RE:ACTOR: MANIFESTO 2005 KAMIKAZEJUNKERS

The Kamikaze pilot has in its honour of war-ethics been regarded as a hero in Asia. In this perspective, the western stigmatized drug addict, -the junkie has been regarded as the quite opposite. The life style of the junkie has been metaphorically a kind of mental kamikaze pilot, with an interpretation that both parts are devastating themselves. Historically the kamikaze pilot performed his actions through command and ideology. In opposition, the western junkie goes towards a marginalised individual in western society, even if the motivations and reasons for becoming a junkie can be explained through contextual, social and political matters.

Both groups have in common, that the kamikaze pilot and the junkie made consequences as battlefields in the East, and political debates in the West. In the West, these days when the drug politics are changing towards harm reduction and de-criminalisation among others, the traditional junkie, (at least the model of a Scandinavian junkie stereotype) is vanishing, (like the kamikaze pilot do no longer exist). Theories about globalism, glocality and geocultural identity can explain how a junkie is interpreted as a protagonist, combined towards political art within Scandinavia. The kamikaze pilot in other turn, contributes to a perspective over this. These fields have become major tasks that RE:ACTOR demonstrates through visualisation and audio, and also with the active participation from the RE:ACTOR audience.

Historically, we remember the AgitProp from the thirties.
Further, we have not forgotten Karlheinz Stockhausen and Arne Nordheim from the fifties/sixties.
Also, we politely remember the conceptual art and pop art from the sixties.
As we know, the art world in the seventies was quite autonomous, political or mainstream-glossy.
The eighties made a mark through pastiche totalitarian art like NSK and Laibach, or post expressionist depressive judgement-day visions.
As we all know, the irony of the nineties is dead.

In this perspective:

-- RE:ACTOR is entering the domain of a new political art in an autonomous context. We mean that every fourth year things are changing towards something else, no matter what it will be… so we change it now.

-- RE:ACTOR is not focusing on recycling elements or the political “spoken word”, but rather an aesthetics that no longer can fit into earlier époques or movements. This is why we focus on pure effects from the political aesthetics but without the political content or goal.

A deconstruction of this process, may contribute to a model that can look like this:

-- Ideology -- Propaganda -- Political Agitation

This means a focus on an explanation and visualisation of this formula.

RE:ACTORS digital interactive happening “KamikazeJunkers” points out some open interpreted comments for this purpose. If we look back to the heroic Eastern kamikaze pilot and the junkie, the Scandinavian junkie is regarded as an opposite model to the kamikaze pilot and both parts represent some metaphors in political art (but without the political content of course). A reflection over this tell us that the kamikaze pilot and the junkie have several clues in common, that in some way has been realised in a sociological and political-oriented society experiments.

RE:ACTOR do not longer refer to the classical avant-garde, pop art, conception or avant pop-movement. We are not listening to the several glitch elektronica-styles any longer. Not the Chicago house sound, not the Detroit techno, not the breakcore, not the minimal electrostuff, jazz, hip hop, dub or the bossatronic. Only music from Bergen. RE:ACTOR have become glocal in a way that we do not longer listen to music and view video and arts from Montreal, Budapest, Berlin, Antwerp, Sheffield or Barcelona.
Only Bergen. We are rather emphasizing the local heroes in the Cut ups (video + textuality) and think that the survival of club culture and electronica has its life-existence in ads on pay tv-channels.

Our conclusion then is:

- REDUCTION - REPETITION - RE:ACTION
- DISTINCTION - REGENERATIVE - RE:ACTOR

www.r3aktor.com