The book sketches are of more interest then expected due perhaps to having realised that, as in a painting, it is possible to introduce interest for the eye with a well placed squiggle or mark. Books alone I never much fancied due to the basic, uniform blockiness but perhaps we have nudged on a little thanks to our pear runs.
Forgive our going on about Strike Art and young Yates. Reading it back its almost as if we sit on the fence so let me be quite clear. Who do we want to win the election? Biden. We want less far alt right populism so we want Biden to win but just like our belated scrawling over the SD poster in DS 1,1 our support for Biden is based more on the desire to stop the alt right rather than any enthusiasm or confidence in the democrats of the USA.
What are the odds? I know not, but we are not alone in wondering whether Don Donald will even leave office. A close Biden win would perhaps be the trigger for the 'It Could Happen Here'2 scenario and that might get a little too hot.
Some questions. If Biden wins what of it? Will we see a resetting of the previous norm or will there be some populist left transformation? In the relief of a Biden win will demands for social, racial and economic justice be met? Will a radical left social movement be as virulent in holding Biden to account as it was uniting against Trump? In terms of political fiction, how will the radical left adjust to the new and less binary political reality; what shape will it take, how will it fracture? Trump is a one off so once that snake head is removed will that spell the end of mainstream alt right influence and a return to regular republican action? Little vladz as been quiet: if Trump loses will it wake the kracken? Will a Biden win reverberate around the world and the Borg and topple populist far alt right powers, like a spell breaker? How would a Biden win effect what we think of as the 'post truth era'? Is a Biden win grounds for 'hope'? Does the decapitating of the global alt right movement signal a shift in radical left focus back to the capitalist system, post capitalism and automation? What is best for capitalism? And the biggest question for us; Why is imaginary political fiction important to art? Why is a political imaginary important to our doing? Is it still imporatnt to combine critical art practice with an imagined critical context when any such of the latter is just one of a billion fictions?
More and more on and on. We know nothing about it at all and only let our thoughts seep out because of our involvement in this scholarship, but it will of course be a relief to have such a huge blow dealt to the far alt right but I wouldn't be celebrating really. The better devil, we have discovered, is the regular corruption and injustice of finance capitalism which we radical spirited doers can neatly place ourselves in opposition to while imagining the public once again as exploited masses. A little cynical perhaps.
You know we tip tap on like this because we can feel it in the air, the election that is. We are a week in to November and if it hasn't taken place already it is immanent and this means that one reads enormous meaning into everything, the slightest reference to the news or 'what's happening' sets us off. Why not tune in you will say? Well because it is rather thrilling to tell the honest truth, and we have always liked to have a little challenge thrown into daily life. We were vegetarian for ten years by the way.
Of course we want an alt far right defeat but we can't say we crave a Biden victory either, such is our state.
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1 In Work 29 of Dignity Scholarship Season 1 John claims to have defaced a election poster for the alt right Sweden democrats.
2 Podcast series by Robert Evans which imagines a civil war in the USA.
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