Negation of the negation

[imomus]

On Sunday I was cycling up Ohlauerstrasse -- the part of Kreuzberg that begins just over the canal from our part of Neukolln -- when I spotted a rather witty poster. "I WOULD HAVE PREFERRED A BLANK WALL RATHER THAN THIS GREAT PIECE OF SHIT," it said, in crossed-out Verdana letters.



What I liked about this poster at first was the thought that it was complaining about -- and therefore effacing -- itself. It was a paradox, a speech act that condemns speech acts. There's an infinite regress built into this (and emphasised by the crossing-out): the condemnation is also condemned, the effacement effaced, and so on. Later, it occurred to me that the poster was a good example of what Pat Kane, citing the Italian thinker Paolo Virno in his review of my books the other day, called "the negation of the negation".

I put the image up on my Flickr page last night and within hours two people had linked to similar posters they'd seen in Paris and London. Someone called acb (oh, it's Andrew Bulhak!) had seen these two posters on a mural on Chance Street in Shoreditch, London:



IN AN IMAGES SOCIETY, PRODUCE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN POSSESS, says one (crossed out), and SORRY ABOUT IT, BUT IT'S NOT AN ACCIDENT, says the other. Meanwhile, Flickr user Fufurasu (oh, it's my Greek friend Orestes!) showed a poster in Paris:



JE N'AIME PAS BEAUCOUP LES GENS QUI POURISSENT NOS MURS AVEC DES AFFICHES, it says; "I don't much like people who foul up our walls with posters". Misreading the small print at the bottom of the poster, Fufurasu links to a clip-art site called Retroart.com. In fact, the posters are signed Reroart.com.



Réro, we learn from the site, is based in Paris (which explains the slightly tilted English) and makes graphic design and street art. He (assuming it's a he) has a show coming up in September at Antje Oklesund's "audiovisual laboratory" on Rigaerstrasse, Berlin. There's a big page of photos of the posters in Réro's Next Customer (le client suivant) series on his website, with an artist's statement about his intentions.

After looking at the images on this page we can add a few new "negation of the negation" slogans to our collection:

ART IS GREAT TO WASTE TIME BEFORE DYING
THIS IMAGE IS FREE COPYRIGHT
I'VE JUST WON AT THE LOTTERY AND YOU CAN FUCK OFF
RESERVATION FOR TWO PEOPLE
THIS POSTER IS INDIRECTLY SUBSIDISED BY THE TAXPAYER WHO FINANCES ITS CLEANING AND THEREFORE PERMITS IT TO DISAPPEAR



Réro also explains the "next customer" idea (I've translated from the original French) in a text:

"On the theme of the image illustrated by a text, "I am the next customer" is the person who, even before having paid for his goods, is proud to mark the limits of his property at the supermarket check-out, even before the products actually belong to him. This little psychological barrier might seem harmless, but it's also a very good index of our time.

"With irony, these posters -- which represent exactly the opposite of what they seem to be saying -- raise a smile. Then, the fact that the text is crossed out leads to a new reflection on whether it's a simple mistake the artist thought it best to preserve, or another negation by image... This project has, as its objective, to make the passerby think about the notion of the physical and intellectual ownership of a work."

After reading Réro's artist statement, I almost feel I know too much about his intentions and ideas. PERHAPS HE SHOULD HAVE CROSSED THESE TEXTS OUT TOO.

Comments

The big strike

[walloftime.livejournal.com]

I distinctly remember the torn feelings I had over editing this text (http://walloftime.blogspot.com/2008/07/temporre-autonome-zonen-ii.html), where I imagined a somewhat odd person who decided to take a pen and to strike-though all printed text in his household. Should I or should I not present all the html on the website also in strike-through? It finally became the 6th of the my ongoing “160 characters of art” suggestions:
“WITH A PEN, NEATLY STRIKE-THROUGH ALL PRINTED COPY
IN YOUR HOUSEHOLD, NO SINGLE PRINTED WORD SHALL
REMAIN NON-NEGATED. SAY NO TO UNNEGATED TYPE.

(144 characters)”

Re: The big strike

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ich strich alles durch.

[(Anonymous)]

This is just the "art" equivalent of that urban myth about a sign that says "It is forbidden to throw stones at this sign"

[(Anonymous)]

You're hardly one to be criticising anyone for overexplaining their work.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you brought hypocrisy in, Anon, because it's very relevant. Hypicrisy seems, like these posters, to be self-cancelling. "Well, we can disregard what this person is saying here because he does something which contradicts his statement."

But these posters only cancel themselves semantically. Their struck-out statements remain to tease us. To cross out a text is not the same as to restore the wall to its former blank state. The statement was made and cancelled, and remains in a dialectical "flicker state" before our eyes.

I've argued against the neat and tidy concept of hypocrisy in Click Opera before, because in real life deeds and statements do not cancel themselves out so conveniently. For instance, a person might condemn something they do themselves because they know from first hand experience how harmful it is. There's also the problem that if vaunting the things you don't do makes you a hypocrite, vaunting the things you do makes you a smug narcissist.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Against "hypocrisy" (http://imomus.livejournal.com/362894.html)

[reverencia.livejournal.com]

I've seen these posters around town in Sydney.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It goes without saying that a person who puts up a poster saying he doesn't like people who put up posters is deliberately being "a hypocrite". The interesting bit comes when we ask... Why?

