Variant, issue 27, Winter 2006
Variant, issue 27, Winter 2006 http://www.variant.org.uk …the free, independent, arts magazine. In-depth coverage in the context of broader social, political & cultural issues.
text : full issue http://variant.org.uk/27texts/issue27.html pdf : full issue http://variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue27/Variant27.pdf
Front cover pdf http://variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue27/Variant27-cover.pdf
Content
* Putting Dada Flesh on the Bone - John Beagles “Historical Dada and Surrealism has found itself reassessed, revised and repackaged in numerous recent exhibitions…while the popularity of a litany of artists referencing, name checking and stealing from both movements is undeniable.” Beagles examines “the contrasting aims of two recent projects to revise accepted ideas about the nature and legacy of New York Dada - Amelia Jones’ book ‘Irrational Modernism : A Neurasthenic History of New York Dada’, and David Hopkins’ publication and exhibition at Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery ‘Dada’s Boys’.” text http://variant.org.uk/27texts/dada27.html pdf http://variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue27/Variant27-DADA.pdf
* Chemical-Cocktail-Fruit - Jan Nimmo Working with banana workers in Costa Rica, and being involved in labour rights and occupational health issues, personally brought home to Nimmo the parallels with what’s happened to workers’ health in Scotland. Nimmo works as an activist and artist to expose the human and environmental damage caused by the expansion of big cash crop plantations and their use of pesticides and agrochemicals, raising awareness amongst UK consumers of the hidden costs behind the fruit we eat. text http://variant.org.uk/27texts/purda27.html pdf http://variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue27/Variant27-purda.pdf
* Rose Coloured Spectacles - Tom Jennings “[T]he last few years have seen a growing tendency for supposedly progressive themes to be tackled in big-budget Hollywood fictions, along with the incorporation of originally marginal aesthetic choices and strategies in the production of cinematic blockbusters, brands and franchises. This survey describes some of these phenomena and the critical response to them, and discusses their ambivalent implications and limitations.” text http://variant.org.uk/27texts/jennings27.html pdf http://variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue27/Variant27-palestine.pdf
* Competing Narratives Exposed Did you hear that two Palestinians were captured the day *before* that Israeli soldier was? Rena Bivens Many issues problematize mainstream media’s coverage of conflict: the influence of public relations and intense pressure by well-organised lobby groups to supply journalists with information that supports their favoured narrative are just a few. The danger is of neglecting contextualization in favour of what appears to be a preconceived narrative of action followed by response and retaliation, as with the June 25th capture of Cpl Shalit by Palestinian militants… text http://variant.org.uk/27texts/palestine27.html pdf http://variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue27/Variant27-palestine.pdf
* Blairism on the walls at Kelvingrove - Stephen Dawber At a cost of nearly ?28 million, Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum has been radically altered. There is even a ‘new epistemology of museums’ attached, drafted by Mark O’Neill, Glasgow’s Head of Museums and Galleries. His apparent innovation is to cast out the old Victorian taxonomies, replacing them with a classification based on the ‘telling of stories’. Yet the gulf between the ‘theorising’ and the actual experience of the museum, Dawber argues, reveals an arch propagandist at work - that the link between public policy and museum practice is not always direct, but in the case of Kelvingrove the bonds cut unusually deep… text http://variant.org.uk/27texts/kelvingrove27.html pdf http://variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue27/Variant27-Kelvingrove.pdf
* Academies, Religion and Private Philanthropy - Peter Vlachos Vlachos argues that with the forcing through of sponsored Academies: “What we are now seeing is a return to pre-welfare state economics. An attempt by government to disengage itself from the delivery of key social services like education.” And even more worryingly, that: “Academy schools will lead to more … religious schools, and will correspondingly increase the fragmentary divisions between young people and whole societies.” text http://variant.org.uk/27texts/academies27.html pdf http://variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue27/Variant27-academies.pdf
