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Karen Eliot and I had planned to meet in Dartington so we decided to make
it an open meeting as that weekend was both the Open Pop Star World
Congress called for by Monty Cantsin as well as part of the month of
remembrance for the victims of Foxconn such as Ma Xiangqian and Yun Li
called by Students & Scholars Against Cooperate Misbehavior.
I was to traverse the so called “St Michaels” Leyline for much of the
journey from Cambridge to Dartington. My son and I stopped at Stevenage on
the line to pick up his mother and then met another Karen Karnak at
Taunton further down the line before arriving at around midnight on
Friday. My name Karen Karnak is of course a reference to the great pyramid
at Karnak in Egypt and to the Hyperborean nexus at Carnac in France,
chosen to disrupt the white supremacist designs of Evolan and Freemasonic
groups that use the St. Michaels line. It was for this reason that evoL
PsychogeogrAphix was summoned into being in Totnes in 2000 an event that
the video Brown Julius in the Fountain of Modernism examines in some
detail.
At Dartington, I happened across Gustav Metzger on Saturday and invited
him to the meeting. He told me of a symposium where he was speaking as
part of the Art Colleges final Festival before being effectively closed. I
went along and met Monty Cantsin and Karen Eliot there and we confirmed
plans for the meeting for the following day. At the symposium, much of the
talking was about the content of the art degree and how it would continue
at Falmouth. Gustav however spoke about extinction – which he sees as the
most urgent problem facing us – and that we need to get a 5 year plan in
place to stop the ever increasing rate of extinction of species. He
cautiously suggested also that this is a worse holocaust than the Shoah.
He left the symposium early and we walked over to the graveyard where the
meeting was scheduled for the next day. I took the opportunity to clarify
some issues. Firstly the arts worker coalition had not been involved in
his art strike of 1977 – that was him alone – and it was not podsited as a
strike but a withdrawal of labour. He also confirmed that he was involved
with 1970 "International Coalition For The Liquidation Of Art"and
mentioned that it was John Latham who passed on the invitation for this
event although Latham himself wanted nothing to do with it as he was not
political. The other main thing of interest was that he noted that the Art
Workers Union nearly joined a Graphics workers union and that Gustav was
pushing for this but the artists in the end decided against it.
I opened the meeting on Sunday by introducing the brief history of how
DAMTP has been formed out of the Art Strike biennial of 2009 via
discussions with the IWW. I also spoke on the continuing problems with
Eurocentricity which emerged in the original 1970 New York Art Strike
Against Racism, War and Repression, counteracted at the time by Women
Students and Artists for Black Art Liberation (WSABAL), who succeeded in
opening the protest action to women and people of colour.
Monty Cantsin questioned the relevance of an art strike today. He posited
Latham’s idea of the incidental person as how artists are not specialised
as other workers are. While I cannot agree with that position because
artists are indeed cultural specialists, i do agree that art strike needs
to be superseded with a data miners and psychic workers strike – in
concert with other workers strikes to create the general strike.
Along with Karen Eliot, 3 other workers decided to join the DAMTP and we
agreed that we need to formulate a manifesto or other form of
clarification of demands. We also agreed on taking collective action in
concert with other workers unions or groups. We invite contributions from
you towards this task. Please reply to this email with any comments.
The call for action against extinction is compelling and one linked to
cultural / psychic action. We must link up with those cultural workers in
other parts of the world who are defending themselves, their land and
therefore other species against the destructive force of capitalism.
Capitalists have responded to the reorganising of workers around the world
last year by shooting up food prices last year across the developing world
– and in the guise of and the so-called ‘sub prime’ crash renewed their
attack on the working class in the guise of ‘national debt’ reduction. The
response is not simply looking to pre-feudal (Age of the Prophets) tribal
forms of organisation but to strengthen our worker based organisation with
those physical and psychic workers – paid, unpaid, living, dead and
otherwise – to aid those workers who need organisational support through
our actions. The real contribution to human culture made by tribal
organistaion will be appropriated not through the regionalist villages of
the primitavists but in the context of free activity of humanity in a
society without money, classes or states. Similarly the question of
Dartington is not just 'institutional' but to do with control of the Land
– which must be reverted to Labour and not Capital, cultural or otherwise.
We returned the next day via the “Chalice” Well at Glastonbury Tor. We
passed the police gathering at Stonehenge later on. The question of
unionising the police and army remains an urgent one.
Karen Karnak Summer Solstice 2010 (410 MKC)
