mobilized

screens

produced at the university of sussex, spring 2012. all rights absolved by the author, whomever they may be.

in the name of the resolution, the double barricade [overview]

The idea of screens being mobile is a recent one; we might trace it back authentically to Gunpei Yokois 1989 cultural breakthrough the game boy, though this was itself inspired by the LCD pocket calculators that had grown in popularity over the preceding three decades. Certainly it has been the cellular or mobile telephone that has been most instrumental in making the portable screen a possibility. Yet taking the etymology of the words, we are faced with a vitally different and extraordinarily more militant suggestion. Screen can be traced to the old french term escran, meaning a barrier against heat, even to skerm in old high german, a term connected with the english word skirmish. As such, a screen is a protection - but, one asks, against what? Also critical is our use of the word screening, which itself has two divergent meanings. A screening is - in the culture of film, documentary and conceptual art - an artistic event of high order, analogous in cultural significance to the ballet or ritual sacrifice in alternate sociohistorical spaces. Yet a screening is also a biopolitical process of subject formation and interrogation, that one might be forced to inhabit during a border crossing, job interview or visit to an incarcerated family member. Screen therefore implies a barricade, a fortification, an embankment. Yet what is the purpose of such a barricade? Whom might it be said to protect? Whom does it obstruct? The term mobility is similarly loaded and complex. In one sense mobility is a capitalist invention; it is only in the increasingly globalised and networked we inhabit that there is such a need for travel, for the movement and flux of bodies and other objects. There have always been forms of precarity, migration and exploration, but the vagrancy of todays neoliberal subjects is indeed novel. It is no longer rare to travel across continents to find work, receive education or visit family. Not just speed, but movement itself is now a necessity, perhaps even a construction of an economic and hierarchical system. Yet with mobile - which comes from the latin word movere to move - we get mobile vulgus, the common people, the mob.

REWINDER [2012] - processing sketch

TANGENTS[2012] - processing sketch

BETRAYAL@BARCELONA[2012] - processing sketch

SOCIALMEDIA [2011] - presentation

So, while the most technologically advanced and critically acclaimed screens belong to the corporate and governmental interests of the world, it is possible to discover screens that operate in spite of - perhaps even in disruption of - this monopoly. Of course, this involves opening up our notion of what we might consider a screen. We might seek to include screens that are animated - rather than mobile - using the rationale that they are designed with reference to our own highly and increasingly mobile society. Following a definition of a screen as a certain barricade, we might also include such things as walls, billboards, banners and graffiti. Though they are not animated, they animate, acting as a space of representation showing the anatomies of this mobile - perhaps mobilized - society. One wonders how one might document the tension inherent in the material culture of this digital age without hypocrisy. The tension which turns screens into a space of contestation - if not outright domination - also permeates spaces such as galleries and museums. There is an inherent problem with works involving large or complicated screens, in that these screens are expensive, difficult to transport and access. As such, in addition to expanding a subject matter beyond what is formally constituted screen-related installation, it is proposed that work be displayed unconventional space. It is argued that art - particularly screened art - has the ability to critically arrest and subvert motion amongst urban architecture.

USINE DE REVE [2012] - game mod

this project proposes that mobile screens are themselves mobilized as barricades, both preventing the commercialisation of art and life and securing creative spaces for the coming community.
MOBILIZED SCREENS [2012] - zine publication

PONT ST. BENEZET [2012] - game mod

twitter @thisisradd automated affective labor - a bot designed to tweet about critical theory on my behalf. people are ambivalent.
STUDENT OF PRAGUE [2012] - social media performance

facebook is deleted. in reasons, one selects other and posts the full text to the control society, by g. deleuze.
ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK [2012] - social media performance

BUILDING TO BE DESTROYED [2012] - installation piece with reference to man rays object to be destroyed, this piece treats as a lost wonder the philips pavilion at the 1952 worlds fair, designed by iannis xenakis and featuring an installation by le corbusier and varlese. the image itself decays.

TEARS FOR CORDELIA, A CUTE FOUCAULT [2012] - installation piece in this piece i use a projector to display images onto a banner i stole in a postsuperbowl rampage. the images are taken from a site that allows you to order custom neon signs, but though the words can be changed the images are, well

TEARS FOR CORDELIA, A CUTE FOUCAULT [2012] - installation piece misogynist and catered towards a certain pattern of subject formation. i use this piece to talk about the role of biopolitical design in manufacturing desire. i also use it to talk about the role of biopoliticians; not figureheads but rather functionaries of cybernetic planning and control at the local level. though i was not aware at the time this piece was conceived, my former partner was being subjected to near lethal doses of carbon monoxide poisoning due to a negligent landlord.

