Nyx, a noctournal – Issue 5: Myth

7/29/2019 Nyx, a noctournal Issue 5: Myth

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Nyx a noctournal

issue 5

MYTH


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2011 Nyx, anoctournal

All rights reserved.No part of thispublication may be

reproduced, stored ina retrieval system, ortransmitted, in anyform or by any means,electronic, mechanical,photocopying,recording, or otherwise,

without writtenpermission from theNyx, a noctournal

Editorial Board.


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editorial

Areturn to myth is timely. And yet what other direction can we turn? Our livesare like so many myths to hand. Myth begins as a orm o storytelling: storieswe tell ourselves about ourselves, about others; in the way we reconstruct ourpersonal memories and reason out our drives. What are we assuming? For it is

something all too disquieting, as our contributions here attest. Myth is both the primitive

narrative o the ancients and the ignorant, and the other-space o every story, wheretruth disappears into speculation, misinormation and whispers. It is into this grey spacewe enter.

Myths o the near uture dominate our era. Shock doctrines, states o exception, theBig Society, 9/11, the neoliberal aith in liberated markets. Even the uture itsel hasbecome a myth we sacrice ourselves to, be it through precarious labour, or the Let'sstagnation into the impasse o Communism and tax evasion. We begin with two riddles:is our Western notion o happiness a myth, or is myth the basis or our happiness? Thecity pulses now, enchanted by broken glass, the spectacle o its own wound, the scent

o beer and burnt plastic against a manic grime beat. New myths reveal themselveswithin these cracks: student violence, Let-wing propaganda machines and alse prophetsattempting to take the power back. Follow us as riot season blooms under a tense 2013heat wave in Laura Oldeld Ford's visions, where we end up in Deptord in a parable oprescription drugs and disappearance acts.Someone must have been telling lies about you and I or were they just myths, nothingmore? in the representations o our culture in the blue chatter o TV sets in nocturnalbedsits. Perhaps a Pepsi Max masculinity o male conquest and inantilised hedonism? Theentirety o our lives are privatised and a certain callousness develops, as we begin todeantly accept the negative words we once jabbed ourselves with. As the public is edto carnivorous capitalists, we read the uture in chicken bones beore paralysis restrictswhat we came or.

But no! Myth also oers a way out o the atalism and increasing depression o culturaland economic cutbacks. Metamorphosis maybe, or perhaps we are all Luther Blissettsnow. Two cowboys swagger through the West to shoot down dead the Big Society. Bangbang! These are mythic times we move through.


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Nyx , a noctournal Fith Issue Myth

Nyx isJoanna FigielDan TaylorNicholas E. Gledhill

Claudia FirthKerry GilllanAdam HutchingsDavid RidleySinikka HedenSarah Harman

ContributorsLara Choksey

Riddle GraveSylvain PopinjayLaura Oldeld FordTheodore Reeves-EvisonIzabela LyraJulia ScheeleAmedeo PolicanteLuther BlissettAlice WhiteRichard Hamilton

Andrew Blundell

[email protected]

Readwww.nyxnoctournal.comnoctournal.posterous.comwww.issuu.com/noctournal

BuyStudent shop, RHB, Goldsmiths, LondonCheck website or other locations

Thanks toThe Centre or Cultural Studies,Goldsmiths, University or London, orcontinued support

LayoutSinikka Heden

Cover ImageTheodore Reeves-Evison


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index

6

12

18

23

24

30

36

40

48

56

58

60

64

Destination: HappinessSinikka Heden

Mythe de la mytheAdam Hutchings

What we came orLara Choksey

Student ViolenceAmedeo Policante

Coalition o the WillingClaudia Firth

Take the Power Back

Izabela Lyra2013Laura Oldield Ford

Learning how to DisappearDan Taylor

Pepsi Max ManhoodNicholas E. Gledhill

Chicken BonesRichard Hamilton

Stages o MetamorphosisTheodore Reeves-Evison

Luther Blissett: MythmakerLuther Blissett

Big Society: A WesternRiddle Grave & Sylvain Popinjay


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HAPPINESS

In the West, each successive generation has tried to conquer

happiness anew by making a revolution o some kind,

whether out o generosity or ingeniousness

- Franois Jullien

- a western myth?

DESTINATION:

by SINIKKA HEDEN


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Somewhere, Sophia Coppolas latestmovie, ends in the middle o a highway.The main character, Johnny Marco, a

jaded Hollywood actor is walking aimlesslyinto the distance, away rom his black Ferrari.Even i happiness remains un-discussedthroughout the lm, the story we have justseen has eliminated the decaying myth thatmoney, success and ame will make youhappy.

A large body o research into thequestion o happiness has emerged in recentyears across many elds. Even economistshave started to measure the welare ocountries according to their happinessindex rather than GDP. This ascinationmight be down to the act that Westernliving standards and material wealth haveimproved signicantly since the 1950s,when the rst surveys measuring our levelso happiness were carried out, yet we aretold that we are now unhappier and moredepressed than ever. This discovery leads usto the conclusion that there must be other,more complex answers to the question owhat makes us happy and how to achieveit. Here, I would argue that this endeavouris potentially dangerous; happiness isessentially an abstract eeling and thereoreimpossible to recognize, hence it cannot bemeasured.

Yet, i we are presumably movingaway rom the myth o material happiness,then what are our new belies andassumptions o what it means to a Western

society? In Vital Nourishment, Departing romHappiness, Franois Jullien observes thatthere is a xation on happiness in the West.More than that, he argues that we are tooobsessed with achieving various goals, andthat our lives are driven by nality anidea that directly opposes Chinese thinking,which his argument is greatly basedupon (2007:3). Instead, Jullien brings ourattention to the process, and the appealing

idea o foating into lie. Instead o thinkingo happiness in terms o destination, hesuggests ree evolution, where lie itseldecides where it wants to go. These ideasare easy to grasp metaphorically; weshould be like sh that go among insteado going toward (2007:109). Or think ohappiness as love it comes most easilywhen you least expect it and when itcomes you just know, without being ableto describe it. Yet, love comes and goes. It isnot xed or certain, and i we cling onto it,we risk choking it. Jullien points out that theappeal o happiness, dissolves under theocus on nality and that when we clingonto things such as goals, it becomesunattainable because it is always pushedarther into the distance, or becomesunbearable, simply because grasping itdestroys its value as an end still capable oinspiring desire (2007:113).

This can be urther illustrated bythe glass that is always hal-empty; an ideathat seems to dene our time we live in aculture where we can always do better, lookbetter, live better essentially be betterhuman beings. It appears that the mytho happiness has become this desperatesearch or an imaginary happiness utopiaand societys seducing promise that wecan all get there on the condition that wework hard on various aspects o lie: our(positive) attitudes, health, spirituality, andso on. Yet, how did we in the West acquiresuch believes?

From a young age we are taughtthat achieving set goals will make us ullledand happy people; rom the dream job anda beautiul home to nding the one. TheHappy ending is a myth that pop-culturehas enorced upon us since taking ourrst steps, beginning with something likeDisneys adoption o Cinderella. Since then,everywhere you turn there is someonetelling you how to improve Your Lie, in


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order to increase Your Level o Happiness.Recent national campaigns promise justthat: The Guardian recently added asection to its website called Start Happy.Furthermore, Action or Happiness are anorganisation that describe themselves asa new movement or social change, andwhose lectures cover topics such as whyhappiness matters and why we need toreconsider our goals in lie. Their answerto reaching happiness in an increasinglyselsh society lies in caring or others. Thenew iPhone app Mappiness, alerts youeveryday to ask how you are eeling andwhere you eel happiest and with whom.The list goes on.

