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Welcome to the second issue of Awel. After a rather obvious choice to center the first issue around Christmas, feasting on the birth of anarchist stinian1 and pagan rites of light and hedonism, this time we choose to appropriate ‘leisure’ as a central theme for our second issue. A hysterical, decadent notion or a basic necessity? Leisure: in image and word, in word and image. Time to enjoy, to relax, to experience and construct pleasure or existential fear. The negation of labor, a structural element in the shaping of our everyday lives. Busy, busy, I am so tired, I have to this and that and don’t forget so and so. Sleep, work, eat, mate and then: some time off. B
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1 Might be royal fatherless nation-less misunderstood sustainable contradictory deluxe lamb
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awel #2 leisure
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Vrijetijdsdruk
The Pressure Leisure
Remember to always be yourself. Unless you suck.
Remember to always be yourself. Unless you suck.
- Joss Whedon
- Joss Whedon
Volgens een studie1 van de VUB hebben we gemiddeld 27u per week vrije tijd. Deze tijd hebben we naast werk, huishoudelijk werk, opvoeding, verzorging, persoonlijke verzorging, eten, drinken, slapen, rusten, wachten en onderweg zijn. Qua tijdsbesteding goed voor een tweede plaats. De meeste tijd besteden we aan slapen en rusten (61u). Op de derde plaats komt werk (bijna 21u). Van de 27u vrije tijd zitten we gemiddeld 14u naar de televisie te staren. Zit er iets triests in onze vrijetijdsbesteding? Ja. Nou en? Iedereen doet wat ie wil in zijn vrije tijd. Echt? Wat heb je aan het melken van een bok? Ik betoog hier dat je vrije tijd filosofisch moet aanpakken. Filosofie is geen leer, maar een bezigheid.
Here in Belgium, according to some statistics, we have 27h of free time per week. This besides work, domestic work, education, care, personal care, eating, drinking, sleeping, resting, waiting, travelling and so on. Most of our time we sleep and rest (61h). Work takes the third place (21h). In our free time we watch 14h television. Nevertheless is the feeling of having time pressure increased. Isn’t that weird? Yes. So what? In the following text I briefly try to show you that somebody else mostly makes up what we think of ourselves and that it is something very dangerous.
Een Engels woordenboek omschrijft vrije tijd met één woord: leisure, van het oude Franse leisir uit het Latijn licere, licet: men mag, het is mogelijk. Vrije tijd hadden de heersers, de rest moest toestemming krijgen. Veel schoolgaanden zullen vreemd opkijken, maar in het antieke Griekenland betekende skhole, scholè aanvankelijk vrije tijd. Het werd bij de Antieken als normaal beschouwd intellectuele prestaties te leveren zonder enige nutsoverweging. Kortom filosofie. Thomas Hobbes zei dat vrije tijd de moeder is van de filosofie en daar zij de moeder is van alle wetenschappen, moet vrije tijd de grootmoeder van alle wetenschappen zijn. Is onze vrije tijd bejaard geworden? Naast de 61 uur slaap en rust per week willen we ook de 27 uur vrije tijd vooral soezend doorbrengen. Zo gezien brengen we meer dan de helft van ons bestaan door in een ontspannen toestand. Het liggende leven als voorbereiding op het grote Niets. Ontbreekt er iets? Onze politici hebben het altijd vol lof over hardwerkenden. Het blijken er toch niet zoveel te zijn. Maar hoewel we in verhouding gemiddeld meer niet werken dan wel, blijkt de tijdsdruk gek genoeg te zijn toegenomen.2 Vanwaar deze schijnbare tegenspraak? Hoe komt het dat we een tijdsdruk ervaren op de momenten dat we de toestemming hebben vrij te zijn? Omdat we te weinig vrije tijd hebben? Waarom liggen we dan meestal voor de televisie? Ik denk dat we onszelf een Zelf laten wijsmaken. Voor een groot stuk kan dat ook niet anders. Een baby kan niet elke keer opnieuw de taal uitvinden. Maar toch wordt er vooral volgzaamheid ontwikkeld, want als we vrije tijd hebben blijkt onze innerlijke stem meestal te zwak om de leegte op te vullen. Hier zit het gat van de wereld waar zoveel denkers het over hebben. Hannah Arendt was onder de indruk van de alledaagsheid van de mensen die meewerkten aan de Shoa. Stanley Millgram toonde experimenteel aan dat onder bepaalde voorwaarden meer dan de helft van de mensen extreme bevelen opvolgt. We ervaren vrijetijdsdruk omdat we niet goed gevormd zijn tot autonome wezens. De moeilijkheid ligt echter in het feit dat we niet kunnen gevormd worden tot autonome wezens. De vorming van autonomie en 1 http://www.vub.ac.be/TOR/main/publicaties/downloads/ t2005_25.pdf 2 idem, p.11
