Electronic Resistance by Nigel Ayers

Noise in Opposition - Joint Statement #04

Smash Austerity Nostalgia

Mugs now available here:
http://www.cafepress.co.uk/smashausteritynostalgia.1726639400

Mugs now available here:
http://www.cafepress.co.uk/smashausteritynostalgia.1726639400

On the "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster:

"One of the few test printings of the poster was found in a consignment of secondhand books bought at auction by Barter Books in Alnwick, Northumberland, which then created the first reproductions. First sold in London by the shop at the Victoria and Albert Museum, it became a middlebrow staple when the recession, initially merely the slightly euphemistic “credit crunch”, hit. Through this poster, the way to display one’s commitment to the new austerity regime was to buy more consumer goods, albeit with a less garish aesthetic than was customary during the boom. This was similar to the “Keep calm and carry on shopping” commanded by George W Bush both after September 11 and when the sub-prime crisis hit America. The wartime use of this rhetoric escalated during the economic turmoil in the UK; witness the slogan of the 2010-15 coalition government, “We’re all in this together”. The power of Keep Calm and Carry On comes from a yearning for an actual or imaginary English patrician attitude of stiff upper lips and muddling through. This is, however, something that largely survives only in the popular imagination, in a country devoted to services and consumption, where elections are decided on the basis of house-price value, and given to sudden, mawkish outpourings of sentiment. The poster isn’t just a case of the return of the repressed, it is rather the return of repression itself. It is a nostalgia for the state of being repressed – solid, stoic, public spirited, as opposed to the depoliticised, hysterical and privatised reality of Britain over the last 30 years."

Owen Hatherley: Keep Calm and Carry On – the sinister message behind the slogan that seduced the nation
http://gu.com/p/4fgza/stw

Smash Austerity Nostalgia!

On the "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster:

"One of the few test printings of the poster was found in a consignment of secondhand books bought at auction by Barter Books in Alnwick, Northumberland, which then created the first reproductions. First sold in London by the shop at the Victoria and Albert Museum, it became a middlebrow staple when the recession, initially merely the slightly euphemistic “credit crunch”, hit. Through this poster, the way to display one’s commitment to the new austerity regime was to buy more consumer goods, albeit with a less garish aesthetic than was customary during the boom. This was similar to the “Keep calm and carry on shopping” commanded by George W Bush both after September 11 and when the sub-prime crisis hit America. The wartime use of this rhetoric escalated during the economic turmoil in the UK; witness the slogan of the 2010-15 coalition government, “We’re all in this together”. The power of Keep Calm and Carry On comes from a yearning for an actual or imaginary English patrician attitude of stiff upper lips and muddling through. This is, however, something that largely survives only in the popular imagination, in a country devoted to services and consumption, where elections are decided on the basis of house-price value, and given to sudden, mawkish outpourings of sentiment. The poster isn’t just a case of the return of the repressed, it is rather the return of repression itself. It is a nostalgia for the state of being repressed – solid, stoic, public spirited, as opposed to the depoliticised, hysterical and privatised reality of Britain over the last 30 years."

Owen Hatherley: Keep Calm and Carry On – the sinister message behind the slogan that seduced the nation
http://gu.com/p/4fgza/stw

Smash austerity nostalgia

Blair War Criminal again...

In the Independent I paper today

There's more about this poster I designed at:
nigelayers.com/pages/warcrim/warcrimjan.html

see also

http://www.arrestblair.org/

Iron Lady - Rust in Peace

Hugo Chavez

Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, died on Tuesday.
Here he is photographed back in 2005, with soccer star Diego Maradona who is wearing a piece of my artwork for the occasion.
See: http://www.nigelayers.com/warcrim/warcrimjan.html
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151215717376066.503868.44070841065&type=1&l=4f2bb40232

Détournement et Recuperation

Détournement is a technique developed in the 1950s by the Letterist International, and consists in "turning expressions of the capitalist system and its media culture against itself," like turning slogans and logos against the advertisers or the political status quo.

Recuperation is the process by which politically radical ideas and images are twisted, co-opted, absorbed, defused, incorporated, annexed and commodified within media culture and bourgeois society, and thus become interpreted through a neutralized, innocuous or more socially conventional perspective. More broadly, it may refer to the cultural appropriation of any subversive works or ideas by mainstream culture.