Business has quickly realized thatthe last thing that money cannot buy isconserved happiness. Instead, what we canbuy are revealed secrets and methodsthat come in the shape o expert advicein a sea o magazines, newspaper weekendsupplements and, most distinctively, in the

ever-expanding genre o sel-help literature.The international bestseller The Secret(2006) might be the most mythical sel-help book o all. In sum, the book oersa method or a happy and successul lie.Firstly you need to envision your dreamsand goals, and secondly believe in themstrongly and passionately enough: this isthe secret that will make them cometrue. With such an approach, it meansthat the responsibility is now put on theindividual. I things go badly in lie it must beyour own ault you cannot have wantedit enough, or have tried hard enough. Thistrapped situation has turned us into eagerresearchers, looking or quick xes in thesame way as dieters might use ad-dietsin a belie that they will help them to loseweight. The vital dierence here is thatlosing weight is a tangible, practical goal.By contrast sel-help literature promisesa special knowledge, or way o thinking:unquantiable goals based as much on a

we live in a culture where we canalways do better, look better, live better

essentially be better human beings


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myth o happiness as their purported tried-and-tested techniques.

Here it is interesting to drawattention to Julliens observation o theendless acquisition o knowledge in theWestern pursuit o happiness. By contrast,Chinese thought liberates this needthrough a more relaxed approach to theactivity o learning:Your lie has a limit but knowledge hasnone. I you use what is limited to pursuewhat has no limit, you will be in danger oexhaustion. I you understand this and stillstrive or knowledge, you will be in danger[o exhaustion] or certain. (2007: 15).

Ater all, or whose benet is thisadvice or really? Instead o continuing tolook or answers and buying into the myththat happiness is something that can beachieved, we have to see that happinesshas become an industry it has, ultimately,become a commodity. Recently, criticalaccounts o this industr y have appeared, one

o the most convincing ones being BarbaraEhrenreichs Smile or Die. She stronglycriticizes positive thinking and argues thatacts and studies that claim that positiveeelings like gratitude, contentment andsel-condence can improve our health andlengthen our lives are greatly exaggerated(2009: 9).

Positive thinking as a methodemerged as a eld o academic studyat the end o 1990s ollowing MartinSeligman s appointment as president orthe American Psychological Association.Seligman declared the theme or hispresidency positive psychology; thestudy or positive emotions and optimisticmindsets (2009:147). Following urtheracademic interest, it became accepted as anew eld o psychological research newjournals appeared devoted to the subject,such as the Journal o Happiness Studies.When the media acknowledged the newscience o happiness it rapidly spiralled

Your lie has a limit but knowledge has none. I you use what is limited to pursue

what has no limit, you will be in danger o exhaustion. I you understand this and still

strive or knowledge, you will be in danger [o exhaustion] or certain.


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REFERENCES:

Byrne, Rhonda, 2006. The Secret. Simon and Schuster, London.Ehrenreich, Barbara, 2009. Smile or Die- How positive thinking ooled America and the World.Granta Books, London.Jullien, Franois, 2007. Vital Nourishment, trans. Arthur Goldhammer. Zone Books, New York.


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MYTHEby ADAM HUTCHINGS

The myth is a myth, but i themyth is the ocean, then what have I

become as I sail across it?

MYTHE DE LA


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I wish to extend the myth, in the mannerthat Barthes extends the sign. I think thisis required because myths have surpassedsigns in their role o governance, and havetheir own quality o signication. I there-ore ask what the myth gives rise to, whatis myths myth? I propose that this phrase,the myth is a myth, is both a tautology anda perormative. When we say the table isa table or the idiot is an idiot we achievenothing, we merely call them what they are.Calling the myth a myth could do this, butto what end? It is a waste o time. But may-be not, or calling the myth a myth is also anact, it bestows something extra upon themyth. That extra something implies a mythothe myth, something that exists due to itsdependency on the original myth. But wehave to remember that the myth alreadyreerred to something else an object, aclaim, a concept, the myth-story. The mythis a myth, but i the myth is the ocean, thenwhat have I become as I sail across it?

As the media permeates allaspects o lie, the web o signicationexpands. Nothing is exempt rom becominga victim o discourse. This pattern plays outwithin the myth o neoliberal consumercapitalism, which goes unquestioned depoliticised and naturalised, a tried andtrue ideal. Considering Fishers diagnosisand Fukuyamas End o History assertionwe seem to have upon us a time inwhich ideology is dead. But this is notquite the case. As iek says with typical

boisterousness, we only have to go tothe toilet to be once again conrontedwith ideology2. It is not that alternativeideologies dont exist, but rather that allactions, notions and ideas, emancipatory orotherwise, have now become things whichare eectively consumed, thereby playingdirectly into capitalist logic, enabled by thehypermediation o discourse.

I would like thereore to reluctantly

Within this hyperreality all the world is

a myth, a myth constituted by an innite

number o minor myths. This is not only

due to our mediated access to the world,

but due to our treatment o things asconsumers, the social usage which is

added to pure matter.


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tunity to share this individuality with statusupdates, wording it how we like, our tokenmoment o agency in this highly controlledarena (assuming use o language is an acto agency). It is PR embodied, our riendsconsume us, our careully thought-out re-produced selves nothing is accidental.

The myth has become a mythwhen the myth becomes a signier orsomething else it is the social utilitynot o the sign, but o the myth, the placewhere we begin to dene ourselves anddene others: social constructs contingenton myths, plucked rom discourse, em-bodied in people. It is the myth o Gold-smiths, unctioning somewhere inside me;it is Adam Hutchings the cultural theorist,having his article title in French because itsounds more proound. It is the marketsinterest in the essence o our respective in-

dividualities, the wish to quantiy that dataand make it economically valid.

The triumph rst o democracyand now capitalism, in their newly unques-tionable guises, and the hyperreality thatmediates them, renders ideology itsel amyth. Our societies and economies areincreasingly depoliticised and naturalised,saturated with consumerism. There, withinthis myth, we wander under the omni-present glare o CCTV, window-shoppingthrough lie, both the watched and thewatcher, each and everyone a myth in theirown right. Like a satellite navigation system,a myth to guide us, inorm us, tell us whenwe have done wrong, we enlist the myth aswe advance up the street o lie. We sur-render our instinct to the sat-nav, we sur-render our being to the myth.

REFERENCES:Barthes, Roland. Myth Today in Mythologies. London & New York, 1993Baudrillard, Jean. The Transparency o Evil: Essays on Extreme Phenomena, trans. James Benedict.London: Verso, 1993.Fisher, M. Capitalist Realism. Ropley: 0 Books, 2009.Fukuyama, Francis. The End o History and the Last Man. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1992.Ltticken, Sven. Playtimes in New Let Review 66, November-December 2010, 125-140.Moue, Chantal. Hegemony and New Political Subjects: Toward a New Concept o Democracyin Marxism and the Interpretation o Culture. Chicago: University o Illinois Press, 1988, pp. 89-105.

Virilio, Paul. The Inormation Bomb, trans. Chris Turner. London: Verso, 2000.iek, Slavoj. The Plague o Phantasies. London: Verso, 1997.

NOTES:1. Barthes myth diagram, Mythologies, p. 1102. iek explains how the diering attitudes o Germany, France, and Britain/America are refectedin their relative methods or the disposal o their shit.3. Ltticken traces conceptions o play to its contemporary immersion within the working day,typied by Googles Googleplex, a beacon o post-Fordist employment sensibilities.


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simple meaning: a woman is throwing anobject at a shop window; a police oceris attacking the crowd. And on the otherhand the pictures are unmistakably therein order to signiy something else to me.Inasmuch as they are addressed to me sitting at home, reading my newspaper,while I sip a cup o tea they tell me clearly:We are photographic examples illustratingthat, because o the protest, where therewas once peace, there is now violence.A set o similar pictures in the DailyMirror website went under the nameStudent protest in London turns to

violence. Another collection, publishedin the Guardian was entitled: Studentprotests: peaceul gathering turns nasty.Demonstrations and rallies turn intoviolence and nastiness like milk let underthe sun. Thereore, violence is not inscribedin any system o meaning, it simply appears,naturally and inexplicably. This exemplaryvalue o the image is produced, at least inpart, by the thick og surrounding the actionit depicts. The image can tell me very littleabout the demonstrator and why she isperorming a certain action; it cannot showme what happened immediately beore and


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Demonstrations and rallies turn into violence and nastiness like milk

let under the sun. Thereore, violence is not inscribed in any system o

meaning, it simply appears, naturally and inexplicably.

immediately aterwards; even less can it tell

me the story o the protester and o thepoliceman: what orders were given, whatwords were said, what system o poweris at play in such an action. The picture isorever ramed and its temporal and spatialsurroundings remain inaccessible. Inevitably,the images undamental signication is toimpose itsel on its viewer as an example oexceptional violence.

