“You kept it hidden well”

I saw this today: a troop of girls aged 13-15, with extracts from the Epstein files printed on their leotards, dancing outside the ‘Trump’ Kennedy Centre. It’s why art matters - what it can do - in these times.

The piece is by the First Amendment Troop, and you can see all their performances HERE - including an alternate [even better?] take of “ResistDance vs Redaction”. The first amendment protects - among other things - a US citizen’s freedom of speech, assembly, and right to petition the government. After the video above was taken, the First Amendment Troop were prevented from doing further performances by the police … oh, the irony …

I keep coming back to art at the moment … I’m a bit weary of ‘metacrisis analysis’, and am looking for tangible responses to ‘all this’ [waves hand and points at everything]. Other art stuff I’ve liked recently includes:

Katalog :: Barbara Iweins took individual pictures of everything she owns.

• “I realised that most of my possessions are more a source of confusion than pleasure.”

The Last Quiet Thing :: Terry Godier’s visual essay on our relationship with technology.

• “Screen Time is a blame shift dressed in a soft font.” [Parallels with BP popularising the Carbon Footprint?]

This Authoritarian Life :: Putin and Xi sit with gratitude in a [very short!] podcast, and Putin has a new song out [these will hopefully make you laugh].

• “Shh! Do you hear it? It’s the sound of universe whispering gifts to us.”

The thread here is to do with acceptance - or rather, with not accepting things: not accepting the Epstein files; not accepting being pressured to buy more stuff; not accepting having our attention stolen by devices; not accepting our current batch of ‘leaders’.

How much of my [our?] response lies in refusing Modernity’s norms and expectations?

What else do I [we?] need to refuse?