Signs of life | Pupillary Reflex

Extraordinary renditions: the [moving] imagery you'll want in your video/graphics gallery of dissent

Image is everything, this we know. By now, if you want to get the attention of the masses you have to have the slickest visual style your talent, or equally often your money, can buy you. Be warned that politicians and policy makers intent on convincing you of the sound WMD-hunting basis for their illegal war, or that what the world needs is more surveillance and less dialogue, will use very flashy power point presentations and imaginative graphics to do so. Be comforted that those who are determined to help keep your head screwed on and your eyes open to a different world, can do the same. The look of dissent is not uniform, on its side are graffiti artists, filmmakers, video editors and a sea of other such talented individuals. It is often said that images are most interesting when they're open to interpretation. Maybe they're most successful when they crowbar your will and ability to interpret wide open.

The Design of Dissent
In this book published by Rockport, Milton Glaser and Mirko Ilic present a rich collection of graphic design projects voicing dissent against conflicts, economic/political systems, prejudices and oppression all over the world. The bulk of the works presented are from the modern era, concerned with events and developments of the past eight years though there are examples of campaigns dating from the seventies and earlier. Though not an individual work in itself, this book is included here because of its impressive reach, and because it demonstrates that today not only the economic or foreign policy of a handful of nations can wield global reach, but also awareness of their consequences too. Magazine covers and spreads, postcard projects, parodies of ad campaigns by large well-known companies, poster runs and more all meet in this volume to produce a cacophony of angry, derisive and arresting messages. The inspiration to be found here for aspiring artists to express their discontent rivals the outcry pouring forth from every page.

Graphic Agitation [2]
Another book, in fact a pair of, published by Phaidon and worthy of a dedicated entry. The Graphic Agitation books provide not only a rich visual catalogue and wealth of inspiration for those interested in the art of agitation and dissent. In Graphic Agitation 2, Phaidon also goes under the surface of the visual products of a number of campaigns dating from the 70s through the 90s to tell the story behind the movements and social reactions which authored them. The examples included and their explanatory notes will educate the reader on issues and campaigns from Bosnia to Outrage, the anti-fur trade movement to violent anti-capital protests of the late 90s. On top of that this book also describes the ways in which the protest and agitation scene itself has changed over the decades [making it something of an encyclopaedia], and the impact that the 'digital revolution' and dawn of the information era have brought to bear upon it. Examining a broad range of media including websites, magazine ads and graffiti, Graphic Agitation 2 celebrates the development, blossoming and recent vitality of this phenomenon, and does so in a layout and typeface that match the originality of the campaigns it documents. This is a book with many strengths and which would make a pretty backbone to any stay-at-home [or sneak-out-at-night-with-spray-paint-, or stay-up-online-doctoring-images-] dissident's bookshelf.

Banksy

Staying with the still-image, the work of Bristol-nurtured street artist/satirist/activist Banksy must by now be known to very nearly all. Having been just a part of the vibrant Bristol graffiti/hip hop scene which grew over the eighties and nineties, Banksy has made his indelible mark on Britain with nothing more than black spray paint and witty, iconic stencils. Famous around the world now for some years he has become part of the 'Cool Britannia' brand, and was even voted third in a YouGov poll to find art heroes among the under 25s, putting him above Leonardo da Vinci. But what earns Banksy his place on iDissent is the content of his work, the subjects at which he takes aim. The full range of this artist’s targets is too broad to do justice to here and is no doubt better discussed on a hundred or more specialist sites if not already familiar. Protests against the Iraq war in the UK have teemed with placards painted with Banksy's Girl with Bomb, Americans Working Overhead and the Smiley Reaper. His Rioter throwing a bunch of flowers, promoting peaceful left-wing resistance has found its way into the general consciousness even being appropriated for the Birmingham Critical Mass sticker campaign. Stencils of shark fins lurking under the stripes of a barcode, or animals tearing through them project his anti-consumerist message to us. For participants of the St Paul's riots of 1980, Banksy's Mild Mild West mural serves as commemoration and badge of character for the area, while according to the man who asked him to paint it, the piece epitomises the feelings surrounding the police break-up of the party at Winterstoke Road on New Year's Eve 1997/8. Whoever it 'belongs to', the Mild Mild West mural has come to be taken as a Welcome to Bristol sign and clearly denounces the use of force to break up the harmless partying of consenting individuals. On the international stage Banksy has taken his talents up against the West Bank wall in Palestine, with mixed results. While drawing the attention of more people to that monstrosity and satirising it in his own unique way, Banksy has also been asked to stop by the Palestinians living in its shadow who don't want it to be beautiful, but want it to be gone altogether.

