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Rehearsals In Normalcy
Unfinished-Clicking through Grahm Harwood's CD-rom, 'Rehearsal of Memory,' one
is confounded with texts and scanned images of Britain's criminally insane.
One could question the corrrectness of such exploitation.
Grahm Harwood has no qualms with it, explaining that exploitation is a fact of life.
The key is finding an acceptable level that allows for some balance.
Perhaps as a result of Harwood's work within the Ashworth Maximum Security
Hospital, patient's will gain acess to the internet.
While this is hardly the revolution envisioned by some- it could effect a real
change in patient's lives.
Harwood, hardly a technophile, sees this as a positive result for his
exploitees-
While hardly a technophile, he believes in subversion via the media.
Harwood's underground art activities in London adapt media practices to
produce works for consumption.
Less important than the technology, or the means, is the content.
What Harwood calls the 'Politics of Ridicule' includes coopting media tactics
to subvert traditional ideas of normalcy.
The Politics of Ridicule use satire to examine the social- oro
Mocking norms, provoking paranoia through esssentially harmless means.
Harwood has blasted Winsdor Palace with the sounds of falling buildings,
slipped advertising images of cochroaches under the carpets of power moguls,
harmless actions that chance to subvert from the inside out.
Diana McCarty
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