85701 - Week Two

A Situationist City?

Being 22 and a poor student on a centrelink benefit, this is probably the most interested I have been so far in a federal election. And for Australia, it's a fairly history-making election, what with having a female prime minster for the first time and all. And yet the politics of it all strikes me as extremely annoying. Yet it is a political election. But I use politics in the derogatory sense - the sense that the future of a country I happen to be very proud of, hinges on some kind of beauty or popularity contest. The campaign to me, sucks. The television ads suck, the ease to which people will believe anything the media writes, sucks, and frankly, our lack of choices, sucks. And so, having just lived a year in France, where people take the idea of revolution more seriously than their own lives, compared to being back home where people think handing in a blank ballot paper might make a difference... makes me think the situationists kinda started with the right idea.

If it was all hinged on the fulfillment of desire, then I think what they were desiring in those days was rebellion against a society dominated by the politics of capitalism and media telling everybody what to think (Debord 1967). The 60's as it seems now, were a time for revolt, and I think this can be summarised by May '68 in France, an event constantly refered to by every one of my professors whilst I was there.

I don't know if it's just my age and the fact that I'm at a point where I'm very opinionated and interested by worldly events because of my education, but it feels to me that we, or at least, I, am unfulfilled by the politics of the society in which I live. If I am unhappy about irresponsible media, sacrificing young lives for possible alterior motives in war, the lack of choices for our country's future, unsustainable living on Earth, the continuing presence of capital punishment in seemingly contemporary societies, a lack of complete democracy, corrupt justice systems, and the presence of prejudice towards people who have had no choice in their race/ class/ gender/ sexuality/ disability/ etc, the maybe a hell of a lot of other people are too. We are creating a situation which I've already stated that to me, means something along the lines of an artistic nature. And it seems to me that in history, when politics fail us, artists take over. Maybe it's time for a new revolt?