Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (June 3, 2004)
John Zerzan, a noted anarchist writer, reflects in front of a statue across from the New Day Bakery on Van Buren street in the Whiteaker neighborhood on Saturday. Tim Kupsick Photographer Writer John Zerzan critiques importance, origins of art . The controversial writer discusses his essays, his philosophy and problems of symbolic representation By Aaron Shakra Pulse Editor John Zerzan is no stranger to contro versy. The Eugene resident and anar chist writer is the author of three books, including "Elements of Refusal," "Fu ture Primitive & Other Essays" and "Running on Emptiness: The Patholo gy of Civilization," which espouse per spectives direcdy contradicting almost every norm of Western civilization. He hosts "Anarchy Radio, "which airs Sun days at 11 p.m. on KWVA, and is a fre quent contributor to the public-access series "Cascadia Alive!" In his essay "The Case Against Art," written in the mid-1980s, Zerzan critiques art as the creation of a symbolic culture alienated from the natural world. "Art anesthetizes the sense organs and removes the natural world from their purview. This reproduces culture, which can never compensate for the disability," he writes. "The primary function of art is to objectify feeling, by which one's own motivations and identity are transformed into symbol and metaphor." Later, he asks, "Why then would one respond positively to art? As compensation and palliative, be cause our relationship to nature and life is so deficient and disallows an authentic one.... (A)rt, like religion, arises from unsatisfied desire." Zerzan notes the piece "was proba bly the most attacked or controversial essays of mine out of all of them." Emerald: What is the definition of Musique Gourmet Classical Music Opera Broadway Filmscores Open Noon - 5:20 Sundays Noon - 4:00 Closed Tuesdays Behind Bradfords Across from Library 9 942 Olive St. * FREE PARKING 349-0461 art you re using in this essay? John Zerzan: It's representation, most basically. That urge or desire to represent reality. Art is just part of the symbolic culture, symbolic communication. Emerald: That seems to be describ ing it from a materialistic standpoint. Like art as the creation of an artifact, or as a materialistic thing. JZ: You could describe it in different ways. You could talk about it in a more spiritual way, too. That's an open ques tion, too. I don't claim this is some ab solute right answer or this is the truth — it's more of an exploration. It just makes it a question rather than a giv en, like "Well, you've got to have art. We all love art. How could you ques tion art?" It's just the fact that, well, we've gotten along without it, and what kind of life was that where peo ple didn't seem to do that. Emerald: Do you think that's a place we need to return to? JZ: Maybe there's a time when once again, it wouldn't be needed. With this essay and some other ones, what I was really trying to do was link it up to the development of becoming estranged from the natural world, and noticing that as this kind of estrangement de velops, and maybe tensions in certain societies develop, such as inequalities, then you start getting these new things, and some of them are trying to heal the problems by ritual and so forth; they're an attempt to address these problems that evidently, didn't exist before. So the question is, can you heal social problems by the means of the symbolic? And I think the answer is no. Other people disagree. Emerald: Have you rethought any of your perspectives since you origi nally wrote the essay? JZ: Yes. It's important to stay open, because it's just speculation. It was part of a series of so-called origins pieces. 1 just wrote a new one about the origins of gender and what that has to do with the movement to the symbolic. One thing is, of course, it has a very provoca tive title. But actually, it is trying to show that the reason why art comes along as part of the whole movement into the symbolic realm is interesting. Not to condemn it in some abstract way, like "I hate art" or "down with art." It's just to show like with religion and other things, there was a time when evidently, people didn't need it and then it comes in as an interesting kind of consolation or compensation. It's not an eternal thing. For example, one thing that really struck me, is some of the anthropologi cal data, for example that we were cook ing with fire almost 2 million years ago, and doing other interesting things. An other recent thing is, they've deter mined that humans were able to navi gate on the open sea 800,000 years ago. And yet, art is very recent. Art is only like 30,000 years old. So people were obvi ously intelligent for a couple of million years, and they didn't seem to need art. Emerald: Do you feel that art in popular culture is a tool of social control? JZ: One of the things popular cul ture strikes me as is a kind of loss of faith in art. When pop art comes along starting in the late 1950s — especially the post-modem which starts up a lit tle later but is part of that whole trend — the distinction between serious art and pop art becomes dissolved. It doesn't look like serious art anymore, and in a way it isn't. I don't know if it's so much a matter of control. You could write a piece called "The End of Art" and certainly various people have. A lot of people thought art was TurntoZERZAN, page 12 017628 • Arcade • Novelties • Gases Minn DaIaA0>HS ■■lAulfha new Releases weeniy VHS&OVD 5-day Rentals Over 3.000 DVDs HE & SHE I 290 River Rd., Eugene 688-5411 ADA accessible HE & SHE II 720 Garfield, Eugene 345-2873 ALBANY 1-5 EXIT 233, 3404 Spicer Dr. 541-812-2522 Contact us lor Moving-Out Special 1056 Green Acres Rd, #102 Eugene, OR 97401 Phone: 484-6353 Fax: 431-4942 MICfMIL tWw got cMcnf 1292 High St. Eugene, OR 97401 Phone: 343-1313 Fax: 687-0809 yGallery NORTHWEST MADE • Photography • Gifts • Wall Decor Ask about our student discount! Best framing prices in town! Picture Framing • Gifts & Oregon Food Products 199 E. 5th St., next to Steelhead • 684-0045 FREE PARKING BEHIND OUR STORE Stand he crowd A program by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Career Center Enhance yout education with the Professional Distinctions program. Compliment your liberal arts degree with a specific set of professional perspectives and skills. For full information go to https://uodistinctions.uoregon.edu or visit the UO Career Center, 220 Hendricks Hall. 541.346.3166
