Hi all, here is some of the music I’m working with for my final paper on the semiotics of the intersection of whiteness and women in CE’s live performance at Berserktown III this past summer. As this project is largely a study of semantic, symbolic, and sonic violence, the content of the case studies I’m working with, some of which is listed below, is highly graphic. In this respect, I feel it is important to note that I remain highly critical in my examination and interpretation of it.
Some questions I’m considering in this paper:
I’m interested in considering how the ambiguity Consumer Electronics and their affiliates have left in regards to their artistic intentions can be considered in light of their music. Is the highest indicator of white male privilege the ability to enjoy a multi-decade career using racist, sexist, and ableist material to the point of parody / self-parody? How is Froelich’s partnership in the group a complicating factor in their appropriation of violence?What political statement is being made in their work, and who is it aimed at?Whose voice changes the reading of the musical text, how, and to what effect? Whose ears change the reading of the musical text, how, and to what effect? Is their ambiguity the point? i.e. can this ambiguity be read as a critique of neoliberal ideology, the expediency of culture, and the commodification of art, in that anyone can consume art to the effect of validating their particular subject position at any point in time? Finally, the content of CE’s work permanently implicates them in literal racist, antisemitic, gendered violence, some perhaps legitimated by their work, regardless of their artistic and political intentions. In this sense, how does one consider similar works and their political message in the milieu of the society they operate within?
_____________________________________
TW: white supremacy, anti-semitism, rape, self harm
|||
|||
|||
|||
|||
Consumer Electronics – Co-Opted
Consumer Electronics – Teenage Nuremburg
Consumer Electronics – Live Leeds April 4, 2016
Whitehouse – Cut Hands Has the Solution
White Power Compilation Discogs
Consumer Electronics – Condition Of A Hole