DEFENSE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS [2012] - installation piece in this piece i decided to wake up with a catastrophic eye infection requiring a visit to the hospital, and resulting in a temporary near-blindness on my part. on my way, however, i was presented with a dilemma; the donation-based vegetable distributor that my friends had established in an abandoned storefront was being evicted. as such, i decided to stop by the defense to lend what i call, following the work of sociologist pierre bordieu - my considerable magical capital.

DEFENSE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS [2012] - installation piece the squat defense - a cultural event equivalent to many a ceremony studied by forensic anthropologists (and more recently conceptual curators such as Jeremy Deller) - requires the curators of the squatted building to summon friends, associates and lovers, in order to question the motives and abilities of the baliffs scheduled to arrive. in many cases, the exorcism attempt fails, and squatters friends help them carry away their posessions and seek refuge. this succeeded.

designer resistance
From the beginning of the course I had decided to interrogate the screen as medium for transmission and control through the staging of an installation. The precise form, location and subject material of the exhibition has (and to a certain extent yet will) remain uncertain. Throughout my academic development I have found my research and participation in civil dissent to be mutually informative. This began with an oral history project in my final year of high school, continuing through my studies at the historically radical New School in New York. When I returned to the United Kingdom after almost a decade spent abroad, it was just after the commencement of the Occupy Wall Street protests that illuminated the American autumn. Feeling nostalgic and isolated - still unable to feel completely at home in the country of my birth - I spent large portions of my time with vagrants and idealists at the various Occupy camps around the U.K. The cultural differences were profound; the demonstrations seemed far more relaxed and regimented. The police were unwilling to significantly disrupt the encampments in most locations; weather and substance abuse proved to be far more versatile opponents. While there were a fair amount of traumatising events - including numerous fights, threats and a tragic death - I feel my participation provided the educational supplement I needed. It was perhaps one of the highlights of this experience that provided the inspiration for my current project: I had been up late watching the camp, remaining alert to prevent harassment by neonazis and drunk students alike. Eventually, as the sun started to rise I was relieved and crawled into my tent for a few hours of sleep. When I awoke, a strange ambient sound permeated the thin walls of my tent. Grasping glasses and peeking out of my tent, I saw the camp was now surrounded by around a beleaguered mob of one hundred or more.

[practice]

this marked my first encounter with the SNOB.

The Squatters Network of Brighton, as it is formerly titled, is not an organisation but rather a loose brand that serves as both mouthpiece and informal organizing body for the so-called Brighton Squatting Scene. There is no formal criteria for membership, with the participants vacillating between three categories: lifestyle squatters, political squatters and affiliated allies. There is a constant flux between these categories: squatters become politicised through their proximity to other involved individuals, while others begin squatting as a political statement and subsequently burn-out, becoming less involved in activism. Others begin renting - or move in with partners, relatives or friends - while still remaining involved in advocacy around housing. The network appears to have three major objectives: it is, first and foremost, a social organisation, responsible for curating networking events. A small but essential function is to organise rallies against evictions, preventing them if possible but at the very least helping to recover belongings and find emergency housing for displaced persons. A final function is to provide a counter to negative portrayal of squatters and their practice in the media. Due to the recent changes around the legality of the practice in England - brought about on the initiative of a local politician, Mike Weatherly MP - the group has been particularly active in advocacy in recent months. The aforementioned protest in November and a more recent protest in April both attempted to educate the public and media about the negative impacts, ulterior motivations and unpopularity of the new clause. In addition, certain Brighton residents decided to host the International Squatters Convergence this May in their town.

april 2012 - photo :schnews

I have attempted to apply research into mobile screens, digital material culture and media arts in general towards an intervention into the political and cultural ecology of my environment. Specifically, I have attempted to do three things. Firstly, I have attempted to use my skills with desktop publishing and design to produce a series of flyers in support of affiliated events. I used more traditional methods to produce and design banners. I have been involved as a participant observer in organising meetings for the Convergence and for demonstrations, specifically supporting efforts to monitor and shape media coverage. Building on my experience in the Bank of Ideas and the Build Brighton hackspaces, I have assisted with repairing and upgrading technology from computers through phones to doorbells. Finally, I am hoping to curate my own show on May 19th, to coincide with the Convergence, the Brighton Fringe festival and my 24th Birthday. The material displayed in the gallery will be a mixture of my own recent work, the work of my friends and accomplices and the work of contributors. Because of the difficulty of finding gallery space as an inexperienced artist, the substantial constraints and pressures that accompany working with a formal space and the political content of my work, I have decided to use an empty storefront for the show. The demonstration of early November concluded with a free dinner in a new community center on North Road. Along with more recent projects such as concerts, an autonomous homeless shelter and donationbased vegetable distributor elevates the practice of squatting from a necessary crime to a critical and potent act of conceptual architecture. My challenge was not just to assist in motivating further creative action, but also to use (or hack) technology to actively and critically represent such action.

