What Is the Soul of Occupy? [Draft/BETA][Introduction Notes; Section II, Part 1]

Direct Action Flâneurs

What Is the Soul of Occupy? [Draft/BETA][Introduction Notes; Section II, Part 1]
By Paul McLean

Shane Kennedy [The Thomas Kinkade Experience]

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..."I know where I am, but I don't feel that I am where I am." The cognitive experience of the space in which the body moves is detached from the actual movement of the body in that space. It relates to mapping the potentially confusing transformations of a body in non-Euclidean topologies that are not as predictable as table architectures are supposed to be. What Caillois referred to here was some kind of "technology of movement" different from that of Euclidean space.

Caillois's reference to Saint Anthony reveals the "I" is dispersed into a depersonalized matter "whatsoever."
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- Insect Media: An Archaeology of Animals and Technology, Jussi Parikka (p. 99)

[Ambrose Curry]

surfing postures are primal

the triggers to remind us we should be surfing

are everywhere.The real fact remains 

we are interstellar beings and surfing is the link

to our primordial /molecular memory...

- Ambrose Curry

[NOTES: The chronology of the text is not linear, but dimensional. On Saturday at BRIK Gallery in Catskill, Danny Bryck performed his play, "No Room for Wishing," a moving series of documentary soliloquies derived from interviews he conducted on site at Occupy Boston. I realized that the structure I'm aspiring to in the Soul of Occupy sequence of briefs is in some ways a correlation to the relational dynamics one might find on any given day at OWS, with the interplay of elements (time, images, texts, subjects, etc.) not necessarily existing compatibly, but simultaneously existing in proximity, at least temporarily. One medium for the co-existence of disparate parts in such scenarios is personal memory, and also other kinds of memory, such as history documentation or memory, also contiguous, if not exactly mutually ratifying. The record does not necessarily reinforce the individual recollection, which is probably a function of divergent emphases. Without going further, although there is much to explore here, the construct is dimensional, and one that I have attempted to represent in art arenas and other texts, as have others. So, for the reader the suggestion is that she suspend the desire to "get it," meaning the point of the text, for the purposes of recursion, since the text, which is actually more than a progressive series, although that is the case, too, will evade that play. In this realization, I recognized a significant flaw in the society, as it is moving, towards a test-based self-education programming format, in which answers are inevitably dispensed to students prior to the test. In such a flow, the student will feel entitled to the answer, even prior to the question being asked. When confronted with situations that do not or refuse to conform to that model, the student will usually feel offended, and critical of the test-giver. But what if the exchange has nothing at all to do with the test, the Bell Curve or some other scheme for distinguishing success and failure or mediocrity? The implications for a democratic society that reduces its educational complex to a recursive test-based system - in which all students (and this is wrong anyway) will receive the solutions prior to any other exploration - is significant, and significantly negative, for a number of reasons, which I won't list here. What I will say is that I refuse to participate with a system so organized, since in my assessment, it tends to subvert free thought. Such a system of answer-before-question is conducive to pre-determinism, and a certain disabling of the adventurous mind. Understandably, for those who find comfort in routinely possessing answers to problems before they arise, without having to earn those answers per se, or practice solutions as proofs to assert correctness over falsity, a dimensional narrative architecture can be frustrating. Unfortunately for them, our future will not play along with the old answers. The future is [4] dimensional.]

[INTRODUCTION]:
This text is being composed in real time, as are the database of illustrations (moving and still images) and the dimensional subtexts. For context, then, the major international story relevant to the main body below, which was written almost two weeks ago, is the student uprising in Canada, which has drawn tens of thousands of protesters, supporting satellite protest nodes including one here in New York City, and an extreme response from Canadian authorities, including the imposition of martial law and a rash of legislation increasing criminal penalties and regulations against protesters. O Canada! Adbusters' interventions, like chickens, have come home to roost! President Obama's positions on important policies regarding warrantless wiretapping and the assassination of American citizens abroad have been clarified. President Obama is not the promising candidate Obama, and this is beyond dispute. The current administration is unquestionably at least as oppressive as George W. Bush's, if not more, with respect to American civil liberties, and the surveillance/prison/police state has expanded and become further entrenched under the watch of the current President. The Memorial Day holiday came at a time when the prospects of endless American wars on Terror, for energy security and whatever other justifications, are never better (with rumbles about Iran, Yemen, Syria, etc.); even as the strain on the nation's military becomes increasingly apparent, the body count of American soldier professionals and civilian casualties mounts, the calculations about conflict-survivor costs among veterans and their communities come to light, and so on - the huge dimensional costs of a non-war war in its second decade - receive some notice, in spite of the warmongers' and the complicit media's attempts to suppress the facts that might damage the war machine to which the military-political-media-corporate-industrial complex is hitched. One wonders why there were no massive war demonstrations in the US on Memorial Day. One supposes that the weather played a part, here in the city. It was a nice weekend for the beach, for picnics, for family get-togethers, for parties.

