Edward Dorrian: This is Not Public
Saturday 5th October 4 - 6pm

Charlotte Knox-Williams and Edward Dorrian discuss the project
This is Not Public and the draft publication.

i. Possible Characteristics of this Publication
The text will be anonymous. Anonymity... Constitutes a collective or plural speech: a communism of writing.

ii. Thus the texts will be fragmentary: precisely to make plurality possible, to open a place for it and at the same time never to arrest the process itself...Always already ruptured... Meaning not in themselves but in their conjunction-disjunction, their being placed together and in common [mise en commun], their relations of difference.

iii. The fragmentary or, more simply, fragments, sentences, paragraphs, which when put into relation with others... Taking on new meaning... Furthering our research. Abandon any preconceived idea of originality or the privilege of being previously unpublished.

iv. Information collected as is... In its brute force and without commentary, sparsely... Or densely punctuating the discontinuous... Series of texts... Will also belong to our research.

v. Thus... Those who are without words, who are not writers, the very people whom the discourse does not reach - even though it is in this discourse that they believe they can best make themselves heard - must have a place in which to express themselves or to find themselves expressed, whether directly or indirectly.

vi. In short, language is given not in the content of the texts nor in their form but through their relations, the necessarily disharmonious ensemble that they constitute. With this discontinuity that they preserve through this nonclosure, there will be a search for a more radical language that is situated outside discourse, outside of culture, and that while being declarative, should continue to maintain the incessant work of questioning.

vii. We are essentially irregular... Bound to a temporal irregularity... Just as much as an irregularity of format and formulation... Perpetually decentred centres... Everything belongs to us... We belong to everything... And to nothing.

 

1. Deserving. Causing public disgrace. Shame.
2. Draft. Anonymity.
3. Money is a public good. Like water, then? Exactly.
4. Everything happens in private.
5. Fuck You.
6. Like a clique, then? Exactly.
7. Yes. Yes… but children are part of the people. And the people’s will exists.
8. The people’s will exists.
9. Don’t talk about what’s invisible. Show it.
10. Fuck You… Fuck You…
11. Impossible declaration.
12. Grand theft.
13. The Study…
14. Unrest is an excellent thing.
15. Everything’s all right.
16. Love is possible. Love is not possible.
17. Ah, Democracy!
18. Art is an aristocratic category.
19. We denounce you.
20. You…
21. You can start with your most common ideas. Your most nauseating sentimentality. Your vulgarity. Your cowardice. You can be absolutely ordinary.
22. Your bad taste.
23. Everything’s all right is the attitude of those who organise themselves freely and are answerable to no one. But themselves. And even then.
24. Fuck You.
25. It’s for everyone.
26. It’s not for everyone.
27. Don’t ask.
28. Being in a public place.
29. All welcome.
30. The Book has not disappeared; this must be acknowledged. Nonetheless, we can say that everything in the history of our culture, and in history tout court, incessantly destines writing not for the book but for the absence of the book has continued to announce the upheaval, by preparing for it. There will still be books and, what’s worse, beautiful books. But mural writing, this mode that is neither inscription nor enunciation, the tracts that are hastily distributed in the streets and are the manifestation of the haste of the streets, the posters that do not need to be read but are like a challenge to every law, words of disorder, the speech outside of discourse that marks our steps, political cries - and bulletins by the dozen, like this one, everything that disturbs, calls, threatens, and finally questions without expecting an answer, without resting in certainty, never will we enclose it in a book, which, even when open, tends toward closure, a refined form of oppression.
