Where to start…

Number 59 Brick Lane – Half way down the street, past the market, near the curry houses on the right

Brick Lane is in Tower Hamlets, which I believe was once part of the borough of Popular, but around the 1960’s, became part of the borough of Tower Hamlets. The market on Brick Lane could date back as far as the French Huguenots who were some of the earliest immigrants to the area, followed by Jewish, Irish and in the last few decades, Bangladeshi. Now there is talk of the area being the next Silicon Valley, with the burgeoning Digital Media business scene based there, plus the area’s recession beating trendiness; bars, galleries, clubs and boutiques. This is after the gentrification of the area to the North and West of Brick Lane, by Artists notably the Young British Artists of the late 80’s and 90’s and other creative types that followed, chasing cheap rent and industrial spaces.

One place of interest on Brick Lane is number 59. From this unique building we can start to understand the history of the area, if not Europe and Eurasia:

Originally the French Huguenot community built the building as a Protestant Church and small school in 1743. They had migrated fleeing religious persecution by the Catholics at home, and had been arriving in the area since the 1680’s.  The Huguenot brought with them their silk weaving skills and also built rows of Georgian town houses, which made up much of the architecture in the area.

From 1809 59 Brick Lane was ‘The Jews’ Chapel’ Housing The London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews. The society failed to have a great impact on the residents of Brick Lane, so chose to relocate. After that period of the building was taken over in 1819 by the Methodists who had a strong relation to the East End.

From 1897 the building was the principle Synagogue of the area serving the Jewish community in the East End following the assassination of the Tsar of Russia in 1881. In the 1960s the Jewish community in the area dwindled as many moved to north London.

Since 1976 the building has been one of the largest mosques in the capital Jamme Masjid, which houses a Prayer Hall and school for religious instruction.

This building is a symbol of change and continuity, being claimed by each successive community as its own.

Street Market as Public Space/Shared Space

People live and work side by side. Brick lane has been noted as a successful integration of immigrant communities.

The linear axis of the street is one way to image Brick Lane. The Sunday market that attracts 1000s of visitors who enter the street from 3 main points North, South and Middle. The markets trail down Brick Lane, dispersing down side streets, into warehouses, car parks, and up flights of stairs. This spread is akin to a network growth out from a linear axis, gathering with density some where in the middle.

One graphical function of a linear axis is a gradient, applicable here in noting the change of types of permanent businesses along the market streets. From the Bethnal Green Road on one side to the Osborn Street/Whitechapel Road on the other. (To talk about a top or a bottom doesn’t feel right here, neither does the left or right… Lets settle for North and South, respectively. )

So from the northern most corners of the street, where two bars of differing style (one Hip’py-esque the other Hip’ster-esque) bookend the junction, the north side is predominantly bars, clubs, galleries, boutiques, and a handful of hookah lounges and a handful of small independent restaurants and cafes. A small number of leather wholesalers, (suggesting the textile heritage of the area,) are managing to hold onto their shops and warehouses despite gentrification and regeneration, though some have adapted their business to meet the range of clientele for boutiques...

Whilst the southern end of the street is full of Indian Restaurants, clothing and textiles shops for saris and other Indian fashion items, literature on Islam, fresh Indian street food and imported goods, all owned by members of the Bangladeshi community, (upon who’s younger generation the future of the story of the communities integration will inevitably fall) The further north the less the businesses are affected by the pressures of the Islamic Bangladeshi community with regards to the sale of alcohol.

It is necessary to consider the diverse histories of Brick Lane, from the different and successive immigration into the area, and how the religious identification shape the area’s politics and influence.  Here number 59 is important, as discussed above as an architectural continuation, and also the street axis and network sprawl of the market and businesses.

Changing Discourse

I want also to look at the way it is talked about, the discourse on multiculturalism; it’s scapegoating by successive centre-right governments David Cameron (UK), Angela Merkel (Germany), Nicolas Sarkozy (France) for example. And, how the newspapers and media, butt up against the social forces that actually comprise the community.

