The oldest of suppressed traditions
In a world dominated by illusion, it comes as no surprise that censorship should be popularly misperceived as a form of social repression. The contradictions which support such an inversion are manifest in every area of daily life; they constitute the apparent “reality” of our “time”. Despite the fact that it has been demonstrated time and again that consciousness is an effect of a closed system of exclusive focus, of censorship, “literate” consensus maintains that censorship and silence are the negation of consciousness. It is clear that Power has a vested interest in maintaining a monopoly on censorship. The “concept of freedom” is an unreachable, collapsing, absolute. All experience becomes equal when exchanged via Capital; with class “privilege” determining how much of this worthless “equality” each person is entitled to.
The negative and its use
Anything can be censored for any reason; start by censoring this text. The censors of the “left”, “right” and “centre”, all do their collective part; despite the fact that they imagine themselves to be motivated by the very beliefs we will ultimately negate.
From originality to ontology: the decline of the text
The possibilities for communal transformation of this world lie in disconnection from imposed notions of progress and democracy. Plagiarism is the “beginning”, the negative point of a culture which finds its justification in the “unique”. Censorship supersedes plagiarism as an “intelligent” negation of “originality” because it suppresses not only (“original”) production, but also reproduction (plagiarism, appropriation &c.) which revalue the “original” and maintain its circulation in “reality”. Censorship is to the present what plagiarism was to history.
The healing power of doubt
Revolutionary propaganda sets itself the task of discrediting all received ideas without offering a single “alternative” thought with which they might be replaced. Kill your desires and live! Erase, destroy and make useless all recorded information. Physically and otherwise attempt to suppress all expression in art, politics, history &c. Resist culture and all other forms of institutional identity. Suppress, by refusing to participate in, interpersonal and mass social relationships. As you see fit, smash the “imagination”, “schizophrenia”, “death”, “sexuality”, “values”, “time” and all other forms of seduction and abstraction. Experimentally break down the frames of reference by which you organise non-valued perceptions into valued entities: i.e. objects, ideas, means of self-perception &c.
An end to social relations
“Self-destruction” is a semantic swindle. The moralism against suicide is reactionary resistance to change. Only total opposition, both theoretical and practical (i.e. silence), is irrecuperable. Anything else must necessarily appear absolutist and contradictory.
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: 1960s, 557087 Seattle, 60s, Alex Trocchi, Alexander Trocchi, APG, Art and Culture, Artists Placement Group, Arts Journal, Barry Flanagan, beat generation, Better Books, black beauties, black bombers, Bluecoat Gallery, Bow Street Magistrates Court, cannabis, central London, charge, Clement Greenberg, conceptual art, Destruction In Art Symposium, Destruction in Art: Destroy to Create, Diamond & Co., drug smuggling, Durophet, Finch College, Finch College Museum of Art, Fluxus, forgery, Francis Morland, heroin, Jeff Sawtell, Jeffrey Sawtell, John Latham, John Lennon, John Perreault, junkies, Liverpool, London, LSD, Lucy Lippard, MOMA, Morning Star, Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York City, New York Museum of Modern Art, Norwich, Norwich School of Art, Number 7, NYC, Paula Cooper Gallery, pot, purple hearts, Seattle, Seattle Art Museum, Sheila Malcham, Simon Ford, sixties, Soho, St. Martin's School of Art, Still and Chew, The Art Forum, UK, USA, weed, Yoko Ono
Speed kills (boredom), try durophet, you’ll last longer… better than viagra indeed!
Enough of that old conceptual art stuff! Enough of black beauties! Enough of viagra! Try neoism, you’ll last even longer!
My whole world turned amphetamine blue since I’m living without you! Where are you? You ain’t been back to the Big Blogger Flat all week!
dexedrine svp
…and 30 years on, academics still find themselves on short-term contracts that may or may not be renewed.
The only difference is that now they don’t bother / have the time to write when they’re not offering any hours…
I’ll buy that for a dollar! Discount for the fakery of course!
Speed is the fuel that motors rock and roll!
Speed kills! Aciid is the drug of life and loving!
so…counterculture is just an art scam!
The more drugs you take the better your art becomes!
SKOOBy snacks!!!
Burn them, burn them all!
So what’s the point? St M. being the best art college in world? Are you fucking sane?
With fees of 24 grand a year I need a day job but coz I’m a full time post-graduate student I got a night job… If this was the sixties I’d be able to spend more time taking drugs…..
If he returned the chewed copy of the book, how come he had it to display and sell – and isn’t the ‘real’ owner the college?
That’s where I, caught her eye
I guess one way of settling it would to be to compare other correspondence coming from St Martins dated around the same time. you’d have to be a bloody good forger to get paper stock, typewriter font, letterhead and so on exactly right…
JJ agreed! But this whole back story to the work and its sale is interesting to explore – and just what was the final outcome of the insurance claim on the stolen letter? Perhaps the archivist at Flat Time House could get onto that one….
Jonathan also raises an interesting point, was the piece ever Latham’s to sell in terms of capitalist property law? And I, of course, think the more raising these issues reduces the financial value of the work, the greater its cultural value! But will MOMA want to deal with them?
Are you on drugs? You’ll never get on in the art world if you keep saying things like this! Anyone who wants a career in the culture industry has to watch their manners, and not go around upsetting major institutions like MOMA (or The Tate for that matter)…..
Oh hi Nick, fancying meeting you here, seems like our lives just keep drawing us together and we’ve got so many institutions in common – both of us coming up to the Tate via MOMA Oxford and The Whitechapel!
Hey Nick! I’m gonna buy you a book on synchronicity for your birthday coz every time I run into you by accident you’re with my wife! Strange isn’t it!
Is this a private conversation or can anybody join in? Nick you’ve worked with a lot of celebrity artists in your time and I’d just like to ask you what it was like for you meeting Andy Warhol?
Et moi, et moi, et moi?
forgery is where is at man
i didnt say that. someone is coming in here pretending to be me again. this multiple identity thing has stopped being funny ages ago.
Its all about chasing shadows.
By that I mean latching on to this or that latest, most innovative idea that some self styled money making guru has put out in the hope it’ll go viral and make them a lot of money off the backs of all the headless chickens who will follow them blindly down a blind alley. Its a shame but a truism nonetheless that people will follow where someone they see as an expert leads. Even if they lead them to certain disaster, which is what most of the gurus tend to do to their flocks.
The trick is to recognize a shadow when you see it!