some thoughts on revolution [rɛvəˈluːʃ(ə)n]

REVOLUTION: noun

• an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed.

• a sudden, complete or marked change in something eg society, culture, philosophy, and technology

• a procedure or course, as if in a circuit, back to a starting point.

• a single turn of this kind.

Mechanics.

1. a turning round or rotating, as on an axis.

2. a moving in a circular or curving course, as about a central point.

3. a single cycle in such a course.

Any and all of these definitions carry something of the spirit I hope Utopias Bach - Revolution in Miniature might address, in dialogue with the ideas around bach and the terrestrial: As Bjørn Thomassen says in “Notes towards an Anthropology of Political Revolutions”:

“revolutions very much resemble rituals…the micro and macro levels fuse in critical conjunctions…. micro events can produce macro results…

And borrowing further from Thomassen’s paper, these particular aspects of revolution might lend themselves to Utopias Bach

ritual

“revolutions very much resemble rituals…….the tripatite structure of social drama, harking back to van Gennep’s recognition of the universal sequence structure of ritual passages divided into a) separation b) liminality, and c) re-aggregation. Or as Turner suggests a fourfold dividion into “Breach-crisis-redress-reintegration”. These rites mark the passage from one status to another/the passage of time:

• an individual - ‘life crisis rituals’

• a cohort of individuals - semantic-ritual marking of the passage of time eg cosmological calendars and collective responses to war, famine, drought, plaque and other disasters.

It seems to me that the idea of revolution-as-ritual (for an individual or a group/society) could be a useful way of inspiring a Utopia Bach, with its emphasis on stage and process. The format of the miniature calendar, for example (Zöe Skoulding has created a miniature calendar based on the new calendar created during the Russion revolution - see here in installation at Plas Bodfa).

rupture/emotional appeal

“… the rupture with the existing order needs some kind of emotional appeal. In revolutionary moments, hitherto separate individuals start to feel and act like a collective body, with a sense of shared aims and goals, even worldviews, and become something much more than a social aggregate… experienced as a collective effervescence, leading to deeply-felt communitas”

Small scale things do immeditely have an appeal, which, if done without nostalgia, could be a way of encouraging exploration, finding common ground, rather than opposition? Here’s an interesting interview with Sarah Corbett on the power of ‘craftivism’.

liminal moments

“revolution is experienced as extraordinary, liminal moments”

I had to look up what liminal meant. It means a moment of transition, or the initial stage of a process, or occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold. All these seem to fit rather well with the ‘frozen in time’ tendency of a miniature.

“Turner realized that “liminality” served not only to identify the importance of in-between periods, but also to illuminate the human reactions to liminal experiences: the ways in which personality was shaped by liminality, the sudden foregrounding of agency, and the sometimes dramatic tying together of thought and experience.”

spaces

“actions taking on theatrical forms enacted in public space…If revolutions are social drama, then we need… the setting of ‘frame’ which is a necessary component of any ritual action - the importance of the concrete spaces in which social action takes place, whether the household, the village square of political assemblies…

• rites for an individual play out in ‘hidden places’ like the home or caves or lodges in the forest, secluded from the quotidian action

• rites for a cohort of individuals - play out in (the most central parts of) public places eg village greens, squares of the city”

There is always going to be some kind of framing for a Utopia Bach, and this suggests some of the types of spaces they might inhabit….