Since much of the entry deals with "gay marriage," and the reader likely will be curious about my particular orientation in relation to that social conundrum, I will offer a very brief summation. In my view marriage should exist outside the purview of a democratic government, like America's, espousing separation of Church and State. Having been active in the arts for over thirty years, having lived in places with significant homosexual populations, like Santa Fe, LA and NYC, having many professional, social and personal relationships with same-sex-oriented individuals, I would say my perspective on the question is informed, even if only by exposure to the culture and individual concerns of gay folk through my various interactions with them collectively (as a movement) and individually. That said, what other people decide to do for romance ... My general policy is it's none of my business, and I to the best of my capacity refuse to publicly critique people on matters of the heart, even if I have my own opinions. What I will say, is that the political utility of the gay movement for the neo-Conservative/-Liberal "cause" and/or program, should be apparent to anyone who routinely scans major media-monopoly channels for distractions that turn attention from issues vital to the extraction-exploitation complex and its syndicates. Anti-gay animus drives the Right's recruitment among the religious for whom homosexuality is sinful. The statistics on Obama's fundraising among gay liberals is astonishing. The text below is not in any way offering any judgment whatsoever on the topic of gay marriage. Gay marriage would be an easy subject, if all it ever was was a question of love. It almost never is, at least in American politics, and the media. When it is about love, the same rules apply that apply to love in any case, which is that there aren't any rules. Art and love have much in common in that way.

As for the accompanying pictures and stuff. One set I'll be drawing from came from is documentation of the  surprising and fantastic Direct Action Flâneurs' (via Alex of revGames) recent intervention or performance in Grand Central Station on May 25. Another is "The Thomas Kinkade Experience," Shane Kennedy's senior thesis show presented at Cooper Union a week or two prior to Kinkade's booze and drug-induced death, mentioned in an earlier segment of "Soul of Occupy." The third set came from Kauai, from my dear friend and mentor, the surf guru Ambrose Curry. It arrived out of the blue, washing up on my electronic shore, a couple of days ago. There is an EGS connection, concerning "surfers" and philosophy, which I may get to at some point.

[Esquire]

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A human right of students, their need for the essential, becomes blurred in the jargon. In the Heideggarian essence-mythology of Being. The spirit which they miss in the universities is silently converted into the monopoly of the instructional system which, for its part, cried heresy against the spirit when it appeared in the form of reason.

As in the concept of idle chatter, so in that of readiness to hand, which portrayed with sympathy, and which is the philosophical ancestress of shelteredness, suffering experience is interpreted into its opposite. At some historical stages of agriculture, and in simple wares-economy, production was not radically subordinated to exchange and was nearer to the workers and consumers; and their relationships to one another were totally reified. The idea of something undisfigured, undeformed, an idea which has yet to be actualized, could hardly have been created without a memory trace of such earlier conditions; although over long periods they probably caused more immediate suffering to those exposed to such conditions than did capitalism.
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- The Jargon of Authenticity, Theodor W. Adorno

1

We found out recently that President Obama's views on gay marriage have evolved. In Facebook terms, the President now "Likes" homosexual matrimony.* His views on other subjects have evolved, too. He "Likes" indefinite detention, endless war, and state secrets protections. He "Likes" settling with "Too-big-to-fail" banks, who engaged in illegal mortgage deals, oil firms like BP that destroy American coastal life, and murderous corporations like Massey and Toyota. Obama doesn't "Like" prosecuting torturers from the Bush administration era. He "Likes" warrantless wiretapping, and expanding the powers of security forces in the nation's airports. He doesn't "Like" whistleblowers. Obama also doesn't "Like" Occupy, and enabled a coordinated crackdown from the top-down on the largely peaceful protests that swept the nation last year. President Obama has evolved a lot, since he was a HOPE candidate for the US Presidency.

*As of today, so does the NAACP!

[Ambrose Curry]

∞

On the subject of "Liking," Facebook is now a publicly traded company. Apparently, the first day of trading in Facebook shares produced some ambivalence among analysts and observers. The valuation of Facebook now is around $100 Billion, on profits of around $1 Billion. That ratio has some industry commentators concerned that Facebook will not be able to satisfy investors' expectations on returns.*

Direct Action Flâneurs

On a side note, in the hubbub around the Facebook IPO, Mark Zuckerberg's hoodie style was vetted by the punditry. Would Wall Street change the now-even-more-fabulously-wealthy Zuckerberg's fashion sense? Evidently, no.

I don't know what all the fuss is about, either with the ratio or the hoodie. The ratio is perfectly consistent with trends in the global economy, which is now subject to, if not enslaved by, a $700 Trillion, I mean $1.4 Quadrillion derivatives market. The derivatives market generates values by formulae that routinely imagine more dollars than exist on the planet. The recently disclosed JP Morgan Chase $2 Billion + loss (and the "+" very well could stretch the losses into the tens of Billions), illustrates perfectly the relations between speculation on net notional scales, the dangers thereof, and the real-world fallout that arises when things go badly. Evidently, Wall Street and Washington learned nothing from the crash of 2008.

