THE SATURATED AESTHETIC MANIFESTO

₵OVERT operations / ATTEMPTATION (2018)

The Saturated Aesthetic is a response to a saturated cultural climate. It is an embrace of that saturated climate as a facet of things made within that situation – things produced within a situation surely can’t escape being affected in some way by that situation.

It is an attempt at bringing that situation to light to try and bring about a change to it. By embodying the notions of being saturated and trying to push them and make them louder, the saturated aesthetic seeks clarity through volume (which might be somewhat contradictory, but there isn’t the time to work through that; and is there any harm in trying?).

The saturated culture is one that has reached, or even exceeded, its capacity for stuff. Our culture is incredibly and inconceivably saturated with things and stuff. Everywhere you look there are things. We exist in an ongoing state of being overwhelmed with stuff, to the extent that the idea of frugality or living minimally takes on a radical edge. We are thoroughly immersed in this situation of over-abundance, it is our normality, our legacy; surely through this it becomes our responsibility.

The saturated situation is not limited to the consumption of physical objects, it is far more thorough than that. We are saturated with opinions, seemingly infinite voices shouting into the void, advertisements making demands on our attention, pop-ups and pop-up blockers, white noise, radio waves, ideas, books, information, ingredients to cook with, words, ideas, thoughts, the thoughts you are trying not to think about, sounds, radiation, contradiction, misunderstanding, music, emotions and feelings, gut instincts, first responses, reaction, reactivation of things long-gone to sleep, the desire to sleep, confusing notions, abstract ideologies, an unshakeable feeling of missing out, an unshakable sense that the time to change things is now (was now, was then, has passed), buses that don’t run on time, travel arrangements, plans for the long-term future, plans for the immediate future, memories of yesterday, regrets, achievements, swollen egos that need tending to, ambitions that might be idealistic or anachronistic to what is actually possible, romanticised perspectives on life and love, dreams of a brighter future, the terror that the future might be darker, frustration at watching the world running headlong into a car crash (or what feels like it will be a car crash), mixed metaphors, a sense of irresponsible inevitability, fantasies, hope, symptoms of mysterious illnesses that might just be the common cold in resurgence, that song you haven’t been able to forget nor properly remember that you are no longer sure if you like any more, urges to eat your next meal, time spent staring at clocks, 24 hour news updates, old news, newness, phone calls, notifications, messages unsent, outfit ideas, aesthetic dreams, nightmares, recollections misremembered, weather forecasts, spiritual forecasting, the acceptance or denial of the esoteric, sensations, distractions, entertainments, novelties, occupations…

Saturation is a demand on our attention, our ability or inability to focus, our pursuit of distraction to hide from saturation. Saturation is endemic and all consuming.

Saturation results in a constant state of overwhelm, which manifests variously:

- in haste, in rushing and pushing to move quicker to try and keep up with or race or compete with everything all the time, which results in exhaustion;
- in apathy, where there is so much going on what is the point in trying to maintain attention, as there is too much anyway, and every moment missing things is infinite moments that are irretrievable and growing exponentially;
- in anxiety, as, if there is so much stuff, what else is there to do, and there is so much that can go wrong, and how can one maintain anything with all this volume;
- in numbness/desensitisation, growing accustomed to the constant state of aural, sensational, visual and informational noise competing for attention, it increasingly makes less impact, has a diminishing effect;
- in frustration at not being able to keep up with things, regardless of how hard one tries.

The Saturated Aesthetic is an attempt at articulating all these things through visual and performative means, both accepting and challenging this situation with these devices. The Saturated Aesthetic is also conscious of the potentially damaging or contradictory process of making more noise to contest the noise pre-existing, but nobody’s perfect, and everyone has a voice. We can’t just complain about a dialogue, bemoan the existence of things frustrating endlessly and expect them to simply resolve themselves or change, surely, we have to try something at some point…

The Saturated Aesthetic is in part a metaphor, or a litaphor (a literal manifestation of a metaphor, a hybridisation, a reification potentially, or at least an attempt to lend some poetic or performative potential to proceedings), in trying to conflate the visual notion of saturation in an intensifying of colour and content, a condensation of sorts, with the cultural situation. To attempt to convey the overwhelming nature of responding to, or being subjected to, all this content all the time, and objectify it to make it somewhat apparent, or present in an arena of scrutiny and reflection.

The Saturated Aesthetic is inherently demanding. It is borne of a demanding situation so makes demands equal to those it is subjected to. It is tired and tiresome. (In this sense it has some of its roots in Artaud’s ideas for a Theatre of Cruelty, but as we are subjected to institutional cruelty constantly, a more compassionate approach to being overwhelmed, a more shared and mutual sense of it, is being proposed here.)

The Saturated Aesthetic is an attempt at collaborating actively with the situation we find ourselves in, acknowledging and crediting that situation as having an impact on the work as an inescapable factor. The saturated aesthetic does not pretend to exist in a vacuum.

The Saturated Aesthetic values small-scale activity, local produce and local celebration. Due to the overwhelming information about everything happening everywhere, the saturated aesthetic leans towards celebrating narrowcasting > broadcasting, reaching out to small audiences, and only for small audiences, as to try to reach a large audience is going to require a lot of shouting.

The Saturated Aesthetic advocates whispering > shouting.

The Saturated Aesthetic thoroughly embraces exhaustion as a reason for a piece of work to finish, it does not rely on idealistic notions of intention as the only contributing factor in the production of things and doesn’t find formal completion necessary.

I would love to have more time to elaborate or expand or extend these ideas like a hand reaching for another across a desolate chasm, but I do not. I am time stretched and weary. My eyes crave sleep constantly and are endlessly denied it. My body is subjected to my wills against its will, when it needs rest I give it activity, when it needs activity I can’t always guarantee that will be an option. I am unsynchronised, uncoordinated, unorganised. These things take time and time is of the essence and time is running out; time is always running out. I am running away from things I know I need to do, bureaucratic uninspiring obligatory things or the things I simply can’t face right now, I am full, I am forever breaching my meek capacity, vulnerable to my own whims or the whims of this ocean of information and opinion. I don’t know anymore, I haven’t had the time to think about it, to really work out what I feel. I dream of luxuriating in free time again. Free time. Time without purpose or intention or preconception. Time to stop, to slow down to decelerate and take stock. I am so low on internal resource, I need a stock rotation but haven’t the time to work out how to negotiate that. I am tired and I