This story is played out in the relationships between language; visual, symbolic, that we see and read in the press, on the one hand – and what we experience first hand on the streets; on the other, it is paramount that we do not take the news at face value but try to look at the agenda of those in power and question their motives, and look at the movements on the streets.

To attempt to identify the systemic and/or linguistic forms that shape our understanding (and to look at the notions of power and class) how Brick Lane is formulated and discussed in the Media; Muslim stereotyping, immigrant integration, local politics… (such as the recently elected mayor of tower hamlets) is this is the true discourse that is expressed by the communities who live there? What are their aspirations, their understandings and what are the consequences for their livelihoods? 

In this regard I would like to consider a form of language used in opposition to the media, the government and police i.e. street protests, taking two examples from 2010: the first, the demonstration on 10 November against the proposed cuts in education. The second, the demonstration on 20 June against Fascism and the EDL and the events that led up to it and the cancellation of the Islamic Conference. (With notes on Zizek.)

These two separate events intertwine in relation to form, but there is one aspect, which I feel at this time, is worth focusing on, that is with regard to Slavoj Zizek’s Violence Revisited public lecture held at Birkbeck, and a question from a member of the public in attendance that caught Zizek’s attention:

Zizek was delivering a paper, On Violence Revisited, On Violence… an earlier publication by Zizek which primarily looks at tolerance and violence, and power; systemic and linguistic, conceptualised across different frameworks including international politics – Palestine and Israel. And, arguments on liberal capitalism, and nation states.

In the lecture, just a few days after the 10 November anti university cuts and fees demonstration, Zizek opened with the Milbank Protest against cuts and fees in Higher Education; How education serves society, produces experts etc… The demo, according to Zizek, creates disorder. A disorder, for which ‘the government would bring in psychologists and sociologists to discuss the ‘Problem’.’  It is how this ‘Problem’ is constructed and formulated by the media, and discussed in government, which is of interest as they are primarily concerned with keeping the balance of power in their favour.

The question from the audience was the idea of counteracting the terminology and use of the word ‘violence’ – ‘speaking about violence without speaking about it’ – in a way in defence the actions attributed as ‘violent’ described by the press and politicians, – as example of the smashing of the windows at the Tory HQ. Is it possible for the people to counteract the message of violence constructed by the press? I.e “this is not violence, the true violence is what the government is doing to our society…” How much is this a ‘common-sense’ reaction? And, if we can explain it well, we can win change… the questions is about the strategy and tactics, new method and outlets through which we can communicate the truth of situations, and the sense in which we can put the point across that this is not violence; others will start to see the point.

Young Adam Thomas

 

All images Dave Hill,
published in the Guardian on 21 June 2010: One Day After the Anti EDL March.  

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/davehillblog/2010/jun/21/tower-hamlets-english-defence-league-march

--

Key concepts from Violence Revisited, Public Lecture
by Salvoj Zizek, 12 November, 2010, Birkbeck
two days after the milbank riots/Nov 10 National Union of Students  Demonstration.  

Disorder,
Disorientation, Notions of Disorientation, Confused situation, Livelihood,
Democratic Livelihood, Western liberals, Multiculturalism, Tolerance, Immigrant
racism, Truth, Anti-Capitalist movements, Legal Moralistic Limit, The Media,
Feel-Good Morality, Violence, Brutal humiliation, Happiness, Pervasiveness of
violence, Liberated Zones, Exteriorities of Resistance, Politics at a Distance,
China, Virtual Problems and Democracy, Grass Roots.

