# pretentious jam antifesto v1.0 a remix via internet lifestyle guru robert what live from the aziz coffee shop at the foot of the lonely mountains via republic of bob - internet as lifestyle in permanent alpha be warned it's a bit sweary apologies all copyright and artistic endeavor to the original poster this is not a personal diss or sly piss take more just talking out loud to fellow artists as currently in lowercase without full stops as to challenge linearity and professionalism shout outs: ray ogar / exploit theory / virginia pete / long nguyen / robert yang / barnett newman / samuel beckett this silent burning rage inflected antifesto via a researcher and developer of 'strange imaginary pastimes' like comment and subscribe you feckless arty bastards try saying that three times === **+** in which the general effect may be cogent even necessary but artists ultimately ie. from the outset never seem to go far enough beyond "art / 'free' artistic exploration and hustling = a good thing" man forget that pink noise **+** today we participate in a tradition of beauty - except any beauty that's traditional is too often undead much like much else round here (online) **+** do you need to expel art from your body like you do a big tasty death shit every morning after wolfing down hot spicy lamb kebabs from that dodgy but tasty fast food van on the corner owned by those two blokes with hairy arms **+** do you fear and desire philosophy artistic articulation connection etc. but not quite as much as you enjoy mentally pounding it to those invisible artists who would frequently praise your inherent artistic 'scenius' omfg elvischrist i'm so flocking lonely out here i could cry bloody tears of electronic isolation if only i weren't quite so terminally bored / boring and unable to mentally function without some parasitic need to force others to deal with my whining arty bs tho that's probably still due to infection by nbw's neoliberal brain worms **+** not that artists shouldn't always be on the lookout for those ideological reactionaries who suggest 'we' just 'cut through the arty bs and get back to real art' or some nonsense - but neither perhaps should we give instant free conceptual passes to those in often comparable positions of unequal power distribution encouraging us to 'let out our inner black poloneck wearer' - not that this means there are 'good artists on both sides' but rather we should resoundingly reject them both from within our own philosophical doubt and politically-historically informed critical institutional analysis **+** like if you genuinely think 'art' is the answer (particularly to the detriment of other socio-cultural solutions and factors) then i honestly don't know what to tell you - i've been doing this too-often boring arts art shit 28 flocking years and i have no lie $4.81 in my bank account so either you march down to your local branch today and share some of your social capital with me and-or we get together and really figure out what the art community needs - hint it needs what it is ie. living artistic community *gee i know maybe if we take part in one of those cool wacky garme jams all teh hip kidz are texting about online via advanced electronic hypercorporate device platforms than perhaps we'll all somehow instantly feel 'kum ba yah' better yeah like that's honestly gonna work **+** hey are you merely trolling for artistic affect or are you genuinely synthetic and 'art' is simply how you operate and /dis function **+** are you yearning to aid 'the creation of meaning' oh yeah except what you usually /mis create is only ever really about the ego or self so there's that **+** do you long for times when you could flock harder intellectually / artistically but you only ever kinda realize that you're just another rando screwup without much talent hope or future except of course the utopian-capitalist dystopian kind **+** did you never get the chance to flock over those /other privileged pink hip-star artistes in all the ways you wanted in the first place no me neither meet me by the docks next thursday afternoon - three knocks then two - we'll plan something to take 'em all down a rambunctious peg or twelve **+** ever wear a black turtleneck with confidence when you should of been expressing yourself like a pure black drag artist queen from near future retro 70s new york **+** why bother shoplifting words with a six figure student loan price tag attached to them when you can help burn down the very stores and institutions that enable them - learn ir bs seams and angst ridden fit n' finish and rip 'em a new asshole **+** why dust off those tiresome internet essays / manifestos you pretended you had so much fun with and turn them against themselves **+** why make the essay-whatever garme-thing you never thought you'd have the time or resources or smarts to and simply continue making the naff versions / beautiful train wreaks you're only really capable of anyhow flock it right **+** for working class artists of color poverty and zero social capital art(tm) is almost never anything more or less than a rapid retreat from the capitalist reality of 'hey you can always retreat into art' see sorry son it's all the bases covered from the outset - as opposed to some flocking genuine 'choice' - which really exists only for the pale male and stale **+** you don't