31. Private members club.
32. Letter to Renée O’Drobinak, Ana Cavic (Ladies of the Press*)
Dear Renée and Ana, I’ve been asked to outline a proposal for a speculative practice-based symposium called Back To Free School. I’ve decided to title my project proposal: Ignominious Wank. I am of course referencing your response to Lecture Hall. Free School. For So Much For Free School, Etc. A Draft Publication. Ignominious wank is how you unapologetically referred to its failure. The abysmally attended ‘public lectures’, the absence of ‘PR’ and funding etc. In short, the problem of operating ‘the free initiative’, without a surplus of either time or money. Anyway, I’d like to elaborate on the ignominious wank motif. The speculative practice-based symposium ‘offers the opportunity for exploration, investigation and dialogue, inspired by aspects of the freeschool tradition.’ To this end then, I’ll be trying to set up a series of recorded conversations with the other participants (twelve of us have been selected and are actually paying for the privilege… not quite Free School, more Art School UK?, … so the JSA rebate I received will constitute my ‘surplus’). The recordings will work along the lines of those we made with you both for Field Recordings and an earlier work called Art For Everyone. You know… passing the video camera amongst us… something akin to Dan Graham, but without the nakedness. Maybe five or six one hour recordings (the whole symposium is set over about nine days!) The accumulation of a shared material for some kind of collective enterprise… A starting point for each recording will have to be found… suggested by the participants of course. This would be consistent with an idea of free school. One of the little details that filtered through in the description of Kilquhanity’s workings was that of the non-hierarchical weekly council meetings. Another sentence that recurs to me from our own research is John Cussans’ simple free school philosophy… for a school which makes no distinction between teacher and taught. The practice of Democracy and Free Speech? How does this figure as PR where the public gain access after the event? They, the people. Knowledge Transfer… dissemination of research findings… contribution to the quality of life. Etc. To tell you the truth I’m really not quite sure what the thing’ll be like. Retreat? A ‘disaffirmative practice’ shot through with mistakes, anomalies, feints and incompetence? So far, so speculative. I’ll bring along your text amongst others for reference. I think in the end, I’m proposing a series of drawing exercises. The process being as important as the result… are actually one and the same thing. A rambling Parrhesia? Evidently Aitkenhead’s Kilquhanity Free School motto was ‘Liberty, Equality and Inefficiency’. I dare say you would say that ‘these free schools’, in theory, are perfect. But like all utopias, are not feasible’ Of course by definition you’re right. We never produced the piece we recorded did we? Not even the sound recording you took away to transcribe. Add to the failure? Perhaps. Anyway, I think I’ll use this for the outline proposal.
All the best. 26 February 2011
33. Tracts.
34. - What is the obsession with recording that is currently happening?
- I thought it was to with well… one… archive and also… as part of a way of recording something which can be returned to… and edited… its making an artefact of some kind?
- What are your thoughts on what exactly is being recorded on these devices? What is actually happening and what is actually being put into the archive? These thing are separate surely?
35. Mud. Alas! [the bleak chant] of the so-called. Then one night some men of higher standing set a trap, they’re not to blame “Come to visit us” they kept demanding and he really came.
The streets! Not the studio! - [Chorus]
36.1 What an event of a political nature is like: it’s for everyone. There’s not just a problem of contemporaneity but also an interpellation by it, something that’s not the case with scientific or artistic events.
36.2 Interpellation, a term coined by French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, describes the process by which ideology addresses the individual. To illustrate how interpellation functions in the context of ideology Althusser used the example of the policeman who shouts “Hey, you there!” At least one individual will turn around (most likely the right one) to “answer” that call. At this moment, when one realizes that the call is for oneself, one becomes a subject relative to the ideology of law and crime. According to Althusser, this is the way in which ideology generally functions. We are all always caught up in the process in which we voluntarily acknowledge the validity or relevance of the dominant ideology in which we live for ourselves and thus subject ourselves to it. The example of the policeman furthermore suggests that we really have not a choice in this matter. Were we to ignore the call, we would sooner or later be forced to adhere to it. Interpellation draws on the theory (developed by Althusser and critics such as Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva, and Jacques Lacan) that the notion of the autonomous, fully coherent and actualized human subject is an illusion, an ideological construction meant to further the agendas of capitalism and liberal humanism (and thus a central feature of their discourses). In fact, human beings are emeshed in numerous discursive and social structures that to a greater or lesser degree shape an individual’s identity. Further, individuals in modern societies are not of “one mind,.” but have contradictory and fragmented consciousness that includes a dimly understood subconscious. Film theorists in the 1970s used the concept of interpellation to posit the concept that mainstream cinema acts as an “apparatus” to position the viewer to “misrecognize” herself through her identification with the fictional characters on the screen. Both the technological features of the cinema and the features of classical Hollywood cinema worked to create the illusion of coherent, autonomous individuals solving conflicts, moving from disunity to unity, etc. These critics argued that the cinema thus served an ideological function not only in its general content but it the very nature of the experience. Although many other critics have rejected this “anti-humanist” approach, which minimizes the possibility of individual agency and control in the process, the concept of interpellation still provides a useful framework in those cases when filmgoers seem to react in perfect sync to the ideological cues within a film, especially when the cues relate to individual psychology and character identification.[1] Adapted in part from Brooker, A Concise Glossary of Cultural Theory
