Mission

The Temporary Autonomous Museum(s) will support and present projects and efforts that fall into a range of categories, usually involving activity that exists outside the systems of formal control that surround us.

Caught up in the stream, steam, and scream of globe-girdling 21st-century corporate-militarist capitalism, it sometimes seems as if anything creative, exceptional, or authentic that manages to exist for longer than two seconds is immediately assimilated into the Machine, and within four seconds gets spit back up as an SUV commercial. But what of the "revolt" that appears and vanishes in a lightning flash?

Might not the creation of autonomy-supportive social spaces, however short-lived, facilitate generalized (if momentary) well-being? Determined by others, dependent on others, responsive and responsible to others, the Museum(s) nonetheless cherish and nourish a person's fragile capacity for self-determination in the matter of moral choices, in the need for a measure of real freedom from external authorities, and in the necessity of the public scene of informed, nonduressed consent in human life.

We realize that a web site museum-ifying anything temporarily autonomous is a bit of an oxymoron, but we take this up as a strategy, hoping to lend some flexibility to the notion ‘museum.’ Therefore the Temporary Autonomous Museum and the digital discourse(s) that surround it here are curious, re-purposed kinds of spaces.

The Temporary Autonomous Museum(s) will document and archive projects, events, and artworks that support its mission.

The Temporary Autonomous Museum(s) will accept and, where possible, support submissions from artists and individuals that are in keeping with its mission. The Temporary Autonomous Museum(s) will create a hub for dialogue online. The Temporary Autonomous Museum(s) will provide networking opportunities for people who want to try being temporarily autonomous.

In general, The Temporary Autonomous Museum(s) includes spaces, events, moments, actions, processes, works, that defy the crusts of convention, call for eruptions of possibility,and for spontaneous efflorescences that require no business plan. The Temporary Autonomous Museum(s) takes a cue from the Situationists and their definition of the Society of the Spectacle, from the high falutin’ philosophy of Michel Foucault, and has borrowed some verbiage from Hakim Bey (whose missions ultimately are somewhat different than ours.)