‘Like’ Everything

We are in, and have been in for some time, an era of ‘positivity’ that is dominated by, and emblematised by, the culture of the ‘like’, endorsed by social media and ‘indoctrinating us with our own ideas’. There is no space for the Other or tolerance of so-called negativity (this might also be read as critique). Han argues that we are now dealing with a higher order of conformity brought about by the individual’s willingness to auto-exploit and artists present a particularly good model to illustrate the theme of auto-exploitation. Artists are now treated by funding bodies and production companies as entrepreneurs, ‘an auto-exploiting labourer in his or her own enterprise’. We are presently in a state where the artists contribution to, and (in)corporation by, the cultural industry takes precedent.

In the corporate space of the arts the artists usefulness in terms of financial and cultural capital must be clearly evidenced and on show, with the latter becoming particularly important as London and beyond becomes increasingly gentrified and geared towards cultural tourism. bell hooks suggests that such institutionalised cultural settings in the arts see value only in art that mimics the white, Western artistic continuum. Randy Martin expresses a similar sentiment when he warns against hegemonic institutional practices, asserting the need to ‘preserve a space where new formations germinate, to avoid assimilation and co-optation of the energies and demands that issue from social movements’

Artists operating in the domain of UK arts are faced with a continual negotiation of agency and freedom of movement. The negotiation is both a corporeal and artistic one and agendas guided by ideas of socioeconomic governance choreograph the movement(s) of the arts. It is a system that promotes the illusion of the artist(s) guiding themselves, where supervised funding, allocated mentorships, emerging artist training programmes, and controlled access to performance spaces and events, achieve the sleight of hand that tells us we are the ‘authentic’ producer of ourselves. Am I wrong to be suspicious? Am I the negative Other? What’s the problem, some might say? My reply would be in line with urban environment scholars Pugalis and Giddins when they propose that any investigation of the production of space ‘is as much about the assembly process as it is about the assembled product’. For me, the wider assemblage of space is intrinsically connected to the assembly and production of the arts.

The addiction to selfies has also little to do with self-love. It is nothing other than the idol motion of the lonely subject. Faced with one's inner emptiness, one vainly attempts to produce oneself. The emptiness merely reproduces itself. Selfies are the self in empty forms; selfie addiction heightens the feeling of emptiness. It results. Not from self-love, but from narcissistic self-reference. Selfies are pretty, smooth surfaces of an empty insecure self. To escape this torturous emptiness today, one reaches either for the razorblade or the smartphone. Selfies are smooth surfaces that hide the empty self for a short while. But if one turns them over one discovers their other side, covered in wounds and bleeding. Wounds are the flip side of selfies.

(Han, 2018: 25)

 

References

Han, B. C. (2017) Pscho-Politics. London & Brooklyn: Verso.

Hooks, B. (2006) Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations. 3rd edn. Oxon: Routledge.

Martin, R. (1998) Critical Moves: Dance Studies in Theory and Politics. Durham: Duke University Press.