Punk has always been an iconic musical art form that embodied the rebellious youth culture from the late 1970's English ghettos to the the present day city streets. In Dave Laing's article "Listening To Punk," Laing suggests that the Punk music genre is a subculture on its own, that the individuals how create punk music emphasize the message within the music by using less-than-pleasant musical tones with harsh vocals and screeching guitar riffs to ordain and subterranian values and ideologies of the punk movement of the time. In doing this, musicians are able to block out any "distractions" that could pull the listener away from the intentional meaning of the song. He states that if a listener is unable to understand or disagrees with the message being conveyed with the song, that an unintentional "gap" has been created because that is not the purpose of punk music.
By comparing punk music to popular contemporary music genres, Laing is able to separate the differences between the mainstream society and the punk subculture described through musical form. Since punk has it's own form of dress-code, hairstyle, lifestyle, values, as well as themes such as anarchy, death, violence, and public disorder, it is maintained as a response to much of what the punk music is conveying through the songs. It's shock value of vulgarity, swearing, screaming, and qualities opposite to that of other popular music. For some, the shock content found within a lot of punk music is blocked by some listeners; that "the shock defense', the inability to ' digest' shock content, produces trauma. For the audience of an artistic event, the trauma involves what Barthes calls a 'suspension of language, a blocking of meaning'." (Laing, 455)
It is at this point where a conflict has been created. If the shock value of punk music is too strong within the music, listeners will not listen and therefore not understand. If the listener does not understand, then that individual is exempt from the punk sub-culture of rock music. Even if the individual may like the idea of mohawks, studded jackets, combat boots, and tattoos but do not enjoy a lot of punk music, they become what society calls a "poser" and therefore damage or hurt the ideologies and values of punk music because they lose their meaning among the individuals who do not like punk music.
Much like the subculture groups of graffiti artists or skinheads, punks are usually comprised of youth who are misguided and unwanted. Rejected from the normal mainstream culture of society or refusing to conform with it, they turn to the aggressive, hooligan-style party rockers who are not just those kids who do what they want, who are overly aggressive, sniff glue, get drunk, and make fools of themselves; No, these kids are youth looking to share a common belief in the idea of a different society where they are in control and those who are part of the mainstream culture are ridiculed and destroyed. They do not exploit themselves or their individuality through paint, names, or by occupying spaces but instead by the distribution of music, concerts, punk parties, clubs, and more.
Punk is a deviant culture who explore their existence through music, dress, and lifestyle. Punk media has had a huge influence of the pertaining mainstream culture of different musical sub-genres namely punk-rock, ska, and Oi! Even though the punk subculture itself can be looked at as a parenting culture to the smaller sub-genres of punk era inspired music that in-turn became valued ideologies and themes that can be seen among subcultures of skaters, drug users, and other deviated youth groups, punk on its own is almost considered a mainstream sub-culture because of it's exploitation as a dangerous group of young deviants. Punk is not something meant to be feared, but embraced by the youth who feel unwanted, used, lost, and looking for an identity to be associated with. The punk sub-culture is almost like an army of rejected youth, youth who were once pressured to conform to the mainstream culture of society and refused. Their affiliation with one another poses itself as a larger embodying of the spirit of rejecting the mainstream culture that had rejected them. It is a parenting culture and a live one, it is more than just a style or a means of expression for the past 35 years, punk is a sub-culture that is here to stay.
Julian Assange and his group of hackers fighting for the access to classified information to make free to the general public has brought on a new form of journalism, new revolution, and hell for the information agencies that Assange and his team are attacking. The WikiRebels aims to influence a new age of informal press, encouraging everyone in the world to know what the governments work extremely hard to keep secret. This new platform of ghost networking, is a sub-culture of individuals itself, filled with anonymous people from all over the world in small internet cafes and study rooms. It is not a culture run on the idea that people are supposed to impose a certain image but instead is comprised of individuals who expose the truth because they believe that people have the right to know and make informed decisions.
