In a week that has seen global attention focused on Bob Geldof and the Live 8 series of concerts it would appear that the link between artists and activism is stronger than ever. But cultural activism, the catchall term used to describe the work of artists who challenge the cultural status quo, demands a lot more of its proponents than simply gathering a gaggle of pop stars for a number of one-off performances.
Cultural activism is a bit like another oft-used catchall, ‘sustainability,’ in that everyone knows it is supposed to mean, and what it isn’t, but we tend to get into a flap when asked to describe what it looks like in practice.
According to New York-based artist and curator Julie Ault: “The processes by which art is taught, made, distributed, financed, shown, and used are not neutral, but are shaped by historical, economic, and social dynamics. One role of cultural activism is to articulate critical readings of these processes and to examine the relationship between artists and social structures, including the art industry…Cultural activism can illuminate crucial links between culture, politics, and social agency.”
Masters student William Thake, a graduate of Illinois State University with a particular interest in some of the more extreme forms of cultural activism, claims: “it is engaged in looking at the way fundamental factors of current culture contribute to a wide range of negative effects. Cultural activism is as well concerned with how individuals interact with their environment and seeks to influence the process of social replication.”
In merging the views of Ault and Thake, we can see cultural activism as a process of manufacturing a counter-culture – one that contradicts the perceived accepted cultural norms of society, in which the interests and values of its proponents are effectively communicated with the aim of effecting social or political awareness and therefore, change.
In this sense New York hip-hop culture can be seen as a successful experiment in cultural activism. Its impact on young people, particularly American youth of color, cannot be overstated. It has contributed greatly to giving an historically disenfranchised sector of the community a voice, and a strong one at that. Yvonne Bynoe, author of Stand and Deliver: Political Activism, Leadership and Hip-Hop Culture, says: “Serious civic engagement means that strategists from the Hip Hop generation become crucial to shifting the political current paradigm of exclusion and marginalization.”
However, the nature of the artist-led hip-hop community means that it lacks cohesion. And there is disagreement over where it is and should be headed politically. “Until you have a political platform,” says one observer, “there’s never gonna be any hip hop anybody.” Whilst hip-hop appears to have given the disenfranchised a sense of identity, the lack of cultural homogeneity between members of the hip-hop generation (many of whom are middle-class white kids, or Africans perhaps none-too-keen on Afro-Americans) means that there is always the potential for the phenomenon to disintegrate from within before realising its potential for influencing real and lasting change.
Indeed, not realising its potential seems to be an inherent problem for cultural activism and those who engage in the process.
Changes in technology have opened the door for new and varied ways of manipulating existing media with the intention of distorting its message or generating a new one. For over a decade this has been the raison d’etre for culture jammers and Ad-busters. And whilst publishers of the monthly Ad-busters magazine argue that in the future we will see the emergence of an alternative media network that challenges the bogus authenticity of corporate media channels, the evidence of significant widespread patronage for such activities is not forthcoming. As movements go, cultural activism certainly has support, but take a look at the power and money behind the corporate oligopoly and you have to admire the idealism of this new form of political communication.
It seems that cultural activists are mostly a loose web of individuals who, for most part, act alone but who recognise a connection with others through an appreciation of their (cultural activist) actions. Yet the furor surrounding Grey Tuesday, when corporate music syndicates took legal action against an amateur digital artist who had remixed two albums (The Beatles’ White Album and Jay Z’s Black Album) both downloaded over the internet, did serve briefly to galvanize support from a ‘community’ that can only be said to exist in terms of cultural outlook.
And while we can sit back and smile at the antics of The Yes Men, whose documentary has won a number of awards, is it the humor or the political message that we take away? Are we simply smiling in superiority that we get it, unlike most of those at the receiving end. Cultural activism, certainly. Political change? Well, maybe not just yet.
Geldof’s activities have served to galvanise the hopes of artists and the public before the G8 meeting at Gleneagles. Sir Bob may well be described as a political activist in putting on a concert with the hope of achieving a specific political outcome (as well as record sales). But his choice of song during his own performance at Hyde Park – possibly Boomtown Rats’ only memorable hit, I Don’t Like Mondays – arguably demonstrates that he hasn’t imbued in his artistic endeavours anything that would seek to challenge or subvert mainstream culture. And even if he had, would the outcome be any different? The case for a World Cultural Organization (WCO) to walk arm in arm with the WTO as a means to overcome ineffectual activism is argued in this article issued shortly before the 2001 G8 conference in Italy. Four years later, and with conservative governments stronger than ever in many countries, it seems that change is a long time coming.
ADDITIONAL LINK:
Radio archive featuring discussion with Yvonne Bynoe, author of Stand and Deliver: Political Activism, Leadership and Hip-Hop Culture