37. Build a platform so that intuition can come into play.
38. The studio is the artwork.
39. What is this show for? What is the problem? What does this tell us?
40. What is public engagement?
41. Social collage project.
42. Who/ what is the public? At the end of the day, leave the gallery set up. You don’t know who is coming. You want them to think about a set of questions. You want them to see that you have thought about the same questions.
43. The great building swings slowly around upon a graphited centre.
44. What are we doing today?
45. Do you think that I would keep so persistently to my task, If I were not preparing - with a rather shaky hand - a labyrinth into which I can venture - in which I can move my discourse, opening up underground passages, forcing it to go far from itself, finding overhangs that reduce and deform its itinerary, in which I can lose myself and appear at last to no eyes that I will ever meet again. I am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no face. Do not ask me who I am and do not ask me to remain the same.
46. Public Engagement. ArtLicks Weekend.
47. Where are the cows going?
48. Its a School day. How does School benefit?
49. What are we doing? What is the view from here? What is piont in riting this question (sic) Who is in charge?
50. Ignominious Wank? Self Improvement? Solo?
51. What is the question? Is that the question?? What is this??
What is going on?
52. How might it be built? What is its functioning?
53. She is in the room.
54. What does public mean? No Head.
55.1 An Occupation Cheat sheet is currently circulating, we did not write this however it is copied verbatim below for your perusal…
Occupation has been a traditional mode of student protest for the last 40 years, and has often been a highly effective tactic. The last year has seen a whole load more occupations in universities (of which the writers of this leaflet have been involved in about ten!) We have therefore learnt a lot and have decided to reissue this advice based on all of our experience, in the hope that this year will see just as many sit-ins, occupations, and disruption on campus.
55.2 Starting the occupation
If there has been one major error in occupations over the last year it has been this: people take hold of a space but not the doors. This leaves you open to losing access to the space, and having your occupation prematurely closed down. Take the doors, not the space! You can take relatively large spaces with surprisingly few people if you follow this advice. Sometimes student union officers will tell you that taking control of doors causes unneeded arguments with university management. ignore them. Taking doors back later is much more difficult than taking them in the first place (although it can be done.) So once again, take the doors, not the space!
How your occupation begins will depend a range of factors, such as what type of institution you are occupying, how many occupiers you have, and the politics of the student union. At the beginning, try to get as many people there as possible.
* If you know where you are going, get a few people in before you announce it to everyone. This will help stop security guards keeping you out.
* When you assemble people to go into occupation do NOT assemble at the place you are going to occupy.
* If you think you it’s a good idea, and your student union isn’t too dreadful, consider organising an extraordinary general meeting of your Students’ Union and pass a motion to occupy.
* Do not announce the location of your occupation publicly before it happens!
55.3 Choosing a location
In going into occupation you will be dealing extremely practically with the politics of space. It is important to choose targets for political effect, but other considerations such as access, visibility, and security come into play.
* It is important to choose a location carefully. Disrupt management where possible. Get in the way of what they do. If you don’t, you might as well not be there. Don’t just take a building because it looks impressive – you will soon find yourselves looking irrelevant.
* Make sure there is access to running water and toilets. You will regret it if there isn’t.
* Kitchens are really really useful. Food that you bring with you should be practical: fruit and nuts will keep you alert and happy! Go skipping the night before for free supplies.
* Try to take somewhere that can have a quiet space or turn off all music when people need sleep. Also, bring blankets and sleeping bags if possible. Universities have a habit of turning off heating in occupied spaces. Lecture theatres can be uncomfortable.
