File spoon-archives/avant-garde.archive/avant-garde_1995/avant-garde_Aug.95, message 60


Date: Tue, 29 Aug 95 04:04:43 +0200 (MET DST)
From: cantsin-AT-zedat.fu-berlin.de (Cantsin)
Subject: Re: LUTHER BLISSETT


>Some of the things Cantsin wrote in her/his message are true, but as far as
>Luther Blissett is concerned, s/he's not well-informed.

Cantsin admits that, taking the post for a proposal instead of a footnote
to something successfully installed (apparently), s/he was arguing on an
erroneous premise.

>is no longer possible such a failure as that of Monty Cantsin etc., first
>of all because there is no Istvan Kantor here, the real origins of the
>project are hidden in a mythological dimension (i.e. urban legends
>concerning UK, USA and Jamaica) and are not knowable by the media and the
>police.

An over-identification of Cantsin with Istvan Kantor has mainly been
claimed by Stewart Home. While Home may have had a point in the mid-1980s,
he has perpetuated a private war against Kantor since, and his accounts of
Neoism (notably in "The Assault on Culture") seem, beyond other
questionable aspects, hilariously overshadowed by respective polemics.
Since virtually all Neoists refused to write about Neoism in other than
_obviously_ manipulated forms, Home's historicizing, by appearing "serious"
although lacking standards of scholarly criticism, significantly helped to
make Neoism known to an outside public; but it also strategically
reinforced one particular view of it.

In just fashion similar to Luther Blissett's, Cantsin is known to surround
himself with a vast body of contradictory mythologies, and there are many
different narratives about his 'origin' (e.g. Monty Cantsin being derived
from the Lithunian puppet player Maris Kundzins, from the Californian
performer Monte Cazzaza, or from the Hungarian singer Istvan Kantor, Monty
Cantsin as an allusion to Raymond Roussel's Martial Canterel, to late
medieval mystics, or to Jesus Christ, or as an allusion to the "Jesus
Christus Ltd." of the Berlin dadaists as the first "multiple name concept",
or Monty Cantsin as a reverse reaction to "Portland Academy" member Dr. Al
Ackerman's more than dozen pseudonyms etc.)

>And what's
>more, most of the 'Luther Blissetts' (urgh!) have nothing to do with
>"artistic milieus"

but seemingly with the classic urban leftist ones:

>cultural terrorism, international gang of revolutionaries, mail artists,
>poets, >performers, underground 'zines, cybernauts and squatters

...effecting...

>Sabotages, hoaxes,
>urban legends, performances,  magazines, bulletin boards and TV or radio
>>broadcasts are spreading the name all over the world, psychogeographical
>>warfare

At present, Luther Blissett may be the most "alive" multiple name while
Cantsin has tended to become rather speculative, an endlessly aporetical
emblem of an arbitrary signifier that is stable at the same time. As
mentioned in Cantsin's previous post, such a signifier cannot be exhausted
in "resistance mythologies" based on clear-cut twofold epistemologies. Like
in Neoism before, this might be known Luther Blissett's potential to trick
his perpetuators.

Cantsin

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

        The Seven by Nine Squares
        :quaintness hereby evens

Neoism and experimental epistemology server. Meanderings in text

        http://fub46.zedat.fu-berlin.de:8080/~cantsin/
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^




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