New Discovery: Panarchy?

Perhaps quite relevant:

panarchy.com – many.2.many :: peer.2.peer :: d.i.y

Conceptual Musings: Liberalism vs Anarchy

More often than not, I have found my resources for this project in anti-capitalist or extreme-leftist anthologies or bookstores. This being said, a primary focus of my historicization of specific aspects of punk has alluded to a confrontational anti-consumer/corporate impetus for action that denote instances of the political (i.e. fliering or postering, as Penelope Houston recalls in Fucked Up + Photocopied, part of the thrill was the fact that it was illegal).

It was pointed out to me that a contention in discussing the trajectory of DIY through Emerson and into 1950s domestic magazines is that the latter instance of the DIY ethos is more of a liberal capitalist instantiation of this ethos very much embedded in the self-made-man-American-dream version of the do-it-yourself-spirit. There then arises a need to separate the DIY ethos of punk from this all-American entrepreneur version, placing punk further left on the political spectrum.

This would not seem to be a problem for my research, per se, as the leftist leanings of punk clearly outline much of my attraction to the culture and the trajectory of its existence in the late ’70s into the ’90s. However, in discussing the practices of zine-making and music-playing, the anyone-can-do-it spirit and peer-promotion strategies of punk slowly begin to align, in my narrative, with contemporary open source software and peer-to-peer formations concomitatnt with the rise of internet technologies. What begins to surface as the problem is making a clear delineation of the radical and liberal. More specifically, this is problematized by my new thoughts around the word “democratic” in relation to the production, promotion and reproduction of punk culture by its constituents, as I have a hard time separating the term “democratic” from capitalist America. To further elucidate this musing, I refer to something I recently read, and consequently the reason for this problematization on peer-to-peer theorist Dale Carrico’s blog amor mundi:

“But I believe no less that a radical democratic politics of global technological development will likely emancipate humanity at last. Radical democracy needs to take up its revolutionary stance again, to gain and remake the world for us all before the world is utterly lost to us all.”

Now, I would not consider my thesis to enunciate technology as the emancipating of humanity, but I would edge toward the idea that I am discussing the emancipation of culture in some sense of the concept (particularly open content initiatives). Something I think punk was laboring toward (intentionally or not) by taking matters into their own hands and confronting corporate and mainstream models of music production and promotion. Further, the term “radical democracy” is one that I am not yet comfortable ascribing to my outlining of peer to peer activity (then and now), but am interested in thinking around the term in my grand and broad quest to discuss punks radical activity as outside of the liberal model while simultaneously recognizing the participatory nature of this activity inside the context of an American political climate. Even further, aside from thinking about punk from this contemporary standpoint, I have made little assertion as to any futurological meaning of these shifts in cultural production and consumption.

An quick interview with Jack Boulware…

Jack Boulware doesnt have much time these days, as he is finishing up his book a la oral history about Punk in the Bay Area (circa 1976-1998) - scheduled for an October release (check it out here). He kindly took some time to respond to a couple questions that I am constantly thinking about re:my thesis project. His responses prove very helpful to framing my research…read on

(ks)With the decrease of venue space in SF during the 1990s, what alternatives did Punk rock seek out?

(jb) we talked a lot about this while we put together the book. the east
bay still has punk shows, but what happened to punk in SF? it turns
out, at least from our perspective, that in the city, punk attached
itself to other forms of entertainment. it got more organized. the
bands were not always in the forefront, but definitely the music was
still there, and the attitude was retained. things appeared like
incredibly strange wrestling, a punk-rock show of luche libre
wrestling, comedy, and punk bands. circus redickulus, a punk-rock
sideshow circus. cyclecide — the festival/rodeo for bicyclists and
punk bands.

you could even argue that the extra action marching band, suicide
girls, the hot rod-burlesque-tattoo-swing renaissance that occurred,
those people were largely punk rockers who were a bit older, and still
wanted to have fun but in a calmer atmosphere than punk. there’s still
a costume to put on, and a crowd of similarly-dressed people you can
socialize with. the bands that were still playing punk-style music
seemed to be absorbed by rock clubs. for instance, the dwarves will
still play in SF, at the bottom of the hill, and the next night, the
club will have a metal band, or alt-country, or whatever.

over in the east bay, a bunch of disillusioned gilman kids went and
formed their own punk festival, the geekfest, hosting a weekend of
punk bands in the middle of nowhere, all camping out, listening to
music. that went on for several years. the east bay rats, the gang of
motorcycle guys who build their own rat bikes from parts, regularly
host parties and initiations, and punk bands play those shows. and of
course, the east bay still has regular shows at gilman, warehouse
spaces, house parties — all that still goes on today.

we covered some of this stuff in our book, and ended up cutting it for
space, it was a bit off-topic. but it was fascinating to see what
happened, at least in the bay area.

(ks)Aside from unneccesary appropriation (ie the Hot Topic variety), where do you see punk motives and actions occuring in our current cultural and urban landscape?

