This a collaborative drawing I did with Samuel Morgan last year. We tried to highlight the profit-orientated nature of the contemporary art world. Contrasting the money spent in a single art auction to that of the entire global food aid on a single day. How can the rich spend so much money on art while millions suffer. The global power structure created by the ruling elite keeps the poor in there place and gives ever increasing wealth to the rich. Many of the rich like to buy art. Do artists really want sell their work for blood money?

Tuesday 24th may 2011

Photographs taken of my lastest public performance. Using the Mobile Activist Art Unit I travelled around the centre of Leeds interacting with the public and exposing the reality of our profit-driven system. Unfortunately I was stopped from handing out leaflets which explained the workings of the unit and gave a brief explanation of capitalism, hierarchy and the current austerity cuts. Being told that I was not allowed to give out my literature was a prime example of state surpression and the lack of freedom of speech. This is the first of many ventures into the public domain, I plan to make it a regular occurance and build a solid campaign.

Photographs taken by: Charlotte Emily Groves
http://charlotteemilygroves.co.uk/
http://charlotteemilygroves.tumblr.com/

To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the public interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

APPARATUS

These devices will be used by myself during the performance. While interacting with the handmade apparatus I will try to physically represent the unfair, exploitative inner workings of the capitalist system. Each device has a specific function (from ball cleaners to tube stoppers) playing its own role in the action as a whole. As I am the one who makes it all work it could be said that I am placing myself in the position of "the controller". Using my body as a physical embodiment of capitalism, to expose and confront it.