Glimpses Of The Present
published in Tension No.8, Melbourne, 1985
"All for one . . . "
Utopia?
A fantastic concept. A poetic desire. A futile scheme. Does
it exist today? Perhaps somewhere between doctorial dissertations
on architecture and tile drippy brush strokes of Boschian
community murals. But utopia is only superficially about
an (the) idealized future, for just as history is not about
the 'past' but the present of its reflection, utopia a is
about the present of its projection. Whereas the historian
is selective in his or her reading and writing of documented
information, the utopian is preconceptive in handling the
same information, constituting history as a decoding of
the past and utopia as an encoding of the present. Hence
Engel's socialist view of pre revolution France and H.G.Wells'
classical view of the 'new world" of 2056.
All
utopias are alike in their desire to construct a world (an
environment, a city, a home, etc.) from an encapsulating
perspective of holism. The architect's plan, resplendent
in elevations and dimensions, utilizes what could be described
as a 'utopian process' in its conceptual design encapsulated
by logical articulation and graphic rendering. All angles
covered, all corners centered, a holistic idea that proves
its projected existence by architectural laws. A utopian
zone (i.e. a space engineered by a utopian process) encapsulates
not 'everything' per se, but all that is relevant to its
formulative concept of holism.
Utopian
processes have informed our social development ever since
the industrial revolution. We are part of an ongoing epoch
of experimentation, invention and transformation, living
in a present brimful of developments which idealize our
everyday existence, from an increase in the world's production
of potatoes to a decrease in the time spent peeling them
in our kitchens. Continually accelerating and escalating,
our developments (manifested most typically through corporate
multinationalism, technological globalism, cultural imperialism
and - of late - potential annihilation) are always on the
verge of being too fast to perceive, too vast to encompass.
This promotes a pace of living which virtually discounts
the notion of utopia being in the future, as our social
and technological developments have 'advanced' us to such
a state that further developments are annulled by our current
saturation of progression. The present in fact is itself
a utopia zone, a space that encapsulates nearly ever imaginable
concept of holism short of an idyllic science fantasy or
a horrific nuclear holocaust. (Is it any wonder that the
most popular utopias which still persist - Heaven and Armageddon
- have converged into the one universal notion of Judgement
Day, when science meets God?)
Modern
times are such that we are nearly all innocent of being
out of synch with them, but what few glimpses we get of
the present (in an age besieged by the past and the future)
are definitely rewarding. So let us for a moment forget
pictures of the past and visions of the future and concentrate
on some glimpses of the present ...
.
. and one for all!"
Around
February this year I started noticing that certain social,
cultural and economic areas were utilizing one particular
utopian process in their efforts to ideally organize their
spheres of engagement. Now, it is debatable as to whether
I happened to develop this view around February and applied
it to the world around me, or whether the face of society
was subtly being changed by a peculiar phenomenological
force. But at least when I connect together various examples
of this particular utopian process they seem to clarify,
and magnify each other, giving rise to the possibility that
I am witnessing a tangible transformation of social discourse
and intercourse. In other words, I experienced a glimpse
of the present.
So
what is this view, this phenomenon, this particular utopian
process? Well, it occurred to me when I first heard the
full length version of Band Aid's 'Feed The World', complete
with its prologue in which the voices of young Rock and
Pop stars sign onto the record. Now this is similar in some
ways to other theatrical gatherings of famous people for
a single occasion - eg. Irwin Allen's or Lew Grade's star
studded disaster movies; the great Rock Festival syndrome
epitomized by Woodstock, Monterey, Isle of Wight, the Fillmores,
and concerts for Bangladesh and Kampuchea; annual high-culture
gala benefit recitals at New York's Metropolitan Opera House;
corporate sponsored mini series which put together current
highest rating performers to blab some mush; world touring
art shows which gargantuously mount a bevy of heavy weight
artists from a particular historical movement; etc. But
in a 'three minute Pop song'?! The density of fame contained
in 'Feed The World' is quite unlike the examples listed
above.
Rather
than engineering a spectacle of excess, the Band Aid song
is eerily concise, rigorously regimented in its musical
logistics so as to condense what could have been a mega
excess into a potent picture of the power of Pop. It is
a record (both literally and figuratively) of 'oneness',
of streamlining 'everything' into the one thing, of distilling
a myriad of functions, effects and operations into the one
presence, the one essence. Gone are the days of ridiculing
the three minute Pop song and its inability to have an effective
voice, of simply rationalizing it into the 'trivial'. We
are now in all age where the three minute Pop song quite
literally has the potential to do anything in the name of
social intercourse. 'Feed The World' is one of the first
clear examples of this potential, of this utopian ability
to be everything in the one thing.
