What is it with Hipsters?

“Hep or Hip … Someone who knows the score. Someone who understands ‘jive talk’. Someone who is ‘with it’. The expression is not subject to definition because, if you don’t ‘dig’ what it means, no one can ever tell you.”

- William Burroughs Junky glossary, 1953

I haven’t used the word ‘hipster’ before in this blog – I have been consciously avoiding this now heavily loaded term – Kate Forsyth on the Melbourne Arts Club did not avoid the term in her post “Hipster or Hobo”. (I don’t have any argument with Kate Forsyth, I’m not surprised that people are mistaking hipsters for hobos, this is only an example to show that the word is in common use in Melbourne.) I savvy the history of the word but I’m not sure when the word ‘hipster’ took on a pejorative connotation, maybe it always had one in the square world and I didn’t know about it.

I did use the word ‘hipster’ in my MA thesis but that was decades ago, at a time when the hipster had fallen out of contemporary use. To quote from my thesis:

In “The White Negro” Norman Mailer, attempts to explain the philosophy of the hipster. He argues that since death is ever present “then the only life-giving answer is to accept the terms of death, to live with death as immediate danger, to divorce oneself from society, to exist without roots, to set out on that uncharted journey of the self.” (Mailer “The White Negro – Superficial Reflections on the Hipster”, 1959) Both Stirner and Mailer advocate living with the contradictions, living with the nihilism and the meaningless arguing that it brings a valid, life-enriching existence. This is a life enriching experience because the objective of the Unique One (Stirner’s name for the ego) is to get as much enjoyment from these things while he and they last.

In reference to Mailer’s contrast between the hipster and the square, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin provides a compilation of contemporary comments on the dichotomy along with Mailer’s 1959 list.

Do I really care if some people think that being a hipster is right or wrong? No, there is something square about distinctions based on appearance, clothes and hair. Mailer’s list is also kind of square, lamely attempting to define the indefinable with a few examples.

“I don’t care about the state of my hair/ I got something out of nothing/ That just wasn’t there/ And your kiss kiss kiss/ Is never going to blow me away.” (Jesus and Mary Chain, “Blues From A Gun”)

Getting “something out of nothing that just wasn’t there” was Marx and Engles critique of Stirner’s proto-hipster philosophy of the Unique One. It was, according to Marx and Engles, impossible and a “conjuring trick” on Stirner’s part. But according to the Jesus and Mary Chain they did it and it had something to do with hair and never being blown away. Now this might seem like nonsense to some but I’m hoping that someone will be hip to what is happening here. It is this acquisition of something (cool) out of nothing is what is desired and despised in the hipster. And this explains why Kate Forsyth’s friends were mistaking “hobos” (people with nothing) for hipsters (who also clearly have nothing but are getting something out of it because they have other things like a home, a job, money, skills, talent, good friends…) – as I said, a common mistake; it embarrasses the cops, and those with minds like cops, like Marx and Engles, all the time.

Logo Jammers

The “Space Invaders” exhibition brought “adbusting”/ culture jamming back to my attention. I liked Marcsta and Merda’s “Disobey” sticker, which I saw exhibited at “Space Invaders”, as I’m tired of Shepard Fairey’s “Obey” logo being regarded as an example of quality street art. What “Space Invaders” defined “adbusters” is a culture jamming subversive alteration of corporate logos. (Adbusters Media Foundation is a Canadian not-for-profit organization.) There is a good summary of culture jamming and more links to articles about culture jamming from the Center for Communication and Civic Engagement (University of Washington).

Stickers and culture jamming at "Space Invaders" exhibition.

I hadn’t really though about culture jamming recently because I was so close to it. I used to listen to a lot of Negativeland and read about culture jamming organization like the K Foundation, Church of the SubGenius and the Emergency Broadcast Network. Before that I was reading Wm. Burroughs “The Invisible Generation” and other pieces of his writing best summed up in his line: “language is a virus from outer space”. And tracing the history of the “meme” idea of Richard Dawkins (I yearned to read his book, The Selfish Gene for as a child seeing it on my father’s bookshelf with its attractive cover of biomorphic surrealist painting by Desmond Morris); tracing it back to philosophical “spooks” of Max Stirner. Along with regular updates from the local Melbourne news about the culture jamming activities of BugaUp and other group’s billboard vandalism for political objectives.

But by the late 90s there were so many t-shirts with subversive alteration of corporate logos that I began to tire of the tactic. It all seems like a lot of graphic designers were just having fun with parodies to sell products with a cool vibe. It wasn’t anti-consumerist just another product range. There is still a lot of culture jamming stuff around, although, some of it like the Everfresh crew use a subverted version of the Cellarmaster logo is just parody (I’m not sure what the connection is apart from the guys from Everfresh drinking habits). But the lack of serious political intent makes many of these works simply parody and homage rather than culture jamming.

