Comm(o)nist Gallery TV

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Comm(o)nist Gallery TV

The Communist Gallery’s main form of intervention is the ‘guerilla TV Station’ or CGTV – an entirely freestanding and independent broadcasting station in which individuals and groups show 1 minute films to an extended public. The CGTV Station viewing booths are usually placed in public spaces which become a focus for interruptions and discussion.

This project has been completely unfunded and receives no direct support whatsoever from any large art organisation or political party.

The project seeks to undermine the practices, privileges and protocols of cultural industries: to offer an alternative structure for the production and dissemination of artistic culture.

CGTV, is a project that has evolved out of The Communist Gallery, providing a platform for imagined alternatives. Utilising the format  of short ad-length films, artists, and members of the public are invited to contribute 1 minute films. These films are shown together and disseminated via a public display booth, located in non-gallery based settings. CGTV is designed to be viewed by ‘the general public’.

We would like to thank all the artists, members of public and groups that have already contributed to, supported or produced work with, from and in commonal solidarity with the Comm(o)nist Gallery.

A short thesis on the Coming Monoculture (by  Andrew Cooper)

CAPITALIST AUTOCRACY AND MONOCULTURE

Equating culture with social mobility is a disease, which will poison what little democracy we have. We need a free space to allow for the culture of collaborative learning essential in any real democracy; a space independent of the increasingly autocratic and ubiquitous capitalist mono culture.

Every time we pick up t.v or radio signals someone is going on about benefit scroungers or immigration. The poor are being forced to eat the guilt of the rich. Shortage is being used as a means of divide and rule, in a culture of resentment.

The Coming Mono Culture

The coming mono culture is characterized by a universal decree that to ‘get on’ and ‘social mobility’ means fully accepting capitalist values unquestioned. Education no longer is an aid to taking part in a discourse which might involve revolt, risk taking or a questioning of the prevailing notions of logic and universality.

REVOLT—–If you don’t think beyond the rewards that the established social order holds out for good behavior nothing will change

LOGIC— Without a sense of history we are easily manipulated. If we are not able to question the way we are represented in the “common sense” language and “logic” of those with power we can never question the structures of power in a way that could lead to real change.

UNIVERSALITY———-No one has a right to exploit other human beings: with this comes a premise that all have a right to be different without fear.  What is just must be open to continual review by us all.

RISK—–‘Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.’  Constant bombardment with adverts for Bupa, Scottish Widows and pension schemes are a vexation to the spirit. The undermining of the welfare state is not just economic, it is a way of controlling us through FEAR.

We are in a lurch towards a corporate autocracy where non-compliance and labour spent in building the necessary platforms for discourse in a real democracy will be punished with poverty.

(see communist gallery  or  art agora )