Introduction
In earlier times, both power and machines were less complicated, and perhaps also more accessible – so that the term «sprinkling sand in the machinery» was actually relevant. Although it in the current situation is known who e.g. is the president of the United States, it is less clear who has really caused that the current person is holding this post, and who is actually pulling the strings for the president’s political decisions. Power distance and the lack of transparency create an epidemic of disempowerment that makes the population easy to manipulate. We think it’s worth blowing the dust off the impact of sand-sprinkling – it’s just a matter of knowing your enemy and mobilizing your full power of thought.
Contents
Sand fom the Sahara
Instructions
A pebble in the road, might topple great loads, and it doesn’t necessarily take large amounts of sand to bring a huge piece of machinery to a stop – just one (1) grain of sand is enough. And that’s a good thing, because contrary to what Milton Friedman believed when he uttered the following winged words – originally intended to create contempt for politicians – a global sand crisis is now about to occur:
«If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.»
In archetypal neoliberal fashion, Friedman couldn’t imagine that there would ever be a shortage of a natural resource that could be turned into profitable goods in an unregulated market. It was only if clumsy politicians and bureaucrats took care of a – in Friedman’s opinion – unlimited source, that it would run out. Scientists now predict that the world will run out of sand by 2060.
Use the sand in a realistic, ritual or conceptual way for the production of ideas that can put a spoke in the wheel of the power apparatus of the diffuse enemy that neoliberalism constitutes.
Feel free to draw inspiration from old art trends such as Situationism and Fluxus art with their instructions and event scores.
