Art: Offence Intended - Anarchism is not a tshirt.

Comment on Perth Indymedia over some poems I posted to sort of illustrate a repost of the Anarchist Age Weekly. A great dialogue follows...

This is my comment:

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Art: Offence Intended - Anarchism is not a tshirt - by Original Poster

Thanks for the generosity and eloquence of response. It is all appreciated.

The images above are poems. Rapidly created. With images found at random and cyber-text... I'm attempting to distort meanings of things. I'm a poet, fuelled by activism and heavily influenced by 21st Century advertising.

There are many more of its ilk here: http://antipoet.blogspot.com

Its predictable that these antagonistic pieces, in particular the porn-goddess and naked skydiver above, would cause offence to feminists, anarchists, activists, artists, critics, bogans and vegans alike.

Indeed. Yes. To propose anarchism as a "radical" solution with a come-hither porn-like pose is proposterous; monstrous. Anarchism is more than a slogan. More than a product...

ANARCHIST FAQ: http://www.infoshop.org/faq/

The poems under scrutiny above, are constructed in an effort to simply deconstruct the blatant codes of advertising; maybe to offer a crude disruption in the blunt messages of porn and slogan-driven consumer culture. The known messages of Anarchism are also distorted, made redundant. Capitalism always wins...

With a hint of protest slogans and trivialising deeply enlightening radical concepts; these are a contrived shibboleth at the discovery of late-anti-capitalist 21st Century anarchism.

Art. Yeah...

What am I trying here? To point out that anarchism is incongruous to these things that advertising demands; this art is an insult - its a tackle at the language paradigms of 21st century greed, and rampant, apathetic oppression.

In this art, I'm enabling a deliberate misrepresentation of anarchism as an "ism".

I'm hoping for a rendering - a busted critique to the ideologies of advertising; of dead poetry; of cyber-neon meaninglessness. I'm attempting a confusive ideological play - with textual representations of Activism, of the notions of the Radical, of the Everyday...

YES. YES. Porn is ludicrous, offensive, disempowering and dangerous. Yet its' vulgarity is enslickened; commodified into popular culture. (Perhaps note the porn-girl pop-diva gaze above is far less repulsive to much of the perpetual Saturday morning TV soft-core toxic-bling video consumed en-masse - and perhaps not as distasteful as the repetitive late night TV "Hi-guys-wanna-play?" mobile-phone/screensaver/swingersclub skankommercials... )

These intentionally problematic images then. These boisterous juxtapositions beg: can you sloganise anarchism? How can we critique the pornography of consumer culture? In what forms? Etc..

Its a question. And the comments here attempt answers.

Thanks...

cheerx
alboyd - antipoet