Black or White

The Revolution will not be Televised and it’s not Hashtagable.

It’s hard to know sometimes if you are a dilettante or a revolutionary.

Surf, Grunge, Metal, Disco, Goth, No Wave—all the genres—what do they really stand for if not codes? Codes of sound, dress, communication and behaviour. ∑GG√E|N reside in this space, and in an active transgression of these codes and conventions.

These societal codes are also agents of political belief. Many who believe without question will tell you, the world is flat, villains always blink their eyes and Rock is dead. Before these codes were co-opted by the integrated spectacle of industrial military capitalism, they were transgressive too. Offering something like excitement, they were disintegrated or at odds with themselves in the process of synthesis.

What are the aesthetics of the pandemic?
What are the aesthetics of disaster if not Metal and for that matter Bebop?

Only Rock connects with the true indifference, violence and power of the universe, everything else is advertising.

The more disorderly and chaotic it is the more like the universe it is. Transgression of these codes has the immediate effect of giving the transgressor a feeling of freedom and agency—of not being subject to the domain of existing social protocol. After forty years of punk, we, as a society, take this idea for granted. Importantly the transgression of aesthetic codes now only seems relevant if something tangible is at stake, like gender, race, sovereignty, equality. What is at stake for ∑√ is all of the above, but fundamentally it begins with freedom and self-determination.

Yep I like this music

—∑GG√E|N, 2020