Today's urban middle-classes are in the late stages of cognitive dissonance, engaged in what the writer Tom Wolfe called ‘double tracking’: enjoying the cultural benefits of leaning left and the financial benefits of leaning right.
Double tracking extends the hand of the accountant exchanging a fiver for an artisanal loaf, froths the milk of the graphic designers drinking flat whites while sitting on hessian sacks, and sprays the can of the legally sanctioned graffiti on the side of a pop-up container city.
The second Companion walk explored South East London, looking at how tropes of alternative, marginalised and anti-establishment culture are deployed in a rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood. The tour was joined by artist Emily Pope and finished with a screening of Pope’s film Shoplifting at Arcadia Missa. Shoplifting is the second film in Emily Pope's ongoing series exploring semi-illegal millennial lifestyles, and the social and economic realities facing artists working in London, see below for more information.
Rosanna Mclaughlin is a writer and curator. In 2018 she released a book of collected essays on the duplicities of the middle-classes, published by Little Island Press.
Emily Pope is an artist whose practice explores the potential of socio-political monologues and how these function within contemporary media. Recent exhibitions & projects include, The Court Summons, Ladette Space, London, Tarantellegra, Hester, New York, Trace Programme w/ Aspirational Living, Nottingham, On Coping, Auto Italia, London, and together with Ruth Angel Edwards, Got 2 B radio show on Resonance FM.
