal.com]

I would never say I was in any way fond of heroes. My first gig was The Stranglers.

As someone who was studying Cuban intervention in Angola at the turn of the eighties it was refreshing to find that it wasn't all just a front for Soviet infiltration as South Africa's UNITA was a front for American Intervention. It is portrayed in the documentary I was linking to as independent defence of Third World Marxis-Leninism where as the West was defending Christianity would you believe. Those were heady times with Detente and the Cold War being fought out internationally.

As for Zizek, he has stirred some fuss among the left with his piece on the movie 300.

http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/009325.html

Reminds me of an old catchphrase in local Edinburgh Community politics, "the negation of the negation". This advice was spoken by some who it is rumoured funnel appropriated funds into Cuban bank accounts set up in the days when the Trotskyite Militant tendency were all taking holidays over there.

Allegedly.

[(Anonymous)]

What's so bad about delaying Turkeys entry into the EU? As long as they raid newspapers for writing non-groveling about the military, or throw people in jail for "insulting turkishness", why the hell would we want them?

[mcgazz.livejournal.com]

Because it's not those things that the EU is bothered about. It's worried that admitting a Muslim country will result in massed ranks of bulging-eyed Ottoman headchoppers charging the Gates of Vienna and demanding female circumcisions and adulterer-stonings be made mandatory.

[jannavarro.livejournal.com]

oh... i wish i could find a oiticica's movie with oiticica himself "playing" with the parangolés... it's so cool. (you know, more than some kids doing that at school...)

nbc - the more you know

[ex-newironsh15.livejournal.com]

Billboards are also banned in hawaii, which had a socialist-lite revolution in the 50s and 60s, led by the japanese.

[peacelovgranola.livejournal.com]

castro is, like most things in life, a mixed bag. his story is amazing, he's done some very good things, and some very bad things (the past treatment of homosexuals being just one). after he's very dead, it will be interesting to see what his brother is like--i've heard he's not a big orator, but may be even more of a military-hard-liner-type. who knows.

in general though, i do respect those who've held out in this hemisphere against america's meddling in their internal politics.

[jannavarro.livejournal.com]

btw, do you know that site? http://www.ubu.com/film/
there's no oiticica's movie, but they have a lot of interesting art-stuff.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ubu is one of the treasures of the web. It was the first place I went when I was searching for Oiticica films. II was quite surprised to see they had none.

My last Ubu viewing was some short films by Tadanori Yokoo, an Anton Corbijn film about Captain Beefheart, and a documentary about Jean Cocteau.

[wildbirdcall.livejournal.com]

Okay, blame the US for global warming and then criticize the governor who takes steps to abate it. There's a winning equation!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'm not criticizing Schwazenegger, quite the contrary! He's a breath of fresh air (well, his zero emissions policy, anyway).

[saruryujin.livejournal.com]

The 15 of March Ségolène want to accelerate Turkey's inclusion in the EU and just yesterday she feel to delay it! An opportunistic bitch with a nihilistic political agenda won't help France at all and France strongly need a change of mind, that won't happen either with a population of aesthete like you who rather dumb down socio-economic-political urgency for the celebration of crude urban facelift.
Momus like Ségolène retourne sa veste and foster the aesthete nihilistic multicoloured world in most of his
arty farty LJ post but then take stand for the removal of street billboards if it comes from left oriented lands…

Les stupéfiants propos de Ségolène Royal:

Ségolène Royal à la télévision ce jeudi 15 mars, souhaitant que la Turquie vienne « s’arrimer à l’Europe », a doctement professé qu’elle est « un grand pays laïque défendant les valeurs d’humanisme et de tolérance de notre Révolution française ». Elle a même précisé lesquelles : liberté, égalité, fraternité…

Elle a réalisé ainsi un tour de force de l’aberration politique en concentrant autant d’inepties en deux phrases. La Turquie est en effet un pays profondément islamique et qui s’islamise toujours plus avec un rythme de construction de mosquées de quartiers qui en ajoute chaque année plus de trois cent aux dizaines de milliers déjà existantes.

Mais la laïcité dans ce pays n’a fait qu’ajouter à la haine antichrétienne traditionnelle. Après les grands massacres du XIX° siècle, la Turquie des « Jeunes-Turcs » laïques, admirateurs de la révolution française, a perpétré le génocide des Arméniens et des Assyro chaldéens. Le régime de Mustapha Kemal a terminé le travail en massacrant notamment les dizaines de milliers de Grecs de Smyrne. C’est ainsi 30% de la population turque du siècle dernier qui a été anéantie, ramenant le pourcentage des chrétiens à moins de 0,5%.

Or la Turquie refuse toute repentance pour cette abomination et on y assassine ou on y emprisonne ceux qui la souhaitent.

De deux choses l’une: ou Ségolène Royal croit ce qu’elle a dit au sujet de la Turquie et son ignorance est consternante ou bien elle méprise totalement la mémoire du génocide et injurie ainsi les peuples chrétiens, et notamment le peuple arménien, anéantis dans ce pays.

Quant aux valeurs transmises à la Turquie par la révolution française, en fait d’humanisme et de tolérance ce sont celles des massacres de septembre et du génocide vendéen, modèles pour le docteur Nazim Bey, le Eichmann trop oublié de l’exterminationnisme Jeune-Turc: liberté pour les colonnes infernales, égalité par la guillotine, fraternité dans l’ivresse des supplices. On ne sait donc s’il faut reprocher à Ségolène Royal beaucoup d’ignorance ou beaucoup de mépris négationniste.

