April 1st, noon, on the tube to Liverpool St. Scanning the carriage, there are few other passengers. A group of students with large rucksacks and sleeping bags – could they be…but no, from their accents I can tell they are tourists. I catch their eyes and feeling self conscious look away. At 12.10 the tube pulls into Liverpool St – it’s pretty empty. Bad sign. Perhaps I am early. Walk out, round the corner, past the oyster bar and the cafe that the notes scrawled on my map told me would be there. 12.15, and the next street is Bishopsgate – shit, far too early. Find a bench, sit down, wait a while. Self consciously munch an apple and try to hide my sleeping bag behind my feet.
12.23. 3 boys around my age sit on the next bench. One of them carries a tent. We make eye contact then look away. Watching the clock. Minutes pass slowly. 12.25. A police van edges past and I nudge my bag further under the bench. 12.27. In the distance the sound of sirens. This isn’t good. Shouting people dressed in black tear around the corner, followed by at least 10 riot vans. Shit. Go. Now. The three boys stand up. You’re going to Bishopsgate too? Let’s run. Got the legal number? Here’s my pen, write it on your arm. Running across the road we pass people I recognise. 12.29, around the corner into Bishopsgate, up to the European Carbon Exchange. The riot vans flood in but it’s too late. 2000 of us at least already in the road, tents pop up, people climb on bus shelters and hang flags from buildings – colourful banners and rhetoric – “nature doesn’t do bailouts”.

There are many ways in which artists attempt to subvert the hierarchical gallery system. Some, such as the ‘Temporary Autonomous Art’ groups, squat abandoned buildings and transform them into galleries. Others decorate the streets with graffiti art and transform the city with installations.
These are always temporary, in terms of the space or the methods used. Squats are evicted, posters are torn down, murals are painted over. The typography and iconography of street art is used in advertising, because rebellion sells and can consumed. Situationist writer Raoul Vaneigem defined consumption as “the illusion of action or identity.” The Situationists described the process by which radical ideas are adopted and subverted by capitalist institutions as ‘recuperation.’
Is recuperation inevitable? Should we start being realistic and stop demanding the impossible?

I find my friends by the pedal powered sound system. Someone points out a woman in the crowd, a Liberal Democrat MP. It’s good that we’re getting broader appeal but it’s also a little worrying. At the last Camp for Climate Action, George Monbiot used us as a platform for his views, claiming we’re all in favour of nuclear power. There’s a danger of us being seen as the “good” protestors, who go about things in the “roper” way, and thereby undermining the “bad” activists who damaged the Royal Bank of Scotland. If that happens, we might as well be an NGO.

Austin Osman Spare, an eccentric artist who created beautiful images, died in poverty and obscurity. At the age of 17 his work was exhibited at the Royal Academy, and he later obtained a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Art. After graduating, he chose to exhibit his work only in local pubs and cafes. Today his work is known only by a few, and when I found three books about him in the library at university I was happily surprised. This was a far more exciting discovery than it would have been if he were well known, and if any of my tutors had ever heard of him.

I don’t want to die in obscurity. The prospect of failure terrifies me. But I really really don’t want to perpetuate a system that is this messed up, that makes people fear death and isolation to the extent that they feel the need for fame, that life is pointless if nobody remembers your name.
For every company executive there are thousands of minimum-wage cleaners and shop-assistants. For every Damien Hirst there are thousands of failed artists. Is success ethical?
Perhaps this depends on the way we define it. In a consumer society success is considered in terms of quantity – the amount of wealth and possessions you own, or the number of people your work reaches. Capitalism and hierarchy promote the idea of infinite progress – your work is never over, you can never have enough. The ideology of progress is designed to make you work harder and consume more. The more successful you are, the more responsibility you are rewarded with, and the more people will read the reviews that speak critically of you. Is success worth seeking?
What if success were to be defined in terms of quality – quality of connection, of inspiration? If your work only reaches a few people but touches them deeply, is this a bad thing?

Days later media commentators condemned the police violence. Liberal MPs used this outrage as a platform to trade insults with rival parties. No mention of why we were there, of the arguments against carbon trading. One tabloid even (non-pejoratively) referred to us as the “Camp for Climate Change”.

Bill Viola’s films are important to me because I find them to be joyous and life-affirming. You can buy them on DVD, and they are therefore a commodity. On the other hand, performance art cannot be bought, but I personally don’t find much of it uplifting. Perhaps the medium is not the message. Maybe the most important thing is to make work that excites other people and reminds them of what they are capable of if they put their minds to it. This is why I still love painting, even though it can be a commodity.
Would Dali’s work be any more special and inspirational if left anonymously on the side of a building, to transform the landscape? I think it would be.

To a certain extent we are stuck with this, because we exist in a hierarchical capitalist society, and because art isn’t revolution. I don’t know what the answer is, but it seems so important to try.

It was supposed to be beautiful, and it was while it lasted. They can co-opt us but we’ll keep trying, moving onto the next idea, the next spark of inspiration, growing out of the ruins.
We’ll be back in the summer, sneaking like a weed through broken paving cracks, tangled vines creeping through urban decay, snatching back the stolen space that was swallowed up by the city. Camping under twinkling stars and streetlights in the very heart of capitalism. Singing songs around campfires fuelled by newspaper scraps and debris. Screw the system, we've got samosas, cake and a compost loo! We’ll be back to camp in the city, trying to create something beautiful.

Bibliography

Vaneigem, Raoul, The Revolution of Everyday Life (1983), Rebel Press, London

Grant, Kenneth, Images and Oracles of Austin Osman Spare (2003), Holmes Pub Grou Llc