Spontaneous creative expression is the ultimate in intuitive improvisation. It is also the riskiest. How well will the message be projected? How well will it be received, if it ever is? Such a spontaneous moment where genius is born, or another asshole is unleashed upon the world… visionaries blossom or fools are spawned. The old adage, “think before you speak”, comes to mind. But then with pause comes risk management. What is now the agenda behind the message and who gets to deliver it? Enter the proactive edit. Enter censorship.

Art is weaponry, technique and craftsmanship the launch pad and vision the missile. It is the armament shielding against the prevailing validity and reaffirmation. It is first strike and it is reciprocation via escalation. It is an insurgent release of the comedic, the tragic. It can be censored, but it cannot be quelled.

In the Cape region of South Africa, I was dumbfounded by the lack of rage in their street art. Maybe it is more prevalent farther north; yet, after ages of subjugation, oppression, and now repression?—I would think a new found democracy with uncovered atrocities would lend to an art renaissance. Yet this release I could not find. As I wondered through shop, gallery, street fair, and by graffiti-ed wall, I found minimal expression of former anguish, current emancipation, and fear of uncertain futures. From my eyes, their art was purely decorative, tribal, and expressionless of the pain of injustice and the salvation of freedom. Is there still an imbedded fear of reprisal? Have they yet to learn from so many oppressed centuries, how to piss at the wind? Or is the message so subtle, I just can’t see it.

How do they vent their rage beyond violent acts of revenge? I sensed impending danger, like knowing a friend who for too long bottles up so much and then explodes in a rage befitting an equal or greater negative response from any or all affected. I fear more than a self inflicted ear lopping.

           I’ve always been drawn to artists who evoke an emotional response or even just a raised eyebrow, a single moment of questioning in the eye of the beholder. The more fringe the more fitting, but I think that had to do with youth rather than the message. My friends are Guerilla artists, social pranksters who can insert a disruptive micro-moment into the flow, a hiccup in the continuum, insidiously subliminal or shockingly insurgent; the disruptive effects ranging from the minimally amusing to the most prosecutable with the common purpose to jar awakening in the moment, a reversal of the collective mental environment… consciousness. Adbusters out of Vancouver, BC is the most organized in this aspect, an anti-media medium whose sole goal is to break a hypnotic meme by fighting fire with fire, gloss over gloss. I can’t tell if it’s working on the collective consumer consciousness or they are just preaching to the anti-choir. I do know it only matters that they exist and are determined not to be silenced.

           A friend, small in stature but not in fortitude, is a metal sculptor and the epitome of the minimal subliminal. She takes on quite large installations and yet sees them as too small. Ladders, bucket trucks, cranes, and spark of torch are her tools; grinded, polished, welded scrap-metal her medium. Formerly an oil tanker captain, yet with humble Buddhist footprints, her expressions to the receptive eye are profound. She envisions her monoliths erected throughout the valley in receding farm fields desperately warding off the poisons of over-development. She sees monuments of purpose with labeled titles of ‘Frustration’, ‘Anger’, ‘Denial’, and ‘Punishment’, all physical manifestations of her feelings toward war, intolerance, indifference, and injustice. If the farmers only see a free artsy-fartsy tourist draw, and the tourist only sees an anomaly worth investigation, then mission accomplished. A layer has been penetrated. A different type of seed has been planted in tired soil.

It’s enlightening to take time to smell a different rose. I’m always looking for and applying the original spontaneous, the intuitive off-the-cuff, sketches, paintings, graphics, art, writings, poetry, whatever and wherever contrary dissent oriented; anything that encourages an underlying undermining mental environment that is contrary to the perceived absolutes of the prevailing one… the one that’s purpose is solely for the pursuit of pure profit regardless of the human condition. Why? Because Lord Acton’s epic warning that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” is no more obvious than it is today. I’m also quite a curmudgeonly contrarian. And remember, rarely does anyone get paid for this passionate form of expression, so occasionally invite them to dinner. More than likely, they are a little gaunt.

Peace

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