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Leisure comes from the old French leisir from the Latin licere, licet: one can, it is possible. Many students will be surprised but in ancient Greece skhole (school) meant initially free time. It was considered as normal to provide intellectual performances without any usefulness. The Ancients said that free time is the mother of philosophy and today we say that philosophy is the mother of all sciences. Is our free time the grandmother of all sciences? Has our free time become old and boring? We sleep and rest 61h per week and even want to relax 14h of free time in front of the television. This way we spend half of our existence in a relaxing situation. A long and sweet rehearsal for the Big Black. Our politicians always praise labour into the sky. It seems like only good people are working people here. But considering the facts in the intro, there are not so many hard workers out there. Remarkably we have more free time then work and time pressure has increased. We experience pressure busy doing nothing. Why is this? Not enough free time? Why then do we watch so much television? I think that we deceive ourselves with a Self that does not come from within. And in our free time we are a tiny bit more apprehensive for this dark fact. Of course we are a product of our environment. A baby cannot reinvent language each time. But the buck has to stop somewhere. Doesn’t it? And here is the hole in our world. Hannah Arendt was shocked witnessing the banality of the people responsible for the Shoa. Where did this black hole come from? After the war, Stanley Millgram showed experimentally that under certain conditions 65% of all people follow up extreme orders. The banality of evil seemed to be everywhere. We experience leisure-pressure because we are not strong enough to transcend ourselves into autonomous beings. And that’s another catch: we cannot be formed to be autonomous beings. The shaping of autonomy and authenticity must come from within as a response to the outside world. Not the other way around. It all seems like pushing away the ladder after climbing it and that is difficult. We are all individuals, but according to
authenticiteit moet van binnenin komen als reactie op de buitenwereld. Het lijkt een ladder opklimmen om daarna die ladder weg te duwen. Dat is moeilijk. We zijn allemaal zogezegd authentiek, maar doen dat wel volgens de ultranieuwste modegrillen, vervreemden en vluchten in een ziekelijk hedonisme. Het hedonisme werd niet zo lang geleden het levensideaal van de hofadel onder de absolute monarchie. Dit resulteerde in ruige feestjes. Het feestje waarop Karel VI van Frankrijk echt krankzinnig werd, ‘le bal des ardents’, was zo’n orgiastisch bacchanaal. Tot ver in de 19de eeuw was alles, maar dan ook alles toegelaten op de grote orgieën van de heren. Het waren spijtig genoeg duistere collectieve feesten van de vernietiging, waar het individu en alle innerlijkheid verdwenen in de puurste willekeur, in de woede en razernij van een vage onpersoonlijke brij van bloed en braaksel. “Talrijke pornografische teksten pogen
dit collectieve feest van de vernietiging weer te geven, waarbij de razenden als verscheurden, als dolle honden rondlopen en zich onder de messen werpen van de wagen, die god vervoert.” 3 De bourgeoisie nam dit hedonisme, lichtelijk gesublimeerd, over in de economische categorie van de weelde – naarstig gekopieerd door de middenstand. Als maneschijn van de oude luxe rolt de categorie van de weelde dagelijks haar overbodige goederen van de band. Allerhande middelen vloeien door onze bloedbanen om het genot van hun gebruik te stimuleren. Ze geven ons een vluchtig gevoel van echtheid, van authenticiteit. Maar werkelijk storten we ons als dolle honden onder de messen van de wagen waar we proberen op te kruipen. Onze welvaartsmaatschappij is nog steeds een roes- en orgiecultuur. Onder de fijne gewaden, verzorgde huiden en verdoofde geesten mengen zich lust en schuld. We willen meer melk maar verwarren de bok met de geit.
