It remains risky, if not frivolous, to speak of the revolutionary in relation to art, or even the political.
An offshoot of content slated for destruction, this set of posters was made with urgency outside of direct collaboration, particularly for the context of an exhibition addressing the nation-state in a year of constantly assaulting statist propaganda. From the hagiographic mass mourning for the death of an autocratic patriarch, to golden jubilee celebrations of state-making, and finally to looming but as yet unannounced parliamentary elections, the spectre of nation floats into concrete being. It was not known when the work was made in July 2015, just before the fanfare climaxed on National Day, that the ruling party would later announce general elections to be held just a month after, nor that it would ride on this sustained wave of nationalist sentiment to win by a landslide. The polls defied earlier projections – and crushed hopes – of many for more representation by opposition party members as legislators. The speculative substance carried in the text-oriented graphics and framed within the poster – speaking of organising, addressing contradictions in voting as competition in relation to neoliberal governmentality, and proposing tactics of the alternate – is set at a near future of close proximity to the actual time of making. Invoking such organisational forms and language from this point almost makes them seem more possible to manifest. In this fictional moment, the “working raccoon” group asserts: even with election results aligning with the desires of a civil society opposed to the ruling party, placing all hope in the legitimated processes of representative democracy would not deliver structural change to unjust systems and inequities that are more deeply (and globally) entrenched than just the ills of a political party. Could the meeting, the reading group, then be a way to enact life and study within, but apart from, crisis? When exhibited, the poster is mediated through a layer that confronts its status as an art object and commodity in a gallery, made available only through a tiered pricing system. Through these two levels of interaction and thinking on the systemic, perhaps the prefigurative potential of a speculative visual form, along with its content, could become realised or come closer to being realised. The “you” within the work’s title and central slogan becomes addressed to more than just a fictional politicised audience captured in an alternate future/history, but the very viewer in the artistic encounter. What then, does revolutionary potential mean in this age, and how does it look, how does it see? |
Text transcribed from poster:"[Large stylised text in middle of poster] YOU CAN'T VOTE OUT CAPITALISM.
[Top-left paragraph] After a series of disappointments despite an ever enlarged opposition presence in parliament, perhaps it is time to stop putting full faith in the legitimated processes of electoral representation to bring about change. This process but only allows us to select rulers from an ordained managerial class, their abilities still measured against the by-now-expected promise of economic growth and prosperity, ensuring an ongoing conditioning that reduces all life, time and labour into the frame of capital and its accumulation. At best, one could only hope for a benevolence and honesty. But what kind of politics is that? What of the technocrats, policy advisers and chief executives we do not get to choose? Could any politician effectively argue against expanding the grip of neoliberal ideology in Singapore, handing over the reins of power and all social relations to the market? An entire civil structure and security apparatus has been constructed by the state around this worldview, through waged employment at once supporting its continuance and suppressing popular dissent against itself. [Middle-right paragraph] So how do we begin to resist? What workable alternatives are there? Is there real space for autonomy and direct democracy to grow and flourish? How can the boundaries of class and nationality be undone in this inclusive project? How do we redefine work and subsistence? How can we end debt and exploitation? What leverage do people have in an authoritarian system? And how can we globally resist financial globalisation? [Bottom-right paragraph] We begin with organising ourselves, through thinking, sharing, and doing. This reading group will flow between the space of intersectional workshop and action group, contemplating not just ideas from thinkers and organisers like Wendy Brown, David Graeber, Harsha Walia, Jack Halberstam and Franco Berardi, but also zines and blogs produced by myriad groups and individuals out of personal agency and urgency. New knowledge, tools, postures, imaginations and possibilities will be explored, at this very heart of the beast. Join us in unravelling the crisis that is capitalism. Beginning 7 February 2016 [Image of logo with words under it: "the working raccoon"] |