Initial thoughts and Idea; Gustav Metzger, Anarchism, Idea

I am particularly drawn to the idea of destructive art because it forces ‘art’ to exist only in the moment thus becoming hyper personal and direct. Unlike something that can be re-listened to or viewed, work that is destroyed or created morphs our preconceptions of what art is. Does the act of destruction become art in itself? Can creation and destruction exist side by side?

The first point of research I was led to after emailing Milo about my interest was the work and ideas of Gustav Metzger. Metzger was a radical thinker, artist, activist and political commentator who coined the term; Auto-Destructive Art.

Here is a source cut out from the Guardians obituary to Metzger;

“Heedless of the commercial art market, as public art for everybody and not a privileged few, auto-destructive art stands witness to society’s capacity to engineer its own downfall through development of the weaponry of mass destruction, the actions of the capitalist systems and damage to natural ecologies.”

The above source highlights the overarching point of auto-destructive art, it is a commentary from a witness’ perspective on the corrupt modern world. At a time when political tension between the East and West was astronomically high, Metzger’s views on ‘our self made extermination’ informed him down the path of art through destruction. As a witness to many of the worlds atrocities, beginning in the early 1960’s Metzger’ experiences and outlook were shaped by events such as WW1, the rise of fascism, WW2, the holocaust, the arms race, the Vietnam War and US brinkmanship. Born into a Polish Jewish family in 1926 (Nuremberg, Germany), Metzger experienced the hatred of facism first hand and had to flee Germany under the Refugee Children Movement. It is clear that Metzger’ concern about our future and the Earths shaped his work. Metzger published his ‘Auto-Destructive Manifesto’ in 1959.

Similar to my own ideas on the balance between destruction and creation, Metzger challenged artistic norms by putting the ‘creation’ of art ahead of the work itself. I find an idea like this relates particularly well to the canon of sound art, for many ‘sound works’ intricacies are given context when exploring the creation of said work. John Duncans controversial sound piece ‘Blind Date’ (1980) is self destructive in creation and execution. By giving himself a vasectomy and leaving his final sperm in a dead corpse, Duncan explores destruction and creation in a totally absurd, extenuated and unique way. During the first national lockdown before discovering auto-destructive art or Metzger’s ideas I became propelled to create my own work in a much more destructive manor than usual. I believe that lockdown, Covid-19, BLM riots and mass division between people has had quite the effect on me. As I’m sure Metzger used art to channel his anger at the world, I attempted this in a much smaller personal scale.

Aiding me on my experiments with destruction and as my disillusionment with modern politics grew stronger, over lockdown I became extremely interested in the ideas of Anarchism. At first, reading Noam Chomsky’s ‘Notes on Anarchism’ was a fun escape from the police state the UK had become. Unaware of Anarchism my views on politics had been subsiding for some time, I consciously spoiled my vote in the last election simply because I didn’t identify with any political party (I was not aware of Anarchism). But It wasn’t until I read into the ‘true’ ideals of Anarchism my views became more concrete. I say ‘true’ ideals because Anarchism has been hugely misinterpreted by right and leftwing politics. When you say ‘Anarchism’ it’s understandable for people to think of the Anarchy ‘A’, the Guy Fawkes mask in V for Vendetta or more absurdly the underwhelming Purge film franchise. Leaders, politicians, royalty and the 1% are scared of Anarchism simply because their power would be dissolved and have done everything they can to discredit Anarchism. The common misconception being ‘Anarchy is every man for themselves, kill or be killed.’ I find this amusing because those words literally describe capitalism.

Linking my initial research of Auto-Destructive art to my Sound Art degree, I have theorised an idea for a sound installation. This installation/work draws upon personal thoughts and conveying them to an audience. For example, I record myself talking about a range of experiences, secrets, desires etc onto tape. Each cassette tape is unique, they all contain a different speech. Now these hundred tapes are handed to each of the hundred audience members. Each of the audience member is required to listen to the tape in a private room or booth, anywhere secluded. The destructive element of this piece would be that every tape destroys itself or the listener destroys it once finished listening. Thus the ‘work’ hangs in its own space after being destroyed, it is neither real or fiction, truth or false. By destroying the personal tape, the listener is actively involved in its destruction and creation. I say creation because when the listener talks about what they heard, there is no proof, too everyone else it is merely fiction and the listener becomes the ‘creator’.

NOTE:The above idea is separate to my creative sound assignment.