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Title / All Power to the Imagination!
Date / August 2020
Exhibited / UTOPIA Micro-commissions - The Royal Standard, Liverpool.
Description / Utopia describes ‘no place’ or a place that does not exist, and first entered the English lexicon some 500 years ago with the publication of Thomas More’s book of the same name. More describes Utopia as a seemingly perfect and peaceful island whose inhabitants had no need for conflict or private property (as well as golden chamber-pots) however it is unclear as to whether More’s indictment of such a place as ‘no place’ positioned it either as an aspirational benchmark for some political and social ideal, or rather as a cynical political satire that humankind was incapable of achieving such a state of perfect existence. In any case, Utopia has come to signify our capacity to dream beyond our material means, and imagine the unimaginable. Utopias also signify the political power of the imagination, in their capacity to invite people to dream collectively.
Responding to the theme of Utopia for The Royal Standard, ‘All Power to the Imagination’ is taken from one of the key slogan’s for the Paris Student Revolt of 1968 ‘L’imagination au Pouvoir’, which invited people to collectively imagine new political and social models. However, imaginary Utopias have also been deployed in populist political strategies – be that in the mythical promise of ethnically pure utopias that fascism supposes, or in the mythic return to some idyllic past that we see in the rise of right-wing populism across Europe and the United States today. Furthermore, in a political zeitgeist often described as ‘post-truth’, what implications might the non-real spaces of Utopias hold for our own individual agency? What is clear is that the creation of Utopias can be both a divestment of individual political agency, as well as a tool of popular control.
We as artists often work in imaginary terms, crafting imaginary worlds and suggesting new models of looking at the world. However, what is also clear is the potential for the imagination to be hijacked as a tool for popular control. John Carney responded to this theme in the first instance by re-imagining our world under the banner of a new flag, ‘All Power to the Imagination’, which was rendered as a 3d digital moving image. This conceptual proposition then formed the basis for a talk which was delivered via Zoom on 14th August 2020.
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Title / All Power to the Imagination!
Date / August 2020
Exhibited / UTOPIA Micro-commissions - The Royal Standard, Liverpool.
Description / Utopia describes ‘no place’ or a place that does not exist, and first entered the English lexicon some 500 years ago with the publication of Thomas More’s book of the same name. More describes Utopia as a seemingly perfect and peaceful island whose inhabitants had no need for conflict or private property (as well as golden chamber-pots) however it is unclear as to whether More’s indictment of such a place as ‘no place’ positioned it either as an aspirational benchmark for some political and social ideal, or rather as a cynical political satire that humankind was incapable of achieving such a state of perfect existence. In any case, Utopia has come to signify our capacity to dream beyond our material means, and imagine the unimaginable. Utopias also signify the political power of the imagination, in their capacity to invite people to dream collectively.
Responding to the theme of Utopia for The Royal Standard, ‘All Power to the Imagination’ is taken from one of the key slogan’s for the Paris Student Revolt of 1968 ‘L’imagination au Pouvoir’, which invited people to collectively imagine new political and social models. However, imaginary Utopias have also been deployed in populist political strategies – be that in the mythical promise of ethnically pure utopias that fascism supposes, or in the mythic return to some idyllic past that we see in the rise of right-wing populism across Europe and the United States today. Furthermore, in a political zeitgeist often described as ‘post-truth’, what implications might the non-real spaces of Utopias hold for our own individual agency? What is clear is that the creation of Utopias can be both a divestment of individual political agency, as well as a tool of popular control.
We as artists often work in imaginary terms, crafting imaginary worlds and suggesting new models of looking at the world. However, what is also clear is the potential for the imagination to be hijacked as a tool for popular control. John Carney responded to this theme in the first instance by re-imagining our world under the banner of a new flag, ‘All Power to the Imagination’, which was rendered as a 3d digital moving image. This conceptual proposition then formed the basis for a talk which was delivered via Zoom on 14th August 2020.
Title / All Power to the Imagination!
Date / August 2020
Exhibited / UTOPIA Micro-commissions - The Royal Standard, Liverpool.
Description / Utopia describes ‘no place’ or a place that does not exist, and first entered the English lexicon some 500 years ago with the publication of Thomas More’s book of the same name. More describes Utopia as a seemingly perfect and peaceful island whose inhabitants had no need for conflict or private property (as well as golden chamber-pots) however it is unclear as to whether More’s indictment of such a place as ‘no place’ positioned it either as an aspirational benchmark for some political and social ideal, or rather as a cynical political satire that humankind was incapable of achieving such a state of perfect existence. In any case, Utopia has come to signify our capacity to dream beyond our material means, and imagine the unimaginable. Utopias also signify the political power of the imagination, in their capacity to invite people to dream collectively.
Responding to the theme of Utopia for The Royal Standard, ‘All Power to the Imagination’ is taken from one of the key slogan’s for the Paris Student Revolt of 1968 ‘L’imagination au Pouvoir’, which invited people to collectively imagine new political and social models. However, imaginary Utopias have also been deployed in populist political strategies – be that in the mythical promise of ethnically pure utopias that fascism supposes, or in the mythic return to some idyllic past that we see in the rise of right-wing populism across Europe and the United States today. Furthermore, in a political zeitgeist often described as ‘post-truth’, what implications might the non-real spaces of Utopias hold for our own individual agency? What is clear is that the creation of Utopias can be both a divestment of individual political agency, as well as a tool of popular control.
We as artists often work in imaginary terms, crafting imaginary worlds and suggesting new models of looking at the world. However, what is also clear is the potential for the imagination to be hijacked as a tool for popular control. John Carney responded to this theme in the first instance by re-imagining our world under the banner of a new flag, ‘All Power to the Imagination’, which was rendered as a 3d digital moving image. This conceptual proposition then formed the basis for a talk which was delivered via Zoom on 14th August 2020.