The report is based on the materials of the Art Strike Conference held in southern Lithuanian town Alytus in June 27-29th, 2008. The group did not adopted any concrete resolution neither during the meeting nor after it. Therefore I take responsibility to make some very personal overview of the ideas proposed (with some even more personalized commentaries included) which could lead to the better understanding of the controversial approach towards the topic. Many of the ideas presented at the conference I find out of crucial importance while trying to start a real campaign against real construction of cultural capitalism the particular case of boycotting the EU initiative of sequence of Capitals of Culture which are intending to turn Lithuanian capital city Vilnius into it next year. So far the critical thought in contemporary capitalist Lithuania is very week there was invited international group of people experienced and/or willing to contemplate on the subject.

http://www.mekusa.lt/Mekusa/Artstrikee.html

Martin Zet got paranoid by Alytus Art Strike (right) features in Dresden (left) in fall 2009.

We never tried to drill holes in heaven, but rather in Being. Many, so as to open things and words, to find new options in life, to found a upbeat guerrilla to lead life's battles. Standing upon the rocking chair of the spirit, I dived into a hanging, reflected labyrinth, that blew me away from cruel systems into another existence. From underneath I emerged from a hole and discovered myself truly inside the labyrinth. No market cries were audible. No banknotes to divert my brain streams. I was alone, entirely alone, and at the same time not. A gentle breeze caressed my hair. I followed it down the passageways. A woman's voice spoke through loudspeakers: “One meter water depth! Take the paddle and forge forth to the shore's other side!” As I came to the other shore, a forest came towards me. Soccer balls bounced off the trunks of pine trees and onto my head, one after the other. An ape with a carpet beater swung himself through the branches, until he hung, upside down, before me. He asked, “Who are you, stranger? From which island do you come?”.

1. After dissolving of STASAC remnants of the committee still keep on running the website and maintaining the whole materials producible on the subject of the Art Strike by its participants, followers and supporters. Due to the further coordination of the process we found temporary structure for developing the art strike ideas - Art Strike Information Maintenance and Dissemination Brigade thereinafter ASIMDB.

Everyone is an artist. This would seem a simple enough place to begin; with a statement connecting directly to Joseph Beuys, and more generally to the historic avant-garde’s aesthetic politics aiming to break down barriers between artistic production and everyday life. It invokes an artistic politics that runs through Dada to the Situationists, and meanders and dérives through various rivulets in the history of radical politics and social movement organizing. But let’s pause for a second. While seemingly simple, there is much more to this one statement than presents itself. It is a statement that contains within it two notions of time and the potentials of artistic and cultural production, albeit notions that are often conflated, mixed, or confused. By teasing out these two notions and creatively recombining them, perhaps there might be something to be gained in rethinking the antagonistic and movement-building potential of cultural production: to reconsider its compositional potential.

DEAR REDAS, STEWART AND ALL THE ART STRIKE FOLK,

Here are 3 studies of the renewed symbol of art strike (made with deep respect to source image and with high disdain to traditions) + this letter is an example (manual) how to place it/them in official letters.

(I think the original 2 hands breaking the brush should develop following the logic of trialectics.)

1. Following the main tasks and positions declared in second Resolution Concerning an Art Strike in Opposition to the Declaration of Vilnius as the 2009 EU City of Culture declared on July 3^rd 2008 STASAC announces its implementation in the form of Alytus Art Strike Biennial.
2. Therefore we declare: the biennial was realized and the art was suppressed for a moment when artists and activists found out common space to do things together without concurrence, hierarchy, spectatorship and – that’s very important to note – everything happen in the atmosphere of well wishing and good fun.

     An open letter to the curators, artists, participants of the 11th International Istanbul Biennial and to all artists and art-lovers:

    “We have to stop pretending that the popularity of politically engaged art within the museums, magazines and markets over the last few years has anything to do with really changing the world. We have to stop
pretending that taking risks in the space of art, pushing boundaries of form, and disobeying the conventions of culture, making art about politics makes any difference. We have to stop pretending that art is a free space, autonomous from webs of capital and power. It’s time for the artist to become invisible. To dissolve back into life.”

                        Belfast style mural in Alytus

The central HQ of the 2009 Art Strike Biennial switched constantly between Alytus Art School, Hotel Dzukija about five minutes walk away, and a bar-cum-restaurant located between these two venues in downtown Alytus. At the art school a lot of coffee was consumed, at the hotel innumerable bottles of wine, and in the bar industrial quantities of beer and cold beetroot soup. The Dzukija was an old school Soviet hotel, a concrete shell with stained glass in some of the public areas and cantilevered stairs between the floors. The building was absolutely crammed full of original oil paintings by official Soviet artists of yesteryear. In keeping with the Dzukija’s theme of Soviet nostalgia, the maids would leave overflowing bins in the bathrooms and failed to replenish toilet paper; all of which created a very relaxed bohemian atmosphere.

We call on all bloggers to turn off their computers and cease to post from 17 to 30 August 2009.

Blogging is an indulgence of a self-perpetuating elite; those who can afford regular access to computers and the internet. Those bloggers who struggle against the reigning society find their work either marginalised or else co- opted by the bourgeois net establishment.

Blogging creates the illusion that, through activities which are actually waste, this civilisation is in touch with ‘higher sensibilities’ which redeem its exploitation of those who live outside the overdeveloped world. Those who accept this logic support the bourgeoisie even if they are economically excluded from the class.

Cloudbusting in Alytus gain success from local wedding couples

Published by Orgone Institute in "CORE" [July 1954 Vol. VI Nos. 1-4; appendix A"]:

1. Shed all ambition to impress anyone.

2. Never play around with rain making or cloudbusting. The OR envelope which you tackle while "drawing" energy from the atmosphere is an energetic continuum of high power. You may cause twisters. You may stir a forest fire into the wrong direction. You may do other damage without intending to do so. Never do anything unless you must.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bODNHzyJH8Q 

DEMUELA LA CULTURA SERIA 

(DEMOLISH SERIOUS CULTURE) 

VUELA CON LSD/VUELA CON UN TRIPPY 

(FLY LSD)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIWbrBhgOgc