"The dinner party...in which all structure of authority dissolves in conviviality and celebration...is already 'the seed of the new society taking shape within the old'...Whether open to a few friends, like a dinner party, or to thousands of celebrants...the party is always 'open' because it is not 'ordered'; it may be planned, but unless it 'happens' it's a failure. The element of spontaneity is crucial...The essence of the party: face-to-face, a group of humans synergize their efforts to realize mutual desires, whether for good food and cheer, dance, conversation, the arts of life; perhaps even for erotic pleasure, or to create a communal artwork, or to attain the very transport of bliss -- in short, a 'union of egoists' (as Stirner put it) in its simplest form -- or else, in Kropotkin's terms, a basic biological drive to 'mutual aid.'"
-- Hakim Bey
Temporary Autonomous Zone
(1991, Autonomedia Press)
Like any aspiring change-agent, we are concerned with the problem of organization. Because, in the technological age, all known forms of organization become so easily absorbed and co-opted, the problem of organization is just that; a problem.
The problem is compounded by the understandable reluctance of creative people to "join" any group or movement. In an era when the individual is so under attack, creative people don't wish to subjugate their autonomy to groups. Anyone who has spent any time at all with creative artists knows well the rampant individualism of this "vanguard." Creative people don't like to attend "meetings," debate motions or engage in group-process. Many creative artists, for example, are cigarette smokers, and meetings of activist groups are almost always anti-smoker. That's only one of the more visible obstacles to participation by creative people.
Meetings make their participants tired and more alienated, and have led to a kind of "sedentary activism" where the mind soon calcifies with the body. Meetings have become the death of social movements: the talkers attend, and the doers avoid them; eventually a rift develops between the talkers and the doers, and the group "leaders" are soon without active constituents.
Membership and mailing lists do not make a successful insurrection. Only creativity, unleashed, wins the prize.
In the Spring of 1996, some of our principals participated in an interesting project in the City of Boston: a weekly dinner party/salon, on Tuesday nights, in a Chinatown loft of artist Lydia Eccles (who, along with the other participants, and the projects undertaken, informed the currents in this pamphlet).
These events were by-and-large attended by artists and creative people who saw a necessity for a new kind of political praxis; not the standard effort of political activists to use "art," but the opposite ("artists" who felt a need for radical praxis), which proved a more potent force. The "Tuesday Salon" was never a meeting: no votes were taken, no decision-making process was necessary.
On many of these Tuesday nights, individual artists and creative activists would offer presentations on their current projects -- in street theater, media pranks, public art, music, billboards, "zines," internet web sites and other alternative communications -- toward a variety of concerns: creative resistance to technology, global overpopulation, destruction of the natural environment, AIDS, and the bursting of the overall political illusion.
On others of these Tuesday nights, no presentation at all occurred. People simply came together to celebrate, discuss, refine and plot new tactics.
The conversations increasingly circled around the subject of Media, and the problems Mediation causes for change-agents and artists alike. From this "salon," TVTV NEWSNEWS was born, as well as other worthy projects.
The formula was simple. A vegetarian 35 meal was provided, free of charge, typically rice and some kind of stew. Some struggling artists would arrive, we suspected, hungry for the free meal. Others would bring salads, deserts, coffee, beer, in pot-luck fashion. The sessions were always well-attended by a core group of a dozen individuals and a rotating participation by dozens more; typically, a couple dozen would attend. Discussions would often go hours into the early morning; a sense of excitement prevailed, and creativity was offered the situation in which it could cross-pollinate and thrive.
New York City's Lower East Side and East Village neighborhoods have long been a kind of "zeitgeist factory" for the overall culture: this, having to do with its geography as a home to creative artists and to the many immigrant cultures that come to the United States through this neighborhood.
The conditions in New York for the kind of "dinner party/salon" we envision could not be more optimal --if and only if a space can be secured to conduct and refine this experiment. 36
Our quest for space may be realized any number of ways: through the donation of a venue or the resources to rent one; or when someone who shares our aims steps forward to volunteer a pre-existing space that suits such a project. Ideally, we seek about 1,200-1,500 square feet in the Lower East Side (this pamphlet is only secondarily an appeal for financial or edificial resources; our primary pitch is to the creativity of individuals -- without creativity, a headquarters of any size becomes a mausoleum). Of course, we''e flexible in our spatial aspiration: we're well-used to making do with whatever resources present themselves. An immedia project doesn't wait for any cavalry, nor for anyone's permission to proceed.
We feel it is of utmost importance that our weekly session avoid all the trappings of meetings and organization. We do not wish to mediate the individual revolutions of any participant: the whole miserable concept of "meetings" fosters a sense of entitlement (and unpleasantness) among some "activists" who can't quickly evolve beyond a politbureaucratic mindset. Rather, we wish to claim a common ground where tactics can be joined and improved in ad hoc formations. For this reason, a "public hall" or commercial dining space will not do: the dinner party must have the ambiance of a home (with the hosts' corresponding prerogative to disinvite guests who are, disruptively, no fun).
New York 37 also affords us the opportunity to bring many of the world's great philosophers and creative thinkers to the table. Many who do not actually live in New York tend to visit here with some regularity. An Immedia project would thus serve as an informal but international center. This space, once secured, would be used on other days or nights for the carrying-out of specific projects that emerge from the salon's ambient mix of talents.
For the past six months, a few of us have been cultivating the creative and artistic and "activist" communities in New York, testing and exploring the ideas set out in this memorandum. We have found an overwhelmingly receptive mood among our target group, our so-called "vanguard," or, better yet, an elusive, nomadic "front of luxury" (as amended by Sylvere Lotringer). Our emergence into a front may be guided by our luxurious poverties and lavish debts, but we like the elegance of the term nonetheless.
There is great interest among the creative, crossing over many grids of expression, to attend such weekly salons (of course, some of us have been dining and plotting together already). Many authors, entertainers, artists and musicians have already expressed their eagerness to participate, both by offering presentations, and by bringing dessert. In this sense, we are not proposing anything all that new: throughout modern history, circles of creative agents have coalesced in social settings from Paris to London to Amsterdam to San Francisco to New York to Mexico City to Tangiers, and, through their actions, have asserted a profound impact on the larger culture.
But what has never occurred is an effort, focused like ours, to bring such talent to bear on the question of Media and its discontents. Nor, to our knowledge, has any similar alliance of individuals ever attempted, consciously, to develop a language of opposition to Media.
What lies before us is potential, and a grand form at that: the possibility for a truly transformative project that builds upon past innovations to create something new, an event that has never been attempted or accomplished; a revolution against Media, Mediation and Middlemen, that grapples with the unique challenges of the technological age. The reader who finds common ground with these ideas will already know what to do. 38
35. Journalistically speaking, the dinners served at the prototype salon in Boston were vegetarian. That reporting of fact carries no implication that the next phase of the project won't offer more omnivorous fare. It takes all kinds of stomachs to make a revolution.
36. The "if only" words here proved to be the cieling upon an immedia project in New York. The economic price-of-entry was simply too high, and out of reach. So now we are looking to the Zeitgeist Factories of the rest of our América to resurrect an immedia salon. We're still looking for - in metric terms - 100 to 150 square meters of space on a well-traveled urban stop on the underground railroad: Caracas, Venezuela, anyone? Buenos Aires, Argentina? Mexico City? We have a preference already as to where we stake our tent. But we invite your participation in constructing this off-screen physical space. Send your comments on where the new immedia salon should be, in your opinion, and for your convenience, somewhere in a country called América, by writing to us at salonchingon@hotmail.com
37. When considering where to locate this physical "real life" space, we seek similar conditions as those which attracted us, years ago, in pre-apocalypse New York: a strong local base of creative individuals ready to launch the revolution against Media; an urban center with plenty of international traffic by creative individuals already, and "masses accessible." To us, having considered all these factors, the decision seems simple. But we await your comments, too, while simultaneously we seek this space.
38. If these ideas and plans speak to you, and inspire your collaboration, one of the first things you can do is write to us with your thoughts, suggestions and ideas at salonchingon@hotmail.com (or post word to us in public via the IndyMedia link provided below), and may the discussion thrive. But one decision we've already made is that this project will no longer go by the name "an immedia project." It is now called Salón Chingón, which, loosely translated, means "the fucked salon," but in the sense of "that fucking great salon." That should, at least, keep our name out of the commercial newspapers! Narco News will continue agitating online. Salón Chingón now steps forward to set up an outpost away from the screen, on the terrain of daily life. Together, we march forward. Are you cordially invited?
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