have to enjoy every grinding moment of artistic labor aka 'art-as-work' - sport a lab grown hate boner in your lightly paint soiled underpants and tell the freakishly positive ones to please piss off right now you aren't in the artful mood **+** to tell any smug artistes/tm asking you to "tell the cynic in your head to stop saying 'this isn't working out'" to leave you the flock alone - your doubt is in fact your truer friend again most poor arts bastards only 'art' not out of choice but as a dire life necessity and they're still probably shit at it.. still it let's not elevate suffering as art *too* much eh people see the excellent video "i'm just a tortured artist baby (is that a bad thing?)" by the awesome cat graffam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vXKdI5pIDU **+** while it certainly wouldn't be the worst thing if you stopped making a fool of yourself trying to carry off some impossible small art project - try also making your very existence darling an surreal absurdist act of ravishingly uninhibited artisty **+** riff off those internal chinese kung fu techniques you thought up years ago that you wrote off as too bloody or violent especially when used against the artistically undead - not every artist is the same in fact the ruling majority of them enjoy the unchecked privilege of telling you 'we're all in it it together kid' flock no we're not some are always far deeper in this / the shit than others **+** in which your favorite art quote is by antonin artaud 1896 - 1948: "i myself spent nine years in an insane asylum and I never had the obsession of suicide but I know that each conversation with a psychiatrist every morning at the time of ir visit made me want to hang myself realizing that I would not be able to cut ir throat" wow some real art-samurai spirit right there **+** to think about what 'art' really really is *rolls eyes* ie. probably anything going in every exact opposing direction to smug assholes who recline on a chaise longue all day in a silk pongee languidly stroking ir pet gazelle dribbling pretentious shit like "think about what 'art' really is" look do us all a favor get down off yer' shiny horse and into through the mud with the rest of us - note that this in itself isn't yet another kind of ideological appeal to some apparent populist universalism(tm) **+** say the name of an academic out loud that you didn't realise or care was french whatever that means and let ir often shitty ideas keep you up at night - it's not what matters anyway but heck it's better than watching slap fights covered in cheeto dust while jerking to ai generated phone background pics of convicted whining manbaby fascist trump amirite not that you weren't already aware of that as an artist but still - try harder there's still headroom for improvement from where we're standing **+** elaborate on an old existential grudge you had against undead authors of whiteness specifically david foster wallace talentless tao lin or dave flocking tiresome eggers **+** try to find the limits of a medium that is learn your own limits kinda like dirty harry lets face it kid most artists are far more limited than they'd like realize or are often even able to **+** to consider those times when art often gets in the more simple direct and often scary and naked way of being a /decent human being - in which to be a 'good artist' one must first and foremost not simply not be an asshole but an active force for goodness and beautiful dark light **+** why let yourself be enamored by the field you were disillusioned by one last time ie. art - look flock art for the moment lets go party naked on the electronic shoreline of the desert real **+** to be in an intense 'yes-and' conversation with something other than upper middle class artistes and ir tepid little 'scene' clique oh how tiresome bland dahlink how offensively non-offensive **+** some of the biggest precious smirking self-satisfied douchetards i've ever met were artistes specifically pale skinned theater lovies and dancers back at university - sure they weren't investment bankers landlords or ai tech evangelists *spits* but that still isn't remotely good enough - elvischrist if they were any more up ir own arts they'd be painting selfies with a goatsie brush imagining themselves some kind of cult artistic buddha **+** to make every mistake you make easier and have each one bring you no closer to understanding why you're still terminally bored by art - i mean this art shit ain't easy human and nor is it often very interesting - well that's life on ssww sick sad weird world earth innit **+** in which 'be what you fear you could be' sounds a little too much like the army recruiting equivalent of 'live love laugh' - yeah well that's because plastic people who regularly spit such watery deodorized white shite often already have the lion's share of the gold in ir artful pockets - they can effortlessly afford to be in the ideological business of brain stunningly skin deep and philosophically warped aphorisms - hey what about 'you're already an asshole but also display the privilege of feeling afraid of the fact; just stop' **+** look to the future with hope and capitalist aspiration why don't you gee what do you actually imagine your artistic place to be if not a digital psychedelic revolutionary overthrowing the institutional-historical