(jb)silke my co-author will have more to say on this. for myself, i think
punk has now transcended what it used to mean. punk rock is now a
flavor, an adjective that everyone can agree on its meaning. fast,
loud, fun, fuck shit up, etc. we see NOFX in their own reality TV
show, we see young bands emulating a retro 80s-hardcore aesthetic. we
see bands like pennywise, offspring, bad religion, circle jerks,
rancid, green day, all still on tour and releasing records. and yet at
the same time, “punk rock” is not a category on iTunes. as a music
genre it doesn’t appear to have lasted. as a flavor, style, mentality
– it will always exist. kids will be wearing ramones t-shirts for
decades to come.

DIY culture doesn’t mean much anymore in america. software engineers
have allowed all of us to design and build our own websites, blogs,
facebook pages, audio and video playlists. the retail world allows us
to design our own clothing, cars, books, even our cup of coffee can be
personalized. everyone is customizing their own life, every day. if
you want to break it down further, the people responsible for the
computer revolution — 60s acidhead math nerds — actually paved the
path for future generations, by creating a mentality of how humans
might use computers. early-adopter DIY types picked up the technology
ahead of most, and pushed that culture even further. so now, young
people are growing up in this world where the tools are all around
them, to customize their own life. program your phone, mix your music,
bookmark your sites, twitter your friends, create your own avatar
icon. i it’s very easy to think you are an enlightened autonomous soul
if you have the software. and that must be frustrating, i think, for
young people who want something more.

where you see this come into play for real — is outside the U.S. if
you’re a blogger in cuba, or malaysia, or china, you’re using this
technology to disseminate information that people genuinely need to
hear. these people actually risk going to jail, by using the internet
to spread the truth about government oppression and human rights
violations. that to me is a radical, relevant, and dangerous use of
technology. here in the fat and lazy US, we use it to email each other
video clips of kittens and puppies.

one of the newer trends that i see, having some ideological roots in
punk rock, is the handmade scene, the maker faire, make magazine,
readymade magazine world of creativity. The excitement around building
homemade things, showing them off to others. there’s an element of
smart culture-jamming and upending the status quo, that smells new and
unique to me.

(ks)With the rise of Internet culture, do you see any punk (or radical) activity occuring on the web that is comprable to the practices of punk activity, of say, the late 1970s?

(jb)well, hacking is the obvious one, but that’s been going on for so long
it’s not really considered punk. the concept of organizing flash mobs
has some punk community anarchy about it. i’m sure there are pockets
of punk activity occurring online, if one were to seek it out. but
that excitement and fear combination that punk rock injected into the
mainstream culture in the late 70s — i was in high school at the time
– i haven’t seen that since. we see excitement — girls screaming
over bland musicians like the jonas brothers. we see fear — alarmist
news about terrorists and the economy. but we don’t see that
combination of the two so much anymore. also, anything that appears
online is instantly considered dated and therefore must be ignored.
look at any website from the 1990s, we would rather laugh at its
remedial HTML design than understand, or remember, why it was put up
in the first place. people will still dig out their own punk records
because it reminds them of actual shows they saw, fights they
witnessed, physical visceral experiences. it’s a very different
feeling to revisit something online that might have once yanked your
chain, if there’s not a memory attached to it that occurred in the
real physical world.

some of the people in our book talked about what was going to be the
next big thing? even in the 80s, people were dissecting this — what
is going to come after hip hop and punk? what new style of music is
going to push the culture to the next level? their conclusion was, it
hasn’t really happened yet.

of course, there’s several definitions of punk rock. for some people,
it’s political activism. for others, it’s getting fucked up and
breaking things. or fast and loud with cookie monster vocals. or
having charged hair and the proper clothes.

 

Approximating Zine production numbers…

While the early years of the 1970s saw a steady rise in the number of publications, the figures rise dramatically from 1975 onwards. This expansion can be seen as the direct result of the consolidation of the network through the role played by the publications from this early period, coupled with the growing number of assembling magazines and the steady rise in the number of mail art exhibitions. All these artists’ publications were in varying degrees connected to the network and published work acquired from this source, or listed projects and publications emanating from the network.

http://www.zinebook.com/resource/perkins/perkins8.html

More DIY or DIE…

Michael W Dean, director. Introduction to the DIY or DIE documentary:

“The three dozen interviewees are uniquely American artists who operate outside of any studio system, are beholden to none and produce influential, quality art regardless of a continuous paycheck. Most of them are able to make a somewhat comfortable wage with their art…many have been major influences on modern culture. However, they all have a common denominator: their need to make art is the biggest reason to get up each morning. The DIY movement has its roots in the punk rock culture of the mid-’70s. Unable to garnish corporate support many began working around the culture industry to create new channels of creative dissemination. They put on their own concerts, made thier own films, started tiny but influential record labels out of their basements and used their bedrooms to do paste-ups for hand-xeroxed fanzines to review and promote each other. The DIY-I-think-I-can ethic exists today driving everything from garage bands to the largest software companies in the world.”