Knowledge is the ultimate weapon and always has been. It has the power to change lives, change countries, and it even put a man on the moon. When it is withheld it is because it is deemed dangerous if it were to be exposed to the public, should it get into the wrong hands. Yet, much of the content on Wikileaks is full of incidences where the private citizen is the target. Be it from chemical testing to American soldiers executing innocent civillians, it still has the power to influence the way the public thinks, speaks, and consumes mass media as well as corporate products. What the consumer believes is right or wrong will depend on what they consume. If the private citizen watches a Wikileak video of a Canadian soldier killing children overseas, it changes the way they think about the Canadian Military as well as their country on an ethical standard. They may no longer support the Candian Military after video-after-video of the same footage. So it is clear how much of an impact Wikileaks can have in shocking the general public to the point where they feel like so much is wrong with this world that they are essentially overwhelmed with outrage; ironically over something that has so little impact on their lives that they'll probably forget about it the next day or two.
This sub-culture of a virtual collective spirit working towards a better informed society is indeed, a culture no different of those of Graffiti culture, where their means of expressing their ideologies and identity is nothing more than "vandalism." A sub-culture of delinquent hackers who appear like targets of high-school bullies, whose skill and ability to steal government documents without a trace is something one would think only God could do. Unlike graffiti culture, the individualist spirit is lost. The hackers become one identity portrayed by Anonymity, Guy Fawkes being the mascot for their terrorizing acts towards a better super-power by destroying the image of a corrupt one; thrown out in the open to be criticized, judged, and ridiculed by the eyes of the world; Almost like a metaphor for how close Fawkes came to blowing up Parliament in the belief he was bettering the people. He is but the front man that embodies the collective spirit of the anonymous mass looking for change. Beautiful isn't it?
Upon being rushed with this mass of information that sounds like the end of the world, people must feel like everything they had just consumed (all being negative) will of course mean negative reactions and negative results. We are shown the one sided coin, a negative spectrum over our governments, our armed forces, the food we eat, the things we listen to and what we watch as consumers. We feel targeted as vulnerable people living in a demanding society where everything is supposed to be running smoothly and for that we are enraged that the government in which we instill faith and trust is keeping secrets and betraying us. And for what? We cannot help but imagine why, but if it's being kept secret we feel threatened. It is all uncensored, unedited and, of course, cited by an anonymous poster who demands that the public see it clearly with all the facts and in complete context from a third party. We see these things on the internet but for what? For change? Aimlessly reading document after document of terrible reports on what you eat everyday, who the US has invaded and for what, where your tax money is going, and who shot who does not evoke change. We cannot just stop at awareness but we get the point. It is time to openly exchange ideas for solutions where to take action. The fight for free access to information is on-going and not just an sub-culture of online hacking vigilante journalists but people who believe in the collective spirit of bettering the planet and everything that is wrong with it but we must remember that everything has a two sided coin. We must not forget that information access can be dangerous and be used against us. Remember to read smart and think critically of what we consume in media and on a daily basis. Question everything.
In New York during March of 1987, the ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) was founded to bring awareness to the masses that there just wasn't enough being done about the AIDS epidemic in America and the world. The graphic logo SILENCE = DEATH had become an iconic logo for both the AIDS campaign as well as seen as a form of contemporary art. The graphic itself had comprised of a simply designed purple triangle with the propaganda style text below reading "SILENCE = DEATH." The triangle was chosen to commemorate the gay/lesbian groups who had suffered at the hands of the Nazis who forced them to wear the symbol of the purple triangle. This graphic campaign had set out with the intention of raising awareness through the public by means of creating t-shirts, posters, stickers, flags, and signs. Posters had been plastered to walls all over the city, shirts were worn, and bracelets were worn for the next following few years.
The ACT UP campaign had used several tactics to engage the public sphere. The use of repetition of campaign posters and seeing the purple triangle on the walls, on TV, hearing it over the radio and marketing the campaign products to expand awareness and even making counterfeit money, had the public's attention but still people were unsure of what SILENCE = DEATH meant. It was powerful but ambiguous and the Museum of Modern Art had refused to display any of the AIDS graphics within their exhibits during an art exhibition called "Committed to Print: Social and Political Themes in Recent American Printed Art." Protests ensued.
