BRIAN HOLMES - THE ABSENT RIVAL: RADICAL ART IN A POLITICAL VACUUM

The story begins with the archetypal scene of interventionist art: the moment when the Yes Men step out of the Internet and into a corporate conference, expecting to provoke violent outrage. Instead everybody smiles, shakes hands and asks for a business card. Can political satire make meaning ina vacuum, when elites don’t even recognize its critique? Extending the discussion to Italy - home of Luther Blisset and 0100101110101101.org, but also of Silvio Berlusconi - Brian Holmes looks at the destiny of the artist-provocateur without a rival. Capitalist democracy, as Bernard Stiegler claims, seems unable to rise above the fantastic technical mutation it has set into motion. To what extent has the activist generation really used new technology to invent new subjectivities? What would we do in the face of the enlightened industrial bourgeoisie that Stiegler dreams of?

Brian Holmes is an activist critic. Over the past ten years he has collaborated with a wide variety of social movements in Europe and the Americas. His writings can be found in a wide range of books, magazines and journals, and can also be accessed for free at www.u-tangente.org.