NEOISM, PLAGIARISM & PRAXIS by Stewart Home. AK Press, London & Edinburgh 1995

Reviewed by Tone RF
"Home is a novelist, art agitator and documenter of art terrorism... The art terrorists art terrorist."

"Neoism, Plagiarism & Praxis" is concerned with what's been happening at the cutting edge of culture since the demise of Fluxus and the Situationists. It provides inside information on the Neoists, Plagiarists, Art Strikers, London Psychogeographical Association, K Foundation and other groups that are even more obscure. Rather than offering a continuous narrative, the text is made up of articles, manifestos, lectures and essays. The appendices include Stewart Home in conversation with Karen Goaman and Simon Ford and selected correspondence January to December 1989.

NP&P also demonstrates Home's anxiety to escape "...the bankrupt formulas of preceding generations." (p. 89). Amongst the satirical traps and hoaxes set for the unwary, Home has some serious points to make: "The Marxist-Leninist assertion that human society consists of an economic base and a cultural and political superstructure is utter nonsense; there is a dynamic interaction between economics, culture and politics... An analogous pattern of interaction exists between production and consumption... Hence my concern to emphasise the productive role played by the audience in the cultural sphere."

Although influenced by Situationism, Home often attacks the late Guy Debord whose concept of the media as a monolithic, conditioning machine leads to the very passivity he decried. "What I aim for in my activities is an ambiguity on a par with that achieved by Machiavelli..." - Stewart Home (NP&P, p.91)

NP&P is a collection of writings gathered from the mid-eighties onward. Texts in the first section are taken form The Art Strike Handbook and later issues of Smile. The following section is composed of writings from exhibitions and installations. Part Three is given over to Neoist texts. The final section is devoted to texts written since the end of Art Strike 1990-1993. This is followed by four appendices detailing interviews, correspondence and an introduction to the Polish edition of The Assault on Culture.

Bibliography