* Try to occupy somewhere with a photocopier (especially one that doesn’t require login details) so you can print as much propaganda as you like.
* Bring laptops! Choose somewhere with Internet access (easier now in these days of wifi), or make sure you bring internet dongles that you’ve checked work.
* Also, check the space has phone reception (particularly if it’s a basement).
* Make sure there are windows, which you can open! Lots of lecture theatres lack these, and they are useful for fresh air and banner-drops.
* Think about whether your space is wheelchair accessible: this is far more likely to be the case in new builds than old builds. This is both a practical and political concern, in terms of how inclusive your protest is of the whole student community.
* colonise the campus beyond the immediate space: if a part of the university is occupied, make it feel as though the whole university is. Make big flyers and banners and hang them off important buildings/in public areas. Spam propaganda everywhere.
55.4 On Demands
Occupations may or may not have demands (some of the best in the last year have had none, only to say “we are taking this space and using it for what we feel it should be used for.”) It is important that your opening meeting decides on whether there should be demands, and what they should look like.
* The “no demands” strategy alleviates a lot of the stress of having to negotiate with bastard bureaucrats. It will make clear your antagonistic stance towards the institution and its management, while allowing you to get on with all sorts of useful things in your occupied space.
* If you do make demands, at least a few should be easy to meet. There is nothing more disheartening than being defeated on everything. An example might be demanding a public meeting with the Vice-Chancellor.
* Even if you have no others, you should have a demand for “no victimization of students, and no punishment for those involved in protest.” (Reassure everyone by saying that you will occupy again if any student is victimised.)
* Do NOT make a huge list of demands. To anyone outside of the occupation you will look like lunatics. As far as political statements go, less is often more.
* Often a university will want to go into negotiations with occupiers. If they do, then decide as a group if you want to take them up on this or not. If possible, record all discussions and make sure they are fully relayed to the whole group. Definitely keep documents of EVERYTHING.
* Do not get bogged down in negotiations. If you feel they are going nowhere, they probably aren’t. They may be used by management to sap your energy.
55.5 Internal Politics
It is also important that occupations are run in an inclusive, democratic and accessible manner, but quite what this means should be decided internally.
* Many occupations have been run on the basis of “consensus decision-making.”
* Consensus decision-making can help to avoid fracturing the group, and is often the most practical option, but can sometimes stop decisions actually being made (but we like it more than voting.)
* If there’s a mix of political backgrounds in the room, then have a mix of decision making systems: some votes, some wavy hands.
* It’s probably a bad idea to have a leader. Leaders tend to be dicks, and also make people far more culpable to the authorities. People who act like leaders need to be told to shut up.
* Do not set up a “steering committee” for the same reasons, rather appoint working groups for specific tasks that are then dissolved once the task is complete. Everyone should feel in control of the occupation as everyone else.
* Make sure that student union sabbatical officers don’t take over the occupation. They almost always have their own agendas, which likely will not be shared. Have no qualms about telling them you disagree with something, and don’t accept what they say just because they got a few hundred votes in some election. Also don’t let them take over all negotiations with management.
* Do not let “political factions” take over your occupation. Of course people from all political backgrounds should be welcome, but it is very unhealthy to let one clique run the show. We are yet to meet a political party that does a good job of running an occupation, and often when these groups take over (or caucus before meetings and try to push decisions through) it becomes very alienating for everyone else.
* Occupations should be “safe-spaces”, in which any discrimination based on gender, sexuality, disability, race, and ethnicity are actively combated. People ought to be sensitive and self-aware of his or her position within the group.
* It is sensible to have a general meeting at least once daily at a set time, so that developments can be discussed. Let these meetings run the occupation.
* Meetings should not be allowed to go on for hours and hours. If something complex needs doing it may be good to set up a working group, who then report back.
55.6 Media
Media can be massively important for any occupation. Doing good media work will allow you to get your story heard, gain support and solidarity, and exert far greater pressure. But you should also be aware that journos may smear you, and you may have a difficult relationship with the mainstream media. Some occupations just want to be quiet and stealthy, to disrupt the university without creating a media spectacle. Here are a few things you could think about doing:
* Make a facebook group (Perhaps set up facebook account so that this is anonymous)
* Create a twitter account
* Get an email address – Gmail gives you a lot of space for free.
