Users Guide to Demanding the Impossible
* Book: A Users Guide to (Demanding) the Impossible. John Jordan and Gavin Grindon. Minor Compositions, 2011.
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Description
"This guide is not a road map or instruction manual. It’s a match struck in the dark, a homemade multi-tool to help you carve out your own path through the ruins of the present, warmed by the stories and strategies of those who took Bertolt Brecht’s words to heart: “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.”
Marc Garrett:
"In the introduction of your publication it says that it, "was written in a whirlwind of three days in December 2010, between the first and second days of action by UK students against the government cuts, and intended to reflect on the possibility of new creative forms of action in the current movements. It was distributed initially at the Long Weekend, an event in London to bring artists and activists together to plan and plot actions for the following days, including the teach-in disruption of the Turner Prize at Tate Britain, the collective manifesto write-in at the National Gallery and the UK’s version of the book bloc." (http://www.furtherfield.org/features/interviews/we-demand-impossible-interview-john-jordan-and-gavin-grindon)
Interview
Excerpt:
"J: Unfortunately there are no magic recipes that can protect us from such feelings, a lot depends on context on our particular situations etc. But here are a few tips that have helped me keep the despair of capitalism at bay:
1) Resist the spell of individualism that capitalism tries to weave around us, a spell that chains us to the fantasy of autonomy and keep us in a state of sadness and paralysis. Break this spell and its toxic chains by realising that you are part of a greater whole, that working with others gives us strength, that seven minutes making real friendships (face to face) is more political than seven days glued to a computer browsing social networks in a trance, that inevitably fails to shake the loneliness of modern life.
2) Build a gang, a group, a collective, a crew - remember the joy of plotting things together, the power and possibilities when work and imagination is shared. In fact, imagination finds it's insurrectionary potential when we share it, when it's freed from the privatised ego, escapes from shackles of copyright and the prison's of the art world.
3) Learn the skills to work together with others, consensus decision making, group facilitation, conflict resolution etc. We need to re learn collective working methods, capitalism has destroyed all our tools of conviviality and we need to reclaim them back, recreate new forms of being together.
4) Redefine Hope. Not as something that will come and save us, like a saviour, but as something that comes from not knowing what will happen next, something that takes place when we act in the immediate moment and don't know what will happen and trust that history is made from acts of disobedience that did not necessarily have any idea of what the next step was...
5) Remember that victory is not always what happens, but what did not happen. Social movements tend to forget this. Look at all the nuclear power stations that WERE not built, all the wars that did not happen, the laws that were never passed, the free trade agreements that were never agreed on, the repressions that the state could not get away with, the gmo's that were never planted. One of my favourite books, what I call prozac on paper, is Rebecca Solnit's HOPE IN THE DARK (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28048.Hope_in_the_Dark) - it's a lovely little book which redefines hope in the most beautifully optimistic way, recommended reading when capitalism seems irresistible.
6) When everything appears useless, try to change your conception of time... think deep time, not shallow modern now time, but think about the generations that went before you and those that will come after you. Try to imagine what the generations of the future will think about your actions, imagine those from the past that fought for the emancipation of slaves and yet never saw the results of their actions, those who died for the eight hour day, for the right to build a union, the right to vote or publish an independent magazine. Spend time imagining how those alive in 50, 100 years will view your life and work..." (http://www.furtherfield.org/features/interviews/we-demand-impossible-interview-john-jordan-and-gavin-grindon)
More Information
- Furtherfield interview of John Jordan and Gavin Grindon by Marc Garrett: http://www.furtherfield.org/features/interviews/we-demand-impossible-interview-john-jordan-and-gavin-grindon