Jez'll Fix It

Save Lewisham A&E: Jez'll fix it

On Saturday November 24, 2012, despite the rain, around 10,000 protestors marched through Lewisham, in south east London, to a rally in Ladywell Fields, to protest about the proposals to close Lewisham Hospital's A&E Department, and send emergencies to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, to downgrade maternity services, and to sell off over half the hospital's buildings. If the proposals go ahead, there will be just one A&E Department for the 750,000 people in three London boroughs -- Lewisham, Greenwich and Bexley.
This placard is aimed at Jeremy Hunt, the disgraced culture secretary who, despite his corrupt dealings with Rupert Murdoch, was nevertheless given the job of health secretary in September, replacing Andrew Lansley. I find it ironic that, behind the Jimmy Savilled image of Jeremy Hunt, is an advert on a bus for something called "Hitman."
The proposals were published on October 29, 2012 by Matthew Kershaw, an NHS special administrator appointed by ex-health secretary Andrew Lansley to deal with the financial problems of another NHS trust in south east London that is totally unconnected to Lewisham NHS Trust, and the insultingly short consultation period ends on December 13, 2012.
Campaigners -- myself included -- are demanding that the plans be scrapped, and that Lewisham Hospital be allowed to continue providing a comprehensive service to the 250,000 inhabitants of the borough, whose health needs are more important than cuts designed solely to save money.
For further information, see: www.savelewishamhospital.com/
Also see: www.andyworthington.co.uk/2012/11/03/save-lewisham-ae-as-...
www.andyworthington.co.uk/2012/11/09/lewisham-residents-r...
www.andyworthington.co.uk/2012/11/21/save-lewisham-hospit...
For more on Andy Worthington, see: www.andyworthington.co.uk/

Cut & pasted from Andy Worthington's Flickr page. The placard image will be available for free download from a more permanent source shortly..

Sod the Jubilee!

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

Can't Pay Won't Pay

Nigel Ayers

Can't Pay Won't Pay 2012

archival black ink on real money, toy money and hell money

Beware of the Trolls

It has been brought to my attention that I'm currently being trolled by some imposter in one or two newsgroups because of my opposition to pro-fascist & pro-paedo propagandists on the goth scene.. (and pretty much anywhere else come to think of it).



For your information, I don't use a Hotmail account and my web site isn't a page on Wikipedia.

You can find the real Nigel Ayers on this blog right here, or on the links up on the side of this page.

By the way
love music hate racism

and who makes the nazis

Tony Blair - War Criminal

Tony Blair is at the Chilcot Equiry into the Iraq invasion again tomorrow.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/12/tony-blair-chilcot-iraq-inquiry
To: President of the United Nations General Assembly and the UK Attorney General

BWCF - THE BLAIR WAR CRIMES FOUNDATION

To The President of The United Nations General Assembly, H.E. Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, and The Attorney General of the United Kingdom, and their successors in office.

RE ANTHONY CHARLES LYNTON BLAIR

We, the citizens of the United Kingdom and other countries listed, wish to uphold The United Nations Charter, The 1998 Rome Statute of The International Criminal Court, The Hague and Geneva Conventions and the Rule of International Law, especially in respect of:-

1: 1949 Geneva Convention IV: Article 146
The High Contracting Parties undertake to enact any legislation necessary to provide effective penal sanctions for persons committing, or ordering to be committed, any of the grave breaches of the present Convention.

2: 1907 Hague Convention IV: Article 3
A belligerent party which violates the provisions of the said regulations shall, if the case demands, be liable to pay compensation. It shall be responsible for all the acts committed by persons forming part of its armed forces.

We therefore call on you to indict Anthony Charles Lynton Blair in his capacity as recent Prime Minister of the UK, so long as he is able to answer for his actions and however long it takes, in respect of our sample complaints relating to the 2003 Iraq War waged by the UK as ally to the United States of America.

We are concerned that without justice and respect for the rule of law, the future for us and our progeny in a lawless world is bleak, as revealed by recent US declarations about the use of torture and the events of December 2008 in Gaza show.


The following are our sample complaints relating to the Iraq War 2003-2009:

1: Deceit and conspiracy for war, and providing false news to incite passions for war, causing in the order of one million deaths, 4 million refugees, countless maimings and traumas.

