December 9, 2024Nic Sweet talks praxis and theory in his evolution as an artist
When I’m making pictures, everything in my life is going to bleed into it.
I didn’t get into a lot of theory until my twenties. And not to Kropotkin or Bookchin until I was 30 at least and had my first stable job teaching art. I’ve heard this alot, but it started with my mom driving me around to places for donations to soup kitchens. And later with friends and the music scene in Anchorage, AK. That was right at 2000-2 ish… Folks would put on shows with punk bands or music festivals. I got involved in television production on a public access thing called Anchorage Underground. I was on that for 30 episodes.
I was 19 my dad died when I was younger, like 12 years old, but I got some money. With that I got a truck, a camera, a computer and Final Cut Pro. My friend Rob and I shot a game of pool and taught ourselves how to edit video over a weekend. I had made a flyer for a punk show. And that got me introduced to Tom Neeson, and he got me started with production. And it was like a whole ecosystem of people. Most of which were working normal jobs in food service or retail. But then they would go rock out on the weekends. We would also bug out and just go camp for a week or two at a time in the summer.
People helped each other with bills. Fed each other. Mutual Aid was something I saw lived before I ever read about it. The first book I picked up that was explicitly anarchist was an autobiography of Voltarine De Clerye. I was working at a film archive and would bug out on my lunches to peruse the UAA consortium library. I also remember reading a lot of Lewis Mumford until a co-worker suggested Jacuqes Ellul. So Christian Anarchist ideas and Individualist Anarchist ideas were the first times I was reading about it.
I would always say I am a no-adjectives anarchist. I think Anarchist Communists and Syndicalists have good ideas. e.g. Kropotkin giving an alternative reading of evolution. Or the IWWs way of organizing a workplace through non-contract unions, where working people can get to know each other and hopefully gain some agency. Also I will work with almost anyone, especially if it’s about feeding people.
I really think we need to take the work Libertarian back from people like Trump and Musk or Rothbard going farther back. Liberty is a freedom that we have that doesn’t impinge on the freedom of other people. So that doesn’t really jive with a corporate take over of nation states does it? Rothbard openly bragged about stealing it, because Libertarian used to be a polite way to say anarchist.
So much of the discourse is authoritarian right now. Whether it’s Trump acting like everyone needs to fall in line behind MAGA or the interview I just saw with James Carville talking to kids in their 20s telling them to shut up and get in line with what the Republican wing of the Democratic Party wants. Bernie isn’t even a socialist to me. That’s what’s left of the FDR democrats man. I have even seen a bunch of Breadtube stuff about “leadership”. Bottom line for me is that the more people are taken into consideration, the more stable the root of society or your organization can be, When I have seen organizations fall apart it’s been because of “leadership” meetings that tried to work off of simple majority or an even lower threshold for decisions. Our national election was decided by 27% of the electorate.
I’m not gonna just put that one kid’s man…I want to see everyone push back. And maybe that means stuff in the street, maybe that means organizing your workplace, maybe that means starting a worker owned business or shop. Shout out to Left Bank Books in Seattle. Feeding people when they try to make ordinances against feeding homeless people. Join a band with friends and put on shows. Fix potholes. Even joining an AFL/CIO type Union. Whatever it is that helps to increase standard of living, or change misery to joy, I’m for it. Shout out to Joy gallery in Rochester.
Again all of the theory I’ve read is great, but without direct action its ink and paper or blue light screens.
Peace,
Nic
