Temporary Autonomous Zone
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Temporary Autonomous Zone
The Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ) describes the socio-political tactic of creating temporary spaces that elude formal structures of control. The essay uses various historical and philosophical examples, all of which attempt to lead the reader to the conclusion that the best way to create a non-hierarchical system of social relationships is to concentrate on the present and on releasing one's own mind from the controlling mechanisms that have been imposed on it.
In the formation of a TAZ, Bey argues that information becomes a key tool that sneaks into the cracks of formal procedures. A new territory of the moment is created that is on the boundary line of established regions. Any attempt at permanence that goes beyond the moment deteriorates to a structured system that inevitably stifles individual creativity. It is this chance at creativity that is real empowerment.
The contents of the section are divided up into the following sections:
- Pirate Utopias
- Waiting for the Revolution
- The Psychotopology of Everyday Life
- The Net and the Web
- "Gone to Croatan"
- Music as an Organizational Principle
- The Will To Power as Disappearance
- Ratholes in the Babylon of Information
The 1992 album Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis) by Praxis features quotes from the T.A.Z. in its liner notes.
An album featuring Hakim Bey reading excerpts from T.A.Z. was produced by Bill Laswell and had backing music by Material featuring Wu Man, Nicky Skopelitis, and Buckethead was released on Compact Disc by the record label Axiom in 1994. The six tracks were: "Chaos", "Poetic Terrorism", and "Amour Fou" (all from "Chaos: The Broadsheets of Ontological Anarchism"), "Immediatism", and "The Tong" (both from another volume, Immediatism, Essays by Hakim Bey), and "Boycott Cop Culture" (from "Communiques of the Association for Ontological Anarchy"). Lamborn's line "art as crime; crime as art" from "Poetic Terrorism" was sampled by Negativland in their song "Downloading" on their album No Business.
See also
