(2010-02-24) Gary Panter Rozz Tox Manifesto

Gary Panter wrote the Rozz Tox Manifesto in 1980.

The avant-garde is no corpus. It merely lies in shock after an unfortunate bout with its own petard. It feigns sleep but one eye glitters and an involuntary twitch in the corner of the mouth belies a suppressed snicker. The giggle of coming awake at one's own funeral dressed in atomic TV beatnik furniture. A mutant with a mission.

Find the evil doers, the merchant peddlers of Pavlovia who use our unmentionable parts against us. Will you hide behind a scrim of two-dimensional phosphorescence when Biology exacts its reward?

In a capitalistic society such as the one in which we live, aesthetics as an endeavor flows thorough a body which is built of free enterprise and various illnesses. In boom times art may be supported by wildcat speculation or by excess funds in form of grants from the state or patronship as a tax write-off. Currently we are suffering from a lean economy. By necessity we must infiltrate popular mediums. We are building a business-based art movement. This is not new. Admitting it is.