We are conronted by a double

level o inscription. The meaning o thepicture may well be just this: a youngprotester is throwing a computer screeninto a shop window. Yet, I see very wellthat it wants to signiy something moreto me: that the protests were violent, thatparticipating in a protest means to openup a state o exception and a state odanger that breaks the normal working othe state. This double level o inscription is

what Roland Barthes called the mythicalmetalanguage. There is a meaning, ormedat the linguistic level a protester isperorming a violent act that, reduced toempty orm, is urther lled up by a signied:the violence o the protest opposes itselto the normality o peace. Finally, it appearsthe image is a sign o an exceptional andincomprehensible violence.

I one encloses the pictures in a

purely linguistic system, the pictures do not

speak or themselves; rather, they pose a

series o questions that can be answeredonly in a mythical orm: Why is theprotester perorming a violent act? What isthe relation between this violent act andthe wider events that took place duringthe protest? What is the relation o thisparticular act o violence with the generalsocial system in which it takes orm? Whatcompound o orces and what existentialand historical conditions guide the hand

o the protester? In other words, what isthe political and historical meaning o thisact?

This questioning perormed bythe sign at the linguistic level opens thepicture to the necessary appropriation o itsorm by a mythical structure o signication,which allows the reader to give an answerto her discomorting multitude o doubts.In order to enter this wider system o

signication that makes the picture political,nevertheless, the image must empty itselo its contingency. We must put in bracketsthe particular and contingent conditions othe protester and o the act, in order to lltheir actions with a wider political meaning.This political meaning is the motive, causingthe myth to be uttered. In contemporarybourgeois society the hegemonic politicalmyth in relation to violence is that we live in

a state o prosperity and peace, a civil order


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opening the possibility o an alternativepolitical myth whose ecacy can bedetermined only through resistance andstruggle. This political mythology wouldappeal to a Foucauldian and historicistunderstanding o violence or which:[] political power does not beginwhen war ends. Law is not pacication, orbeneath the law, war continues to rage inall mechanisms o power, even in the mostregular. In the smallest o its cogs peace iswaging a secret war. Peace itsel is a codedwar (Foucault, 2003: 50).

A meta-language o signicationthat would nd its concept in a simpleBenjaminian ragment: catastrophe issimply that things go on (Benjamin, 1985:51). In other words, violence can onlybe understood against the backgroundo a particular historically determinedconception o the state we live in, inwhich single acts o violence will inevitablybe inscribed. Critical theory, thereore, isnothing but the attempt to disentangleourselves rom the assumption o peaceas normality in order to read the politicalevent against the backdrop o an ongoing

political conrontation which has itsmaterial maniestations and its cognitivetruth-eects.

We are constantly in a state oexception, a magmatic and pervasive stateo violence in which subjective violenceinscribes itsel. Objective violence is likethe dark matter, it is that historico-politicalcompound o orces whose nature escapesrepresentation, and yet has real eects thatwe can witness with our eyes every day.For a long time physicists were conrontedby strange and uncanny movements omaterial particles that seemed to escapemeaning. These, just like the violenceportrayed in these images, appeared asully natural movements in the sensethat they were not caused by anythingbut nature in general. Now we say thatit is the invisible contingency o the darkmatter that guides, and lies behind, thosemovements. The myth o the real spectreo capital, a historical orce at once violentand subterranean, enters the arena againstthe naturalization, neutralization anddepoliticization o violence. .

REFERENCES

Barthes, R. Mythologies, London: Jonathan Cape, 1973.Benjamin, W. Central Park. New German Critique 34 (1985).Foucault, M. Society Must Be Deended. Lectures at the College de France 1975-76. London: PenguinBooks, 2003.


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by LARA CHOKSEY

WHAT WE CAME FOR

Bright lights at Waterloo,Sweep o rubbish under brush.

Yellow rays beam promises,Drown the crowd and persecute.

Electric boards o times and placesCondition operating spaces.

We travellers sit silent,Joined by dots o coee drops.

Unseen cords bind limbs to plastic chairs,Tied up sts clutch wilted pasts.

Once the world was dark,The platorms blue and shadowed.

We ran to stalls or eggs and packs o cards,

Ran back to trains and ate and played.

Then light injected lie,Expectation turned demanding.

Things became measured.

Blank fuorescence grips us senseless,An exit lined with cars and buses.

Orange lamps spectre concrete paths,Forbidding journeys into dark.

Cornered shadows shiver mute sobs,

Wrenching marching breaking passingChronological masks.

Eyes turned to endless tunnels,We travellers depart.


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Coalition o the Willing is the latestshort animation lm by Knie Party,otherwise known as Simon Robson,

lm director and animator. Previousprojects have included What Barry Said,made in response to the US invasion o Iraqand animated sections oTaking Liberties, adocumentary addressing the decline o CivilLiberties in the UK since 1997. Coalition othe Willingcritiques capitalism through thecurrent ecological crisis and posits thepotential o open source culture and socialnetworking as the solution. Simon workedin coalition with a number o animators.The stylistically dierent sections o the lm

were posted online in the orm o a blog asthey were completed. This opened up anonline space or discussion even beore thelm was nished. Ideas about collaborativeand collective working are thereorerefected both in terms o the lms contentand through its mode o production.

The title, Coalition o the Willing,reerences George Bushs use o the termor those nations willing to back the war

in Iraq. War is reerenced throughout thelm but in terms o the war eort neededin response to the ecological crisis; that isby necessity o reducing production andconsumption, a war on consumer capitalism.Ater introducing the post-Copenhagenglobal situation as ecological stalemate,Coalition o the Willing traces the currentorm o neoliberal capitalism back to the

1960s. It argues that a new generation

intent on rebelling against their parentsworld o wartime austerity and Fordistlabour ound new orms o expressionthat were quickly subsumed by capitalismas a resh market to sell consumer items

to. However, it also attests that the 60swas just as much about collective actionas it was individual gratication, and thatit was this spirit that transormed society.The lm contends that the open sourcesotware movement continues thistradition with people contributing to thesource code or the good o the wholerather than or individual gain. It tells us thata global collaborative movement could be

organised through the tools o Web 2.0 anduses Wikipedia and Facebook as exampleso models that could be adapted to worktowards the green war eort. At the endo the lm we are entreated to Log on,Converge and Swarm.

I watched the lm in the cinematicspace o a London Short Film Festivalscreening. Although broadly sympathetic tothe arguments made, ar rom eeling redup, I elt beaten down by one o the manyliteral and metaphoric hammers that eaturein the lm. The other lms in the programmewere all short documentaries which wereeither observational or personal in style.Only those rom a personal perspectiveused any prolonged voiceover. Coalitiono the Willing, however, used voiceover allthe way through the lm over and above

the constantly changing graphics, music


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and sound eects. Serious, authoritativeand urgent, reminiscent o old governmentinormation lms and wartime propaganda,it guided us through the visual and aural

bombardment towards the solution tothe ecological crisis. Viewed in relation tothe other lms in the programme, therewas very little space or refection. Therewas scant opportunity or the audience tothink independently or come to our ownconclusions. We were denitively told whatthe solutions were and how they wouldwork. Coalition o the Willing advocates

that through the Internet, people couldcontribute to the design o new greenproducts and innovations as well as givingtheir time to take par t in practical projects.Theorists such as Michael Bauwens et alhave gone so ar as to suggest that this kindo contribution could even become thebasis or a whole new economic model.With both the anti-cuts protests happeninghere and the momentous events in the

Middle East, we can see how eective Web2.0 tools are or organising activists andmobilising numbers o people. It is veryobvious that social networking media have

an important part to play in disseminatinginormation and organising people in a waythat is quite revolutionary and ground-breaking. However, using it to create newdesigns and products raises the question oeconomic exploitation and points to wherecurrent conservative neoliberal ideas aboutBig Society voluntarism overlap withmodels o sel organisation.

