This chapter situates my own practice within an emergent field of urban intervention. It discusses the process, value of and inherent dangers in reframing interventionist practices and generating critical discourse around the 'invisible' and 'unofficial,' in interventionist practice.
From the introduction:
Cultural hijack is a term that cropped up in conversation with the editor, Ben Parry, in a bar in Glasgow some time ago. I was referring to that moment of being taken unawares by an experience – by something that stops you in your tracks, that redirects your thoughts, actions, attitude; something uninvited, unannounced, perhaps unnamed. The writing that follows is an attempt to sharpen my own thinking around the term. My intention is to frame cultural hijack and to discuss its recurrence and relevance in my own practice. in the process, I want to weigh up its value to artists and activists – partly to argue for its place in the canon of contemporary art and particularly to explore its various functions as a tool in the critical resistance toolkit.
Sometimes like the benign stuff of day-to-day serendipity, this hijack can be a gentle gift; more often it’s a type of deliberate misdirection, like that practised by the magician to pull off a trick, by the conman to separate you from your money and by the artist to ‘wilfully disrupt’ your day. Cultural hijack doesn’t ask to be engaged with, cultural hijack doesn’t wait patiently to be consumed. Cultural hijack works against your best interests because it thinks it knows better. With the most provocative cultural hijack, you never escape without being perturbed, altered or otherwise redirected.