INDUSTRIAL CULTURE PERFORMANCE ART

1980's - 2007

Industrial Culture Performance Art is defined as Performance Art that comes from the remnants of Industrial Culture. It is centered around the industrial centers of the world.

MANIFESTO OF THE INDUSTRIAL CULTURE PERFORMANCE ARTISTS
By Jack Bowman

1. We will no longer be treated as clowns. Artists are not clowns to entertain the wealthy.
2. We will go forth with shocking and informative content.
3. We will perform in the sewers and in the mansions. Wherever, there are people that need our message.
4. We will not accept status quo. Lack of fundamental change is the evil of the species.
5. We will explode in the controlled media of our culture. Because we are strange but not because we are clowns.
6. Strange is good. It shows that we are not the conditioned insects of our civilization.

DAYTON OHIO, UNITED STATES

Quote from Dayton, Ohio's Industrial Culture Poetry Site (circa 1995): "We are the scabs that fell off the sores of Dayton's Industrial culture. We are the poets that have frequented the smoky coffee houses and Art Hops of Dayton these last three years. We have gathered here to scream the truth we have found as our millennium ends. We have heard the passion, compassion, love, hate. We are the real of our time. We are not the propaganda tools of the state. We give you our words."

Modern Industrial Culture Performance Art was born out of the MTV generation. It was inspired by Industrial Rock and Heavy Metal. But most of all it was inspired by the video's of the era. A major influence was the music video's of Cabaret Voltaire. Crackdown and Sensoria of the early 1980's were major influences. Both of these music video's are currently on YouTube. Crackdown and Sensoria. You can notice the resemblance of the Pilgrim era preacher to Dr. Jack in the 2006 performance of THE RED QUEEN The influences of Sensoria dominated the performance of JACK'S THEOREM Jack's Theorem and the Primal thought was the first defining Industrial performance. This site has a lot of information plus a video of the last ten minutes of the fifteen minute performance.

Another major influence of Modern Industrial Culture Performance was the emergence of the Goth culture. Their intent was to shock the audience (in their case the general public) into recognizing them as individuals. This shock into a previously unrecognized reality continues to dominate Modern Industrial culture Performance Art.

Modern Industrial Culture Performance Art was the first to grasp the use of the Internet as an Art Medium and/or distribution tool for their performances. This allowed for extremely large world wide audiences. These audiences could have never been reached by any individual in the past ten thousand years of Civilization. Any historical medium that was even nearly as effective was reserved for the wealthy and the Governments that were run by the wealthy. We could say that modern Industrial Culture Performance Artists showed us the way to a new world that was coming. But they didn't. They showed us the new world that was now.

THE HOLY GRAIL OF INDUSTRIAL PERFORMANCE ART

This site is the Holy Grail of Performance Art. It was performed at the "Pearl" in Dayton Ohio on March 12, 2006. It has all the positive attributes of Performance Art. It has mind manipulation, entertainment, deceit, poetry, unplanned audience interaction, audience participation. It is dance. It is time Art (time is a very important intentional aspect of the performance). It is a future predictor. A Prophet.

It contains a real media video of the performance. The resolution is poor because it was transferred to real media format (requires a free real player) so it will not take up so much net space. It is the "Hell's Bullet" performance art piece. Hell's Bullet Performance NOTE: The video located here seems very slow to load. A faster loading one (that probably doesn't require a real player) is located here Rock Me Armageddon This performance of Hell's Bullet allows for a lone individual to express himself and his views of contemporary culture. It is designed to be entertaining but at the same time to make the statement of a new reality to the audience. It was performed in a dance club setting. A dance club in the United States is in essence a bar with a large stage area. It follows the ten points of performance art and explains how it does so.

