The ambivalence of creative activism as a reorganization of critique

Abstract

This article identifies an emerging type of critique and defines it as creative activism. It is argued why this is distinguishable from earlier similar forms of protests and shown why traditional theories of political art, social movements and citizenship are in themselves insufficient to accurately describe and understand the normative ambivalence of what is also known as culture jamming. Irony and utopia are proposed as analytical concepts supplementing these existing theoretical frameworks. It is also demonstrated how these alternative perspectives can be fruitfully applied to understand the reorganization of critique regardless of whether one views creative activism suspiciously as a societal symptom or more optimistically as a democratic potential.

Keywords:

• creative activism
• irony
• utopia
• democracy

Notes

1. A smart mob is a group of people who suddenly assemble in a public place to perform a brief eruptive political performance. Subvertisement is a practice where one makes spoofs or parodies of corporate or political advertisement so as to subvert its intention and turn it around on itself. Hacktivism is the use of computer technology to promote political ends through civil disobedience, viral campaigns or protests. Urban guerrilla gardeners plant flowers and vegetables where they are not allowed to – to get something to eat, to make an ugly spot pretty, or to make a political point. Identity correction is exposing an entity's inner workings to public scrutiny – a way of de-masking power. Forum theatre is a ‘theatre of the oppressed’ where the audience is actively taking part in how the actors may cope with a situation when a scene is paused. Infiltrating media jacking is when you subvert your opponents' spectacle for your own purposes. Prefigurative interventions are images, acts or formations of alternative communities that reflect versions of an alternative, possible, better world – whether it is big or small, tactile or virtual, temporary or meant to stay.

2. It is customary in China to hang small pieces of paper over a doorway featuring a poem or a political statement. This apparently has talismanic origins.

3. Who use their bodies as a metaphorical frame for critical, symbolic tattoos.