Distortion and augmentation seem to be the theme for my street work at the moment. Wouldn’t you call the tagging of statues in America a way of distorting the popular narrative of history? I had spoken of it musically as a symphony of collective collaboration but I want to add that it is also a piece of music closer to distortion or noise. Just like the noise in the work of the group Public Enemy. Just like the visual noise on the statues. Yet it is a distortion of space and may even become a distortion of time as well. The problem America has is that there will be no revolution. There will just be competing interest groups fighting over ‘values’ and the valuable. More likely ‘values’ will be an excuse for seeking the valuable. Isn’t that what imperialism is anyway? A set of values seeking what is most sought after?

I am no strategist myself but I hear people talk of strategies. America still has a lot of tricks up its sleeve. Everything I see today seems covert and worrying. What a year so far and what a journey into a decline that seems to have no end in sight. Yet it has been going on for over twenty years, maybe longer. Trump could also be a good example of distortion if you want it to be. He changed the narrative into a self grandiose story of greatness and beating back the decline we have seen gnawing at us over decades. There are global strategic policies and regional strategic policies that seem to no longer coalesce. One cuts off the other and the other declines only to make the whole decline. Yet the distortion only makes reality slip away one tweet at a time.

The dream is real and reality is the dream. There is the good and the bad and the other option. There is always a third option. There can be good in the bad and bad in the good but also something unusual. Maybe this year is the disaster and next year is the consequence, at least that is what I have heard. If you hear a theory in these times that makes sense and seems quite easy to understand there is a lot missing because there are no easy answers.

Just as a side note I feel at the moment that everything has always been distorted but maybe now we realise this thus the statues taking on their true form.