The lm asserts that change is

within our grasp i we harness the powerthat the Internet oers us and entreats usto behave as a swarm. Ideas about swarmpolitics and hive mind are very prevalentwithin theories about the potential o theInternet and social networking. There is nodoubt that we have to work against theatomisation caused by capitalist consumerculture and that en masse people arestronger and can achieve ar greater change

Nightmares , 2007


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than as individuals. But although the insectmetaphor oers ideas o some kind ocollective intelligence, insects do not thinkas autonomous individuals.

As a piece o propaganda or thewar eort,Coalition o the Willingtakes itselvery seriously. Propaganda aims to infuencean audience with a powerul message. It isdesigned to appeal both to our emotionsand our minds respectively. Strong visualand graphic language has historically beenassociated with propaganda (designed at itsinception to appeal to people with low levelso literacy). Coalition o the Willing implicitly

poses itsel in opposition to another mainway that graphic language and techniquesare used to infuence and bombard, namelyadvertising. I we compare these two kindso manipulative media techniques, the one,akin to the inormation lm, appeals to oursense o justice and attachment to a cause,encouraging the viewer to work togetherwith others to create a mass movement,while advertising appeals to us as individualsand works on our unconscious desires. Thelm takes the position that we need towake people up rom the hypnotic stateinduced by consumer culture. Advertisinghas its part to play in this mass hypnosis.Coalition o the Willingcould be read as anattempt to wake the audience up romthis state but the sustained bombardmento the visual, audio and verbal messages

competing or our attention could alsohave been intended to create hypnoticeect o its own. Through this sensorybombardment and the use o continualvoiceover, Coalition o the Willingentreats usto take action while treating the collectivecinematic audience as passive, with the tonebeing: there is no time to think, we have toact, theres a war on. While it is true that interms o actual climate change, we do notFluy the Transvestite , 2007

Cinema is a very powerul vehicle or

producing aect, but it also has the

potential to be a mode o thinking that

exists in the minds o the audience

as they ll in the spaces between theimages and inormation presented.

Coalition o the Willing seems to ignore

this potential or audience interaction.


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These Supine Days , 2007

know how much time there is let beorethe tipping point, this very seriousness andurgency can be o-putting i it does notcoincide with the audiences own anger oroutrage, hence eeling beaten up.Interestingly, one o the things that makessome advertising so eective is that it issometimes very knowing in its manipulation,the subtext is oten ramed in a clever, sel-refexive or parodying way: we know thatyou know that this is ridiculous and youwont believe it but play the game with usanyway. This ability not to take itsel tooseriously oten works in its avour as it

credits the audience with some intelligence(even i its not very much) while atthe same time being utterly stupid andridiculous (wink, wink). The way in whichcapitalism dynamically subsumes radicallanguage through advertising highlights thediculty the let has nding speech that isnot just empty dead rhetoric. The dicultywith straight propaganda is precisely thatits one dimensionality allows no space orsel critique.

Cinema is a very powerul vehicleor producing aect, but it also has thepotential to be a mode o thinking thatexists in the minds o the audience as theyll in the spaces between the images andinormation presented. Coalition o theWilling seems to ignore this potential oraudience interaction. However, rather than

a cinema audience, perhaps it is better tolook at Coalition o the Willing within thecontext o the medium that it has mostconnection with, that is, the Internet. Thesheer amount and speed o inormationthat we are able to access on the Internetarguably means that there is no space ordeep thinking, just time to register theinormation we have been given and thislm seems to work in a similar way. On


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the other hand, viewers can post theircomments immediately on the blog andshare them with others, like they could evenwhile the lm was being produced. This is a

very dierent kind o collectivity than thato a cinema audience and a dierent kind ointeractivity.

Are the Internet and Web 2.0better and more direct than collectivecinematic experience or just dierent?Are they any more likely to acilitatesocial change or do they both just providea eeling o collectivity that does notnecessarily result in action? These questions

lead to the much larger debate about howto build a mass movement with subjectsthat are able to remain autonomous withinit, something that the socialist movementgrappled with throughout the 20th centuryand which we will have to address i realchange is going to happen. Our challengeis how to sel organise and mobilise whilstensuring that people are able to think orthemselves. Deep thinking is still necessary.I am let wondering who Coalition o theWillingis or. Is it meant to wake us up romour consumerist slumber, or just preachingto the converted who have already loggedon? A hammer is a blunt instrument thathas its uses but sometimes subtler surgicalprecision would be more eective.

Viewed in relation to the other lms in the

programme, there was very little space or

refection. There was scant opportunity

or the audience to think independently

or come to our own conclusions. We weredenitively told what the solutions were

and how they would work.


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Night-Time squid or lovers , 2005, image by Alice White.www. alicewhiteart.com


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orm o political critique? It is this essayscontention that while myth in RATMs songis a radical response to ideology o thestate, its ecacy is however uncertain.

MYTH

In order to illustrate this claim, theinterpretation o RATMs song Take thePower Back ought to be taken a bit ur ther.Myth may possibly represent tales abouttemplate characters (archetypes), which goback to the origins o the society (Eliade1959). One could relate this generic idea tosome myths, the Greek ones in par ticular. Inthis vein Marxist resistance myth containedin the aorementioned song is embeddedin an older, Promethean myth, in as muchas it reers to a hero (people in struggle/working class), in some cyclical time, whoraises and steals power rom the gods(or in this case the state). Prometheusstole re rom the god Zeus to benetand empower a struggling humanity withtechnology. Heroes are carriers o hope,are they not? On the unconscious level,myths strike that amiliar, responsive chordin humans. Hence the musical product othe aorementioned band reveals itsel as aretelling o the resistance myth and I think itresonates with the audiences expectationso the meaning o resistance.So-called acts are raud.They want us to allege and pledgeAnd bow down to their God

Lost the culture, the culture lostSpun our minds and through timeIgnorance has taken overYo, we gotta take the power back!

Thus the resistance myth inRATMs song reveals itsel in terms othe Prometheus quest where the power(knowledge, re) needs to be reclaimedrom the state (gods). Translating into theMarxist terminology espoused by RATM,

our society is in a state o constant tensionbetween social classes, originally theoppressed proletariat and the bourgeoisie.The latter is the holder o all privileges.The struggle leads to physical expressionso dismay in the orm o a strike againstthe cause o that rage: () and tocounteract we gotta take the power back.At this point power and resistance to itsoppressive source, stands or possibility andthe opportunity to be an architect o onesown destiny according to RATM. I oughtto explain why I reer to such resistance interms o a myth.

Marxs writings in this analysisare considered to be romantic to acertain extent, especially in his depictiono a struggling class that is powerless,overwhelmed by ideology, until it takesthe power back. This is in accordance witha traditional reading o Michel Foucaultstheory o power and his critique o Marxismas a revolutionary process (Foucault 1980).Foucault recognized the increasinglyelusive character o power in modernWestern society and that it is directedat our bodies whereas Marx locates itwithin consciousness and ideology. JereyNealon (2008) has extrapolated Foucaultsphilosophy, revealing the impossibility toidentiy and locate the exercise o powerand o resistance outside o the humansown body. Power, ater investing itsel in thebody, nds itsel exposed to a counterattackin that same body (Foucault 1980:56).

Hence, according to Nealon, work oncontemporary culture must consistentlybe reinscribed outside the binary realmo resistance versus power (2008:111).Thereore a reerence in a RATM songto an oppressor, which has been located in the state is somewhat misleading.The complexity o Foucaults idea revealsprecisely that there are orms o oppressionbut no obvious oppressor whom we can


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try to resist. Bureaucracy is one example oFoucauldian orms o oppression.

Foucaults ideas about power wereinfuenced by what Friedrich Nietzschestermed the will to power, a primordial willto establish ones domination. Authoritiesagenda, be it the state or the church, isclearly to contain that potential all humanspossess. Oten our (Western) commonperceptions o power, or the Nietzscheanwill to power, islimitedto the (distractive)binary distinctions oten projected asclass dierences. Thereore the appeal oconventional messages communicatedin RATMs song Take the Power Backresonates with our socialist convictions.The power is out there, and the state hasit but ultimately it must be returned to thepeople (proletariat).

