EDITION 014 | LAST OF THE SUMMER WHINE
uKUNST MANIFESTO
WE are uKUNST. WE are alternative. WE are creative. WE are independent. WE will produce. WE will disseminate. We have no masters. We are legion. uKUNST.
uKUNST MANIFESTO
uKUNST: All Is Artifice. Creative actions and productions to challenge apathetic human acceptanceof religious delusions, bankrupt conventions, colonial and capitalist ideologies and plain lack of reason. (uKUNST Manifesto April 1, 1917).
uKUNST CREATIVE PRODUCTION
uKUNST develops, produces and distributes interdisciplinary arts-led creative works.
uKUNST is an independent creative studio and producer delivering both in-house and external products ranging from audio, visual, performance and digital arts through to literature, animation, music, print and events. By Any Media Necessary © RFM 1995.
Welcome to the fourteenth in a series of alternative and radical arts productions. Each uKUNST action, event or production is aimed at challenging the existing status quo across the arts, society, commerce and politics.
Developing and producing a series of art or kunst products will deliver these actions. Each product is a standalone creative work as well as a part of the wider uKUNST canon of art provocations, products and productions.
uKUNST STOCKISTS
uKUNST mags are available from the Book & Record Bar and Sound Vinyl (London). See pages 18 & 20 for details.
We will be producing the Radio uKUNST Audio Magazine later this year.
Thank you for your continued interest, support and cash.
www.ukunst.com
EDITORIAL
This edition has been long and sporadic in gestation. Events, dear girl, have not merely taken over, they have Tian’anmen Square tank-like, run us down! What in the sainted name of Cardinal Ratzinger is going on with the human race? Whilst uKUNST is no stranger to the whinge, it has always attempted to balance the nefarious with the hilarious in its quasi-editorial policies. So we proffer uKUNST 14, themed Last Of The Summer Whine, another fleeting glance at the everdevolving human race as it plummets towards unquestionable annihilation. We are teetering on the edge of an abyss or perhaps, like a flock of lemmings wearing VR headsets, heading enthusiastically towards a virtually real cliff! And we don’t mean Richards!
Across the globe despots continue to oppress their own and other people, mining fossil fuels, selling off natural resources to corporations and hiring the nefarious talents of Germanic music flavoured storm troopers the Richard Wagner Group in order to ensure dictators can control the narrative through the application of chokeholds administered by their mercenary brute squads. In Ukraine its neighbour and sometime collaborator Russia visits the real experience of terror upon the citizens, as indiscriminate, or perhaps discriminate, genocide is visited upon the ordinary folk by hardware superior but humanely inferior forces. In Gaza an even more frenzied armageddon is visited upon the Palestinians by an ever-more-encroaching Israeli state. Everywhere destruction and the refusal of leaders and those in power to admit to the calamities that are sauntering towards the continued existence of the planet. The (un) United Nations impotently observes things falling apart emitting the occasional half-hearted whimper of disdain but ultimately failing to provide international consensus and action on the increasingly brutal activities of those in power. The masses, indoctrinated by social media posts, are swayed to agree with absurd political claims, mantras and policies such as Stop The Boats and Make America Grate Again! Darwin must be spinning in his grave and, we suspect, George Orwell sits in Valhalla wryly smiling, I warned you.
In the Kingdom of Charles Der Turd a year of strike actions is enjoyed as key workers attempt to increase their feudal wages as a precaution against energy prices, the cost of living, homelessness and malnutrition. Politicians declare there is no money to pay lowly public servants as finances are earmarked for the ruling classes, their offshore cronies, IT system procurement and funding fast-track government legislation to subvert the determinations of the judiciary and the people’s human rights. Ministers seek minimum service levels for doctors, nurses, teachers, transport workers and all public servants. Will this duty extend to the monarchy, military, church, judiciary, local and central government politicians? With the long-awaited removal of Crueler Slavermann the sane anticipated a more balanced autumn but the grip of a minority of ever-skulking deviant Tories ensures the country continues to be held to ransom as more draconian laws slip through the dumbest parliament in decades. Throwbacks Jason Grease-Dogg and Klear Stammer occupy media screen space with craven delusion ignoring everything from gob smackingly bananas post-Brexit policies to planet freaking way above average global temperatures. But the award for shit producing shit must go to Hatt Mancock and Nigella Fandango and their forays into reality television. Well at least they both have several years experience in light entertainment.
But all is not doom and gloom, financial pundits speak of the green shoots of recovery sprouting, 2024 will be a better year! The creative industries and particularly the arts lick their collective lips anticipating the long-awaited DCMS ACE review. Writers are already drafting the television romcom dramatisation of classic 1997 noir funding application system play, Norman Bates vs. The Arts Council.