* Make a website, where people can get quick access to information about location, updates and news, photographs, and have links to your facebook, email, twitter etc. Most occupations so far have used wordpress and run websites in a blog format as it’s free and easy to use.
* Do not let a single person to control all of the online presence. Instead they should be collectively run.
* Someone should have a decent camera to take print-quality photographs as newspapers will avoid sending photographers if they can. Remember to bring the connector cable for your camera!
* It’s important to put out press releases at the beginning and throughout the occupation. These should be sent to local and national press, posted on your website, and on Indymedia.
* Set up an email list for people who want to get updates on what has been happening in the occupation. Make sure you use it relatively regularly (an update email once a day while you’re in occupation is good, detailing news, and requesting things like food or blankets.
* If possible, have a phone where you can be contacted. A new sim card with a number just for this means that you can share round the responsibility.
* Assign people in a rota to respond to incoming communications. You will be bombarded, but people should be responded to, and all incoming emails must be read. It is a hard job, but you must keep on top of it.
Be aware though, that journalists are not always your friends. Many occupations will have a “no journalists” policy, and generally it is better if you have as much control over the outgoing media as possible. Be aware that so-called “activist-journalists” can be a total liability if they do not understand the boundaries between being an activist as part of a consensual group and being an observer trying to write a story. Also, student newspapers can really dick on you. Press should be made aware of what is off limits (i.e. meetings or the whole occupation). Three things to remember:
* No-one should be photographed if they don’t want to be. People have many reasons for not wanting to be photographed and these should always be respected.
* People should use pseudonyms when talking to press.
* Unless you have absolute consensus, no meetings should be filmed or recorded other than for internal minutes.
55.7 Wellbeing
* Make sure it’s not always left to the same people to do the boring work (security, emails, etc.) just as the politics and press shouldn’t be taken over by a clique.
* You might consider making your occupation a drug-free space. It’s not always great to get done for smoking a doobie when you’re making serious political points. Eat fruit instead.
* Although hopefully not used, it’s sensible for someone to have a first aid kit.
* Have a rota of people on “security” duty at doors 24 hours a day. It’s tiresome, yes, but necessary for the occupation to keep going.
* Where possible, at the end of the occupation leave buildings as you found them. You do not want to get arrested for criminal damage. Photograph all rooms before you leave them as evidence in case you are accused of damage.
* Have fun! We’ve seen everything from Christmas Dinner at Canterbury Christchurch, to socialist magic at the Mansion House at Middlesex. Do everything you can conceive of.Make trouble.
* That said, be aware of where CCTV cameras are and cover them where possible.
* And if you are going to do something illegal, cover your face.
55.8 Occupation as an open space
Having your occupation as an open space can be great. If possible, put on public meetings and events. This will help people understand what you are doing, and may attract sympathetic students to join your cause. That being said, watch out for tories coming in to cause trouble, and keep all security staff and management out.
Flyer the local area with information about the occupation. Say on the flyers what it is and what it’s about. Getting local support and support from students who don’t personally want to occupy can be crucial to keeping an occupation going.
Working with Trade Unions
Universities are as much workplaces as they are places of learning. Trade unions active on campus (normally UNISON and UCU, but also sometimes UNITE) will often be very sympathetic to occupations and you should get in touch with them. Ask them what you can help them with and they may be able to help you. Occupations also present an opportunity to highlight bad working conditions that often exist on British campuses, where Vice-Chancellors may earn £400,000 a year, while cleaners will work on the minimum wage.
55.9 Supporting other occupations
We hope that there will be a whole load of occupations going on at once, We also know that management of universities will talk to each other. Here are some tips on what you can do to support each other, and keep this movement going.
* When you hear of another occupation starting, email them or phone them to send your support. Everyone loves this shit.
* If you can, send a speaker to other newer occupations to tell them about your experiences and offer support and guidance.
* Keep other occupations up-to-date with concrete changes in your conditions (i.e. what management and the courts are doing, how you have responded.)