Shane Kennedy

The Facebook stock sale seems in keeping with the current market schematics, which amount to a grand Ponzi scheme, a massive, nearly asset-free leverage con that's enriching a few people around the world, while simultaneously subverting the real economy, and causing tremendous suffering for millions of people.

Direct Action Flâneurs

The decorum of Zuckerberg's hoodie, its cultural associations, and the pressure being applied to the Facebook CEO seem relatively irrelevant, right? Maybe it's a head-game thing. Maybe Wall Street wants the Left Coast tech-elite to know who's boss, now, and a hoodie won't get it anymore for a guy whose corporation is more valuable, at least in the speculative realm of more or less OTC-traded investments, than many countries' GNPs. Maybe Wall Street will be happier now that Zuckerberg is married - the latest news flash, in the hype for Facebook's selling out. His status changed.

Whatever. Have you, dear reader, ever heard a pundit anywhere in the business press or tech press or any kind of media ponder whether what Facebook does for profit might be reformatted into a basic utility service for all Americans? ...Like telephones, radio or television - Oh, wait. I forgot. Those communication networks have been privatized, consolidated into massive multinational corporate media monopolies, which serve mainly as 1% propaganda tools, rents boondoggles, debt generators or consumer mind control devices, etc. Soon, if FED EX and UPS have their way, the US Postal Service will disappear into the privately managed economy for information exchange. It's a Citizens United America, now. Free speech, information exchange, even political speech, is money.

It's a shame. A waste. A threat to our democracy.

Direct Action Flâneurs

*Since Facebook's public offering, questions have been raised about whether there were improprieties and ethical lapses. It seems that Wall Street insiders may have gamed the much hyped proceedings to their advantage. Facebook valuation is down significantly, as of today (#m29), at $79 billion/$29 per share.



∞

"Liking" something or someone is a subjective thing, isn't it?* What one likes or dislikes is therefore a personal matter, a matter of choice, preference, and affinity. Presumably, personal experience plays into one's likes, choices or preferences. The job of marketing and other flavors of propaganda is to shape choice, sometimes in contradiction, in spite of or as negation/displacement of one's real or a priori/post-priori experience. A marketer's goal is to improve the likelihood that a consumer will prefer one product over a another. Today, Americans are being pushed to select one type of wildly unbalanced society over other more equitable options. What does that pushed society look like, how does it see itself and the world and what does it "like?" In other words what is art in our push-society? Well, for one thing, art is subjected to the regime of the "Like." If you're an artist, and depending on your idea of art, you might wonder whether there's a place for art in the push-society at all, and, if at all, what kind of art that might be. How many newspapers cover art anymore? In other words, the push machine isn't all that concerned with art, unless it is scandalous, makes art or artist seem ridiculous, or involves some preposterous exchange of incomprehensible amounts of money. Mostly the propaganda for art in America is either debasing it, or intentionally disconnecting it from the masses, or ascribing it to everything you can imagine, as a fungible term, or telling John Q. Public he can't afford it. Why? Art is one type of the specially protected modes free expression in our democractic society. Others include political, commercial, and scientific. Some kinds of expression are not protected, such as "hate speech." An argument can be made that art is situated at the top of the free speech food chain in a free society, even though free speech in our legal system orders the array somewhat differently. Free speech topologies now are being radically altered after the heinous Citizens United SCOTUS ruling, defining corporate money donated to political campaign advertisements as a prevailing and dimensional form of Constitutionally protected speech.** At this point, as the domain for free speech metasticizes, nearly ALL speech, including the political, is being destructively commercialized. The 4th place business-speech now rules the arena of ideas. Free speech in America, to paraphrase the meme, is run more like a business, in some of its most important aspects. So, it might be worth devoting a few paragraphs to a discussion of the state of art, taking this morphology into account. Occupy Wall Street has been, as we have seen, framed in terms of art, and eventually we will come back around to exploring how OWS and art comport, and how they phenomonelogically apply as reaction, reformation and potential solution in the debased free speech medium.

Shane Kennedy

∞

As such, what is the state of art currently in our society? It's not clear. Graeber and others argue that art is in existential crisis, and has been for much of the past century. For one thing, art is problematically conflated with the art market for the 1%. "The $120,000,000 "Scream" is an example. What a liability! In that schema, because someone like Eli Broad made a lot of cash shorting America's economy, we are subjected to his "Likes" in art, which are mediocre, lacking in the author's estimate any notable or demarcated collector's vision. Unlike the recently colonialized, corrupted and displaced Barnes collection, for example. Broad likes to spend big portions of his amassed wealth on contemporary art, and especially in Los Angeles, uses his money to reconfigure the local art topology, according to his likes. He calls it "venture philanthropy. In an arts ecosystem which depends on 1% charity to survive, the "Likes" of an Eli Broad obviate the preferences or choices of the community at large, un-democratizing art. Since Broad's "Likes" are to a great degree conditioned on market valuation and the recommendations of dealers like Gagosian or dealer/museum director Deitch, who was installed at MoCA with the blessing of Broad, the public art is transformed through the art-commercial exchange and syndicates, which amount to an unregulated secondary commodities market, into a simulation of an art history. The question is no longer whether art is great or not. It is "How much did it go for at Sotheby's fall auction?" Signature artworks prioritized in this derivative "art world" are little more than simulacra, even when they possess significance as art. The economy of 1% art corrupts the commons, grotesquely subverts the Spirit of art, and broadens the disconnect between the people (the 99%) and the art they care about.