2: Employing radioactive ammunition causing long-term destruction of the planetary habitat.

3: Causing the breakdown of civil administration, with consequent lawlessness, especially looting, kidnapping, and violence, and consequent breakdown of womens’ rights, of religious freedom, and child and adult education.

4: Failing to maintain the medical needs of the populace.

5: Despoliation of the cultural heritage of the country.

6: Supporting an ally that employs ‘waterboarding’ and other tortures.

7: Seizing the assets of Iraq.

8: Using inhumane restraints on prisoners, including dogs, hoods, and cable ties.

9: Using Aggressive Patrolling indiscriminately, traumatising women and children and wrecking homes and property.

10: Marking bodies of prisoners with numbers, writing, faeces and other degrading treatment.

11: The use of cluster bombs and other indiscriminate weapons including white phosphorous on “shake and bake” missions.

12: Supporting indiscriminate rocket attacks from F16 fighter planes on women and children in Fallujah in Nov 2004

13: Supporting the shooting up of ambulances and medical personnel in Fallujah in Nov 2004

14: Supporting the expulsion of the entire population of Fallujah save for young men of military age, for a reprisal attack on that city in Nov 2004.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned
http://www.petitiononline.com/BWCF/petition.html

Download this placard:

War Criminal - TV footage and documentation

A compilation for you..

Music is "I See You're with Eeyore" from Nocturnal Emissions "Collateral Salvage", available for download in all the usual places and on CD as well.
End credit music is folk music recorded on the street in Iraq two weeks before the invasion.

From Today's Papers

Sunday Mirror


The Independent on Sunday


Daily Star
see:
http://www.nigelayers.com/warcrim/warcrimjan.html



Tony Blair - War Criminal
Poster, Flyer, Postcard
Nigel Ayers (2003)
Lostwithiel, Cornwall, UK

Image download 1.8 Mb: http://www.anti-war.us/gallery/PDFs/ayers2.pdf

or go shopping:

Citizen's Arrest on Blair

Activist Kate O'Sullivan managed to get through tight security to confront Mr Blair as he held a book signing in Dublin.

The 24-year-old from Cork claims to have queued for 90 minutes and went through airport style security - handing in all her belongings and going through a metal detector - before she attempted to arrest Mr Blair.

She says the former Prime was blasé about her accusations: "He didn't say anything, He just signed the book, he looked down and then looked at security."

Ms O'Sullivan, a member of the Irish Palestine Solidarity Movement, was detained for almost half an hour before she was cautioned by gardai.

Earlier, shoes and eggs had been pelted at Mr Blair as he arrived at the bookshop on O'Connell Street in Dublin city centre.

http://www.nigelayers.com/warcrim/warcrimjan.html

War Criminal update

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11187486

The project War Criminal is a psychic warfare exercise instigated in 2003. It will remain in operation until such time as the individuals it accuses, Tony Blair and George W Bush, are brought to justice in an appropriate international war crimes tribunal.

In 2003, I designed twin portraits of George W Bush and Tony Blair as war criminals. These were put to immediate use as placards in an anti-war demonstration in London. I also made the images available for free download on a couple of activist web sites. I soon heard they were being used as placards in a demonstration in Washington DC.

In November 2005, I opened my newspaper to find a reproduction of one of the images I'd designed, adorning the shirt of soccer superstar turned Third World activist Diego Maradona in an anti-Bush demonstration in Argentina. Images of Maradona bearing this image were prominent throughout the international news headlines on November 5th.

Subsequently, I made the images available in a variety of formats through a print- on-demand Internet company in the USA making a variety of household items - they can now be purchased as badges t shirts, beer mugs, dog blankets. This piece documents the ecology and democratic use of these two signs.

http://www.nigelayers.com/warcrim/warcrimjan.html

Nocturnal Emissions - Live at Viper Room, Vienna

become a fan

Bring Power To Its Knees

A classic slice of electropunk karaoke for you all.
The sound is from "Songs of Love and Revolution" (1985) a track also known as "Power of Love" the images are Nocturnal Emissions live at MS Stubnitz, anchored in Rostock, 23 May 1998. Thanks to the Stubnitz crew.