Artist statement Jan 2011

Through my work I investigate language, exploring its relations to art to create a space for thinking of new models of perception and understanding.  I work across a range of media, focusing on ideas generated from text(s), spoken word and linguistics through sculpture, installation, collage, sound and drawing. I am interested in exploring the relationship and interconnectedness of thought and language, say for example how we might understand how a sign operates in relation to a signifier through signification.  And how this is susceptible to change through time and different cultural understandings or usage.  Across the work I make I seek to express language’s materiality, taking a sculptural approach to reduce language to elements, systems and structures of signs, be it the arborescent schema of a sentence structure (in the mobile piece in colourless green ideas sleep furiously, which I will discuss briefly later), or the grapheme, phoneme and morpheme of writing, speech and language respectively (in the works GRAPHEME 2008, and A conversation between an artist and a linguist, 2010). Taking the idea of the materiality further, I often introduce elements of automation, movement, repetition and/or randomisation into the work, creating a playful exploration of the limits and finitudes of such schema or systems of meaning. I am specifically interested in the viewers perception of these ‘randomised systems’ particular in case to language; in which, the point where meaning is construed or ‘created’ is always inter-subjective. (I would be listening to my own voice as I speak to you, even possibly hearing what I am saying for the first time...). In a 2 channel sound work (A conversation between an artist and a linguist) which replays a conversation between myself and a linguistic student which has been cut-up to short phrases, words and vocal sounds, replayed at random; the effect is an example of how listening is a creative act upon the materiality of sound; the listener automatically generates meaning for themselves. 

A brief example of my work in regards to the above, is the mobile piece in the style of Alexander Calder, in my solo exhibition, colourless green ideas sleep furiously, SPACE, 2010. I was inspired to make this piece after seeing a linguistic diagram of a simple sentence: ‘the boy saw the girl’.  A tree-like diagram structured the sentence into constituent parts and it struck me that if one were to animate the diagram – i.e. introduce movement within the constituent parts, between the ‘branches’, then it could possibly make the (romantic) literal turn-of-phrase ‘the girl saw the boy’. A simple chiasmus formed by material manipulation. I took this interest further and researched Linguistics and started working with Linguistic students from SOAS university.  I came across an (in)famous phrase by Noam Chomsky about linguistic theory. I sought to apply his theory literally onto his own words, binding his ideas to play together both semantically and materially to explore meaning and the creativity of language.  

My interest in language in relation to art has led to begin a more research-based practice drawing from modernity and the social and theoretical movements, (that inspired my early sculptural work) for the events and ideas that led to new developments in artistic practice and modern thought…  Saussure’s legacy ran deep into the previous century with the ‘linguistic turn’ effecting how we understand number, logic, culture, myth and our own being-in-the-world.  This regime is reaching its own limits but has pushed our understanding further. Cognitive and Neuro-sciences have revolutionised what it is to ‘understand’ understanding, phenomenological processes and the psyche, revolutions drawn from the mapping, naming and the structuralisation of these cognitive/neuro ‘systems’. 

Now, in the 21^st Century, fields of practice are expanding, opening up situations from the inside, to borrow a phrase from Ranciere.  Representation is still the primary territory of art. Art renders inexistence visible, the sensual sensible (Badiou). Currently my work is moving towards investigating ontology through language and number – this has come about through a series of events and experiences – research into linguistic anthropology and cognitive perception, and, I think, for which, I am finding an outlet in the potentials of choreography to explore some of the ideas the research has brought me to.  As I write this I am developing a new collaborative project with an anthropologist, choreographer and a mathematician.

The Nomadic Hive Manifesto

A spectre is haunting Europe- the spectre of debt slaves refusing to pay. All the powers within Europe have entered into a holy alliance to regenerate a failing economy, to realise a lethal dream of returning to business as usual, and to level education and culture, so as to transform the educational and cultural sectors into a consumer society success story.

Their dream is of an education system in which education means obtaining skills to sell in the marketplace, a system in which to produce research means nothing more than making the country competitive in the global market. The vandalism of arts and humanities in this country is designed to produce a new definition of knowledge, defined as that which an individual can bring to the economy or marketplace. Where is the space given over by the architects of this extreme-make-over for those who have ideas and habits different to those favoured by the holy alliance? Where is the space given over to those who believe universities have a role in thinking and reflecting upon life, and what life can be?