Art is also conflated with what Lady Gaga does. Actually, art is being conflated with what Lady Gaga is. The pop star celebrity or fame artist is evolving into a form of free speech in herself. Due to monopoly media attention, worth millions, every public appearance of a fame artist also functions as an artistic or tactical art intervention, to use the nomenclature of the medium. Speaking of Lady Gaga, she's raised some eyebrows recently by wearing outfits made of meat. Zuckerberg's hoodie is nothing compared with Gaga's fashionable meat suite. The buzz around this prank is profound. In the current fame art domain, that's craycray cool. Gaga is permitted to operate as a neo-romantic media "artist," and such artists' outlandish behavior, at least in the moment, is as simulation historicized, elevated as an equivalent (albeit a false one) to a rare painting, like "The Scream."

[Getty Images]

The market for a fame artist functions differently than the 1% art market for (mostly) art objects. The "artist" is the property-agent-phenomenon+ and also generates product for mass consumption. The business that encompasses the totality of what someone like Gaga is/does can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The correlate is a Hollywood feature film, or film franchise, which incorporates processes like distribution, production, performance, copyright enforcement and royalties into a bundled package that exists in some measure just for tax evasion. The star complex is an immaterial constellation revolving around a black hole of extraction-exploitation matrices. Lady Gaga is only the temporary focus of the consumer portable industrial investment churn worth billions of dollars, and a minor feature of a media monopoly consisting of consortiums of creative enterprises bundled for the stock market. Gaga is like a type of swap in the derivatives market. The Gaga franchise, which is possibly on the wane, hence the histrionics, is not, in the financial realm of short term gains, a long term concern. The main interest is not artistic in this financial scheme. It's the bottom line, and in that arena, an "artist" can be worth as much flaming out as rising to the top. Witness Britney Spears and hundreds like her.

Direct Action Flâneurs

Still, the topology does yield some surreal moments, which if not art, do rise to the level of art in their capacity to inspire, like frumpy sensation Susan Boyle, or to repulse, as when New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg kissed Gaga at a New Year's party. Both occasions have faded from the news cycle, as surely Gaga's fashion choices will. Art in our society now, if you believe Jeffrey Deitch, is increasingly a function of celebrity, especially a kind of celebrity that platforms multiple selves. In that definition of art, both Bloomberg and Gaga, even Deitch himself, are artists. In fact, since most of us live partitioned lives, separating what we do for money and what we like to do, by this definition, we are all artists. We are all busy creating facets of ourselves, making the most of our free time by using it to re-invent or refine ourselves, in one form or another.

Shane Kennedy

∞

In a dimensional onslaught that burst forth from corporate social responsibility campaigns since the late 90s, theoretical/critical/philosophical/educational/ideological arguments since the 60s, psychological models generated from equi-structuralist analytic surveys, and pop relativism enjoined to consumer marketing, art and creativity are conflated. The artist's task has undergone a momentous flattening procedure that situates it on the qualitative basis with everything and anything else, pretty much. Beuys and Warhol and their precursors, like Duchamp, sold the domain transformation from the inside-out. If everyone is an artist, in that sense, then everything one does is art, except when one is working, which is supposed to be a serious matter, beyond likes and dislikes. Work, now, is situated relative to art, in the realm of reason, objectivity, purpose. In the new creative order, the purpose of work is to make money, presumably to finance one's pursuit of a likable life, which according to some, like Nato Thompson, is an art form, itself. If Occupy is a movement that blurs the lines separating all from all occupied, another movement has emerged from within corporate syndicates to blur the lines distinguishing work and the other, more creative time in one's life. The gelling corporate creativity is one that assigns the creative to the uncreative without blinking. Accounting for a big firm like Enron became an exercise in creativity. Even though the firms (Enron and its accountants) crashed, the ideal sustains, and spreads into the entrepreneurial mythos as a ground-up proposition for life as a cycle, not of spiritual evolution or physical arc, but of balanced investments of self in management and curating. The net sum of this evolving design for living is an Etsyopia, which usually looks better online than in actual practice. One's life can consist therein of playful, creative work (possibly even serving a "greater good" than just making cash), and a well-designed after-work life, blending artistic, innovative applications of one's likes, either DIY or curated. The corporate culture at businesses like Facebook, Google, Tumblr and others pushes this vision as a facet of the companies' identity. It is the ideal Knowledge Worker universalism, a neo-Catholicism lifestyle amenable to reproduction in the glossy magazines of a certain type.