Step back, I know who I am

Raise up your ear, Ill drop the style and

clear

Its the beats and the lyrics they earThe rage is relentless

We need a movement with a quickness

You are the witness o change

And to counteract. We gotta take the

power back

RITUAL

According to Zach de la Rocha, lead singer,the purpose o the band is to bridge thegap between entertainment and activism;rst and oremost, thats our goal (Gavin2000). This statement is supported by thebands bio on their authorized websitethat lists their involvement in a great dealo political activism. One o their recent andspectacular answers to an requests was aree gig in Finsbury Park, London. Although

I was not able to attend this particular

perormance I had a chance to participatein an earlier one, during an annual gatheringbranded the Download Festival, in June2010. RATM were one o the invited artists,and had been much anticipated ater theband had split in 2000 to reorm in 2007.Though beore I relate the ritual tellingo the myth to RATMs song, I will briefyoutline some anthropological denitions othe phenomenon.

There have been manyethnographic and theoretical studies oritual (such as Leach 1968; Bloch 1989;Turner 1995). Essentially ritual is an act,but to distinguish it rom just any actionit is oten spoken o in context o thesacred (which has the connotation oseparateness). Thereore, to use a parallelagain, ritual in its structure resembles asanctied act one could experience duringany church mass. It involves a priest, orother competent ocial who leads theceremony: there is an oering, such as theEucharist, in some cases sacricial animal,or plant. The most compelling eature othe ritual is the ormalizing attribute othe gesture. Edmund Leach dened suchceremonies and rites as non-instinctiveactions (Leach 1968). What I observedduring a day at the Download estival, touse this parallel, was a ceremonial (priestly)communication with the crowd. Zach dela Rocha took on the role o a messengerwho, by way o energetic perormancecommunicated a mythical content to

the wide reception. The context o theact is important too. The stage duringthe perormance was decorated withpotent revolutionary paraphernalia, likeCommunist red stars, which only reinorcedthe impression that something special wasoccurring. The gathered crowd respondedto the musicians with awe and worshipulgaze but at times with animation dependingon the pace o the music.


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channel an eective story, igniting this activepotential. The story told by the perormer isappealing on its own but together with theritual it unleashes even more. In this case, one

cannot be interpreted without the other.Only then the revolutionary potential alsocontained in the myth becomes apparent.The opportunity unravels beore us, likethat o Georges Batailles (1991) vision ocollective sovereignty and revolutionarystruggle being enacted in the estival.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

I do not intend to dismiss resistance and itscreative orms, be they music perormance,protest, strike, or demonstration asirrelevant or invalid approaches to, whatappears to be, a Hobbesian struggle orcontrol. Instead I have ocused on the roleo mythical content and its reception in theperormance o a RATM song that literallycalls on us to take the power back. Mythand ritual together are potential channels

through which orce fows to reach andinfuence the recipients. However the time-worn Communist ideals might obscure thesolution to what is happening presently inthe society. I would suggest that as humanswe exercise our will/power all the time, andto go against the established order o things,or to not buy and consume in abundance,presents just some o the possibilities. Callit will or power, it is in everything in all our

conscious acts. The myth o resistance, the

An argument about the nature o thecommunication medium, such as a song,was put orward by Maurice Bloch (1989).In his words, [r]itual is an occasion where

syntactic and other linguistic reedomsare reduced because ritual makes specialuses o language: characteristically stylizedspeech and singing (Bloch 1989:20).Eective singing requires special qualitieslike skilled perormance o melody,dynamics or rhythm, privileged over sayingthings normally, and or Bloch this aectsthe meaning and reception. Consequentlylanguage ormalised in such a restrictive

way, according to Bloch, is impoverishedbut that has a purpose: The individualityand historicity o events disappear sinceirrespective o minor dierences theseevents are all like the scriptural examples(Bloch 1989:27). To summarize, the songin retaining all o the discussed traits hasa potential to reinorce a ritual with itsauthoritative orm and mythical content.In myth, timelessness o the story and

temporality o the gesture make the wholeexperience more proound. In Take thepower back the message o the songbecomes timeless through the ritual thataccompanies it; that is, the public releaseo rustration during the estival has adesirable eect. While the lead singer isan agent perorming the chanting and thusinitiating the ritual, the crowd also activelyparticipates. Nevertheless it is apparent

who is in a position to enchant and to

the ritual process becomes a cue to understanding the altered state experienced

collectively during a estival. The human bodies draw together in rhythmic seizures

devoting themselves to the music, an experience perhaps best described in terms o a

mystical religious observance.


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Drawn East, the marshes, ootbridge over the Lea.Mounting excitement, intoxicating dizzying syntax, endless architectures. Red lipsticksmeared across ace, eyes fashing with the thrill o an encounter. We pick through ruins,an abandoned rose garden, bleached landscapes; we roam under motorway fyovers,towerblocks cascading down embankments.Time, multi aceted and crystalline. Language shiting. Heaps o tyres smoulder, nuclearbunkers echo beneath sot ground.Sky glowing violet. Beyond the heaps o dusty bricks, the crumbling walls a huge steelstructure rises ,spanned with ivy and grati traces.

Top: Abandoned pub. Below: Trowbridge estate


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LEARNING HOW TO

DISAPPEAR:

by DAN TAYLOR

my time with the Deptford Psychogeographical Association

Time in the late-age was bound by rules, necessities: or a little while Id been workingin a supermarket; beore that, cleaning oces, bar-work, child-minding in the evenings.That was ne. Too tired to do anything else, hands raw and eet sore, my instincts

quelled, I could pay the rent on my th foor Deptord bedsit and send a little moneyhome. But when that kind o work dried up there was drink and little else. An archaichabit now, given how most citizens under the age o 40 were dependent on prescription

drugs, but it did something else or me. It touched into a place I used to joke was reedom.The illegal stu was too expensive or dangerous to take now that theyd closed up allthe national borders, as well as the London security ring. When Id been working as aparty perormer/escort I had approved ID access to get into the City, at least then youcould move around London. But this group o rich nance clients got way too hands-onone evening, and when I reused one guy broke my nose. Luckily I managed to get awaybeore he could orce his way urther, but Id been blacklisted rom perormer work since.I was just the scrag end o pissed dockers and engineers passing through the south eastdistrict. Im racing ahead though, and or once this aint about me. This is about Ehud, andhis nocturnal wanderings. Dark places. Boredom. Full-moon nights.

Ehud was like me. He washed his hands obsessively, shaved and sprayed himsel in ragrancesat least twice a day. His shadow had twice the presence he did. Silent, lanky, hands dgetinginside the pockets o his black Harrington jacket, short black hair, olive skin. Orderly. Almostnormal. People thought we were sister and brother. He had CHRISTINE tattooed onthe ront o his neck above his Adams apple. Most o the people round this part oLondon had branded themselves in similar ways. Whether they enjoyed the pain o thissel-modication or just the end o etching was a riddle to me. Yet why they chose Ehudas a specimen or the Department o Opportunity Social Retting Programme wasntthat mysterious. Remove the tattoos, delete the nervous data o his twenty-something

years, reboot his biopsyche and install a new successul programmed-persona, he could


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On my way back to my Nannas, I passed the boarded up school, but this time I couldsmell smoke and hear shouting rom inside. Any kind o human noise was pretty unusualcompared to the consistent speech and projections o the multimedia advertisementsstacked all over the district. Curious, I ventured inside the now unlocked school entrance,through an old dusty corridor, through to what must have been an inner courtyard wherethe shouting was coming rom. I saw a group o girls and boys shouting and laughing.Two boys lited up an old media unit and threw it onto the raging re burning throughthe pyre o piled ridges, radiators, old books and media boxes. They couldnt see me, socontent were these strange children within themselves. I wandered home, eeling dizzyand everish.I was very sick or a long time ater. I dont think I let my bedsit or at least a couple oweeks. I had enough water and painkillers, and my sister came over ater a week to lookater me. Imprisoned by vicious labyrinthine dreams. I lost my eyesight or a little while.

*The DPA was becoming more and more active, taking over some o the local shops,organising literacy sessions and community work. Rosa and Harris were largely leading itnow and its original and more occult bent was disappearing. As had Ehud. I asked Rosa ished seen him at all recently, but thered been no sign o him or weeks. From checkingthrough his contact ID I knew where he lived, so that aternoon I brought over a coupleo large bottles o drinking water ater another local shortage. I dressed up. I was lookingorward to seeing him now I elt healthy again. He lived on the third foor o a block roundPrince Street. I had never been to his place beore, and when he opened the door with aconused look on his ace it reminded me how remote he was. He lived with his brother,who spoke (and spoke over us) or the most part.

