In Pursuit Of The Radical - the artful politcs of Heath Bunting ROAMING IRATIONALIST I last met up with Heath Bunting in the city of Bristol, whose alley's, derelict buildings and other public spaces still bear the marks of heath's early 90's presence in chalk, stencil and stained glass. We were there as technical support for our friends at the Cube cinema, an independent venue for film and experimental electronic events. It forms part of the steadily widening map of media laboratories in Europe that serve as oases for the roaming irationalist. Nurturing a network of medialabs into cultural and technical being in the interest of increased mobility and shared cultural wealth is a project many in the media art community are engaged in, not least the members of the Irational.Org artserver. Internet access is a must. Otherwise how would we log on to the server and go about our daily online business. The domain is a pioneering groupware toolkit facilitating 5 core irational members who are either artists or engineers, and several peripatetic email users. It's also an experiment to see just how far a technomadic existence can be taken - Heath generally travels the globe with little more than a passport and toothbrush these days. I;ve got it down to a small cd carrier. A roaming irationalist is not always dependent on net access. A public telephone and bench in the middle of rural dartmoor served adequately as a temporary office whilst we were walking from village to village visiting old friends and family. Freedom of movement, abandonment of material weight, the ability to wander and work, integrating pleasure and business: this requires a specific set of desires and skills. It's this that forms the basis of Heath's activities both politically and artistically and its his craftsmanship approach that interests me about his operations. It undoubtedly comes from his experience of working for a Bristolian glassblowers as an apprentice PROFESSIONAL REVOLUTIONARY There are plenty of things claiming to be radical or revolutionary these days with almost regular banality - New Labour, washing powder, the Internet, marketing strategies, the Church of England... When asked by his mother what he wanted to be when he grew up, Heath replied, 'a Professional Revolutionary'. I also had a similar aspiration at the age of 11 although I couldn't have articulated it as such. I took initial instruction in radicalism at art college where we students were introduced to texts by theorists, philosophers and other literary grinders for the condition of postmodernity. We would attempt to extract answers from these texts, to weighty questions regarding technology, power, language and desire, from the comfortable position of the institutional armchair. Meanwhile, rumours abounded that some artist revolutionaries were at work in the subways and streets of Bristol, interfering with the public semiotics of civic road signs and advertising hordes. And they were not sitting at home reading Barthes. Later, I asked Heath for a definition of 'Professional Revolutionary' which seemed to me a ludicrous term for an artist to apply to himself. (I have since learned the value of subscribing to an overblown ludicrousnes - it helps to construct disbelief whilst deconstrcuting belief at the same time. Useful if you want to fly in the face of reason and logic) "I deliver a service in overthrowing existing structures. It's a creative occupation with clients and financial renumeration." I wondered why he didn't become a Management Consultant. A lot of his clients tend to come from the art and academic world so it tends to be these structures that are affected by his particular brand of revolutionary methodologies. But as the term 'revolutionary' is applied to the latest brand of car just how meaningful can it be anymore? "We live in degraded environments" says Heath, "and that includes language aswell as morality, biosystems, architecture etc. Meaning is up for grabs for all kinds of developers - artists, marketers, politicians, business, property developers". The contestion of meaning and property - thats the first pre-occupation for the 'Professional Revolutionary'. PUBLIC SPACE The UK, always a breeding ground for anarchistic discontent, was stirring with reinvigored political activity mid 90's. A phenomenon called DIY (Do It Yourself) culture, spearheaded by a movement of anti-roads protestors called Reclaim The Streets, was the result of a blend of alternative cultures from rave, traveller, and eco-activist networks, coalescing in the face of a draconian Criminal Justice Bill that imposed new restrictions on freedom of movement in public space. DIY represented a process where people formed autonomous communities out of protest and direct action tactics. They lived in trees, were theatrical, badly -dressed, and co-ordinated parties in city centres to stop the traffic. Pleasure was a central element to the whole concept. As was bodies en masse. At the same moment the Internet was emerging as a revolutionary communications tool and a new form of public space. Searching the web I found Heath, chalking strange white graffiti marks onto skips, recently raided for modems and cpu's, and putting stained glass windows into derelict sbuildings. This seemed a very poetic DIY method of reclaiming of streets and i was soon hooked on the Chalking and Walking expeditions around London with Heath and fellow chalkmeister, Simon McClennan. Heath wouldn't join me on the mass cycle ride around London to