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Jerk (from Transnational Muscle Cars): Jeff Derksen

[Link:  Jeff Derksen ]

The sun glints off the chrome
bodies of the gondolas
of late capitalism
as they labour up the mountain.
The mountain is named
after a commodity. Art has made this
a nonalienated view. Is that what
we asked it to do? If "each day seems
like a natural fact" and if "and what we think
changes how we act" should art not
reveal ideology
rather than naturalize it?

These old idealisms, they burn me up
These old idealisms, what do they cover up?

You had a lovely critique
and you looked great, sexy
really, the way your world-market
pants might shock the bourgeoisie
into consciousness. But these days
I'm yearning not for a little outside
to call my own, although I like good
design too and do feel that the "workers"
(morphed "multitude") also live
outside of quotation marks
in this "the highest stage"--
but now I'm wanting transformation
rather than "structural adjustment"
to go with the primitive accumulation
and worn contradictions. Not more
of these natural facts ("globalization is").

But back to this "ocularcentric" art
as social goggles, the artist as
opthamologist. I want to see
the real relations
but you've got Nikes on and I like you
so I have to try and understand. And if
that shirt's from The Gap, then one arm was sewn
in Malaysia, the other in Sri Lanka. Why then
is it hard to "see" ideology when you're
wearing it? Is it "out there"? Or deeper inside
than even desire could get? That clarity
would lead to historical consciousness
is muddied to the point
where you wouldn't even recognize
your buddies once you got there. "Hey you
Louis!" (There is history
to spontaneity, anger, irony.)
"People have opinions / where
do they come from?" My idealistic belief
is that historical consciousness may come.
My sad cognitive mapping
is that overdetermined contradictions
don't lead to new social relations.
I want an art
more complicated than that.

Transnational Muscle Cars book launch invitation - Julian Gosper, designer