A single screen and multichannel audio, video and installation work was installed initially at Koppe Astner, Glasgow. This will tour internationally as a single screen cinema work later in 2018. This project consolidates research outputs from a study of proto-accelerationist theory in the writings of Walter Benjamin: Paralipomena to "On The Concept Of History " 1940 and the contemporary theory of Benjamin Noys: Malign Velocities 2014.
Say What You Mean What You Say presented a dialectic between circular suspension and linearity reflecting on the theoretical models of Walter Benjamin's 'anteroom' and 'emergency brake'. As with Benjamin, the exhibition attempted to set up a dialogue between various components alluding to left- wing reactionary and accelerationist responses to the increasing velocity of capitalism. In this sense the reactionary is presented as the sensation of a looping effect, acting as pause or suspension in an act of resistance, whilst accelerationism is presented as more passively waiting for increasing hyper flow to outpace and deterritorialize capitalism.
Two key motifs act as vessels for these concepts, the first being the appropriated image of a wax work in Shenzhen, China, commemorating meetings between Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher negotiating the handover of Hong Kong to China. Here the image has been processed to resemble a live news feed but rendered as static as the original waxwork This meeting is parodied in the video by performers dressed as Thatcher and Xiaoping in a staged ideological transfer where their normalisation also reinsures the static original. This event marked a major advancement in Neo liberal economics in China as well as globally. This trope is intended to act as a signifier for the opposing ideologies of command and free market economies and the consequent cognitive dissonance generated by the 'one country, two systems' approach of China which is commonly described as an accelerationist tendancy and a key development in the spread of Neo liberal economics, resulting in socialism for the wealthy capitalism for the poor.
This critically dialogue is extended as an imaginary train ride with Xiaoping and Thatcher-like impersonators. Here the protagonists become locked in an endless loop feedback of dialogue and exchange, in a degree of suspension, yet paradoxically travelling along the historical linearity of progress. Here circularity may provide revolutionary pause or anticipation to the historical time rail track of capitalism but may also lead to fossilisation.
The second motif represents the reactionary mode of resistance, through the valorisation of human labour and the plight of the alienated and exploited worker. In previous exhibitions such as Illegitimi Non Carborundum, this was embodied in the rendering of images through highly labour intensive micro-actions, here the vector derived micro dots are more remote surrogates. The literal and linguistic reference to holes is related to the chorus lyrics of Serge Gainsbourg's ode to alienated work and suicide, Le Poinçonneur Des Lilas.
