Bob and Roberta Smith

I like Bob and Roberta Smiths approach to art, and especially after starting at an art school and toiling away and getting caught up in projects, it is nice to be reminded that all art is useless. I like the way he can be brutally honest and not faff around with arty bullshit. He seems to understand that art is just art and nothing more, and he is honest about artists.

"All artist are astronauts flying spaceships fuelled by self-importance."

it is from this cynical stance that smith chooses to make art work projecting his views and though in a mock activist way. I like the way he seems to be trying to change the world, safe in the knowledge that he hasn't got a chance and might as well not bother.

38 Degrees

38Degrees is an online petitions wedsite, which runs a variety of petitions on a broad spectrum of issues.
It seems to perhaps be a good example of an idea talk about in Give up Activism, where the author argues that people have become more interested in the being and activist than the actual issues they are acting against.

"The role of the 'activist' is a role we adopt just like that of policeman, parent or priest - a strange psychological form we use to define ourselves and our relation to others. "

It could of course be argued that a website such as 38 Degrees does not encourge defining onesself as an activist, but allows those less "active" to be so in a less comitted way, and is a tool for informing people about issues as well as encouraging action.

Steve McQueen - Queen and Country

I find this project my McQueen to be a very considered aproach to dealing with the Iraq war. It does not take sides, and simply remebers life lost. The original idea of having the stamps printed by the Royal Mail is interesting in the way that it brings these images into the home environment, directly connecting with poeple. It is funny how one of Royal Mails arguments against printing the stamps was that it was " too soon after the war." When it it too soon to rember death? are those killed in conflict only allowed to be remebered in stone status years after the war is over not as recently decesed human beings? On the flip side of this, is it right that those dead are remebered publicly? I supose the argument for this is that they died for Queen and Country, and therefore the whole country has a right to know who is dieing for them.

A similar aproach to this issue to current warfare is seen in the sandbox section on Doonesbury cartoonist Gary Trudeau's website.

In the sandbox those who hae served or are serving in america's operations abroad are invite to post there thoughs and comments. They make for interesting reading, and, like Queen and Coutry, they do not take an active opinion on the war, but simply keep those involved in our minds, and thus the war itself.

Activism

some nice soundbites from a relativly broad looking range of activists.



we hear phases like "what is right and what is just." i find this interesting, as this seems to me to bring up the question of whether we have a right to act on our own interpretations of "right" and "just."

I think there is reverance in the van jone's concerns for activist becoming "the anti-war people, the anit-racist people." As well as Michael Fox's points about people getting caught up in activism and the need to act from some sort of "centre."
This selfawareness and self critique of activism, as talked about in the previous post interest me, as it begins to put activism in context with the world.

Activism

Give up activism

an very well stucture and though out piece of writting about the faults with activism. I find it very interesting how he argues that activism has in away become a part of the system it aims to bring down. perhaps it is human nature to become unwilling complacent by repeating the past and our strange adversion to change, even when fighting for change.

"Even if as activists we are doing things which are not accepted and are illegal, the form of activism itself - the way it is like a job - means that it fits in with our psychology and our upbringing. It has a certain attraction precisely because it is not revolutionary."

Joe Sacco (1960-present)

extract from Palestine (2001)

Joe sacco's work interests me as it is this way of exploring and documenting an issue through cartoons which I intend to use in my own work. I think that by using text and drawn image, Sacco is able to be more economical in his work, with the images often setting scenes and establishing characters, thus moving and directing the narrative. This allows for his text to really get down to brass tacs, delivering facts and information.

But what it is that I think really gives this format of comic book front line reporting the edge is the way that the format allows for a much more personal, even emotional recount of events, showing the impact on the real people involved. It is easy to forget the people involved in distant conflict when they are refereed to in articles, or shown in snap shots of photographs; but Sacco's series of drawings I feel that you can understand much more clearly his interpretation of there reactions and feeling about the circumstances.

This semi-gonzo style of recording events interests me, as i feel it allows for a much more clear and transparent recount of things. They say that the camera never lies, but we all know this to be false; where as a sketch may not be accurate, but it can often be more honest.

Beaufortscale

This is a nice example of cartoons being used to present information, that in other forms, is very difficult to represent. weather conditions are easyest to understand (other than first hand) visualy. Showing the effects of weather in relation to a house, smoke and a tree gives us directly relatable circumstances from which to conjour up a mental image of the overall conditions. The comic like layout of the page, as adds a sense of narrative as we move up the scales of weather, amking it perhaps a more acessable form of relaying information.