Where Did The Left Go?

I have been at various times, baffled, infuriated, disgusted and distraught by the apparent spinelessness of the political Left in this country – and elsewhere – in the last few years. Lets face it, since the Conservative government ushered in the age of greed and the return of the undeserving poor in the 80’s, we have careened down the slippery slope of a brutal capitalism that uses the freedom chant to blind us to its consequences.

The access to power and capital has been inexorably removed from all but the minority. The Left have become ashamed of their beliefs in a corporate media creation of a society which is not one.

In this new in-humane world, Socialism has become a dirty word and the political Left have hamstrung themselves out of fear of both their own origins and the dominantly Right of centre media. Between Scylla and Charybdis they row in circles getting wetter by the minute and going nowhere.

While they wring their hands in apology – for what I am not entirely sure despite the Mail’s attempt to convince me- there is a substantial chunk of society hurling tow ropes at them, prepared to back any group who have the courage to stand for humanity in a mad world …If only the Left would stop flapping and get on with rowing.

In the meantime the 50% of the population earning less than £25k pa are abandoned to the reactionary delusions of people who are creating a newly brutal definition of the term double-speak. For those who aren’t clear, that means using benign language to describe something which is cruel and destructive.

This article is an interesting take on this perspective. A reminder that the Left is real, does exist and continues to rail against devastation being wrought around us, albeit that we are being censored by silence  in the mainstream.

We are still here, just keep swimming…

Please read and enjoy.

http://mondediplo.com/2011/11/01left

Ill-defined

So the notion of ‘holiday’ or ‘break’ … how does that pan out for you?

After the Christmas madness, with the house empty, a week to fill with domestic creative and re-decorating demand… where does the idea of ‘break’ or ‘rest’ fit in to this void.

Void.

There we have it. Void.

I plan and prepare for these periods of still shapeless time, with painting, building, making, cleaning, clearing, but at the point I push through the surface tension membrane of real time into void space, time itself alters form entirely. In the way that dust motes float suspended in hot still summer fug or sound muffles under water, the rotation of the world slows and I watch from inside my void as life shifts forward inexorably without me.

Without the 24 hour demand of personal need, social necessity, financial anxiety, professional expectation – the identity created by the demand of external expectations – I become formless, a mote drifting aimlessly upon the brownian movement of air in a confined space.

This still space allows for the creation of a new form though I think. A new subject, a new self-created, self-demanded, self-identified accretion of matter, need, like, choice, wish, thought. So who am I when I am not the physical emanation of the needs and demands of everybody else? what should I do when I am not required to put the wants of others as a priority?

The silence allows  inspiration to flow without hurdles or interruptions towards the possibility of what I am and whether I can keep hold of this fledgling concept with the return of noise.

Into the silence I pour ideas, I listen to Mira Schor lecturing on Non Conformist Criticality in Contemporary Art, disussing what Feminist Art really looks like and Carol Schneeman reviewing the Iconography of her work and  the idiocy of a painting of a nude male in a recumbent pose being classified as porn and therefore unfit to be exhibited in an Art Gallery.

So I listen while I re-decorate the bedroom of my greatest achievement and allow possibilities to reshape the form I inhabit into the beginnings of a new Subject. My own subject, created for and by me, alone.

This new subject will explore the multiple ‘Maligned Territory’/s (with my regards to Kiki Smith) inhabited by the intellectual/professional/feminist/humanist/socialist/essentially unconvinced/politically enraged and financially challenged contemporary conceptual Artist/parent that I am.

An expedition no less, an adventure I hope and a new path.

Happy New Year.