[The Seven by Nine Squares home page] [Neoism]

FROM CENSORSHIP TO THE ART STRIKE


THE OLDEST OF SUPPRESSED TRADITIONS

In a world dominated by illusion, it comes as no surprise that censorship should be popularly misperceived as a form of social repression. The contradictions which support such an inversion are manifest in every area of daily life; they constitute the apparent "reality" of our "time". Despite the fact that it has been demonstrated time and again that consciousness is an effect of a closed system of exclusive focus, of censorship, "literate" consensus maintains that censorship and silence are the negation of consciousness. It is clear that Power has a vested interest in maintaining a monopoly on censorship. The "concept of freedom" is an unreachable, collapsing, absolute. All experience becomes equal when exchanged via Capital; with class "privilege" determining how much of this worthless "equality" each person is entitled to.

THE NEGATIVE AND ITS USE

Anything can be censored for any reason; start by censoring this text. The censors of the "left", "right" and "centre", all do their collective part; despite the fact that they imagine themselves to be motivated by the very beliefs we will ultimately negate.

FROM ORIGINALITY TO ONTOLOGY: THE DECLINE OF THE TEXT

The possibilities for communal transformation of this world lie in disconnection from imposed notions of progress and democracy. Plagiarism is the "beginning", the negative point of a culture which finds its justification in the "unique". Censorship supersedes plagiarism as an "intelligent" negation of "originality" because it suppresses not only ("original") production, but also reproduction (plagiarism, appropriation &c.) which revalue the "original" and maintain its circulation in "reality". Censorship is to the present what plagiarism was to history.

THE HEALING POWER OF DOUBT

Revolutionary propaganda sets itself the task of discrediting all received ideas without offering a single "alternative" thought with which they might be replaced. Kill your desires and live! Erase, destroy and make useless all recorded information. Physically and otherwise attempt to suppress all expression in art, politics, history &c. Resist culture and all other forms of institutional identity. Suppress, by refusing to participate in, interpersonal and mass social relationships. As you see fit, smash the "imagination", "schizophrenia", "death", "sexuality", "values", "time" and all other forms of seduction and abstraction. Experimentally break down the frames of reference by which you organise non-valued perceptions into valued entities: i.e. objects, ideas, means of self-perception &c.

AN END TO SOCIAL RELATIONS

"Self-destruction" is a semantic swindle. The moralism against suicide is reactionary resistance to change. Only total opposition, both theoretical and practical (i.e. silence), is irrecuperable. Anything else must necessarily appear absolutest and contradictory.

THE FESTIVAL OF CENSORSHIP

The Festival Of Censorship is a pata-national, decentralised event which will take place in the Summer of 1988, two short years before the commencement of the Art Strike - a period during which (at minimum) no creative activity will take place. The Festival aims to begin on a limited scale what will ultimately constitute a new and total organisation of daily life. Some events have already been planned for the Festival, including international performances on May 1st and other holidays during which participants will look into the daylight sun for a full hour. A day of "cover-ups" is also planned, during which participants will go to rigorous lengths to hide traces of their mundane activities. The Festival involves research into the practice of censorship both in "culture" and beyond(...)
Karen Eliot (issued as a leaflet in Spring '88).