Friday, March 26, 2010

Hacking, Slashing and Sniping in the Empire of Signs

As an artistic person involved with student activism and the pursuit for a more democratic, equal and humane society, I was greatly interested in Mark Dery's pamphlet on Culture Jamming. I am constantly striving to fuse politics into my work. The art of "culture jamming" throws politics and subversive ideas into the face of consumer culture. Culture jamming represents activity aimed at countering the continuous, recombinant barrage of capitalist laden messages fed through the mass media. To "jam culture" is to crusade for consumer resistance and question mass media and advertising.

In contemporary social movements and protests, culture jamming adds necessary fun and laughter to extremely stressful and ominous tasks. But why and what is the meaning of art and fun in protest? Their are various meanings and uses of fun and laughter in culture jamming. Emotional ties to culture jamming is contingent upon the dominant emotional regime of capitalism where fun, too, is advertised as a key ingredient. In most social movements, activists often reject the fun of consumption and offer their own definition of a kind of fun which is real and authentic; here is where culture jamming comes to play center field. For example, fighting for freedom and equality is only "fun" when culture genuinely embodies the art of protest. Articulating the inherent tensions between 'real' and 'fake' emotions is pertinent to understanding contemporary social movements. Culture jamming is first shaped by the contemporary emotional norms, then contests them and finally reaches beyond them. "Fun" is an important expression of emotional energy because it openly invites the masses to participate. Fun is contingent upon social relationships created in organizations, collectives and other protest groups. But as emotional energy, fun in culture jamming is targeted to a field broader than just protest groups. It is aimed at the larger community and suggests that the individual and fragmented protest actions are nevertheless an expression of a loosely identified collective social identity. Culture jamming injects emotions into social movements. Culture jamming is not only part of a movement but also the driving core of any living, breathing social movement.

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