'Anything You Consume, I Consume Better' (The Stop Shopping UK Tour)

A travelling temporary intervention which questions ritualised consumption is taking place this May in various retail megastores in the UK. Is such ephemeral performance art a more potent form of protest than institutionalised demonstrations, and can it better evade its own classification and commodification?

'If you love your country, if you want to fight terrorism, go out this weekend and shop', the words of George W. in December last year. Born out of this call to consume was the Stop Shopping Tour 2003, a collaboration of performance projects by artists/activists Ange Taggart, William Talen, James Leadbitter and Andrew Lynn. The tour aims to interrupt the passive process of habitual consumption and challenge the celebrated position of the shop in our society with a range of site-specific performance pieces, which vary from grandiose department store staged sermons to products, to more subtle antagonism that plays with shops' return policies. The website proclaims the 'core artists intensify the secular rituals of consumption to the point of ecstatic fervour. They pray to cat food, sermonize against sweatshops, and solemnly push empty shopping trolleys down supermarket aisles'. James Leadbitter asserts 'the Tour is useful because it links a group of dysfunctional and functional solo acts'. Dysfunctional and functional alike, all incorporate a tickling sense of humour that often seems inextricably linked to anti-establishment mischief.

James devised his Cleaning Up After Capitalism [thevacuumcleaner.co.uk] piece in reaction to the recent extension of Richard Branson’s Virgin empire into Kuwait and his philanthropic statement outlining a vision to open another shop in Baghdad... as soon as the war is over. 'Virgin on the ridiculous (aka cleaning up after capitalism) was my response as an artist and an activist' remarks Leadbitter who, armed with a vacuum, extended the favour of some in-store hoovering in Nottingham's Virgin Megastore. He has taken this piece to several other locations nationwide. On February 15th (date of the massive anti-war demo) this was his chosen form of protest in and outside a variety of stores.

The Whirl-Mart, another resistance performance under the Stop Shopping Tour banner, came into being in 2001 as a response to Adbusters magazine's call for foolish action on the first of April. It is ritualistic in style, made up of a silent group pushing empty carts through the aisles of a superstore. ASDA, American corporation Wal-Mart's UK presence, has been the focus of these attempts to undermine the cultural iconic status of the shop. Inevitably those partaking in these solemn laps of the supermarket are approached by store security who threaten their ejection if they 'don't start shopping properly'.

The debate concerning effective forms of protest is a contentious subject. This issue is particularly pertinent when considered in relation to the mass demonstrations of public disapproval against the war in Iraq, expressed through the recent February 15th and March 22nd marches, and the government’s subsequent and continued offensive attack. We are justified in asking what benefit and efficacy is the institutionalised march in expressing objection. Perhaps this ritualised form of resistance has, as was arguably seen at the recent anti-war demos, unified people across class and racial divides? But, for James Leadbitter, marching is an exhausted approach: 'If 2 million people (on Feb 15th) had done their own individual protests it would have been far more effective and interesting, rather than a mass of people marching in the same space'. Effective, he argues, because the self-autonomy required would evade the commoditisation that is now inextricably linked to this form of demonstration. He remarks on Levis' ban the bomb t-shirts as an example of the commercialisation of this movement. While respectful of the anti-war coalition’s efforts, he asserts that arriving at a mass demonstration is far less challenging to oneself and ones community than defining personal beliefs and putting them into action.

James argues that the march is too easily classified and therefore its potency easily defused. However, he recognises that the inability to recognise the transgressive Stop Shopping Tour performances for what they are is a hazard of trying to evade this type of classification. He concedes that 'often the pieces are too short or we are thrown out of the store so quickly that we don't have a chance to engage people'. The prayers to products piece is perhaps the most effervescent in the Stop Shopping Tour, as its strategy avoids an early curtain call by security. Involving at least half a dozen players, it is made up of a chain reaction of accolades to a particular product. Glasgow’s House of Frazer was celebrated in the following fashion last February. 'Let us pray to designer products, thank you house of fraser for allowing us this opportunity to buy a beautiful lifestyle, praise be to the shopping cathedral, hallelujah, sisters and brothers, hallelujah'. As one worshiper was thrown out another, situated close by, would take-up the celebratory baton.

How far does political art carry a message? Not a new question, but still a valid one. The Chapman brothers' recent exhibition comes to mind, with their interplay of African tribal art and McDonalds' logos. James argues that this type of art ceases to be political after its point of creation. Once the concept has become the object it becomes a commodity 'firstly because it's for sale and because it falls under this YBA (Young British Artists) movement categorisation'. For James performative art's potency lies in its 'becoming...'.

Stop Shopping Tour initiatives are planned for Nottingham, London, Derby and Newcastle in May. Details are available at the websites below. On May 18th Ange Taggart and William Talen AKA Reverend Billy will be performing and presenting at the ICA.

Stop Shopping Tourwww.thevacuumcleaner.co.uk www.mydadsstripclub.com www.breathingplanet.net www.revbilly.com