i remember cowley rd

very well [1995]

are there still loads squatting at the tophigh rise flats???
good memories


as i see it

'art' 'revenge' 'statements' are a challenge

it an act of war sometines 'as they see it'

censorship as they see it
is
'cleaning up'


but also
the act of burning away brilliance
allows people who remember
that certain gifted artifact
and enables those who noticed
to acknowledge the gap left by fascism

so what i say is

make it to be destroyed

give it love
but hold it in memory

and hope others do too

you are the gaps in the matrix

[see the black cat twice?]

I don't think it's censorship, you left it in the street of yob culture Britain. Maybe an addict took it to sell and buy drugs.

Censoring artwork is like burning books!

I've seen it in the window of Crack Converters - Sorry I didn't pick it up as I was after the stereo as I thought that was better value.

Do we know who dug the art-work up? Is it the council itself? If so, it's a grotesque act of censorship. What is interesting is how this draws attention to the dubious nature of the "Road Safety Improvements" on Cowley Road, which these art installations are supposed to be part of. The argument from the council is that these "improvements" benefit the community as a whole. There are contrasting opinions from actual users of Cowley Road. Is the best way of calming traffic to use cyclists as a barrier, who now have to weave into the road so that a bus cannot pass? A young woman was crushed to death by a bus on this stretch of road only a year ago. Have you noticed how the new road design makes corporate giant Tesco the "jewel in the crown" of Cowley Road? The plan makes the Tesco area very smart with shiny new paving stones, with re-located bus-stops to benefit happy supermarket shoppers, whereas the area around East Oxford Community Centre, for instance, is just regular tarmac. Cowley Road is now divided into "posh" areas and "scuzzy" areas. Small shopkeepers, which many of us consider the life-blood of Cowley Road, rather than Tesco, are facing crippling rent and rates rises. It looks horribly like a gentrification of Cowley Road,which will encourage big corporations to invest at the expense of the small traders which give Cowley Road its current diversity.
And now there is censorship of art which suggests that there is a reality in Cowley Road other than the corporate dream-world.....

If I am wrong to suggest that this comes from the council, please tell me.

hmmm yes you are wrong to suggest that the council are involved in censoring this artwork. I get the feeling some people here are obsessed with conspiracy.

the act of burning away brilliance
allows people who remember
that certain gifted artifact
and enables those who noticed
to acknowledge the gap left by fascism

wtf? i never heard such a load of tosh. you really are right up your own *ss aren't you.
You wouldn't know brilliance if it hit you in the face I fear.

Nice-ism n. tendency, more or less socially codified, to approach reality in terms of whether others behave cordially; tyranny of decorum which disallows thinking or actingfor oneself; mode of interaction based upon the above absence of critical judgement or autonomy.

All of us prefer what is friendly, sincere, pleasant-nice. But in an immiserated world of pervasive and real crisis, which should be causing all of us to radically reassess everything, the nice can be the false.

The face of domination is often a smiling one, a cultured one. Auschwitz comes to mind, with its managers who enjoyed their Goethe and Mozart. Similarly, it was not evil-looking monsters who built the A-bomb but nice liberal intellectuals. Ditto regarding those who are computerizing life and those who in other ways are the mainstays of participation in this rotting order, just as it is the nice businessperson (self-managed or otherwise) who is the backbone of a cruel work-and-shop existence by concealing it's real horrors.

Cases of niceism include the peaceniks, whose ethic of niceness puts them-again and again and again-in stupid ritualized, no-win situations, those Earth First!ers who refuse to confront the thorouhly reprehensible ideology at the top of "their" organization, and Fifth Estate, whose highly important contributions now seem to be in danger of an eclipse by liberalism. All the single-issue causes, from ecologism to feminism, and all the militancy in their service, are only ways of evading the necessity of a qualitative break with more than just the excesses of the system.

The nice as the perfect enemy of tactical or analytical thinking: Be agreeable; don't let having radical ideas make waves in your personal behavior. Accept the pre-packaged methods and limits of the daily strangulation. Ingrained deference, the conditioned response to "play by the rules"-authority's rules-this is the real Fifth Column, the one within us.

In the context of a mauled social life that demands the drastic as a minimum response toward health, niceism becomes more and more infantile, conformist and dangerous. It cannot grant joy, only more routine and isolation. The pleasure of authenticity exists only against the grain of society. Niceism keeps us all in our places, confusedly reproducing all that we supposedly abhor. Let's stop being nice to this nightmare and all who would keep us in it.

If you have evidence that the council did not censor this art-work, could you please give it. Who did dig up the road then?

As for the rest of your comment, what's all that got to do with this posting? On second thoughts, please don't answer that.

I reckon they just want to crack the puzzle - BAMN

It was the County Council (Tory regime) who removed it.

The County is responsible for highways etc and didn't ask Fusion Arts, residents, shopkeepers, local Councillors or City officers how they felt about the syringe. Perhaps they were afraid that everyone would say they liked it!

There are no Tory Councillors in Oxford, but since they took control of the County in May, they have treated Oxford as their play thing to use and abuse - this now apparently includes censorship!

When the Cowley Road scheme is finished (iminent) the Tory responsible for transport (Cllr David Robertson) will no doubt turn up for press photos.... perhaps we should ask him why the syringe was removed (before he gets in his Jag and drives home to Witney).