This
effect of 'oneness' has typified the power of Pop since
the start of this decade. The resurgence of androgyny in
Pop stars symbolizes a new phase beyond the seventies break
down of sexual stereotyping and expansion of sexual liberation.
Although the 'gender benders' of today superficially echo
the heady and proclamatory bisexuality of Glam Rock in the
early seventies, it should be noted that Glam was more to
do with style than sex, hence its historical importance
to New Romanticism and the distillate deployment of style
in 'modern subculture' (Face magazine, etc.). The god children
of Glam (Duran Duran, Culture Club, Marilyn, etc.) ironically
carry Glam undertones, but their significance lies in their
being in synch with an imploded sexual society (implosion
being the result of too much self discovery) where the body
is the fundamental performer in and of sex, and all related
images, styles and gestures are peripheral, arbitrary and
disposable. If anything, the flailing usage of the term
'gender bender' confirms that sexual difference is of no
significant consequence here. The new androgyne in Boy George,
Pete Burns, Michael Jackson, Prince, Grace Jones, et al
thus speaks about sex as opposed to speaking sexily or sexually.
Their faces and bodies symbolize a 'oneness' of body, a
monadelphic image which is more sexually descriptive than
it is erotic.
The
name Culture Club is a sure sign of the times wherein no
stylistic stone is left unturned in the reproduction of
Pop music. 'Oneness' arises again in the connotations of
the word 'club': a central space, a prime locale, a container
of all that is warranted and desired by a specific cause.
With the C&W flavoured 'Kharma Chameleon' - at once
an obtuse ode to the crowned king of chameleons, David Bowie,
and a statement of the group's intention of diversity -
Culture Club demonstrated their name in its strategy of
being able to replicate any musical style within a contemporary
presentation. Brit-Funk, soft Reggae, Salsa Disco, MOR ballads,
AOR American-style and Louisianna C&W have all been
set up and knocked down by Culture Club. As opposed to the
Jazz oriented conglomerations of Weather Report or the synthetic
fusions of Material, Culture Club perform what could be
termed 'polyglottic Pop': a catalogue of songs which each
have an individual musical status but only for purposes
of contradiction and contradistinction. Their cover version
of 'Melting Pot' (an earlier ode to 'oneness' wherein the
world could be 'one' a tenet held in 'Feed The World') is
more about the band itself than a progressive liberal utopia
of racial integration. Far from dissolving difference, Culture
Club display it.
But
as is often the way of cultural trends, someone goes one
better. The clearest precursor to the Band Aid single was
Michael Jackson's 'Beat It'. In times of liberal imperialism
- when whites call themselves honkys - it is easy to forget
that the uniqueness of Jimi Hendrix was that he was a black
playing white rock. 'Beat It', with its radically unfunky
rhythms for a Jackson song, revisits Hendrix's musical cultivation.
Whilst Prince and Stevie Ray Vaughn paid homage to the Hendrix
style, it was Michael Jackson who cottoned on (no pun) to
what Hendrix was actually doing with his style. Jackson
even went far as having the guitar solo - inserted purely
for effect and gesture - performed by Eddie Van Halen, which
tends to indicate the one prominent root of the guitar solo
in white Rock belongs to a black appropriation of white
musical culture. Ping-ponging from black to white across
history, 'Beat It' captures it all in three minutes. American
record charts were thrown into confusion as it charged up
the Rock, Pop, Soul, R & B and Disco charts: the one
record for all categories.
The
video-clip for 'Beat It' extends the notion of a utopian
song, the ideal record/video which can be related to all
audiences, all markets, all industries. The story goes that
Michael Jackson single handedly (well, perhaps with a little
help from Quincy Jones, Bob Geraldi and John Landis) 'saved'
the American recording industry, and as much by his videos
as by his records. His image as a messiah is therefore substantiated
beyond the superficial image of Pop stardom. The utopian
style of Hollywood musicals (from Gene Kelly dancing in
the street in 'An American in Paris' to the opening street
dance sequence of 'West Side Story') found an orgiastic
rebirth in American video-clips, a rebirth celebrated in
Michael Jackson's 'cinematized' videos for 'Beat It', 'Billy
Jean' and Thriller'. They each projected an imagery with
a life of its own, unlike the subdued 'state of the art'
video effects for the clips from the preceeding 'Off The
Wall' album.
