I am a #Terrorist

Rhizomatic K[n]ots and The Theory of Everything

“FreeDumb”

In our material dominated globe, compliments to electronic entanglement, the innovation of global capitalism is “money and geometry.” But it is money that can translate our common denominator into an expression of freeDumb and k[n]ot beauty.

Free and dumb is a compound word used to invert unrestricted expression into an aesthetic expression of restriction. If you can’t afford to play, you can’t play. But Globalization is an autonomous entity: a “k[n]ot sphere,” as I prefer to call it. A not so round sphere made by electronic entanglement knotting every half into a two headed whole: a capitalist and a consumer. Globalization obliterates locality and tethers humanity to its mesh grid. The k[n]ot sphere replaces tradition with change, the binary with multiplicity. The idealistic wet dream of the Greeks’ ruptures into polyphony.

The difficulty is if we-humans are unable to adapt, resistance becomes futile. For how can we be sure of what/who we are actually resisting when there is no longer a literal vantage point to judge from? It is this lack of sight caused by electronic entanglement that can translate to a state of terror. Who owns identity if the global eye is exposed as polyphonic? Who takes accountability for all the moving parts?
Dare I suggest the parts?

FreeDumb therefore offers freedom from the terror of responsibility. Global capitalism replaces God with consumerism pacifying us into submission of someone else’s ideal and aesthetics becomes our gatekeeper. Free and dumb is our consolation prize. The issue I have is that forced inclusivity, “freeDumb,” is not utopia. Our k[n]ot sphere is a war-machine manifested from an argument over shapes. The fail of globalization is not the enmeshment of humanity into its grasp, but humanity’s failure to recognize this enmeshment. Therefore, I argue our current day capitalist is Plato’s Artist rendering the duty of kings the burden of the masses and further it is this displaced burden that corrals consumers into a crisis of narrative, a state of terror induced by aesthetic obliteration

“Cursed to the grid artists created their own prisons.” -L.K.

We will visualize the terror of aesthetics as the avant-garde grid. Cursed to the grid, artists created their own prisons. Repetition to annihilation. Ground zero. Death. To the untrained eye the avant-garde grid can read as an end. The nuance is that our global grid is not a literal grid. Our grid’s lines are made from rhizomatic k[n]ots created from zeros and ones. A lack of awareness to this detail can promote a state of terror as the general public is not trained in critical thought.

Art is misconstrued with entertainment or worse it is used by the resistance movement as a methodology in poverty, for the sake of clout against “the man,” as if there is an actual man. Artists are therefore given the short stick, championed as both terrorist and savior and exiled into a bardo-like state: expected to feed the masses, but not ourselves.

I am done being y’all’s rope in a nonsense game of tug of war. 

For unlike you-peons, lost and confused, wandering blindly in the war-machine, pointing fingers, and shouting fault; in the realm of art we stopped arguing over shapes long ago. The grid was in fact not our end. Repetition translated to originality, a dedication to one’s craft. And from restriction came…

“aesthetic différance”

Painting abandoned the canvas,

Sculpture dematerialized into debate,

And theory catapulted into performance. 

*Non-conceptual-conceptual-art*

All hailz chaos. The terror of the real... #ReaLife

That is…
in electronic entanglement if life can be art and art can be WHATEVER then life can be performance. But life isn’t the stage, it is the battlefield and Plato’s artists are the death bringers-suicide bombers: rupturing the minefields with waves of unproductive thinking #DaDa! 

The right to freedom from #whatever is the curse of global capitalism.

But arguing over formal principles does not lead to purification. Forced idealism can facilitate space for terror to grow and restriction can lead to absurdism. The terror caused by aesthetics thereby utilizes contradiction and not money as our “unifying catastrophe.” Aesthetic-fueled controversy self-propels the global garble in the form of terror and not care. Terror can provide more titties for us-consumers to suck and we allow this violence to occur as we get off on being hostages to our own terror takeover. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy it allows us to point blame elsewhere and vicariously use art as our whipping boy. 

The question we must ask: is an ethos of care possible for the #terrorist?

Terrorism defined by Peter Sloterdijk is commandeering your enemies' environment to attack your enemies' livelihood. But if there is no such thing as ‘Other’ in polyphony, an attack on the enemy's environment can translate to an expression of psychological warfare; subjugating the mental landscape to the terror of aesthetics. In turn, this can shape the argument that creativity for itself is a methodology in terror; solidifying not just the artist as the terrorist, but all of humanity can be induced to this terror cult for not conforming to whatever.

For Example!

For Example!

A body hangs from the branches, a child gasps.
Just another day in Georgia.
Did you know lynching is the legacy of white America?
Of my skin color?
How could the Atlanta Beltline promote such an atrocity?
Did it matter that the artist is black? 

It did not.

D’Andre Brooks and I were peers at Savannah College of Art & Design. Back then I made myself mad by theory and damned art. D’Andre used art to overcome his demons. His cocoons made of everyday garden hose were literally a symbol of rebirth. D’Andre is not free and dumb. He is dedicated to his craft, free, and in love with the joy of creating.

A joy that would be illuminated ten fold when he was chosen as the next artist for exhibition on the west side Atlanta beltline in 2019. Witnessing his joy was priceless. No other artist deserved it more.

“Art is a verb not a pretty picture.” -D.B

So it was a real tragedy when his work was canceled. For somewhere in the mix someone else’s ideal had commandeered D’Andre’s brightly colored vision. It was suggested he swap out a colorful cocoon for a black one and D’Andre willingly obliged. Sadly, the results were detrimental. The color swap changed the overall tone and the public did not take it well. D’Andre took to instagram to explain, “Death of a Caterpillar 2019... This work has officially been scheduled to be removed, cited as too offensive and as just a reminder of pain we have suffered...by my own people as if somehow I don't share the same pain. We have to learn to confront and defeat what causes us pain…Art is a verb not a pretty picture.”

Never did D’Andre think “the caterpillar destroys the cocoon.” Leaving behind not a butterfly as he originally intended, but a corpse hanging in tribute to white terror; rendering D’Andre a terrorist and another statistic of white utopia. His pride and joy, “Death of a Caterpillar,” lost to myth.

Or so the world thought. In reality D’Andres black cocoon has been lying dormant in the depths of my subconscious. I want to say in 2020, Novel Idea and I were discussing Novel’s dissertation: “The Black Sublime and The Possibilities of the Impossible” when D’Andre’s canceled sculpture came to mind. His experience seemed like a perfect example for what Novel was trying to express.

Four years later the conversation continues. D’Andre’s cancelled sculpture continues to move us. Which made me realize an ethos of care is possible for the #terrorist when time is not linear. For in the realm of polyphony all possibilities are possible. It just depends on which wolf y’all wanna feed and to what lengths y’all are willing?

By example…

I, #LARD, dropped out of PhD land, built a volcano in my house, transitioned into a banana, came out as a terrorClown, #Clone, and chose love. My intent was to force a witness, to bring accountability to philosophy, and as a mirror to culture hold aesthetics responsible for the terror it regurgitates. 

I realized if the only strategy is to step outside the lines and be the #terrorist, why not be accountable to the last frontier we-humans are unwilling to face? Why succumb to a literal expression of violence when we can transcend our limitations and against the odds do something different. I chose to do something different.

What is your excuse?