liberate the streets from traffic. Mass political actions can only facilitate simplistic renderings into 'good' vs 'bad' and 'for' or 'against. Although politcally aligned with those reclaiming public space, the collectivist attitude isn't really his style. And style, form and technique are the key mediums of liberation for the professional revolutionary as craftsperson. Heath has been very instrumental in creating contexts for projects and communites to formulate themselves. Institutions like the Arts Council Of England and the Banff Center for the Arts have recognised this. But public space that is paid for by public money, is fair game for the roaming irationalist to parasite and to intervene structurally if necesary, which is sometimes uncomfortable fpr the institutional managers. It's a 2-pronged strategy - parasite existing public structures or create independent ones. Regarding the latter, when they reach a certain stage, Heath has a tendency to either challenge them or leave them for the next enterprise. It appears to be a somewhat mercenary approach, one that is both interesting and irritating to the other people implicated in those contexts. TACTICAL MEDIA + NET.ART = FRAGMENTATION The internet has proved a boon for erstwhile artists activists and politicos in creating new contexts, networks and genres, new conditions for collectivising. However, the business sector has rapidly constructed a new online marketplace. Public space on the Internet isn't looking so different after all. The radical collectivism promised by the Net fragmented into associative modular or cellular strucutres, defined by servers and domains and malists - Nettime, 7-11, Syndicate, Faces, Ljudmila.org, Backspace.Org, teleportacia.Org, jodi.Org, Irational.Org, rtmark.com... It's a pattern seen in the formations and reformations of grassroots activism. Consideration for form compels the professional revolutionary to continuously overturn structurs even if they are structures that he helped to create. The tactical media community has its own marketplaces a nd traderoutes decided by various new media festivals, conferences and exhibitions. Behind the scenes at these events strategies are designed, are deals are made. The genre known as net.art was manufactured in this way by artists consolidating their online presence at face to face meetings. Net art as a tactical medium presents a challenging issue for the art world. not least because of the ephemerality and fludity of electronic networks. There was an original idealistic political motivation behind the net art comunity which was the establishent of an autonomous independent art economy. However , tactics that have emerged most successfully are e those that deliver net art to institutions but on terms defined bythe artist. Heath's position is quite interesting since his work is overtly political in content and style. Context, then, is a factor that could blow it all off course. Traditonal Art contexts have a notoriously neutralising effect on provocative or political works. How does a project like Superweed1.0 fare in an art gallery context? SUPERWEED 1.0 As the focus of grassroots poltical activity shifts from roads to food the headlines grabbing attention now are the sabotage of GM crops. There is a belligerence and confidence perhaps shaped by the previous achievements of the anti-roads community that defines anti-GM lobby. Again the collectivist luddite style does not suit Heath's concern for conceptual tactic. he chooses to focus on specifics - in this case the innocent weed. Since Britain shifted to industrilaised agricyulture with intensive use of herbicides weeds and wild plantlife have declined. As the weed declines so does the insect. As the insect declines so does the bird. The intriduction of a GM crop modified to resist the herbicides produced by companies that also [roduce the crop is a license for farmers to casually wipe out everything on their land aprt form the crop which has cash value. The system being developed by powerful interests like monsanto and Agrevo identifies the weed as the source to be eradicated and cleverly devise a propritary system of geneticaally modified agribusineess to make commercial gain from the weed. Superweed 1.0 is the revenge of the weed. It is a small kit containing the ingredients to make a a weed that is resistant to weedkiller. It is conceived of as a piece of viral software to wreak havoc on proprietary agri-systems. In practise it's difficult to assess the effect of this act of biological terrorism. Politicallyt it's deeply troubling since both protagonists and detractors of GM would not like GM material to reach the hands of the public. Since the Superweed 1.0 kit is being distributed to ordinary members of the public and not scientists or business it represents something of a loose cannon. Artisticallly, it's another dimension to the modern gothic story that is Technology versus Nature. To my nind the art gallery context is a perfect medium to tell that story in all its complexity since the general media is weakened by simplistic thinking and ideological agendas. Ultimately heath's projects permeate public domains actively but briefly, only to disappear then resurrect again as rumours,stories, myths and spectres. There are no great revolutions that occur as a consequence, but on a micro level, shifts in thinking by indiviuals are discernible and since individuals make networks, a restructuring of certain media, artistic and political landscapes has happened.