Douglas Crimp and Adam Rolston's article "AIDS Activist Graphics," had pointed out that even though the AIDS graphic campaign had significance and meaning in time, it does not reflect the values and ideologies of the majority culture of the time. "A current crisis is perhaps less easy to recognize, since they 'see' only what has become distant enough to take on the aura of universality." (Crimp, Rolston, 363) This suggestion as to why the Museum of Modern Art has failed to recognize SILENCE=DEATH as a movement towards the improvement of the human condition bases it's claims on the premise that it is not the issue or events that stand out but rather the artistic style of graphic imagery that has an effect on people, not the other way around.
The over-use and exploitation of symbols and campaigns such as ACT UP and their graphics by talented and inspired graphic artist ultimately gather the attention they intended but had lost the traditional meaning of what it meant to stand up and do something about AIDS. Instead it had become an art show for who could come up with the better picture and what that picture was worth. The AIDS campaign had been successful in turning the heads of people who they came across but once their theme had become a mainstream topic of debate, the meaning is lost or becomes irrelevant.
By way of example, the use of graphics to convey a meaning or tone is lost when it becomes convoluted within the media that is representing it. If you put on a shirt that says something meaningful, it's just a meaningful shirt, perhaps even a cool one. But the idea that you're shirt is cool is besides the fact that it means something significant; however, it is all the general public will see or think. It becomes a commodity in a consumer society in which it's popularity comes down to credibility and aesthetics instead of the campaign or product had been intended for.
Campaign movements come and go, each with their own specific styles of media consumerism, propaganda art, street credibility, political involvement, and public opinion and awareness. Yet after decades of being old news, all that remains is the media that is left behind to be shared again in the future for future generations to evaluate and question for themselves. Ironically, these individuals will see the meaning behind the media far better than those who had exploited it in the past as being part of the mainstream culture and fitting in with the crowd. We have nothing but our sense of "cool" to thank for that.
What does it mean to be fashionable? Why does it seem like wearing dresses made of money, or obscure looking pants, or hats that no one has seen in almost a hundred years has such a profound effect on how people look at it, who wears it, and what it means to be "in-style." We change our styles from time to time, buy new clothes, and see what matches what, but really, who are we trying to impress? The way a person will dress says a lot about their character, what they might do for a living, how much money they have (or don't), where they're probably going or coming from, and whether or not they look like that everyday will depend on their character.
Bill Cunningham New York was a documentary focusing around the life of fashion photographer Bill Cunningham who'd been taking countless photographs of men and women on the streets of New York for decades. Yet, he does not photograph anyone. He looks for the clothes, the hats, the shoes, and trousers. He's out looking for individuals who aren't afraid or ashamed to stand out from the norm of how people dress to express their character in a barrage of colors, styles, and complete disregard for the modern day suit-and-tie image that is seen everywhere everyday. Cunningham had built a reputation with some of the oldest and well known fashion designers of his time (and he's a pretty old dude). He's seen all the styles before and he looks for copies and inspirations. What some people had claimed to have just designed, he will send a photograph of the same outfit or pattern from his collection that he'd taken nearly 50 years before.
Bill wasn't social from what I could tell. Nobody who knew him could say much about him. He didn't talk, he only photographed. He was old-fashioned and used an old camera with film prints, physically cutting out and laying photos on a magazine spread. Yes, he was different, but what Cunningham was looking for had said a statement about modern society; that modern society was really losing it's form for what was different, that people all look the same, and wonder why people feel the need to dress to fit in or to look "neutral."
