In praise of DAB- the existential beer

I've been a fan of DAB beer for a while now. As a drink it's a light and drinkable lager, better than domestic UK products of the likes of Stella Artois or Kronenberg, yet hardly remarkable.

But it's the look of the thing I really like. There's something about the stark functionality of the DAB lettering, the white on green. On the bottles it looks ok, but it's really the cans which seem to best fit the design, repeated in my local off-license fridge, DAB, DAB, DAB.

It's this functional branding that appeals to me. It may be that in Germany DAB is marketed in a particular way, or drunk by a particular demographic, but its low profile and relative rarity in the UK means that my perception of it as a product is untainted by saturation advertising. With DAB there are non of the attendant pretensions of Stella Artois or Kronenberg, flattering consumers with fantasies of European sophistication, cafe-society and art-house movies. 

No, there's an honesty to the DAB cans. They look like they were made where they no doubt were- a large, industrial brewery, in huge metal vats. They do not pretend otherwise. DAB, DAB, DAB, rolling off the production line in Germany, trucked across Europe to my London off-license.

The stark branding, and the apparently strict functionality of the name 'Dortmunder Actien-Brauerei' promises no more than it delivers.

This is a beer that says- we, as human beings, have industry, and machinery and technology. These things are cold, and can offer no true comfort, no warmth or genuine truth. But they allow us to brew beer and to ship it to you in this container. This beer will not make you happier, or better looking or more successful. But we do not offer you these things. We offer only what we have to give, the physical reality of this beer.

DAB reminds me of a few years ago when I visited Copenhagen with a since-ex girlfriend. At the large hostel we stayed at, one night I ventured into the upstairs 'tv lounge'. Illuminated only by the blue glow of a tv screen, mysterious men sat alone or in small groups, silently drinking beer. I saw several lorries parked outside, perhaps some of these men were their drivers. I didn't stay long. For some reason this seems like the perfect environment to drink DAB beer in.

How to ruin a Rothko

On Sunday 7th October 2012 a man walked into the Tate Modern gallery and marked a painting by Mark Rothko. I learned about this on the Sunday evening via Twitter.

The original Twitter post seems to have been from a witness to the incident, and includes a photograph (now widely distributed) of the markings. My original reaction was visceral, and my anger sought some direction. Who was the perpetrator? How dare he? Why didn't the witnesses do more to stop him, or least follow him to identify him?

While this may be unfair, I still have trouble with the reaction of the witnesses, who did nothing to stop the action (apparently it was over very quickly), allowed the guy to leave and then gave a description of him to gallery staff. The gallery then went into lock down, with nobody allowed to enter or leave, but this was too late, as he had already left the building. (He has since been arrested, and is currently awaiting trial)

As I say, my judgmental attitude towards the witnesses may be unfair. Who knows what anybody would do in such a situation? If somebody behaves so unpredictably, who is to say that they couldn't be dangerous? And many people 'freeze' when confronted by the absurd, the chaotic, the dangerous. I still beat myself up for not intervening when I witnessed a man stealing a woman's bike in east London. 

But my strong feelings show to me the deep emotional connection I have felt to these paintings. So far I have tried to avoid using judgement-laden words like 'defacing' or 'vandalism' to describe what has happened, but when I first heard about it, it felt like an attack. Not just an attack on the physical artworks, but actually an attack on something good, a personal attack on something of my inner life. As I write this I feel impassioned about it, and still feel a lot of anger towards the man who did this.

So what actually is happening for me here? Ten years ago I probably wouldn't have engaged with these paintings, would have dismissed them as representing the deathly, humourless solemnity of the art world. Partly, moving to London has meant I can visit many of the large galleries regularly, and this has meant I can return again and again to works of art that I wouldn't have engaged with before.

Also, it's a process of getting older, possibly slowing down a bit (I'm only 34!) to really pay attention to my surroundings. This is different for me to the restlessness energy that characterizes youth, the desire for the new, the fresh, the novel, the hunger for rebellion and revolution. And finally, doing my MA in art therapy has changed how I think about works of art, or perhaps more accurately how I feel about works of art.

Black on Maroon, 1959, Mark Rothko.

