Desperately Seeking Utopia
Dear invitation of sorts,
I’ve been trying my best, we’ve been trying our best, but nothing seems to work, and frankly, I could use some advice. I’m really miserable and honestly kind of lost, heartbroken and maybe even feeling betrayed. I mean, how do you know when you’ve tried as hard as you can and that’s just gonna be that? I’ve been looking in vain for a way to deal with the feeling that creeps around the edges of each and everyday, that feeling that says things just aren’t right. I feel like I’ve been looking for my whole life, maybe for a thousand years, maybe it’s just been a decade. It’s the feeling that leaves you wondering why everything is so atomized. The feeling that leaves you wondering why you have to go through every trial in life alone; that you have to attend to the maintenance of your home, your job, your family, your partner, your friends, your dog, your own body in some sort of unspoken but alienated state of excommunication from anything larger than yourself. Where is that place where we knowingly fight for more than just survival and instead for meaning? Where is that commons, home, chosen family, revolution or whatever? Are we still even trying to find it?
So yeah, idk, at this point, it’s nothing new, but I pretty much just want to pass around a few bottles of wine with some friends or comrades (word choice?) and heal, scheme, empathize, cavort, confide or maybe revel in a little degeneration if possible? Eagerly awaiting your reply!
—Desperately Seeking Utopia
P.S. What do you think of this article? It’s been tripping me out for literally years… Would love to hear your thoughts…
Jo Freeman: Tyranny of Structurelessness (1972)
P.P.S. And ughhh this one too... They really want us to start communes now? Wtf.
Invisible Committee: To Our Friends (2015)
Cake and Eat It, a collaboration between artists Ada Tinnell and Kate Kershenstein, seeks to push the definition of both organizing and art making to advocate for new ways of creating lasting networks of resistance. They devise participatory performances and socially engaged works that shine a light on roles of power, while demarcating a space for relationships and connections to arise. Project iterations include a series of temporary strike halls dispersed throughout Los Angeles, a series of zines on the matter, and Opera Operaismo: A May Day Opera-As-Flying-Picket. For their recent solo show at Human Resources they created Strike Halls, a composite of sculpture, text, performance, and organizing strategies, looking at the possibility of strike in a culture of precarity and domination, as well as proto-solutions towards the creation of a communitarian social capital. Elements included a Cop Watch benefit club night, co-opted corporate networking strategies, a trans woman cocktail lounge, and a clothing exchange/conversation on fem militancy. Cake and Eat It has shown in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Denver, Portland, and in all manners of places that have little to do with art whatsoever.