from threshold

adam szymcrzyk a man so cool he did not have any vowels in his surname declared that the festival would adress the multiple crisis the world was currently enduring, mass migration, the renaissance of the far right, looming ecological catastrophe and so on. leaving aside the crisis of his unpronounceable surname, you could see his point - it really did feel like an emergency time on planet earth - but this institutional yoking of an art to political engagement seemed symptomatic of a broader cultural synergy, everywhere you looked, art was becoming indistinguishable from social work, progressive politics, liberal guilt. to join the tribe called contemporary art it was required that you loudly declaim a humanitarian worldview and place your work at its service.

threshold is like reading the 'fear and loathing' of the modern age. it's a travel book about books, philosophy and drugs. rob makes some great observations, ironic, poignant and creative, a writer i have taken to immediately.