My time at Penn State is possibly coming to an end. Before I leave, I want to do something I should have done years ago.
The student populations at universities across the country have become apathetic. Education is not quite a first interest and specific communities do not benefit the whole. Overall, the intellectual, cultural, and social atmosphere of the American university is rapidly becoming rank and stale. There are oases, but many are too small and difficult to find.
Tomorrow, I will propose a new student organization to my composition professor. This organization will be dedicated to improving the cultural, social, and intellectual climate of Penn State through impromptu and extensively planned artistic performances and discourse. The club will be open to anyone interest in philosophy, art, performance, writing, thinking, or life in general.
There is intellectual discourse going on on this campus. I'm sure of it. But it's time we let this underground aspect of student life emerge and run free. "Art Is Resistance" takes its name from Trent Reznor's "Year Zero," where it is a fictional organization of artists and thinkers dedicated to rebelling against the sleepy-eyed public and a nation-wide culture dominated by mind-numbing pastimes and an overall lack of critical thinking or openness to examination.
This will be the analogous to the Fluxus movement of the late 1900's, but with a heavy-handed agenda: to bring the world around us into awareness in terms of its shortcomings, problems, and inherent beauty and power. I believe we can achieve all this through artistic performance.
Unlike other student groups, "Art Is Resistance" will focus on experimental and unconvential methods of performance that directly engage or surround the audience by crossing different schools of thought and media. The internet is as powerful a tool as ever, and few times in the past has the outdoors of the campus been seen as a performance stage.
We live in a time when people are so locked into themselves that they forget how awestruck by the world and life in general we all once were. I believe that the first step to reviving a true widespread academic community is artistic performance and intellectual discourse.
If I am here next year for grad school, this may be one of my big projects. If you're interested in this organization, I will gladly take suggestions or support. We will welcome with open arms.
Although perhaps not entirely what John S. Hall originally meant, I present the closing stanza of King Missile's "It's Saturday":
"If what I'm saying doesn't make any sense,
that's because sense can not be made,
It's something that must be sensed,
And I, for one, am incensed by all this complacency!
Why oppose war only when there's a war?
Why defend the clinics only when they're attacked?
Why are we always reactive?
Let's activate something
Let's f*** s*** up
Whatever happened to revolution for the hell of it?
Whatever happened to protesting nothing in particular, just
protesting! Cause it's Saturday and there's nothing else to do!"
The student populations at universities across the country have become apathetic. Education is not quite a first interest and specific communities do not benefit the whole. Overall, the intellectual, cultural, and social atmosphere of the American university is rapidly becoming rank and stale. There are oases, but many are too small and difficult to find.
Tomorrow, I will propose a new student organization to my composition professor. This organization will be dedicated to improving the cultural, social, and intellectual climate of Penn State through impromptu and extensively planned artistic performances and discourse. The club will be open to anyone interest in philosophy, art, performance, writing, thinking, or life in general.
There is intellectual discourse going on on this campus. I'm sure of it. But it's time we let this underground aspect of student life emerge and run free. "Art Is Resistance" takes its name from Trent Reznor's "Year Zero," where it is a fictional organization of artists and thinkers dedicated to rebelling against the sleepy-eyed public and a nation-wide culture dominated by mind-numbing pastimes and an overall lack of critical thinking or openness to examination.
This will be the analogous to the Fluxus movement of the late 1900's, but with a heavy-handed agenda: to bring the world around us into awareness in terms of its shortcomings, problems, and inherent beauty and power. I believe we can achieve all this through artistic performance.
Unlike other student groups, "Art Is Resistance" will focus on experimental and unconvential methods of performance that directly engage or surround the audience by crossing different schools of thought and media. The internet is as powerful a tool as ever, and few times in the past has the outdoors of the campus been seen as a performance stage.
We live in a time when people are so locked into themselves that they forget how awestruck by the world and life in general we all once were. I believe that the first step to reviving a true widespread academic community is artistic performance and intellectual discourse.
If I am here next year for grad school, this may be one of my big projects. If you're interested in this organization, I will gladly take suggestions or support. We will welcome with open arms.
Although perhaps not entirely what John S. Hall originally meant, I present the closing stanza of King Missile's "It's Saturday":
"If what I'm saying doesn't make any sense,
that's because sense can not be made,
It's something that must be sensed,
And I, for one, am incensed by all this complacency!
Why oppose war only when there's a war?
Why defend the clinics only when they're attacked?
Why are we always reactive?
Let's activate something
Let's f*** s*** up
Whatever happened to revolution for the hell of it?
Whatever happened to protesting nothing in particular, just
protesting! Cause it's Saturday and there's nothing else to do!"
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