So I have spent much time in the Rothko room at Tate Modern, with it's dimmed lighting and sombre mood. It's futile trying to convey the feelings I get from looking at these paintings, because actually the experience rather defies the cognitive way in which we are used to explaining life. One of the best descriptions I have seen recently in regard to the paintings was at the Hip Walk blog, where appreciating the paintings is described in terms of needing to 'let go', to 'loosen your grip'. Art therapist and Christian Ric Stott discussed the paintings with me on Twitter in terms of transcendental meditation.

This 'letting go' is a problem for many people I think. Perhaps I have been rather in a bubble the last two years, being surrounded by art therapists, discussing artworks in a non-judgmental way, trying to be alive to their emotional content. In fact I have probably been in a bubble in a bubble, living in London where many people I meet are educated and literate in the language of art.

So it genuinely surprised me when many peoples reaction to the attack on the Rothko painting was either dismissive or to treat it as a joke. 'Rothko vandalized- how can they tell?' being a standard line, or the belief that a Rothko is 'just a series of fuzzy rectangles' (The Daily Mash). I had a similar reaction when discussing it at work- my colleagues simply didn't see why it was a problem, or what I got out of viewing the paintings. It just seemed that they had an immediate reaction against engaging with the work. When trying to describe the experience, I rather awkwardly used the word 'spiritual'. Their looks suggested they remained skeptical. Even my wife, who I love and does look at quite a lot of art with me, walked straight out of the Rothko room.

The irony about all of this is that to me the experience of viewing these paintings contains some universality. It's like looking at the stars, or into a void. There is nothing and yet there is everything. But in order to 'get it', you have to stop trying to 'get it'. Feeling and looking is all that is required. They don't give up their secrets on first impressions- it's taken the best part of my life before I was ready to look at Rothko. Some of the shapes in the paintings remind me of the mysterious stone circles which still dot Britain, thousands of years after they were made.

Not everyone will see this. And there's no reason why everyone should. My faith is not your faith. It is not something I expected, but the actions of this man feel to me as I imagine somebody of a religious faith might do upon the desecration of their place of worship. I suppose I am agnostic- I don't believe there is a God, but since I cannot disprove there is one I cannot discount the possibility.

And what of the action itself? I have so far not discussed the claimed motives of this man, Vladimir  Umanets, partly because doing so inevitably plays the game he wishes to play. But also, his rationale and theories, the claimed movement of 'Yellowism'  have so far been tedious and empty. If you are going to step up on to the stage, you better have something interesting to say.

Umanets has so far compared himself to Marcel Duchamp, who in 1917 signed a urinal and exhibited it in a gallery, claiming it as art. A crucial distinction here is that Duchamp attacked ideas about art, with the invigorating energy of punk- and this is nearly a hundred years ago.

'Fountain', 1917, Marcel Duchamp.

Umanets attack so far seems to be merely physical, a one-liner with nothing behind it. It's about as creative as stabbing somebody at random in the street- although interestingly the founder of Surrealism, André Breton, claimed that the simplest surrealist act would consist of going into the street with revolvers and shooting blindly into the crowd.

If something exists in the world, brings people pleasure and causes no harm, to attack it is at best the act of a fool, at worst a destructive aggressor. Art galleries at their best can be meditative, engaging, exciting and crucially, non-commercial spaces in a landscape of suffocating consumerism. Yes, there is the gift shop, the cafe and some exhibitions have an entry fee. But the final point about this whole incident I find most incronguent is the discussion around money and value. Umanets, and it's hard to tell how seriously he believes this, claims to have added value to the painting by his writing on it. Most news articles on it describe prominently how valuable the painting is in monetary terms- fifty million apparently. But the meditative aspect of these paintings I have tried to describe here is the furthest thing from money I can think of. Seeing these paintings simply in terms of their immediate physical reality- what is this? How much it worth? What can it do for me? -rather than the depths I believe they hint at- well perhaps that's part of the same western mindset that prohibits many people from really 'letting go' and engaging with Rothko.

The painting is at present being restored and should soon return to public view. But whether there will be increased security after this incident remains to be seen. If these paintings had to be protected behind glass, or have security guards closely scrutinizing every visitor, or even taken from display altogether, as at present; then their true value, as living works of art will have been lost. And far from being an act of rebellion, this act will have been on a moral level with the wealthy hoarding art for themselves.

Rescued from my old blog- visit to JG Ballard art show, Birmingham 2008

Rescued from an old, dead blog of mine. A visit to 'Zodiac 3000', an art show based on the work of the late author J.G. Ballard at the Bournville Centre for Visual Arts in Birmingham. Ballard was still alive when I visited the show during a hot, still afternoon in 2008.