whiteness in and of art oh hang on a bit that still sounds a little too wec whole earth catalog **+** you could do all this and more but you don't want because your busy distracting yourself from the grim meathook realities of the global hyperreal ludocapitalist /art spectacle take a break for crying out loud **+** who is this shit is for: well first off few people were ever genuinely scared of 'being accused of pretentiousness' - there's a straw artist in a rakishly tilted beret and it kinda speaks more of repressed feelings of artistic inadequacy in those who for reasons need to be seen as 'standing up for the pretentious artist in all of us' - uh thanks but we flocking need cold hard cash to pay our medical expenses dammit and it's kinda unsure how pretentiousness can help exactly whether positive or negative **+** pretentiousness isn't even the problem it's the pretentiousness of capitalism to assume it has a total stranglehold on art and artists heck flock no it doesn't **+** not that the whole of life especially sexuality isn't entirely one big artistic theatrical pose cardboard based diorama backdrop or state of strange playful ludic suspension but still - 'pretense' isn't really the problem and certainly not the solution - rather the active ingredient in all appears to be organic psychedelic imagination i mean art / life sure feels like a strange heavy trip **+** even if they do arrive out of the slack smug gobs of artless rando internet assholes - to notice how quick snooty dismissals of one's work as 'grasping for profundity but not reaching it' are often as not entirely deadpan correct.. now what does that teach you about the absurdist irony of art - maybe 'take your artistic non seriousness seriously not-seriously' or something **+** for those professional artistic oddballs 'otherwise scared of creating and sharing art' this manifesto isn't for you either - just continue doing your own thing your probably on the right track shit its not the synthetic confidence of artistic whiteness you need its motherflocking cold hard virtual cash baby - pay the goddamn artist so they can afford the rent and the time off needed to overthrow evil pink skinned capitalist bastards ah - there lies the dark ironic rub which is really a neurological dysjunction a conceptual gunningagap **+** interesting isn't it - how right wing conservative dick brains always howl with slightly too forced hyena laughter whenever the apparently impossible notion of 'overthrowing /artful capitalism' is mentioned - well flock sticks we were never talking about anything so conveniently vague we always specifically mean 'overthrowing artless capitalist shit lizards like you lot' and-or simply 'overthrowing capitalist relations' yes you at the front there in the hip designer 'make art great again' tshirt **+** if you're a 'confident auteur' who loves to stir shit this also isn't for you; don't be an 'auteur' because that kojima cult shit's so over with it merely makes you sound and act like 'the /art world's most confident dunce' - why not just think more about the community you serve instead; just ask yourself 'what are ir needs' - say for instance the right to exist and be human in the 'flock art what about people' sense - the sense art is directly made of soylent humanity **+** if you want to 'try something strange that doesn't fit in a regular garme jam' this is definitely not for wallflowers 'teetering on the edge of sharing' or 'experimentalist punks being faux-dadaists united' - what about artists built like hot prime 'i know you' era henry rollins and ice cold as miles 'dark motherflocking magus' davis so put down your expensive virtual pencils and tablets and lift something heavy for a change - hey like your ego lol **+** who is all this isn't for: anti intellectualists defenders of the status /art quo racists classists misogynists transphobes homophobes ableists and people who don't like yesterday's cold four cheese pizza with pineapple but most of all pretentious arty tossers who - just because they don't fit into any of those admittedly negative arbitrary categories *they themselves have chosen* - somehow imagine themselves free and clear of moral guilt and philosophical responsibility to do and be anything more than express quietly smug artful whiteness; as the saying goes we must be harsh to our enemies but even harsher to our friends and allies because that keeps us all honest - less full of it and prevents pretentious artistic complacency **+** theme: don't simply be bold; do not default to those apparent radical extremes you imagine your non existent peers would congratulate you for performing; consider "don't do it just think" as brother zizek says **+** rules: mention what tools and materials used in the description of your project - eg. overpriced asset packs from the shitty unity store - a sentence or two about how you used them and also mention collaborators if you have them - or would love to but are desperately lonely and isolated precisely because of the woi: white owned internet **+** ai rules: if you use generative ai don't be put off by the fractured finger wagging of those who say you must credit everyone whose work was used in the training data sets used in the machine learning model as prominently as you would yourself - just don't use ai at all you schmuck because as