If you listen carefully, a humming can be heard, the noise of dissatisfaction becomes dissent. The Holy Alliance fears that this noise has become a song on the lips of all?
Those who have demanded a space apart from this extreme-make-over have been painted as dangerous spoilers or parasites?

Two things need to be said about all this and the existence of the nomadic hive:
I. A nomadic hive is an aesthetic practice, not just a means of survival but an aesthetic mode of existence that manifests through producing networks, means of communications, protest, relations and assemblages: collective machines and situations for thinking and acting.
II. A nomadic hive has a queen (or two or more). The sole role of the queen is to facilitate the reproduction and maintenance of the hive. If the queen becomes more than a facilitator she must be killed.
III. The nomadic hive must declare its aims, way of life and values, to meet this nursery tale of the holy alliance that leads to nothing but debt slavery.

A manifesto has to be written.

On the 9th December 2010, from 16.45 to 19.45, in Room 43 of the National Gallery London, the nomadic hive produced the following manifesto:

1. The hive redefines public space. The hive reclaims public space and public spaces in private ownership (museums, shopping malls, streets).

2. Wherever the hive camps is our home.

3. Movement is imperative - keep moving - but to move or stay is our decision, and our decision to move or stay is our right.

4. The practice of questioning and critique is central to our movement and this questioning goes beyond the discursive.

5. The hive has a commitment to dissemination of information.

6. The movement is an emotional journey - involving thinking and affects.

7. The hive claims the right to happiness and rejects life as a debt slave until death.

8. The hive recognises the struggle for happiness is an international struggle.

9. The hive is a catalyst for change and for difference; it is a spark of light produced by the movement of the hive. The spark of light illuminates a situation for others.

10. This spark of light, the art of the hive, is produced in and presented within the spaces and situations of everyday life and not just in specialist institutions.

11. The movement of the hive expands beyond education, beyond the universities, the students and lecturers.

12. The hive does not preserve the status quo.

13.The hive does not oppose individualism to the collective.

14. The hive does not make anything for sale, the hive does not make 'works' for he market. The hive aims to change how the art world operates.

15. The hive is fluid and reassesses itself.

16 The hive speaks - 'act now!'

17. The hive is open on all levels. The hive needs open access at all times for the purposes of exchange, it is interactive and interdependent.

18. The hive actualises the power we have now.

19. The hive agrees to disagree and use disagreement as a platform and a starting point for action.

20. The hive addresses the problem of pedagogy.

21. The hive does not patronise, but it brings its art to the people.

22. The hive is not a meritocracy but a passionocracy: a passionocracy of skills, values and intentions.

23. What can we do? We can produce actions in public and private space to grow the hive.

24. The internet is a hive - through the internet the hive can cut out the middle man of the mass media corporations.

25. The hive is viral and online but the hive is an embodied practice - it exists in the spaces we occupy and the way we relate to space and others in space.

26. The hive exists in opposition to prevailing circumstances. In this, the hive produces a political imaginary - an affirmation of what we can do.

27. The hive has a honey pump, like Beuy's honey pump, for energy production.

28. The honey pump powers different forms of communication - songs, talk, noise.

29. The hive knows how to get things done, individually and collectively.

30. The audience for the songs, talk and noise of the hive is everybody - how we communicate is important.

31. We communicate through language but also without using language, by dancing and pheromones

32. Trust in the hive. And for people to trust in the hive there must be trust within the hive.

33. The hive reaffirms solidarity with all occupiers, with all taking action on the streets, with all public sector workers, and all workers, and all involved in labour that produces the social (students, carers, school students).

34. We oppose the methods that oppress our collective movement.

35. The manifesto of nomadic hive is in constant development.

36. The manifesto is drafted through action.

37. The hive works together, stings and makes honey.

38. The hive stings but does not die.

The Hive 9/12/2010