Click on the links below the individual articles to download / view as either a PDF or text file.
Variant
|11 Summer 2000
text pdf
Washington and the politics of drugs -
Peter Dale Scott
This is something of a masterpiece in unravelling and explaining its subject
matter. Scott - the author of several books on the subject - provides
persuasive evidence on the murky world of US involvement with Drug trafficking
through counter-insurgency operations in Peru (coincidentally some of
the key figures mentioned fled the country after the article). This is
extended to include the continuities of CIA involvement in Mexico, Colombia
etc., the money laundering process and protection of the major Trafficking
cartels.
text pdf
Albert Ayler in a kilt: The Assassination Weapon,
Edinburgh, 1966/7 - Robin Ramsay
Evocative, funny and honest, this is a short piece remembering personal
aspects of the underground music scene in Edinburgh in the '60s. The influence of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Peter Brotzman and Hann
Bennick is intertwined with Ramsay's own band's history.
text pdf
Artists as Workers and Technology as Artists: Critical
Artists Devolve to Political Technologies - Dr.
Future
The difficulty of making art and affording access to equipment has always
presented seemingly unavoidable conflicts of interest with artists. This and other themes which emerged are explored in the context of 'Critical
Image 2', a four day programme of events at the Lux Centre, London.
text pdf
Hey, Jimmy - Peter
Naylor
An much needed critique of the work of TV dramatist, Jimmy McGovern demolishes
the received wisdom to replace it with a sharp insight which finds McGovern's
work and approach flawed and perversely wanting on basic issues of class
and politics. This is broadened out to ask questions of TV production's
limitations and self-censorship: the 'tyranny of balance.'
text pdf
Indeterminacy & shamanism - Tim
Hodgkinson
A very stimulating and fascinating essay draws on Hodgkinson's expedition
to Siberia to research the activities of Shamans. It scientifically
tackles areas of psychology and philosophy to ask fundamental questions
of human experience. His approach is to distinguish different types
of order of experience and ask how these might interact with indeterminate
experience (such as the Shaman's hypnotic trance). In religion
and art he sees a special phase where the indeterminate is integrated.
text pdf
Tales of The Great Unwashed - Ian
Brotherhood
The costs and benefits of celebrity adulation are contorted in another
brilliant short story.
text pdf
Degraded Capability - Phil
England
This is the title of a book which collects essays on 'the media and
the Kosovo Crisi's by editors Philip Hammond and Edward S. Herman. This convincingly outlines that during NATO's 78-day bombing in 99,
the media overwhelmingly acted as a propaganda machine.
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'When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro'
- William Clark
An Informative examination of the history of the Labour party's disgraceful
attempts to influence and control arts policy. The article charts
the nefarious influence of think tank Demos (advisors, consultants and
recipients of funds), the work of Geoff Mulgan and Mark Leonard in 're-branding
Britain' (and themselves), the intrigue surrounding the formation
of NESTA and much more. You need go no further for background understanding
of how you have been swindled.
text pdf
The art of governance: The Artist Placement Group 1966-1989
- Howard Slater
The APG were a seminal group which tried to blend the utopianism of '60s
experimental art with a pragmatic engagement with social issues. Slater takes the recent 'Live in your Head' retrospective at
the Whitechapel, and the recent fad for watered down 'conceptualism'
to chart a hidden history.
text pdf
That is all my Bum: Thoughts on Contemporary Irish Fiction
- Jim Ferguson
Prefaced by a long quote from the brilliant Flann O' Brien, Ferguson
introduces a range of critical viewpoints and socio-economic factors which
influence contemporary Irish writing and identity. The essay takes
Seamus Dean's 'Reading in the dark', Dermot Healy's
'Sudden Times' and Roddy Doyle's 'A Star called Henry'
as his specific focus.
text pdf
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