55.10 Ending the occupation
Decide together when to leave. Organise a rally, have a demonstration, make a whole lot of noise. Contact all your supporters and ask them to greet you outside the building when the time comes. If you are being threatened with disciplinary or legal actions people must be allowed to make their own choices on whether they want to stay or leave.
If management take out injunctions on occupiers, do not panic! Contact a good lawyer (if you can find someone who specialises in property law, this is very useful.) Often even sympathetic solicitors will be over-cautious (it’s their job.) There is often no need to leave until the bailiffs arrive and manage to gain entry. Police may be on the scene of any eviction. Do everything you can to avoid arrest. If people do want to get arrested, then this is a personal decision that they must judge themselves.
55.11 Resources
The Occupation Cookbook – This is a document that came out of a set of occupations in Croatia. It has very useful information on direct democracy. http://slobodnifilozofski.org/?p=1915/
National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) – A student-based organization working on protests around HE policy. Useful for resources and support. http://anticuts.com/
Education Activists Network (EAN) – Similar to NCAFC but also with members of staff involved. http://educationactivistnetwork.wordpress.com
Indymedia – Independent media server. A good place to spread information about what is happening in your occupation. http://www.indymedia.org.uk
NUS is really useful if you want to look up how NOT to run a campaign against fees and cuts.www.bureaucraticanduseless.org.uk
56. Flag for an organisation for whom the following is axiomatic:
56.1 That Western society is based upon envy engendered by publicity
56.2 That publicity works upon anxiety: the sum of everything is money, to get money to overcome anxiety.
56.3 That the anxiety on which publicity plays is the fear that having nothing you will be nothing.
56.4 That under capitalism money is life.
56.5 That under capitalism money is the token of, and the key to, every human capacity.
56.6 That under capitalism the power to spend money is the power to live.
56.7 That publicity speaks in the future tense and yet the achievement of this future is endlessly deferred. It is judged, not by the real fulfilment of its promises, but by the relevance of its fantasies to those of the spectator-buyer. Its essential application is not to reality but to daydreams.
56.8 That glamour cannot exist without personal social envy being a common and widespread emotion.
56.9 That the industrial society has moved towards democracy and then stopped half way.
56.10 That the industrial society is an ideal society for generating personal social envy.
56.11 That the pursuit of individual happiness has been acknowledged as a universal right.
56.12 That existing social conditions make the individual feel powerless.
56.13 That in the existing social conditions, the individual lives in contradiction between what he is and what he would like to be.
56.14 That the individual can either (56.14a) become fully conscious of the contradiction between what he is and what he would like to be and its causes, or else (56.14b) he lives, continually subject to an envy which, compounded with his sense of powerlessness, dissolves into recurrent daydreams.
56.15 That 56.14a entails joining the political struggle for a full democracy which itself entails amongst other things the overthrow of capitalism.
56.16 That the process of living within the contradictions of present social conditions is often reinforced by working conditions.
56.17 That the interminable present of meaningless working hours is ‘balanced’ by a dreamt future in which imaginary activity replaces the passivity of the moment.
56.18 That only one kind of hope or satisfaction or pleasure can be envisaged within the culture of capitalism: the power to acquire is recognised to the exclusion of everything else.
56.19 That the dream of capitalism is publicity.
56.20 That capitalism survives by forcing the majority, whom it exploits, to define their (sic) own interests as narrowly as possible.
56.21 That the survival of capitalism was once achieved by extensive deprivation. Today in the developed countries it is being achieved by imposing false standards of what is and what is not desirable.
56.22 That publicity is the life of this culture isobar as without publicity capitalism could not survive.
56.23 That it is desirable that people come to consciousness of these false standards.
56.24 That they should be assisted in doing so (56.23).
57. So much for free school, you say? Perhaps with a lack of funding and PR (Yes PR. For what is a school with no students? Ignominious sank, as someone once said), it will continue to be a repeated failure - but of course, having to chase funds would defeat the point of being a ‘free’ school. And even the Ladies of the Press*, with our occasional ‘publicist’ personas, had to tend to our respective secretarial jobs during setup, as my 17.45 appearance in a pinstripe skirt would have testified at the time.
58. The Head asks: Does anyone have any comments on that? No one does.
59.1 The initial premise is one of complete freedom, total openness. All proposals will be published in an (im)possible schoolbook.
