The Transitory yet Permanent Aesthetic Attack of Dyke Action Machine!
The core purpose of Dyke Action Machine! (DAM!) was to create representation where there was none. To make public, visible, and spoken into existence- lesbian existence. Formed in 1991 by Carrie Moyer and Sue Schaffner, they were first an activist subgroup within Queer Nation, but later branched off to become the public art/agitprop known today. In regards to their influences, Carrie Moyer explains that she was particularly inspired by groups like the Guerrilla Girls and Gran Fury, and other artists like Barbara Kruger, who all did similar forms of “aesthetic attack” (Getsy 96).
DAM! was intended to turn advertising culture on it’s head and to challenge the heteronormativity seen everyday, often by wheat pasting over existing ad campaigns and later creating other “propaganda” such as light boxes, matchbooks, and buttons that were distributed by hand and over mail. Their early work was very much attached to a space, located directly on billboards and posters, and were often quickly erased over night. As Moyer explains, their art had to be cheap and quick to get their message out before being erased (Getsy 97). But their work was preserved in photographs, digital copies, and many people still have some of the physical objects they created. All at once, DAM!’s art was fleeting, a brief shock to the scenery, and a permanent movement in the activist, art, and lesbian movements.
It is interesting now to create this archive of their transitory work, which still exists in digital and material form today. Does the preservation of this work undermine its goal and purpose? What does it mean that people have clung to these images, while society daily worked to erase them? Is anything truly transitory in this digital and media era? These are just some of the questions that arise when looking at the legacy of DAM!.
Much of DAM!’s early work played off of popular advertisements and images already in circulation, often to provide representation. Their Calvin Klein spoof ads, put out in 1993, use the black and white images of people clad in their underwear but instead of brandishing a logo ask viewers, “do you love the dyke in your life” (pictured above). On their website, they explain this was a way to directly insert a queer women into an image that worshipped the “white, male, muscle-bound body.” This work simultaneously levels a critique against this underwear company that was popular amongst gays and lesbians, but who employed openly homophobic models for their campaigns. In this way, the Calvin Klein ad not only critiqued notions of attractiveness, but also critiqued the LGBT community itself for buying into these kinds of companies. DAM! therefore sought to speak to members of the LGBT community and to heterosexual audiences about a multitude of issues that would advocate for their better treatment in society.
Another campaign that challenged gay audiences was their 1997 Gay Marriage campaign (pictured above). This represents a departure from the mimicry and satire of their earlier advertisement pieces, but this still services to increase representation in public and to speak directly to lesbians. They ask “Is it worth being boring for a blender?” a direct attack on the oft-cited civil rights fight for gay marriage as a marker of equality. DAM! questioned the goals of portraying gay marriage and parenthood as the norm that could ensure treatment in society.
Dyke Action Machine! also expanded into other art forms making movies and websites, which are more long-lasting forms than posters, but still are fleeting in their preservation. Similarly, advertisements, DAM!’s main source of satirical critique, are at once fleeting in their campaigns, but live on in the memories of consumers and producers, and through preserved digital and material objects. Their website includes links to “steal” some of their work, in which anyone can download and distribute high-resolution copies of some of their works. Again, they walk the line between the fleeting and the permanent: they do not produce art frequently currently, but anyone can take their art into the world and give it new life.
DAM! is somehow able to look into issues of activism, lesbianism, consumerism (and consumer behavior), advertising, public art, and longevity of art with 13 pieces over 13 active years, (and two more pieces released after the group’s main heyday). Their guerrilla-like art style is the outpouring of anger, but also the touchstone for connection for many activists and lesbians.
All images are from http://www.dykeactionmachine.com/index.html and other information from Queer: Documents of Contemporary Art, edited by David Getsy.