Occupy Wall Street has unsettled all this.

Shane Kennedy

∞

Now, the President of the United States is implicitly using the "Like" praxis as a platform for outing himself as an evolving supporter of gay marriage. Really? Why now? It's worth considering that evolution (remember Darwin?) may not be okay in conservative school districts, as a standalone explanation of bio-mechanics. Advocates of Creationism suggest that alternative theories, as choices or preferences, should be permitted in curricula. The same argument applies to Climate Change. For our society, the state of art, now broadly perceived as a fungible notion, establishes a template and a lens, through which many problems we face can be fabricated and viewed (incorrectly). The programming being implemented from the President down is a perceptual order premised on superficial preference, creativity as evolving illusion, and a morality distortion field that allows the worst crimes to go unpunished and the least deserving to be elevated to the heights in the social order. We are living in already in augmented reality, except what passes for reality these days has nothing at all to do with the actual one. The composite picture is artificial, the content is derivative, and corruption is the only consistent feature of the projection. On the altar of this religion of the destructive creative, what's sacrificed is the original, truth and innocence.

* As of this writing, the Facebook user base is hovering at around 900,000,000. A market is growing for paid-for "Likes" and "Fans," which makes our reference in the text, to my mind, more appropriate. A court ruling in April held that Facebook "Liking" is not Constitutionally guaranteed free speech.
** Actually, political speech in American Constitutional law is situated at the top tier of the free speech hierarchy, with scientific and artistic expression considered to be  second tier forms. I found a very good breakdown of the schema here: (http://nahmodlaw.com/2010/01/). My assertion about artistic free speech (expression) is rooted in art examples, such as the Chauvet caves, which demonstrate art's essential role in the life of man. We don't have correlates for science, as such, or politics either, attaching to our understanding of man of that time, although conjectures do exist. Such conjectures are not self-contained and demonstrative, in the same way that the wall drawings of Chauvet are. Whatever we might project upon them by way of interpretation or wonder, they still exist as themselves. I suppose a case could made that we don't know how "free" the Chauvet artist(s) might have been. I think that would be an interesting point to discuss, from a technical perspective.

Direct Action Flâneurs

∞

The inherent flaws in the status quo, the projected state of art, with all that conflation, are increasingly apparent. The general problem with the scenario, to reference Liam Gillick, is that the artificial version of art, the dimensional matrix of derivative versions of art, is being sold as an explanation for all kinds of activities that have nothing to do with art. The fake "art" - let's call it ana-art - is re-packaged constantly to rationalize madness, destruction and destabilization. I'm only half-speaking of the art world here. When the BP oil spill was pumping millions of gallons of poison into the Gulf of Mexico daily, the corporation, with the help of media, the government and scientists, pushed a narrative that situated the efforts to staunch the flow of oil into the format of creative collective problem-solving. Right now, some analysts are spinning the JP Morgan Chase derivatives losses as a creative exercise gone bad, undermined by bad management, dysfunctional team dynamics and opportunistic interventions by outsiders, other gamers happy to push JPMC to fail. A tick bite (Lyme's disease), proves the undoing of the supposedly sympathetic executive. [Does anyone even remember this sequence, two weeks after it was presented as "news?"] Can you even believe the bizarre picture painted here? ...& Creativity as corrupting abrogation of the humane and actual is normalized as a gamer platform. Have you heard? The US Military is launching multiplayer gaming platforms, inviting online gamers to play war and engage in creative situation solving, as part of a big, virtually-enabled team, a kind of gamer think/play tank. The mission? Deal with unrest connected to systemic yield problems of big energy syndicates. The DoD is enlisting creative players in training exercises that work on scenarios in which the US military essentially serves big energy concerns. Ring a bell, Mr. Zuckerberg? Committing to another half-century of endless war for oil can be FUN, inclusive and creative! Anyone who LIKEs that, click here!

Shane Kennedy

It's as though the evolution of any position on any subject, or any scheme, or any catastrophe, can now be loosely aligned with the conceptual phase of art-making. Crisis management now includes an element of creative problem-solving that echoes art studio praxis, especially as a collective enterprise. Evaluation of management breakdown allows for a confessional aspect, or at least excessive "humanization" of the figures involved in the problem. The envisioning process, as game, can be directed to any use, regardless of whether the premise for scenario design is deeply problematic or not.

But is this real, or true? At the least, we have evidence that the rules of art, as an exercise of free subjectivity for the creation of objects demonstrating freedom, which might be a decent description for art in a free society, do not apply to everything. Whether one likes that or not is something else.