Hedonisme en authenticiteit (i) Hedonisme neemt het genot als hoogste goed. Het streeft de bevrediging van zinnelijke verlangens na. Geconcentreerd krijg je het nihilisme van de oude hofadel; sterk verdund wordt dat de massaconsumptie. (ii) Authenticiteit of echtheid vertrekt vanuit de zogenaamde innerlijke stem. Leidt die innerlijke stem (ii) naar het nihilisme (i) van de oude westerse adel? Moeilijk? Anders gesteld: is massaconsumptie (i) authentiek (ii)? Neen. Volgens Rousseau horen we de innerlijke stem niet altijd even goed door het gehuil van de hartstochten en Trots (l’amour propre) schreeuwt het hardst. Voorbij dit gejammer is contact met het Zelf mogelijk. Hij omschrijft dit contact als ‘le sentiment de l’existence’, een interne bron van vreugde en voldoening. Dat klinkt heel mooi. Maar erg genoeg ligt dat ware Zelf voorbij de razenden die zich onder de messen werpen van de wagen, die god vervoert. Hoe stop je hun wellustig gejammer? Hoe geraak je voorbij die messen? En wat blijft er dan precies over? Ik citeer een stuk tekst van Jeanette Winterson: “Het is nogal hachelijk, in een maatschappij waarin de
cultus van het individu nog nooit met zoveel kracht is gepredikt, en waarin veel van onze collectieve kwalen het gevolg zijn van 3 Hubert Dethier, Beet van de Adder, deel 3, p.319. Deze volledige ontbinding van alle innerlijkheid vind je terug bij de Sade, Restif de la Bretonne, Charles Fourier, George Bataille, Henry Miller, enzovoort.
the latest fashion. How to escape this shallowness? Let us take a vantage point. Hedonism is not new. Not so long ago it became (again) the life ideal of the court nobility under the absolute monarchy. This resulted in rough parties. The party on which Charles the Sixth of France became really crazy, `le bal des ardents’, was such an orgiastic bacchanal. Far up the 19th century everything, but really, really everything was allowed on these large orgies of the Lords. Unfortunately these parties where dark collective festivals of destruction, where the individual and its inner self disappeared in an angry and furious randomness. According to the Belgian philosopher Hubert Dethier: “Many pornographic texts attempt to show this collective festival of destruction, where the furious run around as enraged dogs throwing themselves under the knives of the carriage, which transports god.” After the great revolution the new upper class adapted, slightly sublimated, this hedonism. The economic category of the opulence was born - diligently copied by the middle class. Like a pale blue light of old forbidden pleasures roll our daily goods out of the many factories. All kind of designer products flow through our bloodstream to stimulate the pleasures of the goodies. But it is a false feeling of authenticity. It vaporises too fast. In fact, we throw ourselves like enraged dogs under the knives of the big carriage. Our society is still a drug - and orgy culture. Under our fine clothes and skins and deep inside our drugged minds we mix lust and guilt. But apparently we are milking a billy goat. There’s no milk, hence we are unhappy. How is it possible to estrange in a world where all the information you need is available, where millions of examples from the past can enhance your own worldview, opinions and questions? We all seem to look in the other direction. How does it come that there’s still a silent majority when there are so many things to make noise with?
Hedonism and authenticity (i) Hedonism takes pleasure as the highest good. It seeks the satisfaction of all sensual desires. When you concentrate this you get a nihilism the old court nobility had; strongly diluted it becomes mass consumption. (ii) Authenticity is the act of the inner voice, the pure Self or Soul. Does this inner voice (ii) leads to the nihilism (i) like that of the old Western nobility? Difficult? In another form: is mass consumption (i) authentic (ii)? I think not. But what is the authenticity? According to Rousseau it is something like an inner-voice. But the cries of our passions overthrow its song and Pride (l’amour propre) screams the hardest. Beyond these furies, thus Rousseau, you find that sweet inner-voice, the self, the soul. He defines this contact as `le sentiment de l’existence’, an internal source of joy and happiness. That sounds great. But unfortunately this voice lies beyond our razing furies, which throw themselves under the knives of the divine carriage. How do you stop their voluptuous
