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This course will explore how ideas drawn from, on the one hand, the artistic avantgarde movements and, on the other, new social and new religious movements constituted the radical political and hedonist imaginaries of the experimental fringes of the UK Underground. Today, these imaginaries from our immediate past still inform the contemporary in significant ways. Even though the premises and the theatres of operation have changed more than once since 1991 – 'the year punk broke' - with the consolidation of neo-liberalism, the rise of the internet and a globalised finance economy, these imaginaries speak directly to us about the field of socially engaged art (in its expanded sense) while raising questions that are as relevant then as now: how do we find a way out from the present? How do we create a new 'we'? Does cultural production have a role to play or is it always already the vanguard of consumerism? These issues and more will be explored through examining four examples - the Sigma project, London Anti-University, Academy 23 and thee Temple ov Psychick Youth [sic] - who all imagined a new type of spontaneous 'action university' that would teach us how to live together. Change was seen as a matter of cultural engineering, the goal of which was to create new subjectivites and new commons, thus realising another world through simple acts of pooling resources, sharing knowledge and building international channels for the exchange of information. Instead of being turned upside down, the world would thus be changed from the inside out. Through exploring notions of art, identity, collectivity, invisibility and insurrection, we will discuss these examples not only in the context of biopower, affect, radical politics and subjectivation but also – since it is often concerned with an art which was not meant to be seen – of inner and outer space, mind control, magick and astral traveling. The course will not only be based on texts, but also film, images and objects. Readings will include Alex Trocchi, William Burrougbs, R. D. Laing, Joe Berke, Genesis P-Orridge, Simon Critchley, Franco 'Bifo' Berardi, Aleister Crowley, Guy Debord, the Edu-Factory Collective, Michel Foucault, Theodor Roszak, Brian Holmes, The Invisible Committee/Tiqqun, Eve Chiapello and so on. Films might include, for example, Performance, Decoder, Cain's Film, Towers Open Fire! as well as the films of Jeff Keen and/or Kenneth Anger. Active student participation will be expected. |