Shane Kennedy

Ultimately, a central problem with art being everything to everyone, even to every artificial person, like BP, is that such conditions create an environment makes it nearly impossible to teach art, as such. A friend of mine, James Andrews linked a book that might be viewed as a symptom of the problem [Why Art Cannot Be Taught by James Elkins]. Elkins suggests, "Art can be taught, but it seems as if it can't be since so few students become outstanding artists." Is this true? It doesn't help matters that for decades critique has been employed in art pedagogy, sometimes to the exclusion of all other forms of instruction. "Liking" and critiquing are not exactly the same, but they share a common aspect: both are derivative of something else, and are systematically afforded power over the other thing to which they are applied as a response or a procedure, the very thing from which they derive. Maybe we can better understand the relations between liking and critiquing to art (and other expressive forms and phenomena). Perhaps we can also discern where "Likes" and critical discourse have no legitimacy. "Liking," essentially is critique for dummies, a Lowest Common Denominator for the wired masses who crave power over the subject, any subject that can be compressed into a field on a Facebook page. "Liking" is also critique without any accountability attached. It's not even real speech, as such. And Facebook is only too happy to optimize this cancerous cultural distortion, to "empower" it, to use that corrupted bit of verbiage, in order to extract content-as-value (the user's preference for one thing over another) for its advertisers' - and who knows who else's - multi-directional secondary consumption/application/usage of that data in a burgeoning aftermarket scenario. (Your) Like = (Facebook) Money = (3rd Party User) Data. Critique is now content, but it has nothing to do with art, and you get nothing out of "Liking" other than superficial agency and advocacy or opposition. The procedure has to do with accumulation of user data, building profiles, sampling, and then using that information to push derivatives that appeal to user taste. Kant should be rolling in his grave. There is no art in it, and no beauty. There decidedly is nothing of spirit in "Liking." "Liking" something does not make one an artist.

Shane Kennedy

One thing we should all be able to agree on is that President Obama is no artist. British Petroleum is not an artist, and neither is JP Morgan Chase (nor are its employees), and neither is the US military. Facebook is no artist. Bloomberg, in any of its/his multiple iterations, is not an artist. And neither is OWS.

In order to disassociate itself from the misuse of dimensional perception (the only legitimate evolution in our society), OWS must cease to call itself art. Otherwise, Occupy is just another creative neo-liberal lie.

Direct Action Flâneurs

∞

Another "Liking" liability arises from the binary of like/dislike. The proposition is basically either/or. One likes or dislikes. True, a third option for the user is to ignore the invitation to like or dislike. Still, not playing the like/dislike game is a choice as non-choice, and the recursive formulation boils down to a Pepsi versus Coke construct. Although the construct presents itself as a "choice" preference platform, the definition of choice in this scenario is minimal, and the non-choice choice is marginalizing in effect. In our democracy, we can see how well this proposition is working. The Democratic and Republican parties have evolved over time into Pepsi versus Coke versions of each other. The general effect has been characterized as extreme polarization, even gridlock. Last year's debt ceiling showdown (and, given Speaker Boehner's recent cannon-over-the-bow press pronouncements, next year's showdown, too) is a case in point. Many voters are not happy about it, some feel helpless to do anything about the situation, and some choose not to participate at all. A small percentage of the citizenry strongly support the binary, "us versus them" or "black and white" lines of distinction and conflict. Without delving deeply into the evolution of the scenario, one can make a case that the present dysfunction in US politics has been manufactured over time. If the reader is wondering, "By whom?" one answer is mostly "By those who are benefitting the most from our government's inability to operate successfully in the interests of the common good." A few people are enjoying tremendous benefits in the status quo. Most are struggling. Occupy Wall Street, and the 99% meme, erupted as opposition to these conditions. It's telling that the Occupy movement refuses to favor one party over the other, and a credit to the integrity of Occupy consciousness.

Shane Kennedy

The either/or game scenario is much easier to manipulate than more complex scenarios. The question of whether simplicity or complexity is better for democracy can be answered, "It depends." At this point in American history, the conjecture is colored by the Nader and Perot candidacies. In those cases, third party campaigns supposedly caused harm to one of the two parties. The third party is often spoken of in terms of the spoiler effect of such campaigns. So, for many, even entertaining the idea that the US needs at least a third alternative, to break the Coke versus Pepsi impasse, isn't really a practical option. Certainly, the two parties have no interest at all in letting go of the power they hold in this country. Therefore, the difficulty level for someone desiring to establish a viable third option is very high (which also correlates to the Pepsi/Coke scenario). In analyzing the potential for expanding political choice in America, one would have to consider the obstacles that have been erected to prevent competition. The entrenched power holder in a social architecture will often point to the openness of the system, while working diligently to maintain exclusivity. The medium of choice is routinely proffered as the rationalization of systems that offer minimal choices. If any choice exists, then that proves that the system is still viable in terms of choice, or so the argument goes. Eventually, the reduction or limiting of choices to a few options that ratify the system as being still open (while not being so at all) amounts to a form of social conditioning itself. A consumer over time will operate as if minimal choices are sufficient. The condition entails entropy, and some level of acceptance, that there's no point in imagining alternatives. It's fair to say that such a state is not good for democracy, which derives much of its strength from the capacity of the citizenry to adapt to new situations. In the May 17 edition of the Washington Post Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein published a piece on resolving intractable conflicts in US Politics ("Want to end partisan politics? Here's what won't work - and what will.") To show how hardened binary conditioning has made Americans in their political alignments, the authors cite statistical data: "Despite Americans' disgust with our politics, about 90 percent of us identify with - or at least lean toward - one of the two major parties. Among Americans who call themselves independent, two-thirds lean to one of the parties, and behave at the polls just like partisans."

