About This Book
“Stylish, striking, and elegantly packaged…as indispensible to confronting, say, your domineering mother-in-law or your local city council as it is to helping foment an ongoing and ever-escalating insurrection against, say, a sexist, racist, nepotistic power-mad oligarchy threatening to destory democracy as we know it…My advice: Buy one “–VOGUE
From artist, activist, and Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova, a guerilla guide to radical protest and joyful political resistance
The face of modern protest is wearing a brightly colored ski mask.
Nadya Tolokonnikova, founding member of the Russian activist group Pussy Riot, is a creative activist, professional protestor, brazen feminist, shocking visual artist, and force to be reckoned with. Her spontaneous, explosive approach to political action has involved jumping over barbed wire, kissing police officers, giving guerilla performances in crowded subway cars, and going on a hunger strike to protest the abuse of prisoners. She’s been horse-whipped by police in Sochi, temporarily blinded when officers threw green paint in her eyes, and monitored by the Russian government. But what made Nadya an activist icon overnight happened on February 21, 2012, when she was arrested for performing an anti-Putin protest song in a Moscow church.
She was sent to a Russian prison for 18 months and emerged as an international symbol of radical resistance, as calls to “Free Pussy Riot” resounded around the world. With her emblematic ski mask, black lipstick, and unwavering bravery, Nadya has become an emissary of hope and optimism despite overwhelming and ugly political corruption.
Cyberpunk is the fifth studio album by English rock musician Billy Idol, released on 29 June 1993 by Chrysalis Records.
NEVER TRY TO GIVE A DEFINITION OF PUNK
Being a punk is about constantly surprising. It’s not about having a mohawk hairstyle and keeping it your whole life. Being a punk means systematically changing the image of yourself, being elusive, sabotaging cultural and political codes.
Punk is a method. Bach and Handel are my main punk influences. I don’t like the concept of a punk subculture, where you are really stuck in the image. The performance artist Alexander Brener criticized a person who wears skinny jeans, tears them, and considers himself punk as fuck. Punk demands more. On the first day, tear your jeans; on the second, wear stolen Louboutin shoes; on the third, shave your head; and on the fourth, grow butt-length hair somehow. Undermine, transform, exceed expectations. That’s what punk means to me.
Another job of mine is to be an investigator of life and political orders. My art is to sharpen my mind and keep my eyes open and clear. I promised myself to remain critical and, if I have to, be ready to perform coldhearted analysis, dissection, penetration…. At the same time I oblige myself to stay loving, open, and connected: sympathy and compassion are the only truly reliable friends for someone who thrills at being finely tuned to the world, who wants to resonate with the time she lives in, who’s thirsty to hear the music and harmonies of the universe that are being played on an incomprehensible variety of strings.
“The intellectual as buccaneer—not a bad dream,” notes the philosopher Peter Sloterdijk writing about Pasolini’s Pirate Writings. “We have scarcely ever seen ourselves that way. The buccaneer cannot assume fixed standpoints because he is constantly moving between changing fronts.”
Christ is your most powerful cyberpunk avatar JOE