DREAM CITY RANSOM [2012] - flyer commission for SNOB

for the april snob demonstration, i was asked to make a flyer. i chose as a basis this screen capture from the nintendo classic river city ransom

unable to find a sufficiently exciting squatter symbol, i made my own using photoshop and a spare processing texture. i used another spare as a reverse.

PRACTICAL RESOURCES CONSULTED SCHNEWS: brighton alternative media http://www.schnews.org.uk SQUATTERS NETWORK OF BRIGHTON http://network23.org/snob/ ADVISORY SERVICE FOR SQUATTERS http://www.squatter.org.uk/ SQUASH CAMPAIGN http://squashcampaign.org.uk/ OCCUPY BRIGHTON http://occupybrighton.co.uk/ BRIGHTON & HOVE ARGUS http://www.theargus.co.uk/

YOUR PRISON SERVICE IS NO MATCH FOR OUR POSTAL SERVICE [2012] - art intervention, with the assistance of five sussex undergraduates i was approached by student activists about an impending visit by mr. nick hardwick, chief inspector of her majestys prison service. sneaking into the building beforehand, we decorated our cells and prepared to give a tour of sussexs brutalist architecture. we also made sure the visiting dignitary was politiely offered an adequate supply of kafka texts, and made to feel welcome in our facility. this action showed the benefits of affective over effective action, and the fallacy of serious political work. while one can offer legitimate and thorough critiques of systems of incarceration, one lacks mechanisms to deliver them as a student.

this is how we learn, this is how we fight...

[background]
the house is a machine for living in... - le corbusier
MALICe APPEAL [2012] - banner w/ max monterey, for alice diamond PIER PRESSURE [2012] - flyer given the popularity of my prior flyer, i was asked to make a convergence flyer, this time for international distribution. i chose to attempt a project i had been thinking about for some time. on the way to play football with some squatter friends, i salvaged some old polly pocket buildings which seemed intriguing... On the First of February this year I presented to a mentor and selection of my peers a short sketch of a debate about the nature of Nomadism. My intention was not to provide an objective analysis, but rather to explore further the philosophical perspectives of four authors I admire greatly, in relation to some more directly relevant readings. The first two authors - Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guttari - speak in their enormously influential text A Thousand Plateaus of a construct they call the nomadic war machine. Though not a component of the state per-se, the energy and flexibility of such organisms is generally channeled into maintaining and advancing order. That being said, the nomadic war machine is nonetheless opposed conceptually to the sedentary society of the State. As such, it retains a subversive element that is inspirational for a range of later projects. Against this perspective, I would place texts such as Negative Horizon by Paul Virilio and Liquid Modernity by Zygmunt Baumann. In these monographs there are analyses of how contemporary economic systems privilege speed and flexibility respectively. It is easy to recontextualise this debate in relation to squatting; on the one hand, it is a supremely political act of rebellion, in direct resistance to the institutions of property and governance. That being said, however, it also paradoxically generally assumes a certain amount of privilege. Maintaining and inhabiting derelict residences takes a certain amount of time, energy and ability. To be effective one requires a set amount of social and cultural capital, including a supportive community of allies and knowledge of law and of security techniques respectively. It is difficult to maintain such a lifestyle if one has a disability, dependant family or medical condition, for example.

before after it was relatively easy to find a range of polly pocket images online. i then proceeded to hack and glitch these images until i developed a character and scenario with a more punk aesthetic. for the background, i pixellated a creative commons image of the old pier, a favorite hangout spot and historic site. i found poly a dog & skipped groceries.

Further, there is evidence that the creative output of squatters is beneficial to capitalist economics in certain situations, perhaps helping to inform design or fashion while accelerating processes of gentrification. In certain European cities such as Vienna and Hamburg - and to a lesser extent in Brighton itself - squatters have been offered short or even long term tenancies n exchange for abiding by certain conditions or restrictions. There is always the potential of recuperation by certain forward thinking entrepreneurs or critics. It is in this context that I am reflexive in my analysis of curation and representation in relation to squatting. By bringing the network and its practices under the microscope of academia, I recognize that I am myself complicit in the same practice I criticise. That being said, I have found an almost universally warm reception to my projects and ideas. I was invited to explore a squat that had recently undergone an illegal eviction; because of the surprising and unconventional method of eviction, most property and objects were left in place. As such, it closely resembled a museum, albeit with none of the disciplinary authority. Through my art and my installation of it within a subverted space, I would also like to look at a range of architectural and spatial critique. Specifically, I am thinking of Robert Venturis Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, a text which supports heavily the use or identification of tension within space. I think also of Constructivist Architectural theory, the notion of the Carnivalesque in Bakhtin and the chaotic and provocative architecture of Ai Weiwei. Finally, I am interested also in Ais work as a conceptual architect; I find myself drawing inspiration from the work of artists whose work transcends the boundaries between site-specific and conceptual art. I think therefore of groups such as Voina in present day Russia, Kollektivnye Destiyva (Collective Actions) in the late USSR, Fluxus in New York, the Provos in Amsterdam, the Situationist International based out of Paris and British artist Jeremy Deller. I recognize I have only begun to sketch a theoretical basis for my work, but I hope the discussions inspired by the staging and presence of the gallery will allow me to develop a more complex perspective.