Managing consent and dissent amounts to an industry today, and this has been the case for decades. The means by which free people can be influenced to behave consistently, often against their own interests, have evolved over that time. The procedures for manufacturing consent, as Noam Chomsky described it in his text so titled, utilize a plethora of instruments, ranging from patterning and repetition to the embedding of emotional or subliminal triggers in media to induce determined response. The media is a prime tool for those who would generate conformity of thought and outcomes in all the sectors of human exchange - government, business and social. What's critical in assessing the myopia of consenting masses is where loopholes have been set in order to allow small fractions of the population to enjoy a much greater choice-set.

Direct Action Flâneurs

A comparative structure would be the criminal justice system. A few Americans for all practical purposes conduct their political, business and social lives unaccountably, with what amounts to immunity from any consequences, no matter the grievousness of their crimes. At the same time, most of us are subject to prosecution for an astounding array of prosecutable offenses, and the prison system in place to enforce those prosecutions is the most prolific in the world.

One of the things that Occupy Wall Street demonstrated(-s) is the potential cost of opting out of the system, as a collective action. Even if that "opting out" has been only temporary, and the opting out amounts to redressing grievances peaceably, which as a civic action is the antithesis of self-removal or -marginalization - such redress requires assuming a contraposition against the offending party, hence the opt-out - and such actions are protected explicitly by the US Constitution, the authoritative response to OWS has been without question oppressive. The fact that the White House, it now seems, coordinated the suppression of Occupy across the nation, reinforces the assessment that the infrastructure managing dissent in this country is near total.

Direct Action Flâneurs

Here, art should take its cue from Occupy. Instead of opting for marginalization, art can choose to perform as a civic action. Which is to say, artists can insist on presenting art in the places where it does the most and best civic good. This is what Occupy Art looks like.

Shane Kennedy

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While Mayor Bloomberg, who also advocates for gay marriage, and President Obama both reserve the right to "Like" the reformation of the matrimonial institution, at least on a public or civic basis, these two important American leaders "Dislike" dissent, of the sort expressed at Occupy Wall Street. To put it bluntly, the advocacy of Bloomberg and Obama for equal legal-marital rights engenders the criticism that they are hypocrites, if one triangulates their preferences with other aspects of their leadership practices, such as their positions, overt and covert, on Occupy Wall Street, or the police/prison/surveillance state powers they wield, or the prioritizing the interests of 1% over the 99% of Americans. These two don't care at all in general about equality. On the question of equality, they're like weird preachers who shout about the evils of homosexuality while practicing it secretly themselves. It's telling that they both publicly expressed their "Like" of JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, in the aftermath of the $2 (now estimated $3-) Billion in losses incurred by that corporation.

Direct Action Flâneurs

Art can evaluate Bloomberg and reject his charity. Art can un-like Obama. Art can portray JPMC and Dimon as they truly are. Occupy Art can begin to ask many questions about the kind of art that is needed right now in the civic domain. The process is already underway.

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Why would in this election year, the evolving President be more publicly concerned about Rainbow marriage than Wall Street accountability, and a long list of other matters of grave concern to the Republic? The tactic is "change the subject." As mentioned above, evolution is a tricky topic in the cultural sphere, in America's peculiar Church-State discourse. The Guardian posted an editorial this week on state of intellectualism in the USA that was poignant, to the point. Although the question of the spiritual in education has receded in the MSM coverage of hot topics, the matter percolates still as a seemingly perpetual factor in our public index. What kind of morality is President Obama platforming? I would suggest he likes to create a self-projection that embodies all-is-forgiven spirit. Unfortunately, when it comes to forgiveness, Obama in actuality is selective. I don't see him forgiving student loans.

By the way, I think it's shitty that Obama would take advantage of gay dreams of marriage the way he has, but it is no surprise. His record on everything from the Iraq/Afghanistan non-war wars, the surveillance/police/prison state in America, worker advocacy (see Obama's non-support of the Wisconsin Governor recall), corporate accountability, the financial security of the USA, student indebtedness, etc., point to the only reasonable assessment. President Obama may indicate he likes something, like Freedom. It doesn't mean he'll do anything to protect it from those who will do it the most harm. The most poignant symbol of this actuality for my money is the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded, and for which Obama has done nothing subsequently worthy of it.

Direct Action Flâneurs

It's fitting that the Shepard Fairey poster was what it was for Obama. That reveals everything about everything. The revolutionary sign that actually proclaims "OBEY," the artist as design(-er) fiction, the off-colored patriotism screened in muddy shades of red, white and blue, the whole enterprise premised on theft of the original reproduction, the corruption of the ideal as a dimensional business, the projection of hope on the corporate sell-out, the ultimate derivative of a seriously mangled system of checks and balanced, reduced to a dysfunctional binary. Mitt or Barack. No difference.