Bournville is the village built around the beginning of the twentieth century by George Cadbury for the workers at his chocolate factory. It is reportedly "one of the nicest places to live in Britain". Since George Cadbury was a Quaker, no pubs have ever been built on the estate.

I've included a little photographic tour of Bournville, since the location is important to the show, and it really responds to the environment, and the environment and the local inhabitants respond (perhaps rather unwittingly) to it.






A smashed up S-Type Mercedes sits abandoned on the pristine lawn outside the gallery.



It is a similar type to the car in which Princess Diana was killed.



As I was taking these pictures a middle aged couple walked past and commented that the wreck bought the tone of the area down.





A piece of wood painted in gloss red paint divides the room in two. I nearly tripped over the thing. When another visitor came in after me, she did exactly the same. It seems like an almost gleeful piece of malevolence.






A territorial statement on one side of the room imagines Bournville divided between two tribes.



Perhaps these are the colours under which the two tribes march.



The Coco Shuffters threaten the White Choclateers.



A full mock up of a lift door to imagined subterranean(subconscious?) levels was created in the gallery. My favourite level is probably 'The Haldof Elizabeth Taylor Self Effacing Fragmentation Suite'. The whole mock up was so convincing that the button that said push was smeared with finger prints. I nearly fell for it, too.



Aside from one other visitor, who didn't stay for very long, I was completely alone in the gallery. There were no invigilators, only cctv which may or may not have been part of the show, Im not sure. I had the feeling I was being watched or manipulated in some way. It was very eerie.



This artist collaged pornographic pictures next to images of middle class aspirational furniture.



Ironically, if I saw a wreck of a car like this anywhere else in Birmingham, I probably wouldn't be too surprised. But Bournville is a different world altogether. It's the very incongruity that makes this such a fucking great piece of art. Plus a bit of controversy never hurts.



The first entry in the comments book was by 'Prince Charles' and simply said 'Thank God the bitch is dead'.

Taking something too seriously- 'Dave' TV idents

I've been thinking for a while about the television channel which carries my namesake- 'Dave', specifically, their 'idents'- little clips they play between advertising breaks and programs that aim to establish the brand identity of the channel.

Let me preface the following by saying that firstly, nobody is forcing me to watch 'Dave'. It's always irritating when people talk about the 'rubbish' on television as if the 'off' button didn't exist- a very un-existential denial of free will and choice. And sometimes I ask myself, when watching the millionth repeat of 'Top Gear', with Jeremy Clarkson spouting total bollocks to an audience of dead-eyed car-bores, why the fuck I watch this shit.

A momentary aside on Top Gear- (I'm still thinking about writing something more developed on the program which fascinates me for various reasons) it's not Jeremy Clarkson that bothers me so much. As an art loving, houmous eating Guardian reader, I'm EXACTLY the kind of person who is supposed to be annoyed by his reactionary right wing views. But actually, I would argue in Clarkson's defence- there's simply no point being offended by the stupid crap he comes out with, because I think he's an entertaining figure, and in popular media, that's what counts.

"Total bollocks"

No, it's the studio audience laughing at his stupid jokes about funny foreigners that disturb me. It's the dead eyes in those predominantly white faces that speak of suburbia, The Daily Mail and The Sun, of weekends spent at retail parks, shopping for clothes and eating at chain restaurants, of holidays spent trying to ignore the culture of the host country, of buying into the paradoxical belief-system that individuality can be expressed through the purchase of mass-produced objects. It's the zombie-living death of middle England.

Existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre saw this unthinking attitude to the world as being lazy, banal and life denying. One could object that if life really is as inherently meaningless as Sartre thought it was, and we are all going to die anyway, why are the above activities and attitudes any worse than anything else? Isn't this just intellectual snobbery?

Sartre argued that it was precisely these type of unthinking attitudes of the mass of people that permitted great evils in history. The obvious example suggested is people in Nazi Germany who when asked to account afterwards for their actions 'were only following orders', claiming that they had 'no choice'. (1)

In a contemporary context, it can be convincingly argued that the unthinking acceptance of the consumerist lifestyle is actively fueling climate change. (2)

Sartre- not a fan of Top Gear

And secondly,  I'm not sure splitting off all the bitterness in ones soul at some unwitting aspect of culture is a particularly positive thing to do- although perhaps it is a very British thing to do. It's always striking to me whenever I'm in the United States, the conspicuous lack of moaning compared to my homeland. It shows into sharp relief the constant, grinding cynicism that Britain seems to excel in- again, this topic deserves a blog post of it's own. For now I'll take ex-Sex Pistol John Lydon's line that "anger is an energy" and hope something creative comes out of something that bothers me.

