Dialectical Butterflies – videos by Dave Wise

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Although these two short films on Woolley Colliery in West Yorkshire are credited to Underground Butterflies and Lola Bueno in reality they were put together by Stuart & David Wise in 2017-8. The subterfuge is telling but had to do with a stark fact: engage in on-the-spot autonomous ecological activity that attempts to recreate a lost nature or help re-invent nature by creating a rich, varied terrain on a so-called barren wasteland quickly results in brutal repression by the powers that be. Usually this was / is a combination of a developmental agenda aided and abetted by various traditional nature ‘conservation’ bodies. In this case, Wates the building company was given a first rate greenwashing grade by Butterfly Conservation and the RSPB alongside more local so-called ecological bodies.
The first film here begins with the echo of machine gun fire followed by the sound of snarling dogs, etc, sounds which were incongruous but then tellingly morphing into that still haunting song from south Northumberland, The Black Leg Miner. (Indeed many miners around the former Woolley Colliery – but not all – rejoiced in our often brutally hands-on efforts and clapped us on the backs, never forgetting our own family background around miners who where the first people to reveal to us as tiny tots some of the glories of nature).
This was quickly followed by the second film which hinted at other influences especially that of Surrealism as we adapted the background music in Salvador Dali’s and Luis Bunuel’s haunting classic film from 1929, Un Chien Andalou. The music is a mix of fast and fiery Argentinean tangos together with Wagner’s reflective, even dreamily soothing Liebestod.(Moreover, I had also just read Bunuel’s autobiography My Last Sigh (1982) wherein he says his favourite European city was Newcastle-upon-Tyne and yet  – of all things – a city he’d never visited!)  Most importantly Stuart had befriended a Spanish anarchist woman, prone to much existential suffering because of the ghastly state of things world-wide. She was called Ana Bueno and lived in Madrid but was also knowledgeable about the north of England and Scotland. In a way Stuart was besotted with her in a kind of aura of spiritual identification. She became quite an inspiration so much so that her surname was placed on the film as co-author. Her name was however changed from Ana to Lola as we were afraid that Brexit could mean that Border Control plus the horrific Little Englander mentality, just might deny her entry and we knew how attached she’d become to the landscapes of northern England. On top of all that, Ana had provided us with a series of really incisive wall slogans from Latin American countries which were turned into individual muros one page  webs and now alas, all deleted by unknown malicious intervention.
 Stuart then embarked on the preparation of other provocative films though this time in and around Wormwood Scrubs in west London. Most of the footage dealt with our transformation of Martin Bell’s Wood as we cleared the area of intensively invasive bramble sometimes growing ten metres high then turning the ground into an original form of pasture woodland to be colonised with an ever intensifying organic bio-diversity. These clips weren’t just about nature but also about other inhabitants especially the rough sleepers for whom the Scrubs was home and which we befriended whilst pointing out to them some of the rare creatures they shared their home with. Thus theirs some terrific clips of a guy asleep on a mattress as small blue butterflies dance around his bed. Inevitably nature bureaucrats as is their brief were always pressuring the police to get rid of rough sleepers  ASAP. (On the northern colliery spoil heaps there were sometimes small collectives of homeless people hidden away from prying eyes and occasionally we were able to warn them that police were in the vicinity; information that was always gratefully received). Moreover these clips increasingly emphasised the liberating ambience of the Scrubs where significant memorable encounter is an everyday event – on the old and new “commons” which must be established everywhere as part of the process of destroying capitalism everywhere. Unfortunately this film was never completed as Stuart’s death intervened though a young intelligent film maker, Una Burnand, had become aware of its possibilities and filmed some of our discussions – among other things – in the weeks prior to Stu’s long goodbye…. These film clips have yet to be spliced together in a good narrative which is basically my fault  as I experience heart-wrenching PTSD whenever I return to old haunts.

Once we truly got stuck into things – abandoning the camera somewhat – we went out to provoke in the here and now though not in an underhand, nasty way as we continued to emphasise what a magnificent terrain Woolley Colliery was. Even reaction knew that. However our praxis was hardly confined to anarcho-leftism but was action without an overall, obvious narrative and one that disturbed people even playing with conventional notions of ‘madness, or, as a friend said of us at the time, “strange, intense, criminal agitators of the heart” – a comment he picked up from Kerouac’s Big Sur. Maybe, it could be said that we went OTT with species introductions even though they were carefully chosen knowing their essential foodplants were thriving here.

Moreover, there was nothing insane regarding our knowledge of nature especially the particularities regarding the creation of a vibrant biodiversity. One of our axiomatic slogans we kept endlessly repeating was “Clued-in feral wilding of public spaces subverts suicide capitalism” and one that was even painted up on a bird box on London’s Wormwood Scrubs. These spaces became for us active derives endlessly meeting new people or as a web of Stuart’s was called on Dialectical Butterflies  As Common as Muck. Ten male Adonis Blues; the nitrogen fix and other wildcat forays: Chance and a different kind of derive”. (Again it should be given prominence AGAIN as it links in a wildcat way nature specialists like E.B. Ford with Lautreamont and William Blake, etc.).

If we thought  things were bad around 2017 in UK PLC, things were about to get incomparably worse as we have entered a period enlightened in comparison to today where all true ecological initiative is more and more treated with utter contempt. Indeed the brownfield sites of colliery waste in 2017 were just to say beginning to be recognised as somewhat amazing arenas in their own right due in part to our influence. For instance, Cal Flynn’s Islands of Abandonment was undoubtedly influenced by our ‘mad’ praxis as she called for “A Duchampian approach to nature”.  Alas, In the grim early 2020s it’s back to Destroy, Destroy, Destroy inseparable from Build, Build, Build and an ambience where there must be no mention of communally occupying anything that would disturb an imperious worship of money unknown in history. (See the slogan below we sprayed on a bridge in Bradford sometime in 2017).
Moreover, along with countless small so-called derelict spaces, it must be remembered that between 2010 and 2020 we targeted three main areas for re-wilding: Ruskin’s ‘Industrial Gorge’ in Bradford’s Shipley suburb, Wormwood Scrubs in West London as well as Woolley Colliery, West Yorks. Inevitably, there was a fair amount of blurring and overlap so the photographs below depicting incisive slogans could be applied to one and all. In Shipley finally the powers that be utterly wrecked that amazing arena as they simultaneously came after us with guns blazing threatening us with serious indictments involving jail having obtained London addresses and phone numbers, etc. Thugs were even deployed to give us a good going over. Our response was to disappear into thin air hence we wore masks when there was a filmed interview with us around the same time. Some people responded by saying we were ridiculously paranoid and silly. Two years previously and we would have readily agreed with them as previously it never entered our heads that there would be such a heavy response regarding genuine ecological activities.  But as we mentioned previously, Jaime Semprun and his Nuisances companions had come to the same conclusion. We rapidly – and sadly – realized that the only activity the system would allow was that of greenwashing and a truth more relevant today than ever. 
(Dave Wise, January 2024)

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Covering Psychedelic Culture, Situationist Poetics, Radical Politics and Working-Class History

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