die kracht, om te zeggen dat men zijn aandacht op het Zelf moet richten. Maar het Zelf is geen willekeurige verzameling losse verlangens die naar bevrediging streven, en het is evenmin zo dat de sociale samenhang alleen mogelijk is als we zulke verlangens onderdrukken, het soort gedrag dat bij vrouwen wordt aangemoedigd. Onze verbrokkelde maatschappij komt niet voort uit de triomf van het individu, maar uit zijn eliminatie. Hij verdwijnt, zij verdwijnt, vraag ze wie ze zijn en ze zullen je een portefeuille of een kind tonen. “Wat doe jij eigenlijk?” is de geijkte babbel op feestjes, waar doen een surrogaat is voor zijn en waar de schaamte over het niet-doen de dunne krijtlijn uitwist die de contouren schetst van Echtgenoot Echtgenote Bankier Acteur zelfs Dief. Het is een hele troost, zo’n druk leven; alleen gelaten met mijn gedachten kom ik er misschien achter dat ik helemaal geen leven heb. En overgelaten aan mijn gevoelens? Is er nog iets anders behalve kinderlijke woede en de sentimentaliteit die voor liefde doorgaat?” Het Zelf is geen willekeurige verzameling van losse verlangens. Winterson zet zich af tegen de begeerte zonder leven, de genotzucht zonder gevoel of de vrije tijd zonder hartstocht. Haar vraag is hoe het mogelijk is in deze wereld van techniek en massaconsumptie te voelen, te begeren en te genieten. We leven in een oppervlakkige wereld waar doen een surrogaat is voor zijn en waar een (collectieve) schaamte over het niet-doen het innerlijke schaadt. Het besef dat we aangeleerd gedrag hebben dat schadelijk kan zijn is al veel. Het daadwerkelijk zelf kunnen veranderen is praktische filosofie. Onze vrije tijd kunnen we in deze massacultuur beter gebruiken om de innerlijke stem te oefenen. Zo verwarren we de bok niet met de geit. Maar pas op: de categorie van de weelde lonkt met haar feest van brandende mensen en wij, ziellozen, die de illusie van de innerlijke stem opvullen met gevoelloze genotszucht, wij zijn voer voor de heren. Heimelijke leugenaars, verscheurden, razenden, dolle honden die zich onder de messen werpen van de wagen, die een bebloede god vervoert.
“Sommige zielen zal men nooit vinden, tenzij men ze eerst uitvindt”, aldus sprak Nietzsche. Remember to always be yourself. Unless you suck.
lamentation? How do you get beyond the knives? And what exactly will you find? In other words: does this inner voice really exist? And if not. What then? A piece of text from Jeanette Winterson illustrates this problem very good: “It’s awkward, in a society where the cult of the individual has never been preached with greater force, and where many of our collective ills are the result of that force, to say that it is to the Self to which one must attend. But the Self is not a random collection of stray desires striving to be satisfied, nor is it only by suppressing such desires, as women are encouraged to do, that any social cohesion is possible. Our broken society is not born out of the triumph of the individual, but out of his effacement. He vanishes, she vanishes, ask them who they are and they will offer you a wallet or a child. ‘What do you do?’ is the party line, where doing is a substitute for being, and where the shame of not doing wipes away the thin chalk outline that sketches Husband Wife Banker Actor even Thief. It’s comforting, my busy life, left alone with my own thought I might find I have none. And left to my own emotions? Is there much beyond a childish rage and the sentimentality that passes for love?” The Self is not a random collection of stray desires. Winterson revolts against desire without life, pleasure without feeling or free time without passion. She wants to know how it is possible to feel the real life in this world of technique and mass consumption. We live in a superficial world where doing is a substitute for being and where the shame of not doing is one big collective ill. But even the slightest notion that we act under the pressure of learned behaviour is a good step to happiness. The first step in the avoidance of a trap is the knowledge of its existence. Changing or even creating your own Self is practical philosophy. We can better use our free time to create this inner voice. If not we are the razing dogs wanting to get on gods carriage. “Some souls one will never find, unless one invents them first”, thus spoke Nietzsche.
Remember to always be yourself. Unless you suck.
City leisure Where to stop in a city’s whirl world? Most of the people would prefer a physical place. The meeting point where they can experience all aspects of dialogue, where exchange is not something abstract. Yet, I am not sure about the number of those who would take something beyond small-talk for leisure. As people usually imagine buildings when they think of a city and rarely make an effort to see through the walls, I am not talking about a cyber space, but concrete one. The raw leisure environment. The creation of such a place* requires an effort and appropriate techniques, but the quality of the place and the effort, are not necessarily proportional. Of course, there is a prerequisite. A leisure in mind. It may be the best way for people to learn not to live on batteries, not to work for leisure, but to realize the oneness of the time and the human being. Some people asked me if it is possible to relax for those who have never worked. I said that the two things are not related.
