In the Footsteps of Library Angels

Just been reading John Jordan's excellent essay 'In the Footsteps of Library Angels'. Perhaps appropriately this felt like exactly the thing I needed to read right now, bringing together as it does some initial thoughts on the coincidences which seem to lead us through needed experiences with reflections on aesthetics and activism. I remember seeing John in a piece he did many years ago on pornography, a dimly lit uterine corridor leading to a chamber at the end into which you could peep through letterbox-sized slots to see him 'perform' in basque and stilettoes. In fact I think a wrote a review of that piece for the long-dead Hybrid magazine, although I can't remember if it was ever published. In the essay he talks about the necessary rejecting and conscientious avoiding of the labels 'artist' and 'activist'. Both terms categorise and isolate, suggesting alienating expertise and the claiming of responsibility for activities which should be the rights/duties of us all, as of course they are. We have no choice but to create/express and we have no choice but to be activists. Our presence in the world and our movements through it constantly leave traces and transform the landscape through the impressions of our passing. What we wear, or buy, or watch, or speak about, adds to the network of culture, weighting this set of connections and diminishing these others. To be alive and awake is always an aesthetic and a political act.

http://www.thisisliveart.co.uk/pdf_docs/SRG_Jordan.pdf