Saturday, November 19, 2005 

Why not? Come on! What century is this, dammit?

Oscar Brahim is an Argentinian living in Buenos Aires. He was a cab driver for a while, and has had other odd jobs. He's got a wife and two kids. And he's a guerilla artist who fights the advertising encroaching on public spaces, constantly using paint and posters to subvert billboards, revealing hidden truths behind them (giving figures on cigarette billboards speech balloons talking about cancer), profanely pointing out the conditions of society (lots of erect penises in his work, standing in for social forces that he feels "fuck" the public), or just breaking the spell of ads by making them look weird (why is that man staring so intently at a chicken? And why is the president of Argentina just sort of hanging out in that corner?).

I just saw a documentary about him, "Oscar," as part of the Margaret Mead film festival. It was great, really well done. The soundtrack especially impressed me; it was original music by a guy named Miguel Rausch, who'd work ambient sound into these electronic songs, sampling the sounds of someone using a rebreather and using it as percussion, weaving the ringing of a telephone or something approximating the sound of a train into appropriate scenes. I want this soundtrack.

What's more, I want to give these people money. This was a good documentary, I'd like to give the filmmaker some money. The soundtrack was wonderful; I want to buy it. I really like what Oscar is doing, and I know his family is having problems; I'd like to, at the very least, tip him for his work.

Why can't I?

The technology exists. As soon as I finished watching the movie, I could've logged onto a website and sent the filmmaker and Oscar each $5 or $10 or $20, clicked a couple links and had PayPal transfer the money from my checking account into theirs'. I could've logged into iTunes and bought the soundtrack. I could be paying them all for their efforts, and buying them more time to do more interesting things too. (As English writer Warren Ellis points out, when you give an artist money for their work, you aren't just reimbursing them for their time, each dollar you spend is one less dollar they need to earn at a day job, giving them more time to make more art.)

We have the technology. It's just not implimented right yet.

Monday, November 07, 2005 

Placebo Activism

It's activism that does nothing but make you feel better, make you feel like you're doing something about it. It's proactive, and makes no difference at all. It's a sugar pill that you imagine is actually medicine.

I did a little of it this weekend. I've done a lot of it in previous years. Much of it was Atavism Activism, activism that worked once but no longer has any effect on a social structure that's adapted defenses against it; but that's just a form of Placebo Activism.

I think 99% of activism, at least on my side of the political spectrum, is Placebo Activism. It you're trying to have children, you aren't going to get there by masturbating a lot.