Posts Tagged ‘Liverpool’

From censorship to John Latham and back again…

Monday, December 7th, 2009

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!

Yoko Ono, Gustav Metzger and me…

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

Yoko Ono keeps popping into my life. Last week I was reading and commenting about her on the Old Rope blog. The piece in question particularly grooved me because it featured an embed of Ono’s Bottoms (AKA Four) from YouTube. Here’s a short extract from that blog followed by some of my comments:

“…Ono has taken more than her fair share of shit over the years.  Richard Di Lello’s The Longest Cocktail Party, whilst being an illuminating and entertaining insight into the world of Apple, also offers glimpses of the derision leveled at Ono - even from within the Beatles inner circle.

“Though far from perfect, it must be remembered that Ono’s art was challenging and (at times) part of a wider fluxus tradition. As a woman, as an artist and being, gasp, Japanese, Yoko took flak on all fronts…

“Mister Trippy says: I always thought Cut was the best thing Yoko did, the piece where she sits still and the audience cut off her clothes with a pair of scissors. Very powerful. But her work is variable and nothing else is as truly brilliant as Cut. I remember taking in her Whitney Museum show in New York in 1989 and she’d redone these fragile 1960s pieces in bronze, mind-bogglingly terrible. But great to see the Bottoms film again… I love that one too! Didn’t realise it was on YouTube… BTW Yoko is great fun too in her only ‘roughie’ softcore porn film Satan’s Bed from before she met Lennon.

“oldrope says: Agreed, Trip. Cut certainly makes the cut. I believe it was repeated in some form many years later, but that seems a trifle unnecessary in my book.

“I was also a little disappointed with Skyladders inside St Lukes in Liverpool (aka The Bombed Out Church – you actually have to sign a form on the way in saying they are not responsible if it falls in on your head) last year. Though I quite liked the ‘instruments’ for people to play with.

“At the risk of sounding cliched, I groove on her earlier work most.

“I’ve not seen Satan’s Bed, but it sounds like a good Saturday night in.

“Mister Trippy says: I agree with you about the ladders, about the only things I liked in that Liverpool Biennial were the moving trees, but that was coz I could watch local kids being naughty by repeatedly pressing the emergency stop button once they worked out where it was. And it was conveniently close to A Foundation where I was doing a performance. Still Yoko’s work in that Biennial was no worse than say Tracey Emin.

“If you like trashy films then Satan’s Bed is a real treat – out on DVD in the UK so not at all hard to find…. BTW: Did you know that both Yoko and me appear on the recent Intermedium Records double CD compilation Tribute To Gustav Metzger. But that’s the closest I’ve ever got to her….”

The Tribute To Gustav Metzger is also an example of an item missing from my Discogs discography (and indeed Yoko’s too), as discussed on my last blog. The Metzger tribute also features Melissa Logan from Chicks On Speed and was originally done for broadcast on Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bayern 2) in Germany on 12 December 2008. It was curated by Justin Hoffmann. So that’s two things from last year in which I shared a billing with Yoko (the Metzger tribute and the Liverpool Biennial). And right now both Yoko and me are two of more than 100 ‘artists’ from around the world featured in International Fluxhibition #3: Thinking Inside The Box at The Gallery in the E.H. Hereford University Center at the University of Texas at Arlington (on until 31 July). The show is made up mainly of contemporary takes on Flux boxes, and my contribution was accepted despite not meeting the brief. It is Score for Fluxhibition #3 – 2009:

“Don’t send a work to the Fluxshow.
Tell the curator it got lost in the post.
Do it again for the next one.
No art is the best art!”

Returning to Yoko, regardless of whether you do or don’t like the stuff she does now, what you can’t knock is her sincerity. She clearly likes to make and show art, and is as happy doing so in a small gallery as a prestigious Biennial. And while Yoko’s musical output over the years has been variable too, I even find it hard to knock her on this score when you consider that she and Lennon had the good taste to employ Elephant’s Memory as their backing band shortly after arriving in New York City. Let’s do the Power Boogie….