-You his girlriend yeah? Well you know hes been selected by Opportunity to be retted right?- No I didnt....- Well its an honour. Youre a good specimen arent you bruv? Apparently he looks a bitlike this rst chairmen o one o the data companies, Apple or something. They shouldapicked me! But dont worry, this moneys gonna help us out. And youll have a better liethan just taking your pills round here. Youre going to be happy bruv. Just a small thing. Youwont notice when youre going, and then youre someone dierent. I think wed all do it iwe could, have a ree lie and be rich.Ehud was silent the whole time, and though Id brought some wine over he asked me not

to stay. A ew days later I called again but he was gone. Then I got a letter rom him, postedrom Harwich in Essex. It didnt make much sense, but it seemed like hed been retted itwas largely brie, but written and then scribbled out was STEVE ollowed by his real nameEHUD. There was so much sadness in that letter. I had to see what theyd done.

*Morning, a time Id hardly known in recent years. There were no coaches out o the city orthose with limited access, but it was easy enough to jump over the walls at one the moreobscure suburbs like at Brickkiln Wood in the east, as presumably Ehud had done. Fromthere on I headed to Billericay, then avoiding the motorways I tracked through the elds


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medium used generally by the state and advertisers. He had been here, but where washe now? In the distance, just by the road that exited the village, was a country pub thatoered rooms or the night.

- Yeah there was a weird bloke who came in last night, coming to think o it. He lookeda bit Arabic, you know. Well we wouldve, but it wouldve upset some o our customers.- Where did he go ater?- No. I mean, yes. But I dont know where he went.- What else is round here?- Just the beach and the old docks and air. Theres Felixstowe across the bay.- - Do you want to leave your contact ID in case he calls back?I ound the path, but with no help rom the gawping locals or that sweaty and pervy manwho ran the pub. I didnt even check or a room, I was so tired and getting angry. I hadno money anyway. My Opportunity Worker would be wondering why Id not shown upor my appointment today. The sun was already setting, burning through the heavy andlanguorous sky with rich burnished golden intensity, with a hum o peach and lavenderemanating around it. The pewter sea extended to innity. Somehow that concept gaveme a little hope. I ound the coastal path and reached the beach, ollowing the pebblycoast northwards towards the bright lights o the docks. The sky was quickly transorminginto a pale indigo cooled by the evening breeze and the distant cry o the gulls and thewaves. Ater perhaps hal an hour o this evening stroll there was still no sign o Ehud. Thecoastline began to snake round inward to the let, with the dock lights bearing brighterand bolder.

A shadow up by the rocks at the end o the beach caught my eye, and I ventured over.There were the remains o a re, now cool, some empty beer cans and plastic sandwichpackaging, his jacket, and olded inside his jeans and his shoes, and inside his right shoe hissocks and pants, and inside the let a t-shirt and some money. The air was still now, and thenight was rejoicing in a east o stars.The beach didnt quite end there. On the other side o the rocks were some old shingboats stacked up. I managed to wrest one and its oars rom their dusty stupor and dragit down to the astly-ebbing tide. THE BLUEBELL 314 FELIXSTOWE. Ater a minute o

gently rocking while the seagulls clamoured on, the boat seemed seaworthy. I slung mybelongings into the vessel, sinking the vodka beore chucking the empty bottle back ontothe shore. This time I did catch Ehuds coat. Gently, against the heavy moon I embarked outNorth, angelically weaving between two Maersk super-container ships. The men shouted,but or once, perhaps, I was ree, heading nowhere and everywhere. Maybe this nightmareo God had temporarily become something in a small way good. Maybe he had madeit across, to the other side. There was only one way o knowing. Sick o spectatorship, Irowed with all my heart knowing there could not possibly be any way back.


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PEPSI MAX MANHOODby NICHOLAS E. GLEDHILL

The human race, i we are to ollow the authorities, have in the course o the

ages developed three such systems o thought three great pictures o the

universe : animistic (or mythological), religious and scientic. O these, animism,

the rst to be created, is perhaps the one which is most consistent and

exhaustive and which gives a truly complete explanation o the nature o the

universe. . . . It would go beyond our present purpose to show how much o

it still persists in modern lie, either in the debased orms o superstition or asthe living basis o our speech, our belies and our philosophies.

Freud, Totem and Taboo

Myths get thought in man unbeknownst to him.

Levi-Strauss, Myth and Meaning


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In a recent television commercial or PepsiMax, a young man is sitting in a bar tryingto attract the attention o a beautiul

woman. He oers to buy her a drink, andshe turns him down. We can see right awaywhat the situation is. He is besotted, butshe isnt interested in him. Shes way out ohis league. Just another loser, we cant helpthinking, as an age-old clich is played outbeore us or the millionth time. But wait,perhaps this time things will be dierent?Suddenly, on a television screen behind thebar, a news fash. The clientele all silent. Areporter, clearly distressed, is explainingthat an enormous meteorite is aboutto hit the earth. Lie as we know it willbe exterminated within minutes. Ater amoment o stunned silence, as i to conrmwhat we dared not believe, the bartenderleaps onto the counter screaming Were allgonna die! Panic ensues. The bar empties.Except that is, or our lonely Romeo andhis reluctant Juliet. He looks at her again,questioningly, and this time as she returnshis gaze her eyes seem to say Well, whatthe hey? Im about to die anyway, so I mayas well spend my last moments rutting likean animal on the lthy foor o this bar withsome stranger. As we all know, this is thestandard, rational response to the onset oArmageddon. When the worlds about toend, sexual politics is suspended. You justuck whoever happens to be closest toyou. Those are the rules. And, sure enough,the pair promptly tumble to the foor in a

passionate embrace.We cut to another scene.

Presumably its a bit later on and, surprisesurprise, the world hasnt ended ater all.And whats this? Our plucky hero romthe bar, plus the excitable bartender, plusthe reporter rom the news fash are alltogether, celebrating. How is this possible?We are amazed. Around the trio are strewnthe paraphernalia o an amateurish lm

shoot: camera, tripod, backdrop showingmeteorite looming in sky, etc., all in whatlooks suspiciously like the back room o abar. Hang on a minute . . . suddenly it dawnson us: its all been a ruse! The whole newsfash thing was bogus, a set-up, a cunning ployto get our hero a bit o no-strings sex withthe girl o his dreams. How audacious! Howingenious! And above all, we nd ourselvesthinking, what breathtaking camaraderie;what devotion rom this mans two riends,who have gone to such great lengths justto help him satisy his peccadilloes. Whatne mates he has. What an unsurpassedcrew. Whats more, it is clear that throughhis conquest all three have achieved akind o victory, a mutual accomplishment,like when the star quarterback scores atouchdown but the whole team wins thegame. They dance a victory dance. High-ves all round. It is truly touching. And now,as we smile at their antics, can we help butwonder at what other hilarious scrapesthey must habitually get themselves into,these dive bar musketeers? What kind oenthralling tapestry o high-spirited eats,joie de vivre and endless male bonding mustthe lives o these handsome young ellowsbe? How can our dull-as-shit lives on theother side o the TV screen ever, possibly,measure up? Is there some kind o secretormula that theyre using? Some kind omagical elixir perhaps, that will impar t uponus mere drones the sel-condence, energyand inspiration necessary to carry out

operations on the scale o that to whichwe have just borne witness? Triumphantly,they each crack open a Pepsi Max.

*What are we to make o this gem rom theworld o advertising? Surely it goes withoutsaying that none o its audience, not eventhe credulous teenage boys at which itis presumably targeted, actually believe


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that Pepsi Max1 has any real capacity tomagically empower its consumers. Not inthe same way they would believe that, say,Paris is the capital o France, or 2 + 2 = 4.Surely the 21st Century audience accepts,on some level at least, that advertising likethis is basically nonsense. Whats curious isnot whether people are taken in by theantastical claims o manuacturers or theirproducts but rather that the truth or alsityo these claims, on a literal level, doesntreally matter any more at all. We are, i youlike, caught in a kind o psychological ritual.As soon as we turn on our TV we disavow,like the Lacanian etishist, our knowledge ohow things really are and give ree reign toour antasies: je sais bien, mais quand meme. . . But whose exactly are these antasies?Where do they come rom? As wegradually lose our grip on reality, perhapswe should question whats being oisted onus, by whom, and or what reason.