Strangely
enough, the clip to 'Beat It' was 'old style' utopia: racial
harmony, anti violence, productive youth, etc. (Remember
all the stories of the 'real gangs' used in the clip?) However
just as androgyny is now used as a surface identikit for
the body and the face, the utopia style of Hollywood musicals
is essentially a projected image and not a transmitted message.
The prominence of 'Beat lt' in reworking such utopian themes
and styles is exemplified by its many immediate imitators:
Lionel (I wish I were Michael) Ritchie's 'All Night Long';
Pat Benetar's 'Love Is A Battlefield'; Donna Summer's 'She
Works Hard For The Money': etc. In the end, though, none
of these clips ('Beat It' included) accurately replicate
what is actually happening in the music. (The videos of
Devo are probably the only ones that can self consciously
achieve such a feat. Their latest video clip, by the way,
is for their cover version of Jimi Hendrix's 'Are You Experienced").
In
Pop and Rock music in general, Punk is possibly a key factor
in the disillusionment of utopian ideals in music, what
with its slogans of "Anarchy In The U.K." and "No Future".
Ever since, songs have had to suffer the pressure of being
self destruct utopias, ideologically blissful for their
limited time on the charts yet ironically knowing of their
broader social impotence. No wonder anthemic songs became
rampant toward the end of the seventies, their reverberations
still felt today in the booms of Big Country and the bellows
of Bruce Springsteen. In the Pop/Rock anthem it is the feeling
of utopia that is expressed rather than a utilization of
a utopian process. Anthems are superficially connected to
oneness', but the technological hymn of 'Feed The World'
and the cultural zeitgeist of 'Beat It' are fundamental
exemplars of this contemporary utopian process of 'oneness'
because they not only reflect modern times - they also will
have been responsible for shaping them.
The
global success of Michael Jackson has been synonymous with
an incredible expansion of entertainment in all fields of
the arts. Just as Pop music benefited from cinematic input
(in clips, styles, promotions, etc.) the cinema has certainly
been economically rejuvenated by the power of Pop. Entertainment
This Week now easily has as much coverage of the recording
industry as it does the film industry. The face of film
has been changing as much as the sound of music.
Australian
film culture (both as industrial production and critical
importation) has always had a suspiciously European (or
antiAmerican) edge to it. The 'progressive reactionism'
of the arts journalism in the pages of papers like Melbourne's
Age ("breakfast for the brain"!) provide an example of this
cultural cringe tendency. This really isn't of any importance
- I ask "who reads the Age anyway?" Not I. But the advertising
tack taken by Hoyts and Village for their drive ins in February
this year alarmed me. By the start of the year twelve out
of twenty four drive ins had closed down in Melbourne, something
that had been on the cards for some time what with price
rises, changes in 'traditional' family structures (which
affected notions of 'family entertainment') and the rise
of domestic video usage (which affected the advantages of
informality afforded by drive in viewing). The remaining
twelve drive ins merged (Hoyts and Village) and told us
confidently "No More TRASH!" as the spray canned a big X
across posters of Blood Sucking Freaks and I Spit On Your
Grave and announced that they would be showing "great movies
for the whole family to enjoy" concurrent with the city
cinemas. Away went the sex doubles, the horror triples and
the dusk-to-dawns. On came doubles that didn't even match:
Educating Rita with Cannonball Run III, Body Double with
All The Right Moves; etc. Something to please everyone,
nothing to offend anyone - a utopian programming whereby
the fracturing of audiences is discounted in the assumption
that 'everyone' must like films like Ghostbusters, Raiders
Of The Lost Ark, E.T., etc. The new Hollywood genre is a
genre of 'oneness', of broad appeal blockbusters (B.A.B.B.)
which project for a universal audience and also keep the
whole film industry afloat for another eight months during
which 'specialist' movies (i.e. those films that aren't
one of the five cinematic saviours per year!') just don't
bring in enough popcorn for those great theatrical distribution
tapeworms.