[(Anonymous)]

There's also the problem that if vaunting the things you don't do makes you a hypocrite, vaunting the things you do makes you a smug narcissist.

It's not an either/or, Momus! I'm quite happy to consider you a smug narcissistic hypocrite.

There may be a danger in being absolutist about hypocrisy, but there's equally a danger in denying the worth of the concept, because you're inviting a complete disconnect between what people believe and what they say, which will ultimately impoverish the value of what they say. Boys who cry wolf, in other words.

As for over-explanation, Your work means less to me since you started this blog. I simply know too much about you and your work, it's suffocating.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

There may be a danger in being absolutist about hypocrisy, but there's equally a danger in denying the worth of the concept, because you're inviting a complete disconnect between what people believe and what they say

Sure, but if you look out there at internet discourse, vastly more people are bandying absolutist definitions of hypocrisy (usually in pettily ad hominem contexts) than are questioning whether a deed can really cancel a statement, or vice versa. In this context, it really is worth being one of the only people out there defending instances of "hypocrisy" -- the man mired in the universal vices of the present, but talking about the virtues of the future, for instance.

As for over-explication, if I didn't discover things I didn't know -- about myself and about the world -- every single damn day here, I'd stop like a shot. I suspect my readers feel the same way. The moment you stop encountering new things (like Monsieur Réro) is the moment to leave.

[(Anonymous)]

To "establish a dialogue that interrogates"?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Absolutely right, lad! Top of the class!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Shorter version of that last para:

I WOULD PREFER A 404-PAGE-NOT-FOUND THAN THIS GREAT PIECE OF SHIT

[(Anonymous)]

You think you're learning every single damn day, but more often than not you're just reinforcing your own idées reçues. There are about five themes on Click Opera that are just endlessly repeated with different examples.

raise a smile .... actually not

[rinusvanalebeek.livejournal.com]

there is something about this obnoxious demonstration of stupidity
that is capable of drawing my attention,
and evoke immediate sadness

I can't explain why
it is like reading t-shirts
with texts like
my friend went to mallorca and all she brought back for me was this lousy t-shirt

it hurts,
i hope they will leave town soon

[imomus.livejournal.com]

How would you bullet-point those five themes in, say, a PowerPoint presentation?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I doubt that today's theme, negation of the negation, would be one of them, since I only learned the phrase on Monday via Pat Kane and Paolo Virno.

When it comes to Anons raising accusations of hypocrisy, though, yes, it does get very repetitious, and to the extent that I rise to the provocation I must share the blame.

[(Anonymous)]

But "negation of negation" is not the theme of this entry. It's merely the hook to hang it on. Themes of this entry:

1) Smuggle in reference to book I'm publishing
2) Hokey conceptual art project that I can read whatever I like into.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

That really is cheap cynicism of the most reductive kind. The book ref is the tiniest of incidental details, but has to be there because these posters did remind me of the "negation of the negation" idea, which came up in Pat Kane's review.

As for conceptual art project, sure, but I'm not reading whatever I like into it. I'm relaying the artist's own explanations. The artist's theme is "negation of the negation", so that is the theme of this entry. Sorry if this doesn't correspond with your pre-dried cynical worldview -- maybe you can twist it around a bit to suit your own ends?

Re: raise a smile .... actually not

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, Rinus, like the "lousy t-shirts" they're already in Berlin, Paris, London and Sydney (with more sightings no doubt coming in as the day progresses). They are all around us. There's no escape. If sadness is what they provoke, sadness is what will be all around.

[(Anonymous)]

Come now Momus, there's hardly been an entry recently when you haven't plugged your book. Even when the subject is Bobby Gillespie, of all things, you have to tell us about how Primal Scream relates to your new book! Enough of this disingenuousness.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

THERE IS NO SHAME IN HAVING A NEW BOOK OUT, and talking about how things plug into its themes!

To say, however, that my new book is THE MAIN POINT of posts about Bobby Gillespie or Réro is simply wrong.

[(Anonymous)]

It's all relative, isn't it? Would you say the point of a newspaper is to provide news? Or to try and make money for its proprietor through advertising? It depends on your point of view.

MOMUS HAS A NEW BOOK OUT AND HE'S GOING TO MENTION IT IN ALMOST EVERY SINGLE POST HE MAKES BUT THAT IS NOT AT ALL THE POINT OF THE POSTS, NO SIRREE.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

To say, however, that my new book is THE MAIN POINT of posts about Bobby Gillespie or Réro is simply wrong.

It also comes out of a mindset that says "Ya, ya, ya, everybody has something to sell and a vested mindset related to the bottom line", which is a really tedious reductive cynicism -- a mindset that Adam Curtis skewers very valuably in his documentaries. That cynicism is not in any way liberating. All it does is erode the possibilities of any belief in public service, altruism and sharing. It leads to the libertarian-paranoiac politics of "trust no-one, hole up in the desert in a compound, they'll all screw you in the end".

(And this thread is getting holed up on the right, too.)

[(Anonymous)]

My belief in your relentless narcissism in no way erodes my belief in altruism, public service and sharing, Momus! Now here's a challenge: see if you can go a whole 48 hours - come on, it's not that long! - without mentioning on this blog that you have a new book out. I bet you can't!