One of the primary tasks of art and, in all
probability, the task that might well be defined as its fundamental
task, is that of destructuring, (critically) thwarting the false sense
of equilibrium that is proper to concepts of stasis and immobility,
perpetrating a continuous dynamism with both constructive and
deconstructive qualities and characteristics. What might now seem to be artistic
phenomenologist
tied to or derived from a certain avant-garde are so thoroughly held
under check and domesticated by imperialist logic and structure that it
is quite natural to wonder if it isn’t time to look for a new, complete
series of models (both regulatory and in terms of resistance) able to
counterbalance the totalitarian phenomenon of globalization, towards
which modern man is inexorably moving.
A process that seems ever more
irreversible. Standardization has absorbed and made impotent all
those cultures that once represented moments of rupture, opposition,
counter-trends. Moments that possessed a quality that could be used to
re-discuss, re-arrange, re-evaluate already-existing precepts. Moments
able to inspire profound reforms in man’s ethical evolution. The affirmation of a new collective consciousness now
seems light years away, while the last spark of a decrepit idealism that
engendered the idea of autonomy has already been consigned to the
history books. In a certain sense, in fact, 1968 was the last cultural
expression from beyond the pre-existing system, even though it carried
within itself, and from its very birth, the seeds of its own failure.
Shortly afterwards an apparently crystalline world was supposed to
appear, the role of which was merely to respond (and blindly accept)
numeric imperatives and sinister formal manipulations. world that was to
be based solely on the concept of economic control.
A world so strong
that it could impose on man rules derived from the most arid and sterile
economic logic. A world able to burst brutally into individual
consciences, taking their place and emptying what we still maintain are
profound human values and healthy ethical principles of all their
contents. Right up to the present. What should be a richness that is consubstantial with
the human spirit has given over to ever more synthetic and artificial
criteria. The abstract, deceptive and aleatory proclamations of the
capitalist system have almost entirely infected the spirit of our age.
The false values codified by a media-dependent system have found their
raison d’être in the ability to justify wars, environmental disasters
and intolerable repression of those opposition movements who,
courageously, are continuing a search for an affirmation of their own
identity.
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The annihilation that our ability to autonomously
evaluate events is undergoing is due to the inertia and cultural
conformity in which each individual conscience is ensnared. The
unscrupulous use of the means of communication and culture by so-called
democracies has led to ever more widespread in differentiation and
uniformity, forcing the masses to interpret the role of subordinate
extras. Individuals are ever more steered and coerced by those who
control the media. The precepts expressed by the media system are
converted into norms, insidiously defining themselves as ordinary
statutes able to manipulate situations where they are then accepted as
real. The videocratic system, by definitively replacing democracy in its
formal aspects, has made public opinion less prone to react, and
therefore easier to control and manipulate. The completely passive
attitude we assume when watching television is in fact the exact
opposite of what it means to observe reality with a critical eye, to
experience events and feel responsible, or to react to what is
happening. The currently dominant and prevaricating social form
is everything that belongs to the concept of "capital". Capital,
metaphorically, could be defined as a sort of "enroller" who is able to
transform individuals into vectors of desire in that it acts on factors
that are linked to the concept of privation. And by organizing
individuals as vectors of desire, they are subjugated at will. In fact,
what were once considered determining social forms (territory, group,
etc.) have all "morphologically" been transformed into the concept of
capital, the arch enroller able to apply totalitarian surveillance
schemes and therefore control all signs of potential change. However, and in light of recent tragic events, it is
obvious that those aspects that are bandied about as the success stories
of modern technocratic society are also leading to confusion, they are
therefore beginning to show themselves to be failures. In fact, what we
normally define as "competitive attitudes tied to the concept of maximum
profit" must in some way be transformed, as the values of growth, power
and domination, as they are intended nowadays, are now no longer
sustainable. If were were to think of the freedom that is implicit in
all artistic creation not only as a vehicle and possible escape route,
but as an element necessary to uncovering and changing the socio-cultural
characteristics of the world we live in, then what should contemporary
artistic production be like in order to be able to respond to requests
for cultural renewal and change? What new paradigms should contemporary
man cum artist assume if he wants to contribute to evicting what has
become the materialistic yoke able to make life itself unnatural,
reducing it to a useless game that entraps the reawakening of its own
soul? Perhaps rethinking and rediscussing ourselves as men who can
determine their own existence through the ethics of doing might be a
first step towards that much desired path that could possibly save us
from the furious insanity of our current era.
©World
Of Art magazine
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