Personal Subversion

I want to take a moment to reflect on what subversion means to me in my own life.

The dictionary definition of subversion said that it is the undermining of authority, power, established systems or institutions. So here we can associate some other words with it:

REBELLION

SABOTAGE

DISRUPTION

REVOLT

REVOLUTION

APOSTACY

INSURRECTION

And the list can go on.

But what are the effects of these elements on my own creativity? Or in my creativity? Is it an aid or a hindrance? Is subversiveness in its self is counter-creativity as it is destructive?Is it a paradox?

I could say that every day life is subversive towards my creativity. It disrupts my creative process by bothering me with the worry of paying bills. I am now writing this from my bed as I cannot walk due to having my ACL reconstructed a few days ago. This is subversive to my creativity as it is sabotaging my creative output. Day to day tasks, work, food, people (including social networks), all disrupting the creative process and output. So here I would say that subversion does not develop creative practice. 

Self doubt. Self Doubt is subversive in life and creativity. It triumphantly disrupts my day to day life like finding a job, researching, what I'm wearing, how I'm doing, where I'm going, who I am and all those other fun questions. It proceeds by pissing all over my creativity too with its revolt on what materials I'm using, it's sabotage of my ideas and it's rebellion against mark making. 

How can subversion help creativity when it is the opposite, the rebellion against that established system- that of creativity. Can anything that help the creative process be subversive when by definition, it does the opposite? 

Contradiction

However, subversion and creativity are also synonymous in the way that I'm not sure there can be one without the other. Without destruction can there be creativity? Without breaking boundaries first, can they be rebuilt? Disruption and destruction leave a place for creativity to develop. Does subversion come before creative practice or during the creative process? Both? Does creativity need to be broken before it can be fixed or is it broken down bit by bit to then make something new.  

With this in mind I wanted to see what others might think of this subject. I am part of a group on Facebook called Creative Control. I see the creatives of this group and being inspirational and subversive on different levels (although now I am questioning everything I once thought to be subversive). The group's 'About' reads "FOR US BY US. INTERVIEWS AND MORE WITH THE UNDERDOGS OF THE CREATIVE WORLD". This implies subversion. I thought this was a good place to pose my question. 

 

Subversion is subjective. It seems that it is difficult to define subversion because it is culturally defined and not absolute. Above is written "so whilst it might be subversive for the majority, it's pretty standard in the subcultures we move around in." This can be seen in my previous research on street art and graffiti, to some it may still be considered subversive but for many it is an accepted form of practice, expression and even life. 

In my own practice, I find that subversion is when I try a new material or process that I am not comfortable with. It breaks down the way I'm used to working, rebelling against it to create something original. Then this method becomes accepted by me and is no longer a subversive way of working. Subject matter varies but the strongest work is when I rebel against what others might think or say and am truly honest with myself. This again can link to materials, such as when I begun to use ring pulls as my medium, producing large and small scale pieces, or in the subject matter. 

With my own work, if I think about it more closely, I would say that the way in which I engage with materials is more subversive than the subject. This is odd because when I produce work I often think the subject matter could be seen as subversive and have never really considered the material to be so. For example, when I draw a picture of some disgusting slime bag, I'm aware that some people will react with disgust but in reality there is similar work out there that has been socially accepted by a subculture, somewhere. But thinking back to the work I did with ring pulls, generally speaking people, including other practitioners had no idea what was going on. This was something pretty weird. I was going to use ring pulls to build a dinosaur? Having said this, I didn't always use them as the material. I created a Zine where I pictures different 'specie' of ring pull, I gave them all Latin names and classified them according to zoological nomenclature. This is something I considered to be original and at the time didn't see it as being subversive but looking back, I think it might have been. People didn't know how to react but it came from me, with no consideration of if it was acceptable and came from somewhere honest. 

The medium might not be subversive but the idea might be in an unconventional sense of the word. Revolting against the idea of what should be in a Zine, what illustration is.

The subject matter might not be subversive but the materials used in such a project could be said to be subversive. Not a conventional way of sculpting, something that rebels against conventional ideas of materials and illustration.

Reflecting over this work has made me realise that I might have lost some of my honesty in the way that I have been working recently. This comes back to the way that life's subversiveness can disrupt the creative thought. I have now chosen a subject that i see in no way to be subversive: Mountains. But I now think that without being subversive there can be no real creativity as it requires you to undermine the social idea of what certain things are. It's very confusing. I am the happiest when I am creating work that doesn't regard it's audience too much (at least not untill the later stages of work) and yet I fear that this work will not help me pay the bills. Is subversiveness in my world, fear? So in turn i need to subvert against this to keep producing work that could be, for a short while, be deemed subversive. 

SUBVERT AGAINST SUBVERSION

Bibliography 

Creative Control. (2017). Creative Crontol. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/crtvctrl1/?fref=mentions