In T.R. Fyvel's article, "Fashion and Revolt," Fyvel suggests that fashion revolt dated back to the post-war English culture of the 1940's in response to American styles. Fashion was seen a social protest had involved individuals dressing how they liked, regardless of reaction or public opinion. These individuals were often seen as the rejects, the groups that were not respectable, and not socially acceptable. At first, they almost seemed like a gang by dressing the same and representing the counter-culture of the era, but as time had progressed by the 1950's, it was clear to society that even after years of continual use of the "Teddy-boy" style, that youth groups of unskilled and poor workers would no longer be exempt from the society that offered pleasures to the wealthy and the famous who dressed "appropriately with class." They would instead be found as conservative rebels who were "cool" for the first time ever. The styles of the Teddy-boy were altered and changed with time to produce attractive fashion styles for both men and women bringing together the perfect mix of the working class meets first class clothing. It wasn't formal, but it wasn't ugly, they wore these clothes on a daily basis which grew rather attractive to the one's in rags, and the first class women who were taught to dress proper their whole lives.
The way people dressed had allowed the way other people to expand on who exactly this person is, why they dress the way they do, to deem them socially acceptable or not. If you can't change your social class, change your clothes. "...Even in the dead-end districts of London, there had been radical social change. Boys and youths working in unskilled jobs were no longer loutish but searching to take part in ordinary mid-twentieth century city life." (Fyvel, 287) Fyvel's quote describes the result of the fashion revolt of the Teddy boy culture of the post-war society. It had brought on a new era of how people were expected to dress, how one could choose what to wear without care or worry of what others thought.
Like other forms of sub-culture, the fashion induced members of society are looking for an identity within their clothes the same way graffiti artists look for one in their name and their paint. Even if fashion is more of a victim-less crime than graffiti or the sex-trade, it offers a place for individuals looking to be the same, looking to be different, to be formal, be casual, be rich, or poor. Clothes offers the person a chance to represent their identity through physical subtly and threads, it even offers the chance to be someone you're not, even if only for a short while.
"When writers spray their names on a wall, they appear to leave a part of themselves there too. Almost like a stand-in or double, the name embodies and represents the individual who wrote it- 'there's a bit of you there', It's like you being there." (MacDonald, 314)
It is easily arguable that the graffiti subculture is not comprised of people but only of names. The names that represent the spirit of the individual being in more than one place at one time, at unreachable highs and even at greater lows. It is a sub-culture that prides itself in its "writers" as alter-ego personas capable of networking with each other on nothing more than brick walls. It provides more than an escape but a thrill for writers who made their identity that is expressed through their paint. They become affiliated with one another and put differences aside to only see the street writer that embodies a name that I'd probably seen before somewhere down at 16th avenue and Newkirk Dr. and they become respected in that way for reasons of claiming public space, and leaving their mark.
In a sense, these anonymous individuals are claiming public space as their own, as we think back to Clark's theory of social spaces being won over for people who are part of a social construct. This ultimately allows nearly anyone to essentially gain satisfaction of being well known if not famous by name or symbol. Their name is a virtual reinvention of their identity as an image. It is from that image that people are able to open express themselves as well as have others openly question it. The social space dominated by the Graffiti subculture and on travelling mediums such as trains and trucks allows the individual of the claimed space an extraordinary sensation of having their identity travelling to different places to be seen by different people, and in a way, claim that space even if it only for a little while.
The Banksy film "Exit Through the Gift Shop" had given viewers the chance to see the rare moments of graffiti as it is being plastered by on by a graffiti artist named Shepard Fairey as well as Banksy himself. Fairey's iconic OBEY posters have had a huge impact on the street art community for his use of propaganda style of repetition and stencil papers. What exactly this film intended to capture, I'm not entirely sure as it passed between several subjects of interest. What I did see from this film was a man named Thierry (Mister Brainwash) profiting huge off of the cheap exploits of what street art is portrayed as; something tossed together with some pictures and sells it as one picture. Thierry, did what Fairey had showed him to do and with Banksy's encouragement, Thierry set out as Mister Brainwash, a man with a camera on a sticker who eventually sold works for thousands at his art exhibition within a short time.