The politics of culture jamming is more difficult and subtle than mainstream politics; both sides are using the same basic psycho-technology propaganda repertoire. Many companies don’t mind the satire, many politicians collect political cartoons of themselves, if culture jamming was effective it might be worth pursing but the results of decades are not promising. Most people can take a joke, only despots who can’t stand satire. Maybe it is time for a return to the politics of the blunt aphoristic quality of the graffiti slogan.

Mac pills

"men never commit evil so fully and joyfully..."

iBong

Miso’s Smoking

A bunch of white paper arrows hang from the white gallery wall, the delicate cut paper creating the veins of their feathers, their thin shafts and arrowheads. Cut paper forms art noueveau patterns and fantastic images of dogs with monasteries on their backs.

Miso "Paper Birch"

Notable Melbourne street-artist Miso specializes in paper cutting and paste-ups. Her current exhibition at No Vacancy Project Gallery features some fine paper cuts along with images made from the patterns of holes from needle pricks.

Miso’s paper cutting is a reversal of the stencil cutting techniques of many of Melbourne street artists. Instead of using cutting to create a stencil the cut paper is the image. Both Miso and US artist, Swoon have taken paper cutting up a level both in the scale and the artistry of their work.

The techniques of cutting paper tends to be overlooked, relegated to a folk art from another time, the silhouette cutter working their trade on the cusp of photography. Overlooking the old hands of Matisse as he cut colored paper to make works like the Blue Nude towards the end of his life. Overlooking also the hands of Hans Christian Andersen and William S. Burroughs as they cut up paper. (Cut-Outs and Cut-Ups, ed. Hendel Teicher, The Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2008) Hans Christian Anderson was a master at traditional folded paper cutting. Andersen used his delicate paper cutting technique as an adjunct to his story telling; keeping his audience’s attention as they watched his large hands delicately cut paper as he told his story and unfolding the completed paper at the end. William Burroughs used Brion Gysin ‘s “cut-up” technique in both in writing and visual art. Burroughs also used it to create stencils for spray paint.

The installation of Miso’s exhibition “Les Fumières” is impressive; the small No Vacancy Project Gallery at the Atrium, Federation Square has been lined with white painted bits from old houses, windows, doors and boards. At the far end of the gallery on a white wall of boards the neon sign “Les Fumières” glows. Impressive though the installation is I’m not convinced by the aesthetic connection between the paper-cuts, the installation and the artist’s statement about the future of cities. The work on paper do not connect with the old doors and windows, with the exception of the figures of “Ellen” 1 & 2 that bracket an old arch sash window. And, as much as I like the idea of urban gardens, I didn’t see how the plants connected with the exhibition, apart from visual relief from all the white. But this does detract from the smoking hot quality of Miso’s cut paper.

Miso's installation with "Ellen 1" at No Vacancy

Street Art Notes – Nov 09

“Cherry pickers, with satin brushes big as a door, inch through Wall Street leaving a vast souvenir postcard of the Grand Canyon. Water-trucks slosh out paint. Outlaw painters, armed with paint pistols, paint everything and everyone in reach. Survival artists, paint cans strapped to their backs, grenades at their belts, paint anybody and anything within range. Skywriters dogfight and collide and explode.”

William S. Burroughs (“Apocalypse” from an illustrated catalogue in collaboration with Keith Haring, 1989) Amongst his many crimes and peccadillos, William Burroughs was caught doing graffiti on a NYC subway. He had written: “Ah Pook was here”, Ah Pook is the Mayan god of destruction.

Van Rudd - St. Kilda Rd.

I have seen some street art using trees, is very uncommon, this one on St. Kilda road had charcoal marks applied to it. Trees are a common feature of the urban environment; they are rarely touched by street artists but I have seen some good site-specific art on trees by street artists. And after much talk about the possibilities of street art with moss I finally saw some near East Richmond station however it had not been grown but glued to the wall.

unknown artist - details of moss antlers

After lots of comic book characters the aerosol street artists are now doing lots of large realist faces, mostly images from cinema history. Some of the best of these faces can be seen along Hoddle St. in Collingwood.

I went back to look at Croft Alley in Chinatown about two months after the Don’t Ban the Can event. There was one graffiti writer at work in the alley when I visited on a warm Saturday afternoon on my way to yum cha. It was hard to see all the walls because of all the garbage bins, but they are, along with other services why these alleyways have been constructed. It looked good and fresh, in contrast to the smell of garbage. There are a great variety of styles from the old school, wild-style, characters and beyond. I say “beyond” because there were also work there that really pushed the techniques and ideas of what aerosol art could be. I could see more of it and there was more to see then when I was there for the painting.

“Style in ornament is analogous to hand in writing, and this is it literal signification.”

Ralph Nicholson Wornum (The Principles of Ornamentation, 1858)