Monday, April 30, 2007

Agitation

For what it's worth, here's an interesting take on the political blogoplan* as an avant-garde movement. The author identifies it as a form of Fluxus-style agitation, which is a swell idea, even though I have to suspend my usual distrust of all things Fluxus to get there (AFAIC, the best work of artists associated with Fluxus happened when they were as far away from Fluxus as possible, although the connection between Fluxus and Lithuanian politics is genuine) and I'd throw a dose of Situationism in there, too.

New musical blogs do not strike me as having yet located the potential in the medium for avant-garde agitation akin to that of our political colleagues; indeed, considering the fact that we're theoretically promoting an avant-garde within our own medium, we have generally done a poor job of exploring the experimental possibilities of the blog form -- our use of language is dull, our ideas old, our enthusiasms mild, and our controversies and rivalries small. No manifestos. Not much in the way of setting violins on fire or topless cello playing or electrocutable piano keys around here nowadays. Heck, we can't even organize a decent boycott against competitions with over-high fees. Children: get to work!
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*Blogoplan is the flat-earth equivalent for the round-earthers' blogosphere. The author is not literally a flat-earther, but someone who recognizes that we organize our daily lives around flat earth coordinates and illusions of simultaneous downbeats and in-phase tuning.

2 comments:

Scott said...

Free the dissonance! Oh wait, that was already done...

Anonymous said...

Let´s try again - now on postmodern level!