Welcome to this heartily produced, artistic, pro-humanist, AI assisted and provoked edition. Enjoy. uKUNST.
Der Herausgeber
December MMXXIII
As UKUNST has instigated a new payment scheme for Astrologers, a sliding scale based on accuracy, there is now an Astrologers strike and we are unable to bring you this month’s horrorscopes. We hope to get this resolved soon and get December’s predictions to you in the early part of next year.
As it has recently been announced that the money each party is allowed to spend on electioneering has been more than doubled our roving reporter felt the need to contact Conservative HQ about their proposed election spending.
Here is a transcript of the call.
Good morning, I’m calling from UKUN… sorry, Horse and Hounds magazine and I’d like to speak to someone regarding the new election spending limits.
Why, would you like some dosh? I’m sure your readers would appreciate a small bung for their continued support.
I’m sure they would. But perhaps we could discuss this on a more general level. Which areas are you particularly targeting.
Well, there’s the N.H.S. of course. Of course.
Yes, we have several million pounds set aside for a massive poster campaign promoting our funding of the NHS. And the same again for the Battle Buses roaming the country with our “Let’s Give Money to the NHS” message.
And how much are you proposing to increase funding by?
We can’t give an actual number, of course. We’ll have to re-assess this if, by some fluke, we’re still in power after the election. And, of course, there will be similar campaigns for more money for teachers and schools, the police, the military, local government, farmers, peasants, everything to appeal to the lower and middle classes whose vote we need, basically…
But without committing to any actual funding
Good God, of course not. We can’t be alienating the right wing press, as we haven’t actually got quite enough in the budget to pay them off in advance. One more thing, and I’ll give you an exclusive for your readers here. As another sop to the poor, before the next election we will be pushing through an increase in payments for the unemployed…
The unemployed! I thought you said you couldn’t alienate the press. They’ll hang you from the rafters if you put that in your manifesto..
I see your point, but policy is a delicate balance… After all, as we shall have to point out to the press, we also need the continued support of our members of parliament. After all, a large number of them expect to be out of job by the end of next year….
This is an image generated from a prompt: Alice in Wonderland attends a Select Committee at the Houses of Parliament, using MidJourney.ai. The intention here is to generate watercolours (paintings).
The image craft and painting process also becomes the subject. For example, if we confer with ‘Lad Bible’ as an aesthetic, we seek high quality hyper real images, that in theory ‘supplant the role of the artist or illustrator’. However, this is more complex, as the image generated owes more to ‘remix culture’ propagated by large scale training sets of data. This places us in a familiar ‘tech will save us/replace us’ moment.
‘Pulling’ or ‘grabbing’ the ‘content’ of the attention prompt space serves to slow down the prompt/ consumption component and also breaks away from the OLED screen device. It might take 3-4 weeks to make the painting in watercolour, where the technical processes require ‘time’. Each layer has to dry, for example.
The intention of the paintings might also be akin to a driverless car in San Francisco encountering a ‘stop oil’ lie down protest. The Tech Bro gaze will demure or act in annoyance at the performative spectacle. This is in fact what art and painting are for, both incident and record.
The observed effect then is perhaps not ‘slow cooking’ or relaxation but a freeze frame of the algorithm that becomes an organic compound on cotton.
What colour, is Death?
What do you mean?
What colour is Death, When it appears?
Well, Death is Black! In tradition it is Black.
(Pause) No!
Death wears black, But Death is not itself Black!
(Silence)
What colour, is Death?
Well, Death is White. In tradition, it is white.
So Death is White, But it wears Black?
Yes. Death is White. But it wears Black!
So Death is White Death is not Black?
(Wearily)
Yes! Death is White! It is not Black!
So the verdict is. The colour of Death Is White, Masquerading As Black.
Available from your uKUNST Stockist (see pages 18 & 20)
Wells
THE BOOK & RECORD BAR
The Book & Record Bar in West Norwood has one of the best selections of second-hand and new vinyl in London; specialising in Electronica, Krautrock, Psychedelia, New Wave, Post Punk, Jazz, Reggae and Rock. It also has a licensed bar with live DJ sessions and in-house internet radio station, the West Norwood Broadcasting Corporation at wnbc.london.
First published in 2023 By uKUNST
United Kingdom
The European Union
Printed in England
Original Design by K3 Media
Photographs by RFM, K3 Media & The Artists
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uKUNST Magazine
© uKUNST & The Contributors
Published in 2023 by uKUNST, Londinium, Imperial Britain
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