*An example: A sustainable recreational centre in the Block 44 of Belgrade, Serbia
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The star flickers Every night shall I look and smile You too‌ I will tell you You, tender loony happy all of it Every night The star Blowing kisses No pain Soft Heart
w w w . w i m s m e t s . b e
Mont Everest, may 2007
14:00:00:01
Object of my deficiency Search for coincidence Search for unity As if there is a cavity and that what lies outside “one� can fill it up As if there is really a distinction between the individual and its surroundings;
Or how the he- and the she-goat are set in one body and we ourselves are the milk
Of hoe de bok en de geit vervat zitten in 1 lichaam en wij zelf de melk zijn
The individual contained experience: friction between, longing and the unfulfillable
Het individuele zit hem in de weerstand resulterend uit de ervaring: wrijving tussen, verlangen en de onvervulbaarheid,
in
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resulting from friction between a consumerists’ longing and products as signs of our social construction: prescribed fulfilment
resulterend uit de wrijving tussen het verlangen van de consumeerder met de producten die een teken zijn van onzer maatschappelijke constructie. de voorgeschreven bevrediging
the individual manifesting and demonstrating the humane
het individuele zich resulteert, en toot zich het humane.
In the construction, our construction, the constructed is not always visible. How the he- and the she-goat are tangled up (are mistaken, lost their way)
In de constructie , in onze constructie is het geconstrueerde niet steeds zichtbaar. Hoe de bok en de geit verward worden, (met elkaar verward worden zelf het noorden kwijt zijn)
how the milk is really part of us
hoe de melk eigenlijk deel van ons is.
In search for, in a longing to find fulfilment through consumption, also emerges the humane.
In de zoektocht, in de wens bevrediging te vinden door het consumeren, ontpopt eveneens het humane.
Noodzaak om te consumeren; Noodzaak aan verbinding, over de illusoire grenzen een, uit de eenzaamheid
Need to consume; Need for connection, concerning the illusoire borders, from loneliness
What about music Eager to get that much desired obscure vinyl release, or do you buy a reduced cd in a supermarket? Some clicking in the mp3 store maybe, an illegal download? No? Maybe you like knitting then, or sports cars. Do these objects and practices make you feel unique or accepted? Do they comfort you?
What about ‘Popular’ music? All music can be considered as popular in the sense that it is created by people and therefore likely to be popular with someone. Defining it on bases of a commercial orientation that can be read from charts, airplay etc. obviously puts certain none or less commercialised genres outside the scope of popular music. The criteria to determine the quality of popular music are far from unambiguous. Every scene putts forward its own criteria for quality and creates and recreates its own notions of relevance by determining which records (and other cultural objects), artists, identities and personalities are important. One might consider participation in the scene as a lifestyle, while another only occasionally drops in just to buy records. Cultural texts, practices and values may be accorded different worth among various social groups. The sonic, visual and lyrical/verbal codes connected to them are never absolute as they are subjected to processes of hybridization, intensification and oppositional developments that might violate parts of the established code or install new codes. Also the criteria for commercial success are variable; for instance from country to country or related to age, gender, ethnicity or socio-economic status. How can this be understood? Do we focus on the nature of production, storage, distribution and consumption of music, or on the existence of a particular aesthetic? The consumption of popular music is largely constructed around genres, and consumers will frequently identify themselves with particular genres or subgenres. When thinking in genre, do we follow the music industry? Or do we go according to the ideological effect envisaged: the way music sells itself as art, community or emotion? What appears at the core of this discussion is a tension between the creative and the commercial aspects.