Ambrose Curry

From what I can register, OWS gets this. If the analysis thus far is correct, so does the American people. This can only prove a boon to Occupy, especially if Occupy orients itself as a trusted servant in its relations to the real people, not some artificial projection of who the people might or should be. That would be spiritual, as orientation, a social contract worthy of the movement, a precursor to dimensional liberation and emancipation. More than any purpose, such an orientation will continue to afford Occupy the support it needs to vocalize "Enough!" - which is what most everybody's feeling like shouting, now. Art can help.

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A few anecdotes follow.

The morality of debt, as David Graeber's text points out, has been a prevalent force in shaping social relations around the world throughout history. It seems pertinent in any discussion of gay marriage to recall that property ownership and exchange, and politics, are integral to the evolving institution, as such, or even as a notional formation or social construct. Property and debt, in the human spectrum of bonding, are bound like strands of DNA.

Direct Action Flâneurs

Romantic love, if you think about it, has inspired dramatic narratives for millennia. Often, according to the literary record, romance can incubate war, torture, spying, and all manner of ugliness. A good example is the Trojan War in the Greek canon. Sometimes significant misunderstandings arise from the terms of the conjugation of the couple. I'm thinking of a case from my Scottish ancestry involving the betrothal of a MacDonald princess with the McLean heir that included the transfer of an isle in the Hebrides, as part of the contract. One chief took offense, a plot to murder the bride ensued but was foiled, and eventually the reckoning included a large basket full of McLean fingers. I'm also thinking of the Hatfields and McCoys. That bloody feud, started over a pig supposedly, led to bloodshed and a lovers' tragedy worthy of Romeo and Juliet or West Side Story and a century of violence and ill will.

Speaking of Greece, the voters there, in France, Germany and Britain have resoundingly rejected brutal austerity programs enforced upon them by syndicates of bankers, investors and political leaders, either at the national level, or locally through democratic election processes. Other similar reactions to the shrinking of social safety nets to protect the interests of the super-rich, to protect their mad and pervasively destructive programs, to protect expanding scales of wealth disparity are emerging. Corporate media monopoly vehicles are finding it more difficult daily to spin the news to deny the truth. Although it's not clear how nations like Italy and Spain will ultimately resolve their particular scenarios, it is clear that popular movements can and do still retain the power to foil the plans of the 1% to shape a new world order that conforms to their fractional benefit.

Direct Action Flâneurs*

Speaking of Scotland, my ancestral homeland is verging on the precipice of independence, after hundreds of years of colonial occupation by their "Southern Neighbor." Scotland, at least a formidable demographic within its borders, is asking for a divorce from England. If they succeed, I'll be returning to the Highlands to live, if at all possible, as soon as possible. My personal connection to Scotland is more than a "Like." The land of Scotland is the only topology that's ever inspired me to paint landscapes, as such. It's where my feet stuck to the ground.

*Andrea Haenggi and Robert Neuwirth

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Occupy with Art maintains a Facebook page. Millions of people do. Adbusters, in its passionate defense of the "Soul of Occupy" spoke out against "clicktivism." It's a great term. The question of whether "Liking" a link amounts to significant action in support of change is a fair one. The democratic process is not reducible to choosing one of two options. To believe the opposite is to engage in a form of virtual cowardice. It's 5:36PM Sunday, May 20. I had just visited the Adbusters site to verify the spelling of "clicktivist." What I got instead was a fat dose of what I'm writing about above. Adbusters has embedded a Livestream feed of the Chicago anti-NATO protests. At the moment I tuned in, a phalanx of riot-geared police charged the protesters, who chanted "This is what a police state looks like!" There were cries for medics, as the batons came down. One camera turned on a still-shouting and bloody-faced protester.

I forget. Does Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel "Like" gay marriage? Today, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether he likes art, or Coke or Scotland or derivatives. He's a tyrant. If America is to remain a democracy in more than name, Americans will have to do more than click their way to freedom. Which is why art like Mark Tribe's is in one way inferior to what is being done by the RevGames crew, for today. If the necessary corrections happen in this country, with all due respect to Graeber's nationless vision, then there will be room for both virtual and actual expressions in a new kind of 100% art world. That whole world will not require its human inhabitants to don Google glasses to experience it, and never has, and won't. However, if the artificial visual can be put into service or situated as a collaborator for something other than selling ads in a half-slave consumer/consumable environment, then, who cares! Put on the rose colored goggles and your earphones, watch Skwarek, Kinkade or Tribe-built dreams - whichever you like - and listen to R. Stevie Moore, and for a time, half-opt-out of one domain and synch to the other, like cyborgs do!

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Imagine if you could vote, or contact your representative with issue-based approval or disapproval, as easily as you click "Like" on Facebook. Ever wonder why you can't?