Source: B. Antony
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I don't want to read you nor buy your records anymore Momus, you feel to me like a nihilistic socio-fart, you dicator of 'good' taste!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I am pro-Turkish EU inclusion, and tant pis if you don't like that! I live in a brilliant Turkish area of Berlin, and I see the laicity of the Turks every day -- women, for instance, range from veiled (a small minority) to provocative Western fashion. (I personally like best the colourful headscarves, Islamic but not puritan.) I also hear from my next door neighbour beautiful soft devotional singing which enhances our courtyard. In Friedrichshain I would probably have to suffer some ghastly punk band being played too loud.

The EU has a chance to pull Turkey one way rather than the other by including it, and also has a chance to become a multi-cultural super-power if it can include one Islamic nation (the world's most tolerant Islamic nation). But even without EU membership, Turkey will never become an Islamic republic. The Turks are more like the Greeks than the Saudis.

Segolene has to capture Bayrou's voters, so naturally she's moving tactically towards his positions. It's disappointing, but it's politics. In power, she would revert to her convictions, I'm sure.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Aw, come now. Apples and oranges, surely. For instance, Mr Chávez might be popular, but his economic policy is unfortunately based on rather inexpertly wielding a very large and menacing club and then hitting things with it. This is not sustainable in any shape or form and French voters would not go for such a swindle. There is and should be no comparison to miss Royal, whose slightly more enlightened Third Way credentials, insofar as they are genuine, impress me a great deal more.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Wielding a club and hitting things with it is a much better description of what the UK and the US have been doing for the last five years, especially to nations sitting on large amounts of oil. The justification is that we are "bringing democracy" and that there will be "trickledown" to the people. But how long do you need to wait for this "trickledown" to arrive? Chavez' renationalization of 60% of international oil holdings in Venezuela has been accepted by all but one of the oil companies involved. They can still make money even with a mere 40% of their former share, and Chavez can make sure, with the remaining percentage, that the people of Venezuela really do profit. He can do this without invading any nation -- unless we consider the multinationals (BP, Exxon etc) as a kind of nation. If that's the case, this nation invaded the US in 2000 and is still occupying it.

As I commented on Whimsy's blog the other day, "On Chavez we must agree to differ. I see his re-nationalization of large parts of the Venezuelan oil industry as vastly preferable to Bush's oil-industrialization of large parts of American civic and military life."

[imomus.livejournal.com]

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonydemarco/sets/72157600075508212/)

Tony Demarco has an excellent Flickr set of the removed Sao Paolo billboards.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

That's a very powerful and beautiful image of post-capitalism. It's as if all that garish colour and distracting detail gives way to simple, undramatic shapes and forms, but leaves a slightly melancholy residue. Something about it reminds me of Muji catalogues (http://www.muji.net/catalog/) (in other words, there is a refined strand of capitalism which is guilty and has already incorporated the post-logo look), but also of the work of an artist who alters photos of American landscapes removing all the brand names, lettering and so on. I have a photo of one of his pieces somewhere, but I can't find it right now!

I did find this American Billboard (http://imomus.livejournal.com/198955.html) Click Opera entry, though, which is relevant.

[(Anonymous)]

Absolutely spiffing! Top-ho, what?! Commerce is dirt, absolute bloody dirt. Disgusting. Gerries have it right. Obsessed with dirt, you know. Scrub it away. Shit. Slavs. Jews. Now shops! National psychosis, of course. Guilt. 'We hate what we are becoming'. Over-manage everything. Trim it back till its not there. Still. Voting with their feet doesn't occur to them. Nothing but space on this planet. Practically empty, you know.

[jean-djinni.livejournal.com]

thanks for that! I actually find the "simple, undramatic shapes" to be rather stirring - exposing the frail-but-load-bearing wires and clamps that once pinned gaudy crap to the sky and cityscape. Almost as if the vacuum created by the absence of ads is an invitation for a revised civic aesthetic.

It'll be interesting to see if the public authorities make use of the billboards for other purposes - perhaps for communicating public information or aesthetic improvements to the look of the city. Public exhibitions, maybe?

[(Anonymous)]

"Other satisfyingly Draconian legislation like China's one child policy"

Why should human beings suffer for a government's mishandling of resources (of which the earth has an abundance)? Unless human beings are just another resource? Is this where 'socialism' becomes a mask for something else?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

You don't agree that the current human population is too big? That that will lead to resource wars if we don't take radical steps -- I'm talking about considered government policy, not war or Darwinian struggle -- to reduce it? That overpopulation in itself is the single greatest source of potential human suffering?

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, Castro is a complete piece of shit. So say I, and so say anyone interested in human rights.

From last year's report by Human right watch:
"Cuba remains the one country in Latin America that represses nearly all forms of political dissent. President Fidel Castro, during his 47 years in power, has shown no willingness to consider even minor reforms. Instead, the Cuban government continues to enforce political conformity using criminal prosecutions, long- and short-term detentions, mob harassment, police warnings, surveillance, house arrests, travel restrictions, and politically-motivated dismissals from employment. The end result is that Cubans are systematically denied basic rights to free expression, association, assembly, privacy, movement, and due process of law."

Your hero. Great beard, but what else.

And Turkey... Second to Poland (the country that somehow is a korean horror movie, only directed by David Lynch) must be the worst scumbag country in Europe. Kurds, Armenians, hello?

Have a nice weekend.

ƒredrik