Back home, one of Banksy’s latest works, near King’s Cross station in London, adds to his long-running campaign of ridicule against the surveillance society being built around us. The very slogan ‘One Nation Under CCTV’ deftly satirises the perpetuation of this paranoid Big Brother complex and its intrinsic links to the UK’s general policy of parroting the States in the matter. The final touch? Banksy painted it on a wall right next to, yet out of the view of, yet another CCTV camera. It’s only fair to note, the fact that Banksy has for a time now enjoyed the ability to put up scaffolding and take his time to produce his works [as he did for ‘One Nation Under CCTV'], and that they sell at auction houses for hundreds of thousands of pounds lifts him out of the ‘traditional’ graffiti world. However, the nature of painting artworks on walls in public view, and his dogged maintenance of anonymity carry through their credibility, and his.

For some, of course, Banksy is more or less just another trendy brand, easily recognisable and a slick looking cultural phenomenon to buy into, for posterity or to show your art-loving/youth culture credentials [a practice and a mindset he mocks and derides as much as the auction houses profit from]. For others, he’s made dissent trendy, cool and stylish with the dashing of an anonymous villain known only by a chosen pseudonym. He’s the modern highwayman of dissent in the UK, in the areas he chooses to comment on at least, thrusting humorous and thought-provoking images at us. While we just stand and stare, he’s sure to keep delivering.

V for Vendetta

Originally a graphic novel by David LLoyd and Alan Moore, this is a story that the Wachowski brothers of Matrix Trilogy fame transposed to the big screen in 2006. It is the film version which will be touted here, as it is almost definitely the more famous, and more appealing to the iGeneration than reading an entire book, or even several! Based on an original story couched in the Thatcherite UK, the film presents a 128 minute essay on a near-future England under a paranoid regime of cameras, curfews, patrols, one party tyranny and censorship. A population governed for their own good by a security obsessed committee beholden to its leader and his fanatical politics is addressed by a masked hero who urges them to see through the security they enjoy to the freedoms they have lost. Invoking the example of Guido Fawkes’ November 5th attempt to dynamite the Houses of Parliament on, this hero V, and the film, employ instantly recognisable symbols and icons from the past and our present in the battle to reclaim the soul of a nation from those who have hijacked it.

Of course, perhaps this is just a film. But that’s very hard to believe when you’re looking at someone in an orange boiler suit being tortured for information, or hearing speeches and announcements calling the people to recognise that their state has curtailed their freedoms and outlawed certain lifestyles in the interest of security. Am I talking about the film or real life today in the global North and West now? Even I’m not certain of the line between the two. This is definitely a dissent film, because it mirrors the real life trends we see in the UK, the States and other countries today, and takes them to their logical conclusion, revealing the dangers undeniably inherent in them all.

War Corporatism - The Knife Party political broadcast

It’s amazing what you can find on the internet, especially when you’re not looking for anything in particular. That’s how iDissent discovered the exquisitely turned out video purporting to be a message from the Knife Party on YouTube. In this short controversy-reel, a calm and measured sounding narrator is aided by what can best be described as wonderfully well produced moving graphic illustrations in unmasking the policies, policymakers and mechanics behind the United States’ internationally hated foreign policy trajectory. Animated lines, text and images, [including swastikas, nodding donkeys, military hardware and portraits of key players] help to explain that US foreign policy is driven by a corporate-military complex seeking to advance US economic interests globally, even using war to clear a path. Given Benito Mussolini’s famous qoute that “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”, and the corroboration for this being the trend in Washington given in The Shock Doctrine [Naomi Klein] it becomes difficult to dismiss this clip out of hand as mere fanciful video art and conspiracy theorising. On the contrary it may be one of the most succinct, and definitely one of the most artistically impressive, examples of visual media dissent against one of the most disturbing developments of the present day.

projection in support of civil partnerships for same-sex couples on the Houses of Parliaent

Positive projections

Perhaps one of the most innovative forms of visual protest to appear in recent years is the large-scale projection. A number of landmarks have been targeted lately by high-intensity light beams in order to raise a dissenting voice or draw attention to or support for a particular cause. Several times has the Palace of Westminster, where the House of Lords and the Parliament of the United Kingdom meet, been illuminated with graphics speaking out against the war in Iraq, or for gay rights in the form of the Civil Partnership Bill. Even the Thundercats have made their mark.