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!

More on the death of King Mob’s Chris Gray

Monday, May 25th, 2009

In the past couple of days I’ve found some more online pieces about the death of Chris Gray. I’ve also come across blog talk of a Guardian obituary that was supposed to appear on 21 May; there is no sign of it yet but I guess this may still materialise. The most comprehensive obit so far is by Charlie Radcliffe who was very close to Chris in the 1960s, had little contact with him for more than 30 years after that, then rekindled this intimate friendship seven years ago. Among the many interesting observations Charlie makes at The Void are the following:

The Acid, published under the pseudonym of Sam  by Vision Press this year, is as much a contribution to the politics of the new millennium as it is to psychedelic exploration… For Chris there was precious little contradiction between the one and the other and he saw The Acid as a rational and entirely logical development of his 60s and 70s political agenda… Chris continued his political life through the late 60s, before moving to India in 1969 to join Osho. Chris’ interesting account of this period of his life is in Osho (also by Sam!) His ‘retreat’ to India earned him the opprobrium of the ‘politically committed’ but a close reading of the book is enough to indicate that Chris never turned his back on his political convictions…”

Like Chariie, I can confirm that Chris remained ‘politically committed’ and that the revolutionary transformation of society was the focus of many of his conversations with me and a couple of other people I introduced him to. One time when I was rapping with Chris, he told me the reason he went to India was to finance the revolution. He journeyed east with the explicit intention of mailing dope back to London, so that this could be sold to raise money for political activities. Some gear was intercepted before the post office delivered it to its intended recipient, when Chris got wind of this he delayed his return home. He hadn’t planned on staying away from London as long as he did, but once the British authorities had marked his card, he faced a simple choice between living in India until the heat cooled off or being busted. This enforced stay in the east led Chris to an involvement with Buddhism and ultimately Osho. To the best of my knowledge, Charlie is right to say Chris left for India in 1969, but I would stress it wasn’t until the mid-seventies that he came across Osho (AKA Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh). To clarify further, my impression is that Chris had a period back in London after his first Indian trip before returning there and involving himself with Osho.

While I was aware that Chris had a long term involvement with Osho, this wasn’t something that came up in my conversations with him. Nonetheless, Osho was a major part of Chris’ life and an obit appeared on the  Sannyas News site on 17 May 2009. This post opens with the following observation: “The main founder of the Sannyasnews website, Swami Paritosh (Chris Gray), usually known as Pari, and who for writing purposes used the pseudonym “Sam”, died in the London Hampstead Marie Curie Hospice (Eden Hall) last Thursday morning (May 14th). He had put up a brave struggle with cancer over the last 12 months. He was 67.”

A few more posts about Chris’ death can be found on the History Is Made At Night, Boredom Is Always Counter-Revolutionary and Artosphere blogs. If you want to read Life of Osho by Chris Gray there is a free download available online. New and used paperback copies of Life of Osho by Sam (Sannyas, London 1997) are still readily available and carry the following International Standard Book Numbering: ISBN-10: 0953153401 and ISBN-13: 978-0953153404; since you can get a new copy for £10, avoid the used book dealers who are charging £25 and more for it. Although I’m not convinced Osho or any other guru is worth following, I still found this book really interesting for the overtly political reading Chris gives of Bhagwan’s teachings, and for the brief account he provides of his own ‘kamikaze’ drug smuggling of the early eighties. The other book Chris wrote as Sam, The Acid: On Sustained Experiment with Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, or LSD, was officially published by Vision Press about six weeks ago but no copies appear to have been commercially distributed yet. The Acid carries the following International Standard Book Numbers: ISBN-10: 0956204902 and ISBN-13: 978-0956204905. I assume copies will become available in due course.

Christopher Nelson Gray, born 22 May 1942 in London; grew up in Crosby, Liverpool, and raised by his grandmother. Educated at Repton. Died in London on 14 May 2009.

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!