And yet a part of the invitation is withheld; An event/activity for the school is devised, but it will not be actually programmed.
The invitation is to supply material for use/misuse by others.
The offer is not free and open, the exchange is one-sided.
The authors make a proposal, titled ‘The Doubly Invaginated Ruff of the Benign Headship’. The proposal that they submit tries to be similarly closed and open - it is submitted folded, so that parts of it are hidden.
The proposal is published in the (im)possible Schoolbook, and consequently used/misused.
The authors are invited to an event at the Tate Modern Tanks. The discussion will be the culmination of the project that has centred around the (im)possible Schoolbook. This project has been inaccessible to the authors up until this closing event. (Places are fee, but must be reserved. ID must be presented on arrival at the venue)
The authors sit at the back.
The head sits at the front, alongside a small panel. Off to the right two ladies sit at a desk. They have invited the audience to respond to the proceedings in text, on paper, and have promised to publish everything. The initial premise is repeated.
59.2 The authors respond, however, they choose NOT to publish their responses as part of the event.
Following this event, The authors are invited to contribute to an appendix to the original (Im)possible Schoolbook. They submit the responses that they generated during the discussion event, but cover the page with white, rendering it inaccessible. It remains withheld, not public.
A little later, the authors are invited to speak at FIVE YEARS gallery during a programme of events and discussions about the (im)possible school book and its appendix. They accept the invitation, and choose to reveal, through presentation, the page that was generated in response to the discussion event at the Tanks.
60.1 What The Arts Council of England means by public engagement.
What do we mean by public engagement?
Arts Council England’s mission is to enable everyone to experience arts that enrich their lives. We believe that great art inspires us, brings us together and teaches us about ourselves, and the world around us. In short, it makes life better. We want as many people as possible to engage with the arts.
Engaging with the arts covers a wide spectrum of activity. It could incorporate all or any of the following:
* Attending an arts event
* Taking part in an arts activity
* Volunteering to work at or with an arts organisation
* Working with an artist or group of artists to design or create an artwork
* Helping to make decisions about arts activity in a local community or Helping an arts organisation to make decisions about its work
60.2 Public engagement in the arts
We estimate that around two-thirds of people in England currently attend or participate in the arts (You can read more about levels of arts attendance and participation on our website: www.takingpartinthearts.com
However, most people do so infrequently, and for a variety of reasons such as lack of time, poor health, cost, or lack of interest, some groups are less likely to engage than others, particularly:
* People with little or no formal education
* People in a lower socio-economic position (for example people in routine or manual occupations)
* People from Black and minority ethnic groups
* People in poor health and/or with a limiting long term illness or disability
* People on low incomes
* People who live in social housing
60.3 What do we look for in an application?
How a project will engage people will vary enormously depending on the nature of the work, and we don’t expect every application to meet all of these points. We want applicants to tell us how their project will enable people to have a great experience of the arts, in ways that are relevant and appropriate to their work.
When identifying proposals that will enable more people to engage with the arts we look for applications that:
* Understand who the audience for the work is likely to be
* Explain why the work will be interesting, challenging or inspiring for that audience
* Offer something new for audiences that are likely to have some experience of the arts already
61. Refusal is said to be the first degree of passivity. But if refusal is deliberate and voluntary, if it expresses a decision - though this be a negative one - it does not yet allow separation from the power of consciousness, and comes no closer to passivity than this act, of refusal, on the part of a self. And yet refusal does tend toward the absolute, independent of any determination whatsoever. This is the core of refusal which Bartleby the scrivener’s inexorable ‘I would prefer not to’ expresses: an abstention which has never had to be decided upon, which precedes all decisions and which is not so much a denial as, more than that, an abdication.
62. Lost. The Culture Industry has succeeded in transforming subjects into social functions and done this so undifferentiatedly that those who are completely seized by this, no longer mindful of any conflict, enjoy their own dehumanization as something human, as the happiness of warmth.
63. Ladies and Gentlemen! It is with great hesitation and much misgiving that [we] appear before you, in the character of - The preacher. If timidity be at all allied to the virtue of modesty, and can find favor in your eyes, [we] pray you, for the sake of that virtue, accord [us] your utmost indulgence.
