convincing people

Oops - I had this up for a while without any comment... It's a bit of a faux-pas to put up images of Nazis without explaining what is going on...

I love this video, I love Throbbing Gristle. Their work continues to be an example of how looking at the dark side of human nature is not only a profound approach, but is a highly ethical practice. But I can't deny - I gravitate towards dark thoughts. This does not mean that I am depressed. Just that there's a realism that is only attainable if you reach down to find the foundation. Call me a mystic, but I think an unlocked attic window can be found, but I think there's a trick - the routes that don't start in the basement are all dead ends. But what a feeling frowning is!

Anyway, to right my wrong, I think that using images of Nazis is only OK if you are making mature work. If you haven't figured out what you are doing, then practice on less dangerous symbols. I am not ready (or, at this point, interested) but I use this experience in art school as justification for how my work is not more strongly concerned with ethics or openly useful in effecting sociopolitical change - I am preparing myself so that I can approach larger issues with mastery.

It takes a lot of energy and clear thinking to stop any large group of people from becoming hateful oppressive totalitarians. I don't think that my work as an artist can do anything but make a slight thump against an advancing tank, but I think it might be able to convince some people not to help build the machines of war in the first place. If you look at the new paradigm of art creation, it is that the modes of thought associated with creative visual thinking are becoming more a part of mainstream thought processes than ever before - the 15 minutes of fame have been sliced up and dissolved into everyday living. To state the obvious, look at flicker, myspace and youtube where people create images of themselves and remix visual content to create a collaged reflection of their fantastic selves. This is art practice! It's the feeling of affinity to an image, the staring, the conjuring of a representation, the potential of color form and movement as extralinguistic communication. This mode of thought has the potential to create a new kind of hyper-intelligence, a critical consciousness. There are thoughts that can't be thought with words, only with images. These thoughts are essential to finding the solutions to the problems of our times. I know that the egocentrism stereotypically associated with artists has its own risks, but it is a high energy state that contains the potential to stop tanks.

"There are several ways to convince people."

The question in my mind always was - convince them OF WHAT? Here is a great example of a subjective feeling without a subject. This serves to both amplify the emotion by isolating it and putting it on display, and to open up the range of possible interpretations by the viewer - not to "spark imagination," but to allow (force?) the listener into a relationship with the subject matter of the song that automatically reveals what subjects this intense subjectless emotion creates. A kind of test in a way - a fill-in-the-blank. Anyway, I always thought this song was about feelings of sexual aggression and manipulative power fantasies over someone else's body (what does this reveal about me, I wonder?) I never thought of it as political power, but, of course, if you consider this video they are so highly related. And that's why this video is GREAT ART - it shows how intensely private thoughts such as Genesis' mantra-like instructions on how to "convince people" are expressed on a grand scale, a horrific scale, in the real world, the sociopolitical world. The mind games behind the power relationships. The handshake, the gentle touch on the shoulder, the spell of eye contact, the group movement, the uniforms and threats, the bullets and explosions. This is how the personal and political, the public and private, the creative act and the power grab are the same. The anti-propoganda propoganda art that often passes for political art can never do what this song does.