Julie Perini: The Blog

First, you all need to run to your local library or independent bookseller and get Realizing the Impossible: Art Against Authority edited by Josh MacPhee and Eric Reuland.

Second, it is filled with interesting articles, but one in particular by anarchist anthropologist David Graeber is grabbing me right now.  It is called “The Twilight of Vanguardism” and in it he discusses a history of the idea of vanguardism, finishing up with some statements about how revolutionary alliances form between society’s least alienated people (artists in this discussion) and most oppressed people.  Here is an excerpt:

“For me the really intriguing question is this:  why is it that artists have so often been drawn to revolutionary politics in the first place?…It seems to me the answer must have something to do with alienation.  There would appear to be a direct link between the experience of first imagining things and then bringing them into being (individually or collectively) – that is, the experience of certain forms of un-alienated production – and the ability to imagine social alternatives, particularly the ability to imagine a society itself premised on less alienated forms of creativity.”

I visited Boston a few months ago and while on the T, I was delighted to see an animated series of images flash by me out the window. There were many painted panels on the wall of the subway and when viewed in succession by a passenger on the train, they created the illusion of movement. I had never thought of this before, this idea to create a moving image experience where the body moves instead of the image. I found it to be just lovely, even if it was an ad for deodorant (or whatever it was). Recently, I learned that Bill Brand is responsible for inventing this process/technique. In 1980, he created the Masstransiscope in New York City. Check out his site for more information.

From Bill Brand's site, an image of the Masstransiscope