So, the idents. Little clips lasting a few seconds, they tell a story. And here's my interpretation of that story.

 

Here we see the group of friends who star in the idents. They look happy, don't they? What could be the source of their joy?

Well, firstly they appear to be hanging out at big old country house, the kind of place you might reasonably expect to be living if you were 13th in line for the throne. And secondly, their chum is riding a huge fucking elephant with the 'Dave' logo on it.

There he is, atop an elephant, like some kind of Maharaja in stupid fucking sunglasses. 

From this, we can deduce that this bunch have somehow got enough clout to- 1) Own, or at the very least rent their own mansion. 2) Ride an elephant around the grounds of said mansion.

In a different clip, we see a bit more of how they can apparently do whatever they want in this mansion. They seem to have had a party and are now camping out in tents. Tents! Indoors! Imagine!

There's a lot of this sort of dicking around going on in moron mansion.

Want a full military band to play, just for you and your mates? No problem.

 

I can't quite remember if these are live or stuffed penguins. If they're live, I reckon they later die of neglect. If they are stuffed, well that's the mark of forced eccentricity.

 

 "So, I was thinking we should all dress up in a light-hearted take on the genocide of the native American people."

"Racing those cars around the grounds was cool. Remember when I smashed into that two-hundred year old statue? It was just after you drove through the ornamental flower beds."

"Yeah, we had the lawn in front of the house dug up and stuck the sailing boat in there. Dunno why, really, I got bored of it after about 5 minutes. Seemed funny at the time, though."

So, based on the above evidence, here's what I think happened. The bunch in the idents somehow got A LOT of money from somewhere- I'm thinking, lottery win, or possibly inheritance. They then used said money to buy the mansion, which probably previously belonged to some loveable tweed-wearing old duffer. Having frittered away the family fortune on horses and booze, he's forced to sell the place for a knock down price to this bunch of louts. Having too much time and money on their hands, and having no connection to the history of the place, they then proceed to to totally trash it in the name of hedonism.

"Yeah, had that fucking chandelier ripped out, turned it into a rope swing over the pond."

Here we see a snowball fight in the middle of summer, created with the ejaculating cocks of Dave branded snow machines. If you look you can see their long suffering butler, stoically enduring their idiocy. He probably used to work for the previous owner and came with the house. I reckon they treat him like shit. "OI, JEEVES, GET ME ANOTHER BOTTLE OF MOET AND A PICKLED ONION MONSTER MUNCH SANDWICH." But his name's not Jeeves. It's Bruce. Poor, long suffering Bruce.

Lest you think I am taking this all a little bit too seriously, I now submit to you, dear internet, the final and most damning piece of evidence of all.

Yes, that's right. He's wearing sunglasses. SUNGLASSES. INDOORS. AT NIGHT. AT THE DINNER TABLE. To bring us to the 'Godwins Law' (3) part of my denouement, even Hitler (probably) had the common decency to make eye contact with people while signing death warrants over an evening meal.

I think the idents are interesting for the feel they seem to want to convey. The young people and the things we see them doing belong firmly in the context of a selfish, individualistic consumerist culture. There's the sense of a prolonged childhood, of being able to do whatever you want, "Because you're worth it". They are actively destroying their own environment, for fun.

But this post-modern demolishing of history is inherently disconnecting and unsettling, so the trappings of historical continuity are inserted to counter this- the country house, a military band, Union Jacks. These symbols of historical continuity are little more than that, they don't really represent a genuine connection to tradition or shared culture, they are just another consumer choice, another outfit to try on and dispose of.