* Louis - The Round The World Rug Race - Metaphrog Louis is an unassuming little worker who lives with his pet bird FC (Formulaic Companion) in Hamlet, a colourful place in which all the houses are alike and fenced off. The stories follow Louis’ attempts to live his dreams and draw grown ups and children alike into a scary-cute world where the citizens’ lives are stiffled and their actions more or less controlled by Entertainment Centres and obscure regulations. A 12 page black and white short story. pdf http://variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue27/RUGRACE.pdf
* Telling the Truth About Neo-liberalism: The 2006 Socialist Register anthology Alex Law “‘A generalized pathology of chronic mendacity seems to be a structural condition of global capitalism at the beginning of the 21st century’. It is not just that lies are being told as the occupational hazard of politicians and their media courtesans, but rather that lying and hypocrisy have become an endemic condition of the neoliberal world order.” Required reading! text http://variant.org.uk/27texts/Variant27-SR.html pdf http://variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue27/Variant27-SR.pdf
* Rebel Alliances Interview with Ben Franks, author of ‘Rebel Alliances’, ‘an applied philosophical perspective on contemporary class-struggle anarchism in Britain’. Franks comes up with illuminating and entertaining responses, not least regarding anarchism and academia. text http://variant.org.uk/27texts/alliances27.html pdf http://variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue27/Variant27-RA.pdf
* Ahmadinejad: Myth and Reality - Yassamine Mather “…as the threat of sanctions and military intervention against Iran has increased, sections of the anti-war movement outside Iran have launched a concerted effort in support of the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. However, inside the country the new government’s failure to deliver any of its promises of economic prosperity for the majority of the population has brought nothing more than increased poverty and repression for the working class, women, youth and minorities.” Mather lays bare a solidary challenge for the left! text http://variant.org.uk/27texts/Ahmadinejad27.html pdf http://variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue27/Variant27-Ahmadinejad.pdf
* From Self to Structure: Challenging the ‘Happiness Industry’ - Colin Clark “…how do we tend to define and understand ‘happiness’ (or, rather, what is called ’subjective well being’ in certain disciplines); how to critically unpick the ‘industry and business’ of happiness; and how to situate these concerns within the contemporary debates we are witnessing in Scotland, especially centred around the ‘confidence and well-being’ agenda and the Scottish Executive drive (and money being spent) in this area?” text http://variant.org.uk/27texts/happiness27.html pdf http://variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue27/Variant27-Happiness.pdf
* Turkey’s US-backed War On Terror: A Cause For Concern? - Desmond Fernandes With the US government aiming to vigorously assist the Turkish state in hunting down and eradicating the so-called ‘rebel’ Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), many human rights organisations, Kurdish and Turkish civilians, peace campaigners and public interest groups fear a return to the genocidal practices and chilling psychological warfare that went on in the 1990s. This is a relentless expose and analysis by Fernandes as to why there is concern over a resurgence of intensive US-backed support for the Turkish state’s ‘War on Terror’. Edited text text http://variant.org.uk/27texts/Kurds27.html pdf http://variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue27/Variant27-TURKEY_US_WOT.pdf Complete text text http://variant.org.uk/27texts/cause_for_concern.html pdf http://variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue27/TURKEY_US_WOT.pdf
* The Chinese Challenge: Hallucinations for Other Futures - Think Art Lab Cultures depend on their paradigm of writing, it being the most abstract mechanism and technology of cultural formations. China’s writing is not limited by alphabetic linearism and digitalism, hence Kerr advances the possible re-discovery of the operationality of its writing system for the design of new rational formal systems, such as mathematics and programming languages, emerging beyond what he sees as exhausted Western paradigms. text http://variant.org.uk/27texts/thinkart27.html pdf http://variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue27/Variant27-ChineseChallenge.pdf Chinese version text http://variant.org.uk/27texts/thinkart_cn.html pdf http://variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue27/Variant27-ChineseChallenge.pdf
Variant issue 27 also contained the programme for Document 4 : International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival - http://www.docfilmfest.org.uk
New on the site - Variant Audio… Robert Fisk, Great War for Civilisation - GFT talk, 14/10/05 (a Document & GSA collaboration MP3 http://www.variant.org.uk/audio/Fisk.mp3
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