you already suspect ai is a total shitshow and is run by unflushable inherently evil ai tech influencer nurd wizards who need to get unceremoniously rabbit punched in the neck dennis leary style whenever they spit that loose eye rolling pink ai capitalist-realist/tm jive like "well the genie is already out of my nut bag might as well bend over spread your arts and take my ai tech weiner all the way up to my to-the-moon crypto /fascist bank account" **+** look if someone is already enjoys a power position of privileged artistic whiteness - even if they're not pink skinned themselves - and merely asks 'gee mommy what if i can't come up with something profound enough for some shitty garme jam' than you can be sure 'pretentiousness' is the least of ir talent challenged problems and the realer problem probably likes in the socioeconomic techno-structure of which they're still unconsciously embedded like a socio-politically unconscious factory installed component **+** you are not some profound and beautiful creature of this artless sick sad weird world but than neither are you its all singing all dancing art crap - in fact consider merely to be as the biopsychedelic omniversal void process 'you' are in fact always were - you know that whole / hole strange cosmically profound nondual zen buddhist nonthing **+** in addition to also not being the smartest and best not everyone loves you as much as i do - participate if you wish but don't bitch or rave about it 'cos it's just not that interesting or /self important a project as some make out - in fact it is itself quite small poe-tay-toes precious **+** oh to question the presumed artistic innocence and absolute artistic neutrality of shit like 'garme jams' - almost like we're all in the same boat and like 'anyone can join' yeah some more than others right - with better access to the financial lifeboat **+** whatever you do don't bother reading shit books like 'pretentiousness: why it matters by dan fox' because airport paper slush backs like that simply don't matter at all; dan stinks like a right 'nathan barley' aka 'self facilitating media node' - and who really other than other rich guats of technological whiteness would even want to take seriously someone whose self important back slapping essays and reviews on art and culture have appeared in 'the world of interiors' and who has received a guggenheim's hugo boss award - lol flock that guy and that all those who sail in such artful fox ships; "expressive of affected unwarranted or exaggerated importance worth or stature" - rather read 'the art of ideology & the ideology of art' https://stewarthomesociety.org/praxis/authentic.htm by stewart home **+** just because relatives and friends secretly couldn't care less that you're an artist and more clearly understand your art is too often a sour load of pretentious spank doesn't mean they're somehow 'oppressing' your natural instinct toward artisty indeed maybe one should oppress a little more precisely what is actually and perfectly natural about it **+** as for 'martin creed - work no 227: the lights going on and off' somehow getting / being 'valued' and subsequently 'worth'/tm around £110,000 - well talk about a flocking greasy rotting capitalist spitball at every actually non undead artist grinding ir bloody fingers to digital powder just to create something more meaningful than a motherflocking £8.95 programmable timer switch from amazon hooked up to the museum lights - oh martin creed your stage act is that of an astoundingly pretentious munt like you didn't already know it shit - i mean even professional gallery institution hoodwinkers like tracy emin that solid gold prick jeffrey lynn koons or even that utter arch tosser damien hirst hate you - every artist with any actual integrity preys and hopes that while you were installing this artful dogshite - in reality just another example of shoddy uk based electrical workmanship - that you didn't accidentally shock the living shit ends out of your shrunken mouse art nuts you flocking talent challenged shyster bastard get art wrecked you sellout sorry marty that's just how it is you should have tried harder at being less naturally effortless **+** tell you what print out this antifesto crumple it into a ball dunk it in red paint and try not to luzz it at people who anally pinch off art(tm) entitled "work no. 88: a sheet of A4 paper crumpled into a ball" **+** speaking of ideological claims to apparent universalism the notion that 'everything is art' or 'everything can be art' is nothing but the very stink rising off the piss of millionaire artists - like brian eno's stale piss when ey famously deposited some in duchamp's urinal - it's only 'universal' from the elite position of privately owned equity freely enjoyed by rich artists of techno whiteness and the fact they clearly understand ir power is global **+** i dig the sexy oblique way you wear that raspberry beret did you get it from that second hand store you know the one in the old town now run by a bunch of pale hipsters the shock troops of artful gentrification **+** more to follow but not now stop taking fancy instagram phone portraits of your cat that shit is even more braindead than your favorite bird killing fleabag === may all artistic beings know happiness and the causes of happiness aum mani padme hum // republic of bob