[d]e(f)fects of popular music Concern for the effects of media on receiving audiences resonates into the present. In the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center: a commission of bored senators wife’s led by Tipper Gore, the wife of (that’s right!) Al- An Inconvenient Truth – Gore) farce that the US during the 1980s the goal was still to install a direct link between suicide and popular music. Read: do teenagers kill themselves because they listen to Judas Priest? By the 1990s the issue seemed no longer of an individual, self-destructive nature, the question asked was: do teenagers get involved in gang fights because they listen to 2pac? Do they butcher their classmates because they listen to Metal or play computer games? Are girls more licentious because of Madonna or Britney? And this is not a purely Anglo-Saxon thing. While good citizens in Europe voiced likeminded concerns, the Scorpions were banded in Malaysia and several countries in the Middle East were uprooted by related moral tempests. In 1941 cultural theorist Theodor Adorno (190369) published an influential essay entitled ‘On Popular Music’, in which he expresses similar concerns towards the production and consumption of popular music. A central element within this work is the idea of standardization: once a musical and/or lyrical pattern proved to be successful it is commercialized until exhaustion. Adorno opposed and criticised this ‘commodification’ of cultural production. In his view the capitalist leisure industry produced ‘culture’ meant to be sold on a market for the purpose of making profit through its exchange value. Adorno and his comrades held that this commodification was widespread and led to the construction of passive consumerism. It is likely that a musicological analysis of popular music could show that one track is much like another, and it can be assumed that this effect will be magnified when considering popular music in its present day fragmentation captured in terms of genre, scene or style. Adorno viewed the differences that occur within a genre as ‘pseudo-individualisations’, variations that don’t alter the basic structure of the product. But does this reflect similarities or patterns in social realities or individual identities among its consumers?
The consumption of popular music is depicted as a ‘passive and endlessly repetitive activity’ that demands and produces distraction and inattention from and in its consumers. Its function is to adjust the consumer to the mould of everyday life in industrial or post-industrial consumer societies. Claiming authenticity Adorno’s thesis has extensively been criticised and refuted. The initial view of popular culture, as a ‘structure’ imposed by a capitalist cultural industry for the sake of profit and ideological manipulation, was crushed. Popular culture became an arena in which conflicting interests related to minority and majority groups within capitalist industrial societies - based on inequalities in terms of gender, ethnicity, age, status or sexuality - are disputed and negotiated. Popular culture was accepted as an authentic cultural form coming from ‘below’, from a working class, or youth or subcultural background. The general idea, reflected in Adorno’s and likeminded standpoints, is that culture seeps through from high to low in terms of class and capital, from an elite culture to the masses. This is refuted in most cases of popular music. Popular music(s) launched models for civilization that, as processes, didn’t develop from high to low, but, mostly, in the opposite direction. At first a marginal phenomenon, it was largely perceived as potentially threatening. By now it is thoroughly interwoven with almost every aspect of our everyday lives. In some cases this might be the consequence of efficient marketing strategies, but also other elements are at stake here. The sole occupation with practices of production and consumption passes by on the way we make things mean, the practice of representation in and through culture. If meaning is the result of a practice, that of representation, than it can never be fixed and will always be contextual, organised in a discourse and subjected to shifting relations in power. Popular music’s bricolagelike nature makes any singular observed meaning highly suspicious. Some have suggested a distinction between textual and functional artefacts. Textual artefacts are universal, while functional artefacts are particular. The
music captured on a CD is a universal artefact, but it needs to be concealed in a particular artefact, the disc itself, before it can enter the market. The extent of industrialisation that has been part of the production of both these aspects is evidentially different. Therefore universal artefacts might not be the result of an industrialised production while its particular carrier unmistakably is. The influence of technology on the production of music might offers increasing possibilities for variation in, for instance, formats with specific features that allow for difrent applications: audiocassettes allow for copying of music, manipulation of vinyl records resulted in ‘deejay culture, digital audio files allows for global sharing etc. In short, Adorno’s model does not suffice to explain present day variations within popular music. Regularly a new and powerful sound or style emerges to challenge the existing standards and tastes, which subsequently will be questioned and attacked. In this respect the high-low dichotomy remains intact as a variable and constantly shifting field of tension. Even within scenes such divisions can be observed. The notion of ‘underground’ is appropriated to distinguish and contrast between commercialized, mainstream, chartfriendly music and non-commercial, more exclusive, and often as more authentic perceived, music. The term also has to do with the absence or rejection of major record companies and -as a consequence- with availability, access and modes of production, distribution and consumption. However, the demarcation lines separating underground from mainstream are fluid, arbitrary and often object of discussion within scenes. So where are we now? Where does this leave you? Are we - as consumers - relying on popular music as a means for winning our own cultural space? Can we, by selectively appropriating products for our own purposes, represent cultural oppositional politics at a symbolic level by combining, transforming and contextualising them in ways mostly not intended by the producers? Can the consumption of a particular music be considered as a way of being in the world, as a tool for judging each other and at the same time creates new forms of community? Are we repressed or empowered? - Silly, sampled mammals we are.
21:04:16:49
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