THE PERFECT INDUSTRIAL PERFORMANCE ART PIECE

The Red Queen This is the Perfect Performance Art Piece because it involves combined multiple performances. It includes "Fred", the invisible performer. He is the Internet site that contains all the information, including video and still photographs. Any of the performances can stand alone or be combined in any manner to make a complete performance. This works because it is based on Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" Alice in the Garden of Live Flowers. This gives them all a common root. Index for the performances, video, still photos, "Fred's" stand alone part, creative records and alternate performance www.RedQueenPrinciple.com Performed 28 October 2006 in Dayton Ohio. Follow the links to get the full effect. If all the pages of this performance are printed out it will be more than 30 pages. The video is about 5 minutes long. This performance stands as the Perfect Industrial Culture Performance Art Piece. It follows most of the ten points of Performance art. It contains decorative elements but in essence it is a revisit to Plato's Cave with totally unforeseen and unexpected results.

Industrial Culture Performance Artists group

http://groups.myspace.com/industrialperformance There are several million people on www.MySpace.com If you are one of them you should join the Industrial Culture Performance Art site

List and links to Jack Bowman's Industrial Culture Performance Art pieces.

INDUSTRIAL CULTURE POETRY IN AMERICA

1965 TO 1995

Industrial Culture Poetry recognizes the working man and the woes brought to him by Industrial Culture. It may use romantic natural images as a reference for what might have been. It does not actually use them in an overly glorious or nostalgic way. It uses many industrial images such as smoke, heat, drugs, sewage, traffic, capitalism. It more than anything else brings to the forefront the negative attributes of the culture so they may be changed to improve the common man's lot.

From the mid 1940's to 1965 the spoken word (stand up) poetry scene was dominated by homosexual issues and surrealism. The homosexual issues were the break out of the closet that was coming at that time. The surrealism was just the incomprehensible images that Salvador Dali made famous. At the end of their dominance in poetry (Be aware their genres continues to this day but without the domination) there was also the "Happening" movement in art. Very similar to surrealism but distinctly different than contemporary performance art.

This thirty year Industrial Culture Poetry domination was brought about by the "paradise lost" concept. (The Romantic poetry and art movement was also created because of the "paradise lost" concept) At the birth of Industrial Culture Poetry the military industrial complex was all powerful and America was flexing it's muscle in all parts of the world. It became obvious in the Vietnam Conflict but it was world wide. The people of America just could not see it. Much like today in the Mid East conflict. The state controlled media and education system will not give the people enough information so they can think for themselves. In any case the creative ones saw that paradise was lost and tried to regain it by distributing, through their poetry, the flaws of industrialism.

In the early 1980's in America the media/education system began to praise the military/industrial aspects of the Capitalist society. It seems that the Industrial Culture Poets made a last stand (In Dayton Ohio at the three last coffee houses; Front Street, EFX, and Plan-B - all were closed by the mid '90's) but could not overcome the consumerism obsession by their society. About this time "Slam Poetry" was invented/created. It is where poets stand up in front of an audience, usually a bar, therefore a drunken audience, and are numerically judged by audience members that may or may not know anything about poetry. Also, at this time "Rap" music created by African Americans came into vogue. This rap type spoken word seemed to work well for a slam and a drunken audience. Slam poetry essentially became "White Boy Rap". Concerns about the military/industrial Capitalist complex did not fit this genre and went by the wayside.

I would like to point out that Romantic Poetry permeated during all the span of these genre's. It seems that Romantic Poetry and Art is a mainstay. However, you have to be aware, that creativity and the need to create bring about the new poetry movements. It is a lot like the Artist/Poet sees a society that has terrible flaws and he is compelled to right them with creativity. Those that did not see the flaws or saw no need to express them, continued with traditional Romantic Poetry. I personally would say (and have said) that Civilization died after Romantic Poetry of the 1800's so all the true intellectuals are trying to create something new. Something above and beyond this 10,000 years of failed Civilization.

Jack Bowman 2002

CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW TO SEE OTHER RECENT STYLES OF CONTEMPORARY POETRY. PERFORMANCE POETRY IS POETRY THAT INCLUDES PERFORMANCE ART. TIME REBEL (TIMERBELLS) POETRY IS POETRY THAT ALWAYS HAS CREATIVITY IN MIND AS A GOAL. QUANTUM POETRY IS DIFFICULT TO DEFINE, JUST DIFFERENT, DEFINITELY NOT POST MODERN.

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