This is not what street art is about according to the accounts taken in Nancy MacDonald's article: "The Graffiti Subculture." It’s about creating an identity through the careful selection of a meaningful word or name and placing it in significant places of influence or social space. "You become more than yourself in this subculture because you escape the need to represent yourself. Your graffiti 'speaks for you', freeing you from the features or factors that might normally hold you back." (Jel, Macdonald, 313) This quote made by Jel during an interview with Macdonald explains that graffiti is more than just street art but is lived as a lifestyle with an alter-ego of expression; that graffiti is not for a profit but to fill the public space with a personalized version of one's own work.
I don't believe that bathroom graffiti can fall under the same category, at the same time, every time I find myself in a stall with time to kill *ahem* I love reading what those who'd been there had to say or speak what was on their mind. It makes me wonder what type of people these people were like. Yet, they are vandals, regular people with nothing better to do that leave their comment on the wall next to them, some of it dating back 20 years or more in the truck stops off the highway. I feel like it adds a history to the building itself, to know that these people existed and that they had a sense of humour. Even though it makes the place look run-down and gross, it provides mild entertainment in a small shared space where hundreds of individuals pass through regularly.
But are those who instil bathroom stall graffiti sharing the same values and ideologies of the street graffiti subculture? It's hard to say if seeing the same name or brand everywhere could just as equally represent the same individual spirit as the one who scratches a dick onto every wall in every public bathroom. There's a fine line to draw what is considered vandalism and what is art. Although graffiti is usually considered illegal, its product can be remarkable, inspiring, cynical and satirical in the face in the normal society.
I had always thought of myself as a weird kid in high school. It had never occurred to me that a lot of people probably didn't see it that way. I had friends, we did stupid shit together, we partied, we laughed, we traveled, and partied some more. Yet at the same time, I could not help but think that it was possible that my public self was different than the one I shared at home with my family or my closest friends, that I had changed my identity for the world every time I stepped outside. I was Mark, an average kid growing up in the suburbs in a high school full of people being social and finding similar interests and sharing similar hardships with those I surrounded myself with. I was a different person. But what defined who I was if it meant trying to find out what's the coolest thing, what's the newest product, what's the most significant thing that happened in school, or in news? We feel pressured into maintaining a standard about ourselves every time we walk outside. This comes down to how to act normal, how to be professional, how to be awesome, what to buy, what to where, and what to do. Yet an ideology of a mainstream culture seems unappealing to most because everyone wants an identity that is creative and different than everything else. That is when everyone jumps on the bandwagon of "Being Different," and suddenly, being different is the new mainstream culture.
In Sarah Thornton's "The Social Logic of Sub-cultural Capital," she suggests that youth share sub-cultural ideologies that differentiate from the "parent culture," in which they imagine a separate identity that is asserted in the mainstream culture in order to associate distinctiveness within society. Ideologies that follow what is cool come into conflict when what is cool becomes affiliated with mainstream culture and loses its value among youth groups over time, with popularity, and with copies. Yet these subcultural ideologies shared among youth is routinely sought after to make profits. Club owners, DJs, musicians, and clothing designers all look for what is considered "hip" to attract their audiences and defined as sub-cultural capital. It is money generated by the attractiveness of trend valued and idolized by specific sub-cultural communities. If no one's heard of it, it's underground. Once it's heard of and popular, they become mainstream. Once it's used for generating profits and changing ideologies and values to cater to the majority, it becomes a sell-out.
By way of example, Shepard Fairey's OBEY The Giant, had grown into an economic marketing success compared to it's spread in the small town skater subculture of the late 1980's when he first created it. His style of street art had focused more on the aspect of how propaganda worked compared to what was being propagated. Over time his street art conceptualizing Andre the Giant as propaganda spread in parts all over North America and the world over time as it gained popularity and notoriety for the past two decades and getting involved with politics; one notable work being the 2008 HOPE poster for Obama’s political campaign. His work had gone from underground to mainstream, yet he maintains the value and ideologies as a street artist and is well respected in the urban art culture. His designs that he sell can be seen as cultural capital but well reflects the subcultural traits and "what is hip."