1. I'm broadly drawing here on the excellent, readable and engaging introduction to Sartre presented by Gary Cox in How to Be an Existentialist, or How to Get Real, Get a Grip and Stop Making Excuses, which you should read for the aforementioned reasons.
2. Alastair Mcintosh lays out a convincing if rather depressing case that a society based on individualistic consumerism is likely to have severe implications for the ability of the human race to survive in Hell and High Water: Climate Change, Hope and the Human Condition.
3. 'Godwin's Law' is an observation originally made by Mike Godwin in 1990, that the longer a discussion on the internet continues, the greater the likelihood that a comparison will be made to Hitler and the Nazis, irrespective of the original subject matter. This phenomena is also exhibited by rabid right-wing Americans who like to compare Barrack Obama to Hitler, for instance when he dares to suggest that the more guns people own, the greater the likelihood that people will be killed- Trayvon Martin for instance.

April A-Z blogging challenge.

Alright, I'll give the A-Z blogging challenge a go. Every day of April, starting on the 1st, you are supposed to write a blog beginning with a different letter of the alphabet. A on the 1st, B on the 2nd and so on. You get the idea.

Today can just be the introduction to the challenge (A) - I can't think of anything else beginning with A right now (perhaps not an auspicious start), and besides this is the same approach taken by Paint Under My Nails, who I follow on Twitter and who I got this idea from.

We will see how this goes- I have an 8000 word clinical report to hand in in a few weeks, and my Masters degree in art therapy is coming to a conclusion. So the pressure is piling up. Perhaps this challenge will prove to be a good little way to take time out of it every day. 

I was in the nowhere places, the inbetween places.

Back to the Future consumer product redux

Here we are- my attempt to present all of the significant product placement seen in the first Back to the Future movie, in the chronological order in which they appear.

Nike.

Burger King, Toys R Us.

Toyota, Texaco.

Diet Pepsi.

Miller 'Lite' beer.

Sophie Mae Peanut Brittle.

'Bud Light' beer.

Popov vodka.

Pepsi 'free'

J C Penney.

Nike.

Texaco.

Miller 'High Life' beer.

JVC video camera.

Aiwa personal stereo.

Pepsi.

Converse.

Nike.

Toyota.

Miller 'High Life' beer.

One of the most memorable brands associated with the film, for me certainly, is Nike. Nike exercised some shrewd judgement in associating their products with some of the defining films of the 1980's, and it's my belief that they reaped their reward for this in their contemporary popularity with culturally savvy yet nostalgic twenty and thirty-somethings.

In the opening shot of Marty Mcfly we famously see those distinctive white shoes with the red swoosh before we see his face, and this pretty much defines Marty's relationship to consumer products for the rest of the film. Marty doesn't just consume products, he is those products, and his identity as a character is inextricable to the things which he consumes.

One example of this relationship to products is at the end of the film, where because Marty successfully altered his family history in the 1950's, he gets to possess the Toyota truck which he had coveted earlier in the film. The possession of the truck is inextricably linked to Marty's transition into manhood- he can leave the skateboard behind, take his girlfriend camping at the lake, where...well, you get the idea.

One of the interesting elements of the product placement in the film is that it takes different forms.

Firstly, there was the sort of cynical arrangement you might expect, in which Universal Studios product placement department bargained with companies to feature products in return for a fee. This apparently, was not under control by the director.

Secondly, there is the way in which director Robert Zemeckis deliberately used products and brands to mark the changes between the 1950's and the 1980's. For instance he apparently chose Pepsi over Coke, and Texaco over Shell because the former companies logos looked different in the two time settings. There is a certain logic in this. Brands are a big part of the American landscape, to totally remove them would be unrealistic.

Some scenes are of course famously, laughably blatant in their product placement. Others are more subtle, and I've undoubtedly missed stuff out- plus of course the spoken references are not included here- Marty's request for a Pepsi 'Free', or Lorraine's mistake that his name is Calvin Klein because "It's written all over your underwear." Scenes like this are funny, and help overcome the crassness of the advertising element. There's a kind of acknowledgment by Lorraine's unknowing 1950's perspective that having Calvin Klein written on your underwear is sort of ridiculous. It flatters the viewer that they are in on the joke. And flattery is the oldest trick in the advertisers book.

You can't underestimate the influence of seeing this level of glamorous yet casual consumption had on my young mind growing up in 1980's Britain. Certainly we had stuff. But Americans seemed to have so much more of it, and it looked better and cooler than our stuff. The first time I saw a Burger King logo was in Back to the Future. I think it's also one of my very early memories of seeing the Nike swoosh on a shoe, and it looked so exotic compared to the basic, functional training shoes I was used to.

So here we are- Marty Mcfly's world as defined by consumer goods.