Flaming an online argument that becomes nasty or derisive, where insulting a party to the discussion takes precedence over the objective merits of one side or another.
It now seems to be an inevitable part of the modern Anglo-Saxon cultural character to be negative and snide about virtually everything. Most of the idiots who post comments on the forums I read think they're some sort of George Orwell and hope to deliver some sort of withering put-down behind an anonymous tag when actually what they have written looks like it was written by a five year old .
These idiots have been duped into boredom, by the cheap gifts of ipads and narcissistic online access. We seem to be reaching a cultural conclusion when our world is ruled and rated on popularity while we all try to avoid the juggernaut that is becoming endlessly self-referential.
In 1967 just before the 1968 Paris riots Guy Debord wrote ‘The Society of the Spectacle’ which contains the quote
‘Nowadays we live in a world where capitalism (through television, computers, architecture, transport, and other forms of advanced technology), controls the very conditions of existence. This is the Society of the Spectacle. The world we see is not the real world, it is the world we have been conditioned to see; a world constructed from the black and white of tabloids, a world framed by the mahogany veneer of the television set, a world of carefully constructed illusions - about ourselves, about each other, about power, authority, justice and daily life. A view of life from the perspective of power’.
Debord was as a leading member of the Parisian based faction of the "Situationist International"
Situationist is a word that seems to have entered the English language through popular culture, especially with punks, Both ‘The Clash’ and the ‘Sex Pistols’ were managed by men intrigued by French Philosophers and Situationist ideals, even during my teenage years the NME, always seemed to be banging on about it.
But it’s at its heart is that the artistic revolutionary notion in a revolutionary sense is dead. That new practices of art needs to be found to change the world and the activity of high jacking art or stealing images is high on the list. I invite you to claim your life back, reclaim the adventure and place your name or image an image you have pinched and wreck my artworks, before we all manage to scrub the world clean of its magic.
Media life in our 21st century really doesn't look a whole lot different from that of 1967 except that I can scam my dodgy opinions off the internet and pass them off as my own much like anybody in a forum can do.
Don’t live by proxy
I have show at Gas Works Coming Up(although its now been and gone)