The
drive-in was the last bastion of 'specialization' in its
catering to culturally denominated 'minority audiences'
who love sex, drugs, rock, action and horror. This cinema
of exploitation (which I maintain means that it is a strain
of the cinema where the audience exploits the film as opposed
to Speilberg's and Lucas' mundane yet powerful manipulation
of their audiences) was quite outside any notions of 'film
culture' - especially in the European vein of Australia.
The programming of the major theatre chains in this country
have thus fractured those modes of specialist viewing into
the void of domestic video. Frighteningly, information of
films is more tightly controlled. It is even less likely
that you could stumble onto a picture thriving in the shadows
of a B.A.B.B. now that city theatres have cut back on B-billIng,
and drive-ins have stopped programming the risky off beat
films they used to. Theatrical exhibition takes on the appearance
of being one big regional cinema: if you don't like what's
playing - stiff shit! A utopia for 'everyone', but not for
everybody.
In
the entertainment industry the lowest common denominator
duplicates the massive illogic of democratic mob rule. Facts
and figures substantiate every move, but they are pulled
out more for justification than explanation and they only
have power when held by the winning hand. As if desirous
of the philosophical success of such reasoning, modern criticism
(say, in this second half of this century) centres on artistic
success as contained within the one work or spread across
a singular artistic identity. The popular success of B.A.B.B.
films is preempted by the critical reception of the skill
involved in compounding so many elements into the one sophisticated
package - drama, action, romance, humour, love, sex, family,
horror, music, suspense, fantasy, violence, moralism, etc.
Whereas the first half of this century (please bear the
generalization for a moment) lauded expoundings of universalism
in the arts, the second half of this century applauds encompassings
of technologicalism in the arts - images, emotions, sounds,
effects that are too 'real' to consider otherwise. Popular
critical modes of today operate along lines of singularism,
where a work of art is interpreted through a broader cultural
context (inevitably) but evaluated in isolation. Good art
then performs a miracle of 'oneness' in synch with critical
desires and mandates for ultimateness in performance over
and above either universalism or socialism in meaning.
This
decade might see new meanings in the concept of 'the masses'
which may echo previous notions of moralistic constriction.
With so much converging and not so much emerging, 'non-mainstream'
activities (and that's a big mass itself) become even more
isolated, more disconnected, and more threatened. As a network
of individualisms, it becomes viewed in terms of 'not oneness'
- a view which itself is a method of 'oneness', i.e. viewing
all that is not to do with a particular dominant ideology
as the same. Perhaps the ultimate utopia is a world not
without conflict, but without difference.
The
fear of cultural specialization, critical fragmentation
and artistic separation increases more and more. You know
that things must be changing if small businesses are being
affected. Consider for a moment petrol stations, milk bars
and chemists. Ever since the introduction of the late-night
American domestic retail chain 7-11 (how they rewrote certain
union laws of retailing still mystifies me), small domestic
businesses have had to find ways of accommodating the changes
brought about by its inception. Specialist shops such as
petrol stations, chemists and even milk bars took on a Zelig
quality and resembled each other more and more. Supermarkets
look more like department stores and department stores look
more like supermarkets. Videos can now be hired from just
about anywhere while radio blares out of just about every
shop imaginable. Commercially speaking, 'otherness' is qualified
by specialization - which used to be a golden rule for successful
business. Those businesses which totally specialized have
now taken monstrous measures to survive - warehouses become
retail outlets (whilst small shops get blown up for the
insurance money) and carry titles like Barbeques Galore,
Book City and Carpet World. One stop shopping in the sense
that they each attempt to be the only shop to carry everything
in that particular retail field. This is the post shopping-centre
phase of domestic retailing: a reassemblage of the breakdown
of the utopias of Northland, Southland and Eastland shopping
centres. Rather than a specific location being set aside
as a commercial utopia, our whole commercial environment
is adapting so that the logical conclusion (as illogical
as it seems) would be for all shops to totally resemble
one another. Just as our visual environment increasingly
verges on having the one textural surface, our whole commercial
environment may become the one economic surface.
One
shop, one cinema, one record, one criterion, one everything.
This is what 'oneness' is all about: a cultural monadism
that illustrates the present as a zone where utopias exist
now; where ideals are superceded so quickly as to give the
illusion of them remaining; and where elements lose their
individuality and specificity through continual unification.
Unlike historical utopias, this utopia of 'oneness' is a
functional concept, a gratified desire, an extant scheme.
Concentration, distillation, intensification. All for one
and one for all.
