quoteage

Situationists- we should be concerned with finding “consciousness of desire and the desire for consciousness”

Jean-Jacques Rousseau “man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains”

Lara x

situationististists and Rousseau

The Society of Spectacle: We must seek “consciousness of desire and the desire for consciousness” .

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: “man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains”

 

Lara x

Quotes for debate page

this is what i thought…thanks Beth and Joe for the quotes

Step off the straight and narrow career and materialism groove and you just end up on another one-the groove for people who step off the main groove…The eternal urge for escape has never enjoyed such niche marketing
Naomi Klein No Logo 2000

The Spectacle corresponds to the historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life. It is not just that the relationship to commodities is now plain to see — commodities are now all that there is to see; the world we see is the world of the commodity. The growth of the dictatorship of modern economic production is both extensive and intensive in character. In the least industrialized regions its presence is already felt in the form of imperialist domination by those areas that lead the world in productivity. In these advanced sectors themselves, social space is continually being blanketed by stratum after stratum of commodities. With the advent of the so-called second industrial revolution, alienated consumption is added to alienated production as an inescapable duty of the masses.
Guy Debord The Society of the Spectacle 1967

‘The illusion is double: it consists in overlooking the illusion which is structuring our real, effective relationship to reality. And this overlooked, unconscious illusion is what may be called the ideological fantasy…. The cynical subject is quite aware of the distance between the ideological mask and the social reality, but he none the less still insists upon the mask. “
Slavoj Zizek The Sublime Object of Ideology 1989

THOMAS FRANK – THE CONQUEST OF COOL

This mr had alot of interesting things to say on culture, counterculture and the rise of  hip consumerism. He talks alot about the 60s rebel culture that infiltrated what had become a mundane business culture. The anti-caplitalist movements of the 60s were colourful, fresh and exciting as well as representing liberation and revolution as an image it represented ideas and lifestye that people would more easily align themselves to and ‘buy into’. Thus corporate organisations tapped into the consumers need for change, ideals surrounding this parodoxical way of selling, as opposed to clinging to a simple housewife making oxo gravy we aresold not the product but the lifestyle we wish to lead or be associated with.

‘whether the narrators  of the sixties story are conservaives or radicals, they tend to assume that business represented a static, unchanging bodyof faiths, goal and practises, a background of muted, uniform gray against which the counter-culture went through its colourful chapter’.

Sorry folks this turned into a trail of thought rather than anything really articulate or coherent.

Enjoy your thursday,

Bethanxxx

Naomi Klein: To Read

If you haven’t already, get your hands on No Logo.

Here are some quotes that really helped me, besides being really interesting. Here are some I though would be suitable for the website:

‘Step off the straight and narrow career and materialism groove and you just end up on another one-the groove for people who step off the main groove’.

 

‘Crowded by the ideas and styles of the past, we felt there was no open space anywhere’.

 

‘We are all looking for one corner of the globe unchartered by lonely planet to start our own private utopia’.

 

‘The eternal urge for escape has never enjoyed such niche marketing’.

 

‘Selling out is not accepted, it’s considered hip’.

 

‘City spaces and culture are now getting branded’.

 

‘The loss of space happens inside the individual, it is a colonization not of physical space but of mental space’.

 

‘Branding is insatiable, cultural thirst just creates more marketing. Marketing that thinks it is culture’.

 

‘Peer pressure is a powerful marketing tool’.

 

‘When a thing is current is creates currency’

 

Bethan xx

Situationist international

Quote from Bernsteins ‘Tous les chevaux du roix’ for inspiration!

The afternoon loomed up empty before me. Luckily a theatre on my street was playing a western so old I knew it had to be good. For a modest sum, I assisted in the invasions in China; in the efforts of an army triumphing without losses over backward terrorists, who hid in the underbrush, disavowed by everyone; in a presidential inauguration and an international tournament. Then the smile of Colgate toothpaste brought us to the feature; the lion roared on the screen; and the cowboy hero won his heroine in ninety minutes.

Thomas Demand

Ok, so as we know, Thomas Demand is the guy who we all found pretty inspirational in the Tate Modern (for those who weren’t there google images has a collection of his photography)

I’ve just been doing a bit of research into his work and found some interesting info here  http://www.cmoa.org/international/html/art/demand.htm which seems to provide a good grounding for the foundation of our project’s development.

‘Each of Thomas Demand’s photographs is one or more steps removed from reality, creating tension between the fabricated and the real. He begins with a pre-existing photograph of an actual location culled from the mass media. While his large-scale photographs resemble these mass-media images, they actually show three-dimensional, life-sized models made from cardboard and paper that Demand builds in his studio solely for the purpose of being photographed. Demand knowingly uses the traditional role of photography as a faithful transcriber of the world to throw his subject’s artificiality into doubt. This confounding of references is such that the very idea of an original recedes completely.’

I thought this summed up what we are doing pretty succinctly – exploring the gap between perception and reality in a site-specific area (Camden) and also investigating re-branding and the destruction or replacement of the original.

In Fred Scott’s book ‘On Altering Architecture’ he also makes the point that the subjects represented in Demand’s photographs often relate to scenes of cultural or political relevance which also links back to the fact that we have chosen Camden and each picked specific topics which have cultural/political relevance to us and the ‘community’ (I’m thinking of arguments we can pitch to Dell if needbe to underpin our project!)

Laura

We love Camden

I usefully found this website which has a page dedicated to people who were interviewed about why they like Camden-may be useful for us to include/use their examples if we don’t get a big enough range of our own

http://www.camdenlock.net/people.html

Laura

Camden Free Festival

I know we said we weren’t covering music, however, this is worth a look if only to get a feel for the place 40 years ago and for the concept of  what we are trying to acheive with the project with the idea of ‘free’ love, expression, etc

a starting point perhaps?

http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/camden-Festival.html

Nic

Examples of Free

Here are some examples of projects revolved around the idea of free participation and exchange:

 

Project Gutenberg – there are numerous websites available now which provide free e-books to people, but Project Gutenberg is one of the best known. Any intellectual property which is public domain, no longer subjected to copyright, is likely to be available online for free. The classics are accessible to anyone who wants to get a little culture, but there are numerous other e-books obtainable, one recent one being the inaugural address. http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

 

Adam Neate – here is the artist have I been trying to remember for a while now. Adam Neate left around 1,000 artworks around London for people to pick up completely free. He distributed them all across London, not discriminating locations because of their wealth. It may be a touch arrogant to believe people will just take up an artwork that has been disowned by its creator, but then who wouldn’t like a bit of free art. Link’s below:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/7720537.stm

  

Five Dials – a free publication from Hamish Hamilton (Literary department of Penguin) which is downloadable as a PDF to anyone who is interested. It has a good collection of writing I have to say. http://fivedials.com/fivedials

 

London Book Project – a scheme from 2007 which tried to instigate readers on the London Underground to put down the free newspapers and read books, but instead of taking them home and leaving them on the shelf, to leave them on the tube and hope someone else would read and enjoy the same book. The London Book Project wanted to get a free exchange of books going, but based on what I saw on the tube last weekend, I don’t think people have put down the London Paper or the Metro yet.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2007/jun/08/willreadersbuyintofreeboo

 

Authonomy – A free community of aspiring writers set up by the publisher Harper Collins in order for ratings of other members to help the publisher decide which new authors to take on. Interesting idea, the free aspect means anyone can participate and showcase their work, and the publisher may make some money…

http://www.authonomy.com/

 

Joe