64. The strata which has come forward to serve the big bourgeoisie, are the scholar despots, a section of the petty bourgeoisie, decadent artists, actors and actresses, writers, singers, musicians, painters, etc. They follow the life style and social practice which best serve the interests of the big bourgeoise, which is characterized by:
65. Eclecticism in attitude or general outlook.
66. Detachment from the real problems of the people (especially the working people)
67. Isolation from the real, material world
68. Parasitism in life style and parasitism on the labours of the working people
69. Exuberance about decay - heading towards total decay.
70. Democracy. If we like: the power of the peoples over their own existence. Politics immanent in the people and the withering away, in open process, of the State. From that perspective, we will only ever be true democrats, integral to the historic life of peoples, when we become communists again.
71. Generosity. Too generous.
72. Ernestness. Too ernest.
73. Worthy, worthy.
74. No really. We possess a method for destroying work. We have sought a positive measure of non-work. A positive measure of freedom from this shitty servitude which the bosses appreciate so much and which the official socialist movement has always imposed on us like a badge of honour. No really, we can no longer say ‘socialists,’ we can no longer accept your ignominy. Antonio Negri
75. Greater freedom does not lie in the absence of a predicate, in the anonymity by default. Greater freedom results in the saturation of predicates, from their anarchical accumulation. Overpredication automatically cancels itself out in permanent unpredictability. ‘When we no longer have any secrets, we no longer have anything to hide. It is we who have become a secret, it is we who are hidden.
76. Slogan(s).
77. Possible.
78. Impossible.
79.1 Why must we work?
79.2 Ils Donnent Leur Sang. Donnez Votre Travail.
80. Utopia. Utopia goes with all allegorical stylistics, which is moreover very well suited to mannerism because it can take this general allegorist apart and disseminate it. Ultimately, the impossible can be broken into pieces. Lacan said ‘The real is little grains.’ Maybe the impossible is little grains, too. Mannerism makes it possible to have a succession of categorical collapses that constantly drive the whole.
81. I cannot but help tell anyone who will listen
as possible springing off point:
In me (the worm) clearly
Is no righteousness, but this -
Persistence
and
I profit
by every calamity;
I eat my way out of it;
gorged on vine-leaf and mulberry,
parasite, I find nourishment:
when you cry in disgust,
a worm on the leaf,
a worm in the dust,
a worm on the ear-of-wheat,
I am yet unrepentant,
for I know how the Lord God
is about to manifest, when I,
the industrious worm,
spin my own shroud.
82. What is the persistence we need? What is left to gorge upon? Why do I feel so sick...
83. Michael Asher
84. Art & Language
85. Un Coup de dés
86. A Throw of the dice
87. A few key phrases.
88. Remember you are working now!!!
89. No more books. Hopeless.
90. ‘Mass art’ defines a paradoxical relationship.
91. ‘Mass’ is a fundamental political category. A category of activist democracy.
92. ‘art,’ is, and can only be, an aristocratic category. To say that ‘art’ is an aristocratic category is not a case of being judgemental. You are simply noting that ‘art’ includes the idea of formal creation, of visible novelty in the history of forms, and therefore requires the means for understanding creation as such, necessitates a a differential education, a minimal proximity to the history of the art concerned and to the vicissitudes of its grammar. A long and often thankless apprenticeship.
93. The Banner is a prop.
94. Group Therapy.
95. A conversation between us.
96. Work as a collectivity.
97. Should we agree that we have to all agree on everything?
98. Our set in the fair again as a conversation between us and with the context (urban plan, location etc )
99. A possible anarchy of materials
100. Tracts, posters, bulletins, words of the streets, infinite words - it is not through a concern for effectiveness that they become imperative. Effective or not, they belong to the decision of of the instant. They appear, and they disappear. They do not say everything; on the contrary, they ruin everything; they are outside of everything. They act and reflect fragmentarily. They do not leave a trace: trait without trace. Like words on the wall, they are written in insecurity, received under threat; they carry the danger themselves and then pass with the passerby who transmits, loses, or forgets them.