Here in my head...rage within the machine

I've been madly slacking when it comes to blogging on this. Sorry.
For what it's worth, I've actually been reading. Voraciously. So much that the school librarian offered me a box rather than a bag to carry my twenty some-odd books out. I've almost reached my checkout limit.

Cool projects I'm working on right now:
a historiography on the scholarly debate over the history on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

a research paper on the word "Holocaust" and how it could, (should) theoretically speaking, apply to what Israel has done/is doing still to the Palestinian people. If you disagree, please before you send me hate mail galore read the dictionary definition of the word and then go read the WEEKLY human rights violations perpetrated by the state of Israel (funded primarily by America) or read the YEARLY findings by the UN that not only view Sharon & co as "war criminals" but that the very creation of that state VIOLATES international law. I wonder who the real trendsetter in that department would be...hmm...

Anyhow, offshoots of these are going to fuel a zine and a mock wall replica (not even anywhere near the scale of the real thing Israel is attempting to build).

Beyond that, I'm reading (for soc theory) the "Fetishism of Sociology" and for my own curiosity
Herbert Marcuse's "One Dimensional Man" and "Critical Theory and Political Possibilities: Conceptions of Emancipatory Politics in the Works of Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse and Habermas."

I'm also working on creative/critical applications of "theory" in the form of art and poetry but also music history. I'm a huge fan of "industrial" music or I suppose it's tagged "EBM" music now. I'm currently listening to VNV Nation's FUTUREPERFECT and earlier to the Android Lust song "Unbeliever." Many people wouldn't call this style of music, music but I find the creative, deconstructive, dissonance of it coupled with rampant socio-political critiques quite worth my money. If you'd like to learn more about these two bands go to http://www.industrial-music.com/and http://www.projekt.com. Learn. Expand. Explore.

Listening to this music made me think about why there are some forms of music I find painful to listen to. I cannot stand country music for example. The "twang" of it makes my head hurt and yet I could listen to techno all day. I'm also not a huge fan of rap or hip-hop. I DO enjoy bands such as Rage Against the Machine who have created hybrids of hip-hop and rock. How far do you think Adorno's critique of pop music applies? Do you think there are no truly original artists anymore? Nothing beyond soundbytes and propagandistic advertising?

One of the other reasons I love "industrial" music (what we USED to call it way back when?)
is the way that many of the artists use their music to address political issues way before "the masses" realized these were political issues. Sort of a sci-fi type analysis exists within alot of the music. Sort of a pre-Matrixy merge with the wild art of man in the machine, man ruled by machine, man becoming machine. The whole cyborg fascination but also the murder of man by way of murdering the earth in the addiction to mechanization. To ease. To thoughtlessness at the touch of a button. Some "Industrial" bands used their videos and songs to raise awareness about other issues as well. Skinny Puppy's "Vivi-sect" comes to mind. Also their c.d. "The Greater Wrong of the Right" is well worth buying for anyone worried about the ever increasing hegemony of that one political ideology (value system?).

I thought it would be really cool to have the freedom (as if!) to do a course where you apply critical theory to varying works of art, film and music, specifically examining the "subculture" genres to see the impact of "independent" artists' efforts. I'm sure no one would be letting me do this any time soon but I would LOVE to eventually offer a course on subversive "art" where you encourage students to analyze why some art is labeled subversive and where that line is drawn and by whom. That's really important to consider. By whom.

Everything threatening is either co-opted, shut down or discredited. People are very good at labeling Michael Moore and even Marilyn Manson as "sell-outs" or "corporate whores" and yet I think if you're going to say that you really need to ask yourself to what extent an artist is capable of remaining truly independent of systems of power. If the Busheviks (I found that on some other website and thought it well worth sharing) decided tomorrow to ban all "potentially subversive" music could they? What about those who critique the government with almost every breath and yet their livelihoods and their "artistic freedom" depend upon the capitalist economic system just as much as everyone else's does. Sure they are probably more able to trade their dollars in for euros then most people but I'm curious with the multiple systems all vying for absolute power over "entertainment" (i.e. the "Culture Industry") how autonomous can any artist hope to be or hope to remain? What about the use of art (I'm including everything here from comics to music to those weird urinal sculptures) as a space of protest and dissent? AdBusters ran a great layout using the cut and pasted heads of Michael Moore and Ann Coulter where she said something like "great job, you won the election for us" or something like that. It's in the newest edition. Pick it up for yourself. My friend borrowed my copy or else I'd have it as an exact quote. Anyhow, at what point does that lovely term "freedom of expression" become an economic/socio-political noose by which the powers that be will let you hang yourself. So to speak...


Do something good for yourself: Read. Question Everything. Grow.
In the meantime, consider this:

"Veal meat, that's what we've become, especially the young 'uns." That's what anyone raised by the corporations, fed their version of "fun," "excitement," and above all, "hip," becomes-
pale, docile, and unmuscled, a creature finely attuned to the aesthetics of its own flesh but incapable of standing on its own legs. Your movement beyond the TV box may be restricted, your opportunity to frolic in uncommercialized fields may be nil, but it's OK, being veal: all your life, the corporate stock feeders bring you sugar food and hormone entertainment. Raised to consume, kept soft in the head and belly-
the modern spirit is slaughtered easily."--Leslie Savan, The Village Voice
(From ADBusters, March/April 2005 edition)