KOLLEKTIV DEATH TO FASCISM [2012] .gif and poetry performance

BIBLIOGRAPHY
AI, WEIWEI. 2011. AI WEIWEIS BLOG. Cambridge: MIT PRESS. BAUMAN, S. 2000. LIQUID MODERNITY. Cambridge: Polity Press. BOGOST, I. 2006. UNIT OPERATIONS Cambridge: MIT Press. DELLER, JEREMY. 2011. JOY IN PEOPLE. London: Distributed Art Publications. DELEUZE, G and F. GUTTARI. 2004. A THOUSAND PLATEAUS. London: Continuum. DERRIDA, J. 1994. SPECTRES OF MARX. New York: Routledge. FRIEDMAN,K ed. 1998. THE FLUXUS READER Chichester: Academy Editions. GUTTARI, F. and A. NEGRI. 1990. COMMUNISTS LIKE US. New York: Semiotext(e). KAYE, N. 2000. SITE-SPECIFC ART. New York: Routledge. LOVINK, G. & R.S. MILES. 2011. VIDEO VORTEX READER 2:moving images beyond YouTube Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. MENKMAN, R. 2011. THE GLITCH MOMENT(UM) Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. BISHOP, C, ED. 2011. EMPTY ZONES: A MONASTYRSKI AND COLLECTIVE ACTIONS. London: Black Dog Press. PAWLEY, M, ed. 1970. LE CORBUSIER. London: Thames and Huson. VENTURI, R. 2002. COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION IN ARCHITECTURE. New York : Museum of Modern Art. VIRILIO, P. 2008. NEGATIVE HORIZONS. New York: Continuum Publishing. WARK, M. 2004. HACKER MANIFESTO. Cambridge: Harvard U. Press. --- 2011. BEACH BENEATH THE STREET New York: Verso.

I will present theoretical considerations related to this material at the Taking Up Space postgraduate conference at Goldsmiths, University of London on 25th-26th June. I will also be presenting at the Preoccupied conference, Berlin Bienniele from 28th-29th June. Please direct suggestions and enquiries to not@territory.cc

In terms of my practical output I draw most heavily from the work of Rosa Menkman, author of the Glitch Studies Manifesto and more recent text The Glitch Moment(um). I have always been fascinated by the aesthetics of broken and malfunctioning technology, whether pleading with my parents not to return the malfunctioning VHS tape they had or experimenting with unreliable audio conversion software. I find whether working with code or digital media software, I produce my best work when I set out to actively break the object I am working on or with. Recently, I have discovered elements of a glitch subculture forming; certain breakthrough works such as the Scott Pilgrim series of graphic novels and film, or the first two Crystal Castles CDs have attained mainstream acceptance. I feel that the aesthetics of the glitch complement perfectly the politics of the squat and of the hack. Whether one discovers a unique and innovative bug in a piece of software, a back entry into a derelict building or a flaw in network architecture, one is completing the same fundamental operation of subversion.

XOPOS IS EVERYWHERE [2012] animated .gif based on a banner reading xopos is everywhere at all times. xopos is the chorus, the schizotypical narrator of classical tragedy. also a research squat in nycs pratt institute evicted in the first days of 2012. as it is said this is how the world ends.

in the zone of perdition where my youth went as if to complete its education, one would have said that the portents of an imminent collapse of the whole edifice of civilisation had made an appointment. permanently ensconced there were people who could be defined only negatively, for the good reason that they had no job, followed no course of study, and practiced no art. - guy debord, 1989

society for galactic alignment.

CAUSE && AFFECT [2012] - artists talk / THE EVENT [2012] - workshop over the past term i have also been involved in several pedagogical experiments. attached are flyers for a theory talk held at the university of sussex, and for a zine-making workshop at the brighton radical institution the cowley club.

THE ][ BARRICADE [2012] - flyer / MASONIC YOUTH [2012] - video art i have also been experimenting with feedback, distortion, incompatability and chaotic randomness within video art. my work, though based in glitch art, also references poets of juxtaposition, such as eisenstein and tchaikovsky.