The events in our Pepsi Maxcommercial take place in an alternativeworld. Obviously were not supposedto take it seriously, so we suspenddisbelie and play along. But its a worldthat were increasingly exposed to andwhich is becoming impossible to avoid,as it permeates more and more o theenvironment we inhabit. We are surroundedby windows into it. Its a world o audaciousdeeds, like the ones outlined above. Its aworld where everything alls into place.Its a world where anything can happen,

a world o super powers, wizards, aliensand vampires. Its a world o immeasurablygreater possibilities than our own, in whichwe are constantly encouraged to immerseourselves. It mirrors our own world,yet its a world that is plastic, endlesslymalleable, irresistible, mesmerising. A worldo symbols, its ree rom the physical andlogical restraints that conound us in ouractual lives. This is the hyperreality that so

obsessed Baudrillard: more real than thereal . . . acting as a lure to which the orceomyth is attached (2006: 81). Levi-Straussonce wrote that history had replacedmythology in our societies and ullled thesame unction (2001: 36). Perhaps he gotit wrong. Ater all, who cares about historyany more? Didnt that end in about 1989?Instead, we behold the myths o our ageevery time we look into a screen.

Under the auspices o this antasyzone Pepsi Max can be represented assomething ar greater than it actually is,and this hyperrealised version o it quicklybecomes more relevant to its value than itsactual existence in reality. What could bemore prosaic than an actual can o Pepsi?Its the dream that sells, and the advertiserso this product are basically encouraging usto buy into a myth. It is possible to ramethis in some o the same terms used byanthropologists studying magic in primitivesocieties. In its advertising, Pepsi Max ispresented as endowing something likethe magical orce usually known as Mana.Ostensibly an inert substance, it in actsympathetically imparts upon its users aorm o mystical power, enabling them toachieve great eats. Its like a magic sword,a talisman, a ring o power. Even whenPepsi Max is not physically present we cansee that it acts upon its devotees, guidingthem, inspiring them: a kind o ether,imponderable, incommunicable, whichspreads o its own accord . . . produced in a

closed circuit in which everything is manaand which is itsel mana (Mauss, 2001:138).

When we watch this advert, whatwere being invited to do is enter a par ticularzone o hyperreality which is in the grip othe mana o Pepsi Max. For the sake oconvenience, lets call this place Pepsi MaxReality, or PMR. Within PMR we also havesome contingent concepts, such as Pepsi


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Max Woman (PMW) and, o course, PepsiMax Man (PMM). Crucially, a undamentalaspect o the mana o Pepsi Max is that thepower it imparts is exclusively masculine.

This renders PMR a kind o phallic zone, inwhich reality is tailored entirely to PMMsneeds, and everything that takes placein PMR does so in a og o sweat andtestosterone. Just like powerul cars, razorsand Yorkie bars, Pepsi Max is symbolic o allthings male. Girls simply do not drink PepsiMax. Pepsi Max is everything girls arent.Its tough, virile, ocused and single-minded.It knows what it wants, and how to get it.

The bearer o a can o Pepsi Max, we areencouraged to believe, is a certain type oMan (with a capital M) and what werereally being sold is the aspirational myth oHim. What kind o man is he, this Pepsi MaxMan? Are we right to idolise him? There arereasons we should be worried.

Firstly, and most disturbingly, itis clear that there is something especiallyjarring about this par ticular advert. Havent

we just witnessed a rape?It certainly seemsthat in PMR a orm o rape, at least oneinvolving complex psychological coercioni not outright physical orce, is not onlyacceptable but also openly encouraged.2Clearly, PMW is not interested in sexwith PMM until she is tricked by him intobelieving that the world is about to cometo a sudden, violent end. The resultingpsychological trauma apparently compels

her into an act that we, as viewers, know

the whole news fash thing was bogus,

a set-up, a cunning ploy to get our hero

a bit o no-strings sex with the girl o his

dreams. How audacious! How ingenious!

And above all, we nd ourselves thinking,what breathtaking camaraderie

she wouldnt have been willing to engagein under normal circumstances (we havealready seen how she rejects PMMs earlieradvances). All along, PMM is well aware o

the truth o the situation. Not only this, butthe whole thing is pre-meditated, intricatelyplanned and carried out with ruthless sang-roid. Suddenly, a lot o dicult questionsare beginning to arise about what kind oplace PMR is. Is there AIDS in PMR? CouldPMW be pregnant? More disturbingly,has PMM done this kind o thing beore?Could he and his two buddies actually bea gang o unusually inventive serial sexual

predators? They certainly look like theyknow what theyre doing. Are there anypolice in PMR, and shouldnt somebodycall them? The overall message is loud andclear: It is right and proper or PMM to tryto uck PMW whenever he can, willing orunwilling, by whatever means necessary, andurthermore it is the duty o his riends (hisPMFs) not only to condone this behaviourbut to actively assist him in it, wherever

possible. The mana o Pepsi Max can helpthem do this.As well as being a rapist, Pepsi

Max Man is also remarkable in that he hasno conscience. He is entirely motivatedby the gratication o his own desires,untroubled by any possible consequences.PMM lives in the moment, and his goals areshort-term. To acilitate this, the mana oPepsi Max dispenses with useless traits like

guilt and sympathy, replacing them instead


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REFERENCESBaudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Michigan: University Press, 2006Freud, Sigmund. Totem and Taboo. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961Levi-Strauss, Claude. Myth and Meaning. London: Routledge, 2001

Mauss, Marcel. A General Theory o Magic. London: Routledge, 2001Walter, Natasha. Living Dolls The Return o Sexism. London: Virago, 2010

NOTES1. A product which, much like Diet Pepsi, Diet Coke and the marvellously named Coke Zero, isremarkable in being a comestible actually marketed on the act that it contains no nutritional valuewhatsoever, a kind o liquid chewing gum. More o an absence than a thing, it could be seen as theultimate in commodity etishism.2. In act, the Advertising Standards Authority did receive complaints about this ad, along thelines that it condoned rape and was demeaning to women. However, these were rejected by the

ASA on the grounds that the ad was obviously antastical and could clearly not be imitated byviewers. So, its okay because its lies.3. Note also that PMM is a young, attractive, heterosexual white man. Would the sinister rapeyelements o the ad have been less palatable i it had depicted an overweight, buck-toothed PMMtrying the same tactics? What about a much older PMM and a much younger PMW? Whatabout three black PMMs and a white PMW? We all know that theres no way Pepsi would havecommissioned this. What does this tell us about PMR? Although it is, on the one hand, shockinglypermissive (or PMM at least), many other aspects o it are in act oddly strict. Fascist, even.

The advert can be viewed on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khm97C2j6aA


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Myth-making at the extreme borders o Empireby Luther Blissett


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This is not Luther Blissett!

not ail to re-emerge, indeed, it is comingalready. In reality its always been here, andwill come to surace as a treasure at theopportune moment. It will come, however,as a heterogeneous principle, when its veryprocess will reach the highest level. Wenever go back to the myth, we always ndit again whenever the oundations o timeare shaken by the threat o an extremedanger. New monstrous mythologies arealready taking orm at the chaotic borderso our decadent empire; the emperorsmythologists are drumming their call towar rom every corner. While singing o thetimeless struggle o good versus evil, theyproject new enemies, and they constructnew heroes. Complacency is deeat:Chernyshevskys plea to action, chtodelat? (what is to be done?) resonateseven more clearly today. The Luther Blissettproject suggests new orms o myth-makingas resistance.

