This is the British avant-garde. Continental seriousness shot through with nods to British humour \u2013 Heidegger joins Monty Python or a Tommy Cooper-influenced Roland Barthes. The British do not do art movements \u2013 Vorticism produced Blast<\/em> and very little after that. The YBAs \u2013 thrust together by a Saatchi-led press \u2013 had little in common apart from their publicity. With its proclamations, declarations, committees, purges, and publications the INS follows in the (ministry of silly) footsteps of Marinetti<\/a>‘s Futurists, Breton’s Surrealists, and Debord<\/a>‘s Situationist International. INS members handed out designer passes to the press along with documents on INS history and a transcript of the declaration, everything emblazoned with the INS legend. INS members wore INS nametags, lapel buttons, and, to cement the feeling of an organization, unveiled behind the speakers, the new INS crest showed a sponge (formlessness), a net of the globe, Anubis (the preincarnation of Wile E. Coyote), and the INS motto: cras ingens iterabimus aequor<\/em> \u2013 \u201cTomorrow we shall (re)traverse the enormous space\/sea.”<\/p>\n The packed auditorium did not seem to get the joke. The post-declaration Q&A session eventually elicited laughter either by the use of Bergsonian repetition \u2013 the McCarthy\/Critchley clones reading from set answers: “let me answer you like this” \u2013 or Freudian release at the end of the interminable questions. Note: at readings, people asking questions \u2013 in love with your own voice \u2013 please be aware that interrogative remarks require an erotome.<\/p>\n According to the INS, we are all dividuals \u2013 the self is divided, split, is inauthentic, we are comic, incomplete; the art we make, which informs our existence, is fake, a forgery, is indeed the there of our thatness. Our journey to death (Necronaut) is a way to navigate existence \u2013 there is no transcendence \u2013 our matter matters. So: Beckett, Blanchot, and Bataille as drawn by Chuck Jones.<\/p>\n But does the INS matter? Is it an avant-garde movement? An in-joke? Is the avant-garde an in-joke? Like the crowd at the last Sex Pistols’ concert, did the audience in the Clore Gallery auditorium think they had been cheated? Or was it more like the Pistols’ 1976 gig at the 100 Club and everyone will claim to have been there. (Like the nappy from my original Sex bondage trousers, I might keep my be-ribboned INS press pass just in case). See \u2013 authenticity equals history. Or does it?<\/p>\n Despite some undergraduate humour, the actors’ inability to pronounce some of the words \u2013 \u201cd \u00e9doublement” was a good one, the dodgy fascist chic, the INS is at least questioning how we think about art, literature, and existence. In its acknowledgment of continental philosophy, experimental literature, and the place of the avant-garde in society, the INS \u2013 whether wholly serious or tongue in cheek \u2013 is a welcome addition to a culture slaloming headlong down lowbrow hill.<\/p>\n![\"sfericalb1\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/sfericalb1-300x209.jpg\")
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With its proclamations, declarations, committees, purges, and publications the INS is following in the (ministry of silly) footsteps of Marinetti’s Futurists, Breton’s Surrealists, and Debord’s Situationist International. INS members handed out designer passes to the press along with a handout of INS history and a transcript of the declaration, everything emblazoned with the INS legend. Members wore INS nametags, lapel buttons, and, to cement the feeling of an organization, unveiled behind the speakers, the new INS crest showing a sponge (formlessness), a net of the globe, Anubis (the preincarnation of Wile E. Coyote), and the INS motto: cras ingens iterabimus aequor \u2014 \u201cTomorrow we shall (re)traverse the enormous space\/sea.\u201d\u009d <\/p>\n