As our old friend Harry Kratchnikov was often mistakenly quoted as saying: the brave new world is always last week’s news. But, of course, we struggle on with near blind courage and some alertness as to the position of drains and robust iron railings, which perhaps are the least of the obstacles lying in wait; we struggle on where neither woman nor man have been before. Or so it seems to our celebrity obsessed minds, waiting with bated breath for them to fall apart, admit their drug or alcohol problem or some sexual irregularity.
By the way it is reported that our other old friend Uncle Wally wrote in The Arcades Project, ‘the task of childhood [is] to bring the new world into symbolic space?’ I have to take a breath of agreement. It is there that we re-enthuse our zest for life with a sense of shape to our values. Zest for life may be held to be a good thing; that might amount to a manning of the barricades against the forces of repression which are wheeled out whenever the people get fed up with the gross or even the low grade corruption of ordinary political shenanigans. It might even be to protest about the bewildering wonder world of our current consumerist culture; our bewilderment at the impact of the latest technology and the onslaught of must-have advertising.
Is it enough to resist? Resist might imply something rather dull like sitting around a near-dead fire, a simple refusal to engage with the multifarious forms of hungry ghosts on offer.
Is, I ask you, the practice of practice a worthy form of resistance? My life now comprises a variety of practices: each project shaped by a routine of practice; each continues by way of a regular(ish) timetable.
But then what else? Are my efforts, say at writing or painting, sufficiently critical? Is there not the danger of bowing to what can be seen as the pit of art for art’s sake? Where is the critical element? Rather than down the drain let’s run for critical/social engagement. What sort of revolutions are waiting in the wings? This re-shaping of social economics; are we due another great turning of the wheel?