Useless to say, together withBarthes and Cassirer, that power neverceases to speak; the mythical machine, inAgamben and Jesis terms, never ceases tospin. The Let, tied to the mast o rationality,listens and denounces the sirens o Capital

but seems increasingly unable to respond.Almost a century ago Sorel evoked themyth o the general strike to keep thehopes o revolution alive, to touch heartsand minds, and to avoid the normalizingpower o the biopolitical. For all itscontinued potency, we may not wish to pinour hopes on the general strike or in theervour o revolution; we need to nd newimages and new myths or new politicalpractices. But the question remains: shouldwe untie the knots that bind our bodiesand our creativity to the mast and startsinging our own mythical songs? Should weleave Ulysses and ollow Orpheus in ourstruggle to resist the alluring singing o thesirens dwelling in the mythical machine?How can we reconstruct the possibility omyth-making as a collective project capableo bringing orth images and metaphorsor continued political action in the aceo repeated ailure? And how can weavoid witnessing these poetical rupturesbeing once more recuperated, bent andneutralized by power? What we need, isat once a theory, a political myth and apractice o myth-making.


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SCENE 1. OUR HERO RETURNS.

The nights are long in the country, too longor a man like Karl Hero. The people othe new towns had at rst hungered orhis message o revolutionary emancipation,cheering especially noisily and sloshing theirlager around when he denounced theantics o the evil capitalists. They were lessenthused when he called on them to unitetogether as a class and take over the meanso production, As Karl preached the gospelo universal emancipation to hal-populatedpub car-parks, the locals wrestled withone another, poured beer over eachothers heads and scratched insults intothe windscreens o cars. Perhaps Londonwould be more welcoming.Karls tongue ran across his bottom lipas he scanned the desolate M25 service-station car-park, his aithul Ducatti purringback into lielessness. His nostrils faredwith the scent o gasoline and the socialeects o microwave dinners. It was aFriday evening. The Entertainment Parkwas ull o obese amilies gobbling downried chicken, jabbing their mobile phonesand arguing with one another. He hadnteaten or days. Out o desperation heswaggered through the automated doorso Perect Fried Chicken, all eyes suddenlyturning towards him in his black motorbikeleathers, with the various hand-drawnpatches o Lenin and Bakunin roughly sewnon, as well as the multicoloured insignia o

the south European Communist brancheshed passed through. Karl strolled insolentlytowards the counter and grabbed a largepiece o breaded chicken moments beoreit reached the slobbering mouth o a ruddy-aced trucker. The vegetable oil tasted sone. With his other hand he plucked thenewspaper rom under the shocked manseyes. Karl read on an open page:We need a more authoritative world.

Weve become a sort o cheeky,egalitarian world where everyone canhave their say Whats the alternativeto democracy? There isnt one. But eventhe best democracies agree that when amajor war approaches, democracy must beput on hold or the time being. I have aeeling that climate change may be an issueas severe as a war. It may be necessaryto put democracy on hold or a while.1Thats my bloody chicken you cheeky ---- !But it was too late. Karl was gone.

SCENE 2. BANDITOS HAVE

SEIZED BRITAIN.

Britain was once a peaceul and nice place,with lots o liberal values and that kind othing. But that was beore all this. Nowpacks o capitalist banditos have taken overthe landscape. The nanciers, estate-agents,insurance managers, businessmen and theirhacks had made up scare stories aboutthe economy being in danger o collapsingi they were prevented rom running thebanks, newspapers and industries withoutregulation. They said it would be necessaryor the good people to give up their rightsand liberties or the time being, agree tobe watched by CCTV at all hours o theday, and have all o their work, businessand personal lives monitored. For theirown saety o course, and only temporary.Pensions, working rights, democracyand dignity were extravagances that the

good people could no longer aord, saidthe banditos, all the while twiddling theirperumed moustaches and sniggering intotheir platinum cu-links. When the goodpeoples money disappeared into esotericnancial speculation machines, the banditosreassured them that only they knew howthe banking system worked. In London,the unemployed live in constant ear orthe uture - it is only a matter o time


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reclining next to a shimmering swimmingpool, sipping at bottles o Mexican lager.Occasionally there is an explosion o activity,and wads o cash are launched into the air,only to be retrieved almost immediately ina desperate renzy.I have no time or this nonsense! cries Karlsuddenly, pushing his way through a crowd obanditos chilling out by the Mayors door.The Mayors oce was expansive with a

foor o sparkling granite, its our white wallsadorned with a ew recognisable paintingsand also those 3D moving landscapes oAlpine peaks and Caliornian beaches, whichused to be ound in Chinese takeaways.Hero, utters the Mayor mellifuously.She holds out her hand, as i she expectingKarl to kiss it. She is a shrunken old woman,with bland eatures sparsely etched acrossher complacent oval ace. She was once

on the popular TV show Dragons Den,and her skin showed the traces o years oexploiting nave young entrepreneurs. Karlcan sense a class enemy. Ater a momentsconusion at Karls reusal to kneel downbeore her, the Mayor retracts her handand sits down.I know all about your case. You see Ive justbeen speaking to the Prime Minister.That Tory s---!, mutters Karl, in disbelie,

but the Mayor carries on speaking.

The land on which your riends estateis built is worth a lot o money. And ourlocal MP plans to build a luxury high-rise,complete with casino, helipad, penthouse,etc.. Its all in his sons name, Eton boy,lovely lad. Its all tax-ree, o course. BareFaced Thieves Ltd have already sold halthe properties and the things not evenbuilt! The mayor chuckles, picking out apiece o dirt rom under her thumbnail.

What about Bill and Jane, my riends? Youknow they have nowhere to go! How canyou do this, you vile, unspeakable cretin?cries Karl, his sense o drama soaring tonew levels o buoonery.Now calm down. They shouldnt havehidden an illegal pet on their rentedproperty. There is a pause, indicating thatthe Mayor considers the case closed. Sheeventually looks up again, surprised to see

Karl still standing in ront o her. I that is all,then please leave at once.Realising there is no dialogue to be heldwith this corrupt old hag, Karl explainsto the Mayor that the property Bill andJane are currently renting is in actualact his property. Karl waits or thisinormation to sink in beore going on,My mother, their ormer landlady, passedaway yesterday, yes that dear woman

who now incongruously appears in the

"The interior o the estate agent seems more like a trendy wine-bar, with banditosin striped shirts and gelled back hair reclining next to a shimmering swimming pool,

sipping at bottles o Mexican lager. Occasionally there is an explosion o activity, and

wads o cash are launched into the air, only to be retrieved almost immediately in a

desperate renzy."


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NOTES

1. James Lovelock, in an interview with The Guardian, March 2010: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock2. David Cameron, Decentralizing Unemployment; 23rd April 2024.3. Used to be called Woolwich, but the whole area and name was inevitably bought out by Barclaysater purchasing the areas eponymous local bank.4. On the 12th July 2034, the Department or Domestic Health and Welare passed a law banning

all pets on the grounds that they were becoming an acute public health hazard. Over the yearssince the Credit Crunch, more and more houses were abandoned as the poor and unemployedwere orced out o London, and as a result pets were let to roam the streets in search o oodand shelter. Cats especially multiplied at an alarming rate, and they star ted spreading diseases acrossthe poorer parts o the city. As soon as the problem reached the afuent areas, the new laws werepassed allowing animal rights to be suspended in such situations, and landlords now have the powerto evict instantly any tenant ound harbouring pets in their property.5. Nick Clegg, The New Politics: Liberalising Alarm-Clock Britain, The New Men-Men, and Memoirso an Emotional Guy, co-written with Niall Ferguson and Michael McIntyre (Shenzhen: Google,2019), 887 not even ascetic revolutionaries like Karl Hero could predict just how successul

Clegg's brand o yes-saying would be.6. People no longer have time or cooking, art, music, riendship or love, and regardless these skillswere lost when a business consortium led by News Corp. and Virgin Media took over the privatisedNational Curriculum in 2022. A Google-Mori survey o 2028 reported that the most commonactivity o citizens was travelling to distant industrial estates at the very periphery o large cities insearch o jobs that may or may not exist. The more ortunate healthy young couples have been ast-tracked into lucrative careers in the emerging economic society o the North Pole Developments.See Developing the Mental-apps or mega-bucks, The Sun, 19th Dec 2029.7. Once named Bairstow Eves, they elt that in the current climate o capitalist hegemony, one coulddrop the pretence and revert to the original title.


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Documents

Nyx, a noctournal – Issue 5: Myth