the wire-cutter's art

Over at the RSA arts and ecology blog, William Shaw makes a good point about art and activism. John Vidal's Guardian report refers to the protester who breached the security at Kingsnorth power station (and crashed a giant 500MW turbine) as the 'green Banksy'. OK, the headline and text put the phrase in quote marks, but Shaw writes:

'Does that make anyone with a pair of wire cutters an artist? This would, of course, open the door to the Michael Stone defence becoming widespread. Michael Stone is, as you will recall, the convicted paramilitary murderer who was arrested trying to burst into Stormont armed with a gun and pipe bombs to murder Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, but justified his act by claiming it was "performance art"'.

see also on this blog: art, ads and agit-prop, keep it distinct, the message is not to have one, artists and activists and just asking.