(my transcription)

Rick Prelinger Sings My Thesis?

“The Internet has given all of us the ability to produce, distribute, and share cultural and intellectual creations as never before, something quite threatening to a number of media companies who’d like to control the publishing process as they once did. … As with the social revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s, San Francisco has become a  key center in a geography of resistance to ruling ideas about the control of culture.” (pg 232)

“What ties together all these artists and activists who work in different genres is the acceptance that creation is a synthetic process, that the seeds of new work fall out old, that culture doesn’t form in isolation, and that performing and distributing work don’t necessarily constitute billable events.” (234)

“…bloggers seek to establish (and arguably already have built) a parallel mediasphere in which shared convictions, virtuosity or expression, and the esteem of one’s peers govern what makes the news, rather than the decisions of highly paid editors and publishers. Though blogging isn’t inherently about appropriation or reworking copyright, bloggers quore, recontextualize, slice and dice, comment and crticize up to and well beyond the narrow limits of fair use.” (236)

From: Prelinger, Rick. “Toward a Copyright-Free Zone?” The Political Edge. Chris Carlsson, ed. [San Francisco: City Lights Foundation, 2004] 231 – 237.

On “D.I.Y. or DIE”…

I recently came across the documentary (2002) D.I.Y. or Die: Burn this DVD (aka. D.I.Y. or Die: How to Survive as an Independent Artist). A film featuring interviews with independent artists, musicians and writers, including punks like Ian Mackaye of Fugazi and Ron Asheton of the Stooges – also, my personal fave, Lydia Lunch and more.

The documentation of the interviews was split up into sections. Chronicling each persons definition of DIY, motivations for doing their art independently, how they have survived financially, and any advice they might have for others out there seeking to make art while avoiding the mainstream framework.  It was more than evident that art was life work for people, more than a full time job and definitely their preference over having a “day job.” Semi-enlightening and Semi-inspiring, overall the film “celebrated the underdog.” It’s hard to be critical of such a project. However, I really didn’t care for the “DIY or Die” song at the end set to a punk tune. What was useful and the most inspiring was the way that operating in this independent capacity is really a lifestyle for most of these people, especially those that have been active for over 20 years. It did not fade out in the ’70s. The film didnt push many boundaries, but its always fun to watch people you like talk and to see the inside of their houses. Overall there was a DIY charm to it all.

Most importantly, this film is open source friendly. Which I think is key for this type of project in our current technological age. While DVDs are available for under $8 each, the website informs visitors that the entire film is available on youtube. And this is the most outstanding gesture of the film. DIY shouldnt have it any other way.

DIY & Travis Nichols…

I haven’t read the book Punk Rock Etiquette: The Ultimate How-To Guide for DIY, Punk, Indie and Underground Bands, I just stumbled across it while searching “DIY” on amazon.com (research purposes). It caught my eye with it’s (oxy)moronic title and badly-faux spray paint & stencil cover. Found in the youth section, it is a DIY guide for kids on how to start bands, tour, make stickers, etc.

It would appear that Travis Nichols is just trying to help kids out.  With sections like “Posse Up,” on the different types of people one may find in one’s band, he separates persona’s into stereotypes such as “the rich kid,” and “the poor kid.” Stating that the latter tend to “give a band cred, and they’re REALLY into music.” (8, emphasis his). And perhaps this is all to anger the kids at the way they have been boxed into two sentences delineated with a set of pros and cons for their assigned character and in the end they will just do what they want, which is the point of DIY. But that sounds like a lot of credit to give a book that seems unnecessarily appropriated and obnoxious.

DIY & Helvetica…

http://www.artforum.com/film/#entry21793
by Joseph Logan

“Enter the “expressionists,” designers we now associate with the ’80s—David Carson, Stefan Sagmeister, and Paula Scher—each of whom takes umbrage with, among other things, Helvetica’s corporate appeal. Hustwit illustrates their point via montages of iconic logos: Con Edison, Toyota, Crate & Barrel, Target, Verizon, MUJI, Jeep, Sears, Greyhound—all somehow different and immediately identifiable, yet all designed with Helvetica. They note the alacrity with which governments and institutions adopted Helvetica as the typeface of authority. Scher goes so far as to derisively call Helvetica the font of the Vietnam War. And so in response, the expressionists infuse their work with all things un-Helvetica: the handwritten, the experimental, the stylized, the emotional, the do-it-yourself—or, as designer Michael Bierut calls it, “grunge typography.” Hustwit reminds us that this typographic free-for-all roughly coincides with the advent of desktop computing, which, while it enabled more people to get in on the game, didn’t necessarily foster more talent. (On this point, even the modernists and postmodernists agree.)”

recommended for consideration…

survival research labs

burning man (diy, self-organization)

glowlab (NY)