Trees falling in a presentation hall...

I’ve gone about seven different directions trying to put into some sort of context The Yes Men and last week’s Hacker Manifesto. I think seeing the film enabled me to better respect the ideology expounded upon in the reading, although more in the sense of using artistic expression in its most open interpretation as a means of stirring things up politically. I don’t think what bothered me so much about the Hacker Manifesto was the ideology itself, although its strictly Marxist idea of art being constantly co-opted I did resist somewhat, if only for the more romanticized reasons from Chabon’s essay I discussed last week: the pleasure inherent in any art form makes it ultimately too personal and thus impervious to being completely made into product. To put it simply, art finds a way. I imagine the Trickster of Chabon’s essay, in the bookstore or otherwise, defying convention, skirting expectations.

What I came out of last week’s viewing interested in was this idea of art’s adaptation into what might not normally be considered art for specifically political means. Which is not to say that doing so for other means isn’t interesting. Rather, I feel like, for myself, if there is no political or at least social vein to one’s work, some attempt to “stir things up,” then why am I paying attention to any convention you’re attempting to defy, or even why do I bother to write myself (I think I‘ve seen too much literary work, experimental fiction specifically, which seems to be experimenting for its own sake without saying anything remotely interesting with it)? I’m intrigued by the whole concept of political art, if only because the conventions it attempts to escape are frequently not merely conventions of form but of law and social behavior. How does one use art to express something political that moves people under a government that, let’s face it, doesn’t exactly encourage that sort of behavior?

So I started looking into some political art on the internet, focusing finally in two places: the Yes Man’s continued work pretending to represent organizations they find reprehensible, and the work of artist Ron English, specifically his political billboards. Something I found intriguing about the Yes Man’s more recent work was the effect that their notoriety had on their efforts, specifically how it preempted any shock value they made have had in front of a board of individuals ignorant to their usual hijinks. I was interested particularly in their infiltration of a Dow board meeting in 2005, since I did my undergrad in Mt Pleasant, MI, about fifteen minutes from where the meeting was held, and am well aware of how that company shapes the economy and political climate of the region. The response to their presence, specifically a whole slew of guards who apparently knew exactly who they were, while entertaining, brings up an important issue in their work: is this in fact the co-opting that the Hacker’s Manifesto is pointing to? Has the general alert to their existence and the success of their efforts to draw attention to corruption drawn so much attention that their methods themselves have become obsolete? Will it be necessary for them to find new ways to continue this work in order to get the same point across? How does one’s work remain vital when the very point of it--garnering media attention--makes the continued work impossible?

This is part of what drew me to the work I found of Ron English and other billboard and graffiti artists. The messages seem to be along similar lines in English’s work, although his seems to be a bit more partisan, specifically his endorsement of Obama. But the difference in medium means that there is both a smaller group of people contacted by a particular work but a greater amount of anonymity. The artist is not directly part of the work, and thus the risk involved in presenting that work is smaller, insomuch as that work is less likely to be prevented from presentation and thus has a higher possibility of reaching its target audience. The art is less persona and more representation and so the artist is not openly associated with his work. At the same time, though, the risk in the Yes Men’s choice of medium is coupled with a higher volume of press and therefore a greater impact if it succeeds. A billboard, however well-done, is easier to ignore. English’s work seems dependent also upon volume, but this volume derives from the number of billboards he creates and the location of presentation, in other words, the likelihood of press coverage due to the significance of its presence. In either case, a work is dependent to a certain extent upon press. If the audience reached is limited, the work is somewhat defeated in its intentions. As was discussed in the film, the initial presentation was not the point so much as the fallout it created; without fallout, the work is merely an extremely well-prepared prank.
All of this seems more resonant with explicitly political work, but it brings up a question for all art that attempts to break down barriers and create precedents: if no one hears you, does it fail? Who is art for: the artist or the audience? What does it mean to be a successful as an artist? I suppose that this is a question we all as individual artists must answer.