schwa

once upon a time there was a brilliant art project by a graphic artist named bill barker called schwa. much like shepherd fairey jimmied andre the giant into the popular meme-stream with his experiment in detournement, obey, bill barker introduced the alienhead into 90’s pop-cultural iconography with schwa. barker produced a series of books (including schwa, counter schwa, and the schwa world operations manual) and miscellaneous schwag, including such random items as alien invasion detection cards and stickers bearing slogans like “every picture tells a lie” and “this part of reality is known to be defective and should not be considered real in any way.” for a brief time there was even a schwa game on america online called the schwa pyramid, a multi-player game where the object was world domination using religon, media and labor as your weapons and tools.

of the project, rev. ivan stang of the church of the subgenius, had this to say:

It’s rare that an artist can simultaneously be subtle and still bludgeon the viewer. Bill Barker’s SCHWA series isn’t really about UFO abductions. It’s about religion, belief, self-subjugation and all control systems. He might just as well have used Jesus or Mohammad as thematic motifs. But UFOs are more dramatic and probably more relevant.

SCHWA is a “major work.” It has sweep, and vast dimensions, and hideous brain-curdling revelations, yet it’s all culled down graphically to the fewest lines necessary. It uses stickpeople and spare ovals—small, simple things—to represent something VERY VERY BIG and all too complex.

I’m no fine arts critic, but Barker’s use of repetition of forms, such as the UFO-and-alien-eye oval shape, layered upon layer, and the incredible consistency of stylistic and thematic integration strike me as UTTERLY FANTASTIC. Each deceptively simple drawing represents a whole plot, and the sequence of the drawings presents an even more whole plot. The sequential progression of the cartoon folds in on itself, looping and reflecting back and forth in a way that renders it COSMIC. It’s beautiful, apocalyptic end-times craziness, intuited down to basics.

No it isn’t about the aliens—it’s about the humans. Those who await the aliens, those who hate the aliens, those who serve the aliens, those who study them, and those who are them. The chunk of skull flying off JFK’s brain is the same shape as the saucers. There is no escape, because they are BIGGER THAN YOU and that’s why YOU MUST LOVE THEM.

And everything they do to you, you do to your neighbor, one way or another. The universe is a food chain and we’re near the bottom. The cloud without water offers you free food and drink, and you’ll line up for it. The ones who would brand you have plenty of help from your peers. You can try to hide in their shadows but they see you there, too. It’s not paranoia if you really are out to get you. You are happy to turn yourself in to their alter/slaughterhouse because it seems normal…every other stickperson is doing it. You can relax in the tub while they torture you and enter your dreams. You can blast the big oval out of the sky, but the tiny ovals will make a mess of your immune system. You’ll be processed either way.

This is the best book about UFOs ever drawn, and Bill Barker must be one of the best archetype-jugglers yet seen in this circus.

i first came across schwa in an issue of boing boing, an indepently published cyberculture ‘zine which had its heydey in the early 90s. the ‘zine was created by cartoonist mark frauenfelder and net chick author carla sinclair (who incidentally posed for playboy’s “girls of the net issue”) and highlighted an array of geek chic, from the escapades of r.u. sirius to the cutting edge of virtual reality technology. (while boing boing is no longer in print, it’s still got a rockin’ website.) the schwa corporation, as it was called, had one of the most intricate, extensive, and intriguing websites ever known to the net. you could spend hours on the site and never get bored. at the time that i discovered it, it was being hosted by fringeware, a mail-order company that was like a mini-whole earth catalog for geeks, that also printed a ‘zine, the fringeware review, which was virtually identical in format and content to boing boing. (fringeware also met its demise.) but eventually schwa grew and took on a life of its own and continued to spread itself virally across the net. first there was, as i mentioned, the schwa corporation, which was a very odd site of link upon link upon link of straight html text and images of the most random and confusing nature. then there was the schwa visitor’s center, a slightly more organized form of the site’s previous incarnation. that was followed by the schwa universe, which placed all the schwa entities into an interactive galaxy/gallery and incorporated more javascript and gif animations. it was simple, but it was good. that was later replaced with the schwa midway, a gaming zone which had the look and feel of a carnival midway and utilized much more advanced javascript coding. and finally, the entire site was chucked and replaced with scanwave, barker’s ultimate, yet somewhat disappointing, gallery of schwa art and other various html-based artwork.

but scanwave is gone now. has been for a long time. there’s practically no bill barker left on the net. even a google search yields limited results. this, i find, to be even more disappointing.

so what trigged this entire rant and ramble? because visiting theschwacorporation.com now redirects the visitor to a porn site. and while i don’t really have anything against porn, i find that some fuckin’ pornographer parking at what many consider to be an historic internet landmark, to be attrocious. i just wanted to bring that to your attention, for some reason, and share with you a bit of net culture from way back before the net was a marketplace and commodity, and still a creative cultural institution, like many feel it should be now.

related links: disinformation, robert anton wilson, gareth branwyn, douglas rushkoff’s cyberia, laughing squid, the wayback machine.