Posts Tagged ‘USA’

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!

Is Mark Waugh’s “Bubble Entendre” banned in the USA?

Saturday, October 24th, 2009

Two weeks ago I received an email informing me that an attempt to sell titles in my Semina series at the New York Art Book Fare had descended into farce because the books had been impounded by US customs. Book Works told me they’d flown from Europe to America to sell  the novels, but ended up manning an empty table. The publications have now disappeared and may have been destroyed; from New York any unsold copies should have gone on to a distributor in Los Angeles, but there is still no sign of them on either the east or west coast. I was reminded of this a couple of days ago, when the following message from Bubble Entendre author Mark Waugh turned up in my inbox:

“Hi, could you expand on the rumour that Bubble Entendre has been impounded by US customs? In a week when the Tate flirted with showing Spiritual America, and then withdrew the work, I am curious about a conspiracy to regulate the flow of subversive literature into the homes of bourgeois America? Best wishes, Mark.”

Word on the grapevine is that the Semina books were impounded because a US customs official took a look at Bubble Entendre and decided it was a blue-print for a terrorist attack on the 2012 Olympic Games. The novel does contain a narrative about an entirely fictional kidnap incident during this event; but I’d like to stress that I only accepted the text for publication because it was, in my opinion, critical of terrorism.

For the benefit of customs officials and cultural cops around the world, I’d like to clarify that I am 100% opposed to all forms of terrorism – regardless of whether it is committed by the US and British governments (as is currently happening in the Middle East and Afghanistan); or by religious fundamentalists (Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu or any other variety). It should go without saying that terrorism is always vanguardist and can never be justified.

To reiterate, I do not write, edit or endorse books that in any way condone terrorism. I’d also like to know what happened to the missing Semina books – Index by Bridget Penney, One Break, A Thousand Blows by Maxi Kim, Bubble Entendre by Mark Waugh and Rape New York by Jana Leo. I trust that the several hundred missing copies of these works have not been mindlessly destroyed by US customs, and that they will be delivered to Book Work’s LA distributor in the very near future.

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