As we get older we put away our childish things but does this mean that we give up our sense of what's cool and why we should still care? The parent culture is exempt from allowing "cool" within it's borders and anything that should cross will become "not cool, man." Graffiti and street art are expressions of youth looking for identity and independence within a world that doesn't care for them, within a society that won't provide for them. When people say that graffiti is vandalism, it comes down to perspective. It's easy to call something vandalism if you don't like it being there. Obviously, there's going to be people who don't agree with their walls being painted but it's no different than the propaganda of what to buy, what to do, where to go, and who to be that we surround ourselves with everyday even within our own homes.
In the new millennia where there is nothing left to explore, no need to hunt or gather, and with no other means to differentiate people without being called racist, there is but no choice to formulate an identity with what you do, how you dress, what you drive, and how well you interact among social groups. This is the definition of consumerism and it's takeover of North American markets for the past century and a half; but in the wake of the 21st century, the view of this kind of lifestyle was taken into the bigger picture and analyzed by consumers who then decided that they would protest the way of life for the middle class. In Andrew Heath and Joseph Potter's article "The Rebels Sell," Heath and Potter scrutinize the hypocrisy of the anti-consumerist in the capitalist market, poking fun at the idea that they claim to be anti-consumerist but do not understand the nature of consumerism at all.
By way of example, Heath and Potter's use of Fight Club as a model for anti-consumerist popular culture of the time had "critiqued consumer society" or simply put "noticed that everyone aimlessly follows capitalist values and buys the things they want instead of what they need." Well isn't it human nature to only desire the things that we don't already have? This sub-culture of following (or not following) the protesting of consumer society stands alone in the balance and creates a brand image of itself by essentially targeting large corporations that run the markets and the governments because of how badly money corrupts. It’s stupid to say that one is a bad person for buying the want they want to make them happy. We try to talk about this like it's a social issue when it isn't but is rather the progress of society that drives and motivates people to work, to produce, and create new and innovative things every single day. When one person buys something big and expensive for any reason even if it's "just because they can," that item which they've longed for is now theirs even if they've worked the worst job to get it. In turn, they having done so will have little to no effect on your life so why bother? Why should this be frowned upon? Someone's got to get the job done. Without capitalist consumerism, there's no way modern society would be as creative, widespread, ravished with luxury products available on demand. Surely there's a way to keep everything we buy new and edgy with class and style to continually urging us to burn our hard-earned cash while keeping the profiting governments and corporations in check. Unfortunately the world doesn't work that way.
As for protesting capitalism, let’s not leave it in the hands of the Anarchists responsible for the damage we see at events such as the G20 summit in Toronto or the playoffs in Vancouver. Breaking windows is not in the spirit of anti-consumerism but is rather just costing everyone more tax dollars to fix. How exactly is a protest like this organized? Through consumer products like iPhones, smart phones, laptops, and social media outlets; the most glorified and media exploited products to date. Why are people angry? Because everyone likes to by these consumer products that make people rich? At this point I cannot help but shrug at the paradox that I am faced with.
People always aim to make a profit, no matter how little or large. In the wake of the consumer society that everyone finds themselves trapped in, there is no escaping the media consumption that defines what is special and what isn't, what's what, and who is who. It is simply something that we all have to go along with. If one dares to challenge the cruel perspective cycle of capitalism, their own will become idolized and in turn very popular. What does very popular mean? It means very easy to make money from. We sell the image ourselves whether intended or not.
The anti-consumerist culture may some contradictory to its motives and even somewhat silly, yet at the same time, this sub-culture within society is comprised of individuals who seek more than just material satisfaction. They demand more out of their lives, their jobs, and those around them. What they're looking for to make them happy may never come, probably because they don't carry it on the shelves at Wal-Mart or because it's difficult to find a good Fight Club. Even in the shadows of the corporate-run society we maintain our separate identities hanging by the threads of our made